Seewalds 28: Marketing Kids as Deflection

[formerhsfundie]

Jessa's boys are adorable (the yellow ball video on instagram is precious!). I feel badly for her in how much she celebrates her "Mama" and her childhood. Her and Ben seem to be creating a happy home life, it looks so much better than what she had as a kid. All the love and attention she pays her kids is more than we saw Boobchelle do. I wish she would really break away, she could actually have a normal family if she wanted.

I can't see Jessa having a giant family, I think she enjoys life too much to give up their current lifestyle... do any of you think she will keep at it? Is she just trying to talk herself into it? 

[adidas]

6 hours ago, SongRed7 said:

Yes.   I feel like Jill and Derick -- especially Derick -- are focused on making Izzy (Sam is too young) a good little obedient rule follower and Ben and Jessa are allowing their boys' personalities to develop. One set of parents is about boxing them in, the other is about letting them blossom.   

I agree with you. 

Theres an analogy by Dr Sheila Pritchard and while it is about faith, when I was reading your post I decided it can be applied to parenting as well.

Derek is building fences. Jessa is sinking wells.

I think you can gather the general idea from a short excerpt - I’m reluctant to post about it too much because I’m not here to preach at people, but I’ll post a link to an article about it.

http://baysidechurch.com.au/fences-or-wells/

Copying from her article:

A visitor to an Australian outback cattle ranch was intrigued by the seemingly endless miles of farming country with no sign of any fences. He asked a local rancher how he kept track of his cattle. The rancher replied, "Oh, that's no problem. Out here we dig wells instead of building fences."

"Out here we dig wells instead of building fences." The implication, I hope, is obvious. There is no need to fence cattle in when they are highly motivated to stay within range of water, their most important source of life.

http://homepages.which.net/~radical.faith/misc/pritchard.htm

 

[PainfullyAware]

On 07/12/2017 at 7:39 PM, 2manyKidzzz said:

Is this the 8 week plan one? There seems to be more than one on Amazon. I’m referring to the book Mindfulness: Finding Peace etc.

Yes by David Penman and Mark Williams I think. 

[2manyKidzzz]

@PainfullyAware  Thanks. I have that book an will now look at it you have inspired me.

[Sky with diamonds]

9 hours ago, SongRed7 said:

Yes.   I feel like Jill and Derick -- especially Derick -- are focused on making Izzy (Sam is too young) a good little obedient rule follower and Ben and Jessa are allowing their boys' personalities to develop. One set of parents is about boxing them in, the other is about letting them blossom.   

The differences are staggering. 

I had my doubts about Jessa as a mother, but she has surprised me how attentive and ( dare I say ) loving she is towards her kids. In all my years watching 19 Kids, I've never watched Michelle be so loving towards any child except for Josie. 

[tabitha2]

Yes. But we never saw Michelle as a very young mother of Two as her daughters are now.  I suggest waiting till those daughters have five or  six  small children back to back to proclaim who is better at parenting.  

[Sky with diamonds]

1 hour ago, tabitha2 said:

Yes. But we never saw Michelle as a very young mother of Two as her daughters are now.  I suggest waiting till those daughters have five or  six  small children back to back to proclaim who is better at parenting.  

Good point. I strongly feel Ben is a better husband, father and guy compared to Derick.

Thething that annoyed me about Jessa was all the adoption talk. Anyone know if she spoke about it much in the past season

[VineHeart137]

16 hours ago, formerhsfundie said:

I can't see Jessa having a giant family, I think she enjoys life too much to give up their current lifestyle... do any of you think she will keep at it? Is she just trying to talk herself into it? 

As someone else said, we never saw JB and Michelle with just two or three kids so it's hard to compare Ben and Jessa to them at this time. My hope for the Seewalds is they stop after they get a girl (as much as Jessa seems to love and enjoy her boys she seems like the type of person who would really want a girl too.) Do I REALLY think that will happen, not convinced at all. We haven't seen any evidence to say that they aren't going to have "as many as God gives them".

[Carm_88]

7 hours ago, tabitha2 said:

Yes. But we never saw Michelle as a very young mother of Two as her daughters are now.  I suggest waiting till those daughters have five or  six  small children back to back to proclaim who is better at parenting.  

Michelle was also never a mother of two. She had Josh and then twins, which are a whole different matter.

[singsingsing]

There is absolutely nothing to make me think that Jessa will stop having babies anytime soon. It's useless to compare her to the average woman, who might imagine she wants a big family but changes her mind after the realities of having 2-3 kids in quick succession set in. Jessa is a quiverfull fundamentalist. She has been indoctrinated in this ideology from birth. That's not to say that it's impossible for her to change her mind, but it would take a little more than just being tired or stressed out. I think Michelle's laundry room breakdown took place when she had 6 kids. She went on to have a further THIRTEEN children. And she did not have the money, encouragement, or support that Jessa does.

[formerhsfundie]

11 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

There is absolutely nothing to make me think that Jessa will stop having babies anytime soon. It's useless to compare her to the average woman, who might imagine she wants a big family but changes her mind after the realities of having 2-3 kids in

^^ this was me!! I can live with being average, I guess. After having 3 kids in close succession I left the "no birth control" church I was in. I stopped believing in God altogether, it was a core belief I was raised with.

I understand not many people escape it, but some do. It's rare... No other girls from my group figured out how to leave, but the church itself got more lenient on the issue. The pastor had a change of faith when his daughter almost died in her 3rd chilbirth. That was after I'd already left, and it wasn't enough to make me join again because I also had to get a divorce, and my church was certainly not going to be okay wih THAT (thank God I didn't have a covenant marriage).

When I was struggling with leaving fundamentalism I was really inspired by Melissa in her blog story on Permission to Live. She and her husband managed to leave together after being raised Quiverfull. That was only after her reality sucked enough for her to question her core beliefs, which, I think, is key.

It has to get bad, really bad, for someone to wake up from that level of indoctrination. Jill might get there, but Jessa does have a huge following/support. You make a great point there.

[formerhsfundie]

In my opinion, it will just take one untreated ectopic pregnancy to impact a Quiverfull belief system. Michelle and Kelly got lucky with their success with fertility and childbirth.  Already the next generation of their women is having a worse time with infertility (Michael Bates) and difficult childbirths (Jill Duggar). I don't believe they will all leave, but surely some will. 

[Carm_88]

Sweet boys! 

[Sky with diamonds]

5 hours ago, formerhsfundie said:

In my opinion, it will just take one untreated ectopic pregnancy to impact a Quiverfull belief system. Michelle and Kelly got lucky with their success with fertility and childbirth.  Already the next generation of their women is having a worse time with infertility (Michael Bates) and difficult childbirths (Jill Duggar). I don't believe they will all leave, but surely some will. 

After Josie's early birth, Michelle getting pregnant again floored me. If anything made my jaw drop before the Josh scandals, that was it. 

[2manyKidzzz]

18 minutes ago, Sky with diamonds said:

After Josie's early birth, Michelle getting pregnant again floored me. If anything made my jaw drop before the Josh scandals, that was it. 

I still remember the look on her face when she announced that pregnancy. Crazy.

[Sky with diamonds]

6 hours ago, 2manyKidzzz said:

I still remember the look on her face when she announced that pregnancy. Crazy.

It is one of the things I will never understand about Michelle and JimBob. That's when I started to look at them in a whole new light. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

Getting pregnant again after Josie, was completely irresponsible, it is why I don't feel sorry for them.  I think they hinted around a little after Jackson or Hannie that they were told not to have anymore kids. they had a hard time finding an OB that would take her case, so I'm assuming that her old ob told her NO MORE KIDS, and she kept getting pregnant. I'm sure they were told after Josie, to absolutely not to get pregnant again, the risk was too great. They did anyway because Boob thinks he's God and can do what ever he wants.  It wasn't like they accidentally got pregnant, they tried to get pregnant. 

Jubilee's death is on them, she may feel guilty, and she should, she never should have gotten pregnant again. The sad thing is she would have gotten pregnant again if she could have.  I realize MEchelle didn't think she had a choice because it was what her headship wanted but there were many ways should could have made him think she was playing along but not really.  She is an adult, and all it would have taken was a trip to any OB to ask for birth control or to ask her OB to tie her tube after she miscarried Jubilee and they would have been yes ma'am we'll do it RIGHT NOW.

[Knight of Ni]

I think Michelle is just as willing as Jim Bob to get pregnant again. I think she would get pregnant now if she could. She is just as proud as him that she could have so many kids. It’s the basis of her identity. 

[Carm_88]

2 minutes ago, Knight of Ni said:

I think Michelle is just as willing as Jim Bob to get pregnant again. I think she would get pregnant now if she could. She is just as proud as him that she could have so many kids. It’s the basis of her identity. 

Yes, she would. That's why Michelle often seems so lost now, her new season of life is upon her and there will be no more babies. She was the constantly pregnant woman and now there is no chance. It must be hard to figure out who she is now. 

I agree that Michelle should never have gotten pregnant after Josie. 

[Furbabiesonly]

I can’t even imagine how difficult that would be to have your entire identify revolve around having babies for God, and then one day you have, essentially, a miscarriage, and the announcement of the end. 

Michelle doesn’t actually know how to be a true and involved mother. For all her early talk of homeschooling and discipline, she was mostly an incubator. So now her oldest children have children of their own running around the house, in addition to the precious miracles she actually has to acknowledge because their mothers got married. 

Must be a culture shock. 

[llg1234]

Spurgeon's looks like Jeremy dressed him, lol. He really wanted to step on those pine cones  

 

[Sky with diamonds]

Michelle and JimBob are awfully detached from their kids. It is a shame. 

I forget if it was after Josie or Jubilee that they went to see if they could have more kids.  

 

Spurgeon is very cute. Glad he still has his curls.

[clueliss]

Am I the only one who wants to go do some serious raking and weeding on the front of that house?

 

Spurgeon is very dapper.  

[Carm_88]

2 minutes ago, Sky with diamonds said:

Michelle and JimBob are awfully detached from their kids. It is a shame. 

I forget if it was after Josie or Jubilee that they went to see if they could have more kids.  

After Jubilee, I think it was more of a wondering if it was possible and the doctor said it was highly unlikely. 

[Sky with diamonds]

1 minute ago, Carm_88 said:

After Jubilee, I think it was more of a wondering if it was possible and the doctor said it was highly unlikely. 

Ah thanks, I was unsure.