"God loves ME more!"

[SpeshulTaterTot]

Thank you! I'm a single mom and I manage to cook most nights out of seven - granted, only for myself and the MiniVixen, but still. Leftovers become lunch for DV, MV gets a sandwich lunch for school until she decides she wants to get hot lunches. I am a little annoyed that the school didn't bother to figure out whether or not there were peanut allergies in the classrooms BEFORE I bought lunch stuff/snacks, but luckily I didn't go crazy on the PB and she and I will eat it ourselves.

They don't all have to be five-star gourmet chefs, but seriously - stop telling us how awesome you are when you feed your children (who are blessings) total crap, allow men in the household to get out of "feminine" chores, and in general raise a generation of helpless-in-the-kitchen-without-TTC people. My six year old isn't quite old enough to help me in the kitchen, but as soon as I feel like she can handle it, she'll be in there - as will any sons/daughters the future Mr DV and I may have.

Yes! I don't get it. I always use chicken soup as an example - It takes longer to make it yourself than to open a couple of cans, but it's so much healthier! And, depending on grocery prices where you live, it might just be cheaper, too. These people have no clue about nutrition. Or budgeting, for that matter.

[Alana Rickman]

Then, I grabbed his hand over mashed potatoes and a pot roast sandwich. "Even if it ends up just being us in the room at the nursing home. . . even if none of our children live to adulthood, it would be worth it. We're not raising kids to get something back from them. We won't be hoping for companionship in our old age, or for them to make us look good by graduating from college with lots of awards. We're just raising kids for themselves alone, for whatever life God has planned."

Those were the words that I shared with my husband. That was our "mashed potato pledge." This is where our unconditional love of our children began. I count that moment as one of the sweetest in my marriage.

It doesn't matter if all our kids die before they get a chance to grow up, because we will have proved our FAITH by bringing them into the world to suffer!

Newsflash, lady: that IS raising a kid to get something back from him or her. But instead of getting pride from raising a child who's grown to adulthood, done well, and made his or her own way in the world, you're getting that deliciously sweet sting of suffering for your twisted sense of what your god wants.

That might be the most astoundingly selfish thing I've ever read. Nowhere in there does she consider the effect living sick and dying young might have on the actual child in question. It would be worth it TO HER to birth, raise, and bury a child with a devastating illness, but she gives no thought to the daily suffering and torture that her choice would put said child through. Unbelievable.

[Chavymishmacoy]

Chaotic Life you are my hero!

Not to mention what it does to the siblings to have a sibling or more die a horrible agonizing death. This woman needs to consider her other children and what they will have to suffer to live through this. I believe tragedies like this can make families stronger, and give a person a different perspective on life, but she is doing this intentionally.

I grew up with a half sister who has severe and profound Downsyndrome, and we took care of my Great Uncle who had Alzheimer's until he died. Both of them had a huge impact on me and I think they made be a better person, but it was hell to watch my great uncle suffer and it did tear my family apart.

[Chavymishmacoy]

I love the fact she has a post about the virtue of humility on a blog where she talks only about herself!!!

[singsingsing]

The humility post is fantastic. She starts off bragging about herself:

Yes.

I’m the girl who is still sitting on her graduate degree,

still a mother of yet another newborn,

an ex-student still hitting the “post-pone payment†on my Sallie Mae student loan debt,

the borrower still only 18 months into a 5 year credit-card repayment schedule

AND I’m still trailing almost $1250 in debt from our family’s lapse onto Food Stamps two years ago. (Our $1250 debt is a batch of unpaid medical co-pays with an unpaid electricity bill and an unpaid Ohio parking ticket thrown in for variety. Today’s family-size judgment came from the unpaid electricity bill people.)

Look what a good Catholic and submissive wife I'm being, even though I'm thousands of dollars in debt! How great am I! Add some persecution for flavour. Lady, you didn't pay your electric bill. They want your money. I don't think they care how many kids you have, really.

Next, we find her husband telling her not to worry about making bad money decisions again:

My husband has specifically asked me to stop placing impossible deadlines on our old bills. Without this promise, my natural tendency is to promise to sell my left kidney in order to pay off the creditors faster.

See how amazing Abigail is? Usually she would do ANYTHING to pay off her creditors, but she's such a good submissive wife that she's listening to her husband instead - AKA this is his fault, not hers. She's trying to make herself look good from every side.

And yet, I’m still having babies. Lots of babies. “Why?†our creditors mournfully ask.

I'm sure one creditor made one comment once that was like, "Oh, you have three children now instead of two." And of course Abigail spins this so that every creditor she talks to yells at her about her number of children.

So we are limping. We don’t have our financial house in order. Yet we are still having kids

Why mention this (over and over again) unless you're proud of it? Why continually bring up your poverty and go into detail about all your financial problems and invent stories about creditors demanding to know why you have so many children, unless you're showing off? "I'm THIS poor, but I'm STILL having babies!" Well, congratulations.

Humility. :roll:

[chaotic life]

You know.....that left kidney would go for about $20,000 on the black market......maybe it's not such a bad idea afterall.......

I DO know the impace losing a sibling has on children. However, my own nanny who flaked out so badly after my son died that I had to fire her showed me that while *I* might consider grief therapy mandatory, it is in fact something you CAN skip for yourself and your children. It doesn't end well. However, I figure my nanny was trying harder than Abigail to actually be a good mother before she refused to process her grief and refused to get help for her children, so I figure the odds of Abigail actually BOTHERING to get the help her children will need for losing a sibling is highly unlikely.

I, otoh, am exhausted by driving 2-3 days per week to get half of the children to their individual therapy appointments. The other half of the children have their therapists come to the house, thank goodness! I KNOW the impact losing a sibling has on children. My oldest two sons have lost birth siblings. One of them lost a first set of adoptive siblings that is hurting him far worse than losing his birthsiblings ever did. All of my children have lost their brother. They can be PROUD of the love and care they gave their brother. It won't make it hurt less, but one son's grief counselor (supposed to be the best in the region) tells me that since we made a DELIBERATE choice to embrace this child and we knew he would one day die (though we though 20 was a good goal), that knowledge will eventually be the strength that brings us all through the pain. It doesn't make this reality and pain any less.

I have a friend with a large family with a CFer. She had five children with her first husband and got divorced. When she remarried, they wanted a family of 3-4 kids together. Baby one was born and life was good. Baby two was born.....and was diagnosed with CF before she was six months old.

My friend tells the story of the day she got the diagnosis. She walked into her OB's office (they were personal friends so she came unannounced) and informed her doctor to either get her parts OUT OF HER, or she would rip them out herself. Eight years later, she still battles a dark place inside of her where she blames herself that SHE brought her last baby into this world surrounded by death. My heart breaks for her. She had NO IDEA and had no reason to suspect. Her first husband was not a carrier so it was never known. It was a total fluke. She may never forgive herself. She sees herself as having killed her baby. She sure as heck didn't have another child after it happened.

The colorful language she would let loose on a woman who thinks its just dandy to keep having babies knowing she'll have a CFer....well, it would depend on how much she drank first as to just how bad it woud be but stone cold sober it wouldn't be pretty. When she gets stuck in the self blaming, the more she drinks the angrier she gets about this disease and anyone who would dare to deliberately subject a child to it.

That's one thing I have been spared. I didn't give birth to my son, so I carry no guilt over his diagnosis. By the time Abigail figures out this is not such a walk in the park, it will be too late to spare her family the agony she so flippantly took them into.

[Maggie Mae]

Yes! I don't get it. I always use chicken soup as an example - It takes longer to make it yourself than to open a couple of cans, but it's so much healthier! And, depending on grocery prices where you live, it might just be cheaper, too. These people have no clue about nutrition. Or budgeting, for that matter.

Even if it wasn't healthier, it still tastes so much better. I will never go back to eating canned soup when make-your-own is just as simple. Also, once I learned that there were more efficient ways of cutting vegetables, I cut nearly an hour out of prep time.

[PennySycamore]

{{{chaotic life}}}

I am so sorry about the loss of your son.

PennySycamore

[smores]

I want to slap some sense into her the more i read. those financial mistakes are going to make it impossible for the kids to get loans to go to school, for emergency loans, for anything. We pay $475 for student loans a month, and if we couldn't afford to make those payments, it would be time for my ass to go back to work at a real, secure job with that degree I earned, not keep hoping the house of cards wouldn't tumble. Eventually it's going to fall when someone just accidentally slams the door.

[singsingsing]

This is the thing... her family is obviously struggling a lot financially. She could be helping them SO MUCH by going back to work, even part time. She could probably even work from home. Suck it up and enroll your kids in public school so you have a few hours out of the week to earn some money. If you think it's that evil, focus on instilling your own values in your children while they're at home. Hire a babysitter if you don't want to pay for full daycare. How is it going to help your family if you're sitting in a house with no food in the cupboards? This woman cares more about making sure everyone knows how amazingly Catholic she is than she does about actually, tangibly helping her family and relieving their debt.

[browngrl]

Oh please. She had a full blown funeral for a first trimester miscarriage and was angry at family because they did not take the death seriously enough. How is she going to cope with the death of a child/adult with CF? I can not believe how cavalier she is about the sequelae of CF. Putting aside the HUGE amount of money/work the parent of a CF child has to do - what about the devastating loss of a child - not a cluster of cells not much bigger than a thumbnail - a child that you have cared for and loved for many years. Now multiply that pain exponentially if she has to deal with the illness/death of more than one child with CF. I can't see her coping with that.

And don't even get me started on the fact that she has empty cupboards/ an empty fridge when she has a degree that can earn her enough to feed her children.

This woman's crazy is just too much.

[lilwriter85]

This is the thing... her family is obviously struggling a lot financially. She could be helping them SO MUCH by going back to work, even part time. She could probably even work from home. Suck it up and enroll your kids in public school so you have a few hours out of the week to earn some money. If you think it's that evil, focus on instilling your own values in your children while they're at home. Hire a babysitter if you don't want to pay for full daycare. How is it going to help your family if you're sitting in a house with no food in the cupboards? This woman cares more about making sure everyone knows how amazingly Catholic she is than she does about actually, tangibly helping her family and relieving their debt.

I know a fundie lite woman who homeschooled, while she did bookkeeping work for a few businesses. She used to go into business places in the early morning hours and do the books and then she would head home and homeschool. She rotated her schedule often and sometimes her kids did homeschooling work on the weekends. I also knew a secular family in which the wife also worked part-time as a massage therapist in between homeschooling. Abigial could continue homeschooling while doing something part time to earn money. But she would never do it.

[singsingsing]

I think what these fundie women don't realize is that the ideal of a woman who stays at home, is always either pregnant or nursing, cooks, cleans, raises the children, and homeschools them, was rarely if ever a reality. Public education was instituted for a reason. It wasn't so that the government could brainwash and control your children, it was so that masses of children wouldn't continue to go uneducated or be forced to start working in factories or mines at a young age. Before public school, if a family was wealthy enough, the children were taught by a governess or tutors. Even if the mother taught them herself (think Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice), there were servants to at least take care of the chores. For poorer families who couldn't afford servants or governesses, something had to give, and it was the childrens' education. This isn't even getting into the fact that the idea of a domestic woman who was the perfectly delicate and ideally feminine wife and mother, somehow responsible for childbearing, childrearing, and managing the home, was an upper-class fantasy. Many, many women in the lower classes did contribute financially to their families - either they worked in factories, helped their husband run his business, or had home businesses themselves. They had to. They couldn't afford to say, "I trust Jesus and Mommy Mary and I know that to be a good Christian lady I must remain at home and depend completely on my husband." They couldn't afford to.

[Mela99]

I guess Pride is only a sin for those of us who are ugly and unlovable.

[Terrie]

I guess Pride is only a sin for those of us who are ugly and unlovable.

No matter what she looks like, I find her ugly and unlovable.

[Arete]

Another one of the many things that blows my mind on this blog is the supposed letter from the African healthcare worker demanding Melinda Gates not sully Africa with accessible birth control for its women. I have some very serious doubts about the authenticity, but for now I'll roll with it: We're supposed to believe that ALL the mothers on the entire continent (who all seem to either be devout Catholics with a smattering of Muslims) love welcoming children so much that they don't worry about such things as straining the family resources, how to keep the kids feed/clothed/educated, or their own health with successive pregnancies. They are so sure of the love and power of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Humanae Vitae that they are able to transcend the petty concerns of selfish Western women without the Church.

Even if we had accurate surveys of every religious, linguistic, and social culture within Africa, am I really supposed to believe that the issues around family size and religious observance are so uniform that African women collectively want to "just say no" to the ability to have a CHOICE? That women in Africa are so different from women in the US, Europe, South America, etc when it comes to worrying about the best way to provide for their families? And that they would really prefer one of the tools not be made available, thank-you-very-much-I'll-just-trust-God-and-hope-for-the-best?

I can't decide if it's the religious fanaticism, the crazy, or some combination of both that would allow a woman with a JD to actually believe that propaganda, and really insulting propaganda at that.

[desertvixen]

Even if we had accurate surveys of every religious, linguistic, and social culture within Africa, am I really supposed to believe that the issues around family size and religious observance are so uniform that African women collectively want to "just say no" to the ability to have a CHOICE? That women in Africa are so different from women in the US, Europe, South America, etc when it comes to worrying about the best way to provide for their families? And that they would really prefer one of the tools not be made available, thank-you-very-much-I'll-just-trust-God-and-hope-for-the-best?

This.

[chaotic life]

I've done developmental work in Latin American but not Africa. In many rural areas of Latin America, the NGOs have to be very quiet and descrete in providing birth control options for women.

Actually, the preferred method, if women approach the NGOs for assistance, and they frequently do so, is to make an excuse for the woman to go to the city and provide her a tubal ligation there that no one is aware of.

The main NGO I worked with, which is associated with Hiefer Project ftr, attempted to bring women to a conference center and teach them NFP techniques. However, they found two issues with it. First, the women were unable or unwilling to say no to their husbands to make the NFP effective. Just as significant was that they would not teach what they learned about their bodies to other women or their daughters. So, it was something that had to be re-done for every woman, everytime they sought help.

Last I talked with the Women's Issues director for the NGO, they were still providing NFP for women who requested they teach them. However, they also provided quiet sterilization procedures for those seeking them out.

The stigma and disapproval of the church and communities in highly observant Catholic villages was so overwhelming it's an uphill battle to provide birth control for women at all.

I can absolutely see a healthcare worker sanctimonous about this. Being a healthcare worker means they have a higher social status and access to options and a better quality of life for their own famiilies. That absolutely doesn't mean that is the prevailing mentality amongst women.

I don't have experience with Africa per se, but I cannot imagine that the issues are not similiar in that most women are desperate for assistance and choices but church and community stigma make it VERY hard to answer the question and provide the education and choices such women desperately seek.

[Arete]

I can absolutely see a healthcare worker sanctimonous about this. Being a healthcare worker means they have a higher social status and access to options and a better quality of life for their own famiilies. That absolutely doesn't mean that is the prevailing mentality amongst women.

I don't have experience with Africa per se, but I cannot imagine that the issues are not similiar in that most women are desperate for assistance and choices but church and community stigma make it VERY hard to answer the question and provide the education and choices such women desperately seek.

This is what was causing the disconnect for me in terms of doubting the authenticity of that letter. If she's real, she KNOWS women are desperate to keep their health, sanity, and families together by at least having some control of the family size. She has seen what poverty and lack of resources do to people. The healthcare workers who are in the trenches see a lot more of the consequences of Dogma. Dogma makes orphans and doesn't provide food. Abigail is too far off in la-la land to grasp this concept. A woman providing healthcare on the ground in large parts of Africa? Honestly, that letter sounds like it was ghost written by a celibate man who doesn't have to worry about where the next 5 pairs of shoes are going to come from. If your suspicion is correct, than that privledged healthcare worker is far more deluded than dear Abigail, to say nothing of more dangerous. After all, Abigail will max out her destroyed lives tally at around a dozen. The healthcare worker? Her direct patient contact is in the hundreds, if not thousands.

[chaotic life]

Impoverised in this world aren't so much worried about where the next 5 pairs of shoes are coming from. Shoes are a luxury and only really required for those who send their children to school, which most truly impoverished don't since it involves uniforms, books, fees and long commutes. ;)

Most in this world would be more worried about where their next bag of rice is coming from.

Sadly, I have seen this scantimonious attitude in healthcare workers before. Not usally those working with NGOs who have passion, but someone who works for a government organization who judges the people less than them they work with. Yeah, I can see that.

I really don't think ONE letter, true or false, should be sufficient reason to condemn policy you don't agree with.

[Arete]

Oh, I'll bet money that a male celibate in the church hierarchy in South America or Africa isn't worried about where his next bag of rice is coming from either. ;)

Abigail seems to feel that the testimony of one healthcare worker in all of Africa completely backs up the credibility of the idea of not even letting birth control be accessible. Enough to give it pride of place on her blog. Why should African women or South American women in the 21st century have to live the life of women in 19th and 20th? We have the tools now. Give them the choice. It's not like it would affect her ability to keep pumping out babies until her uterus fell out.

Reading her reminds me of something my grandmother once said, may her memory be eternal. "It's no sin to be born in poverty or to slip into poverty, but it's a terrible sin to want to stay there." The old battleaxe was right. :D

[crazyforkate]

This cow really pisses me off. To knowingly bring a child into the world with a 1 in 4 chance, every time, of giving it a truly horrible illness is just irresponsible. I carry CF too, and will do everything in my power (screening partner, maybe not having biological children, aborting if I didn't know partner's genetic history, etc) to make sure that my children will not have it. Her behaviour is reprehensible. This woman does not deserve kids, frankly.

[Mythicwings]

Oh man, most of you probably already know this, but according to this post, she is a Ukranian orphan who was in one of those awful neglectful orphanages. Poor thing. That really may explain so much! Man - I hope maybe this stint into constant prayer is helping repair a part of her mind that somehow needed that kind of focus in some way and she can kind of back off it at some point, for the sake of her family. Poor baby, she's trying so hard, but I do worry. Although at least she is conscious that she does feel broken, AND it's her choice to have all these babies, she doesn't feel forced into it. But also hopefully if she does come out of it, she'll be better and her kids will get more food and stuff - I know people who decided to throw away whatever spiritual thing they had jumped into whole hog, then abandoned without regard to how it would affect their kids - like they became teens again and left their families.

[Mythicwings]

Oh man, most of you probably already know this, but according to this post, she is a Ukranian orphan who was in one of those awful neglectful orphanages. Poor thing. That really may explain so much!

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2012/09/for-adopted-moms.html

Man - I hope maybe this stint into constant prayer is helping repair a part of her mind that somehow needed that kind of focus in some way and she can kind of back off it at some point, for the sake of her family. Poor baby, she's trying so hard, but I do worry. Although at least she is conscious that she does feel broken, AND it's her choice to have all these babies, she doesn't feel forced into it. But also hopefully if she does come out of it, she'll be better and her kids will get more food and stuff - I know people who decided to throw away whatever spiritual thing they had jumped into whole hog, then abandoned without regard to how it would affect their kids - like they became teens again and left their families.

[Guest Anonymous]

Oh man, most of you probably already know this, but according to this post, she is a Ukranian orphan who was in one of those awful neglectful orphanages. Poor thing. That really may explain so much! Man - I hope maybe this stint into constant prayer is helping repair a part of her mind that somehow needed that kind of focus in some way and she can kind of back off it at some point, for the sake of her family. Poor baby, she's trying so hard, but I do worry. Although at least she is conscious that she does feel broken, AND it's her choice to have all these babies, she doesn't feel forced into it. But also hopefully if she does come out of it, she'll be better and her kids will get more food and stuff - I know people who decided to throw away whatever spiritual thing they had jumped into whole hog, then abandoned without regard to how it would affect their kids - like they became teens again and left their families.

Except she was NOT a Ukranian orphan. She said that because her parents put her special snowflake self in daycare in the United States. Because that's exactly the same thing. :roll: