We are staying in a Fundie house overnight...

[Coconut Flan]

I find it interesting that on a board devoted to talking about other people generally "behind their backs" that someone who happens to do it to someone that they sort of know gets called out for gossip. To the world at large what we engage In daily would be called gossip. It's generally harmless as was what this poster was doing IMO. I don't think it's worse to gossip and talk about say Raquel who we actually know who she is and she might read about it than some random family none of us will ever know who they are and it's extremely unlikely that they will ever read here.

I think it was probably some shock of what have I stumbled into and thinking people would enjoy a report on an up close encounter.

If by chance one of us moved next door to Josh and Anna or Priscilla and David, I doubt there would be any outcry to not gossip. Yes, she was accepting hospitality of a sort from them but the demands or potential proselytizing put upon her family kind of outweighs that in my mind.

[salex]

Wasn't there a whole TLC special about this couple that kept having twins?

My neighbor 2 doors down had a child and began adoption process from china. Then, as that was finalizing, she ended up pregnant with twins. She ended up with new twins and a young little girl from china, plus her little boy who was not very old. A few months later I was driving by and thought "what???" and it was confirmed when they came by trick or treating... she was pregnant again, again with twins. I had never seen anyone as tired as she looked that night. When those twins were born, she had 6 under 6. I gather she/they have done something to assure no repeats as she has celebrated selling off the baby equipment as the youngest outgrow items. She stays home, but also has household help. He has an excellent job, she seems to be a good mom, and I get no indication they are fundie.

The one worse case I heard of that also didn't include fertility drugs was a woman who had a single, then twins then triplets in about a 4 year period. She lived in a small town and her mom and mother in law were very near by (one may have moved in next door) to help her. I only met them once. She also stopped with this because... well for obvious reasons.

[thekate]

I find it interesting that on a board devoted to talking about other people generally "behind their backs" that someone who happens to do it to someone that they sort of know gets called out for gossip. To the world at large what we engage In daily would be called gossip. It's generally harmless as was what this poster was doing IMO. I don't think it's worse to gossip and talk about say Raquel who we actually know who she is and she might read about it than some random family none of us will ever know who they are and it's extremely unlikely that they will ever read here.

I think it was probably some shock of what have I stumbled into and thinking people would enjoy a report on an up close encounter.

If by chance one of us moved next door to Josh and Anna or Priscilla and David, I doubt there would be any outcry to not gossip. Yes, she was accepting hospitality of a sort from them but the demands or potential proselytizing put upon her family kind of outweighs that in my mind.

The difference for me is that these people didn't make their lives public. They invited Homeschoolmomma into their home, but there was still the expectation of privacy. She even noted they didn't have a blog. They are not public figures in any sense of the phrase. That makes it gossip.

Snarking is making fun of things that people put out there themselves, with no (reasonable) expectation of privacy. Things like: posting a blog or putting yourselves and children on reality TV shows. If a fundie invited the public (i.e. that tag sale that FMJ went to) or were out in public, that's fair game because there's not that expectation of privacy.

If I were personally invited to a Duggar home, I wouldn't probably report on it here. Well, the Duggars might be an exception, because they're definitely public figures. But for someone even slightly less aggressively fame-hounding, that's just rude.

[thekate]

The one worse case I heard of that also didn't include fertility drugs was a woman who had a single, then twins then triplets in about a 4 year period. She lived in a small town and her mom and mother in law were very near by (one may have moved in next door) to help her. I only met them once. She also stopped with this because... well for obvious reasons.

That pattern would worry me too!

Quads...then quints....then :pink-shock:

[Mango]

You know, the 'lights out' thing didn't ring fake to me because I *have* done that with guests, albiet more politely ("the house closes at 11; I need to get to bed in order to be up in time for work, you're welcome to whatever in the kitchen or watch TV in the living room but please keep it down so I can stay on my schedule" type stuff)

But the rest.... yeah, I think she stayed with the Ruths!

[Jana814]

Their was a family on TLC's A Baby Story that had 7 kids total. 2 sets of twins (youngest being the twin girls that they were on TV for) the doctor was being interviewed & he said she was his first patient to have 2 sets of twins without medical help.

[FiddleDD]

I remember watching an episode of some talk show once with a woman on who had a set of triplets and three or four sets of twins. She had the triplets when she was nineteen, and was on at least two kinds of birth control when she became pregnant with each set of twins. Apparently she was a complete freak of nature and some university was studying her.

Then she got married and they had one baby together. I remember she was really surprised to be only having one!

[latraviata]

The difference for me is that these people didn't make their lives public. They invited Homeschoolmomma into their home, but there was still the expectation of privacy. She even noted they didn't have a blog. They are not public figures in any sense of the phrase. That makes it gossip.

Snarking is making fun of things that people put out there themselves, with no (reasonable) expectation of privacy. Things like: posting a blog or putting yourselves and children on reality TV shows. If a fundie invited the public (i.e. that tag sale that FMJ went to) or were out in public, that's fair game because there's not that expectation of privacy.

If I were personally invited to a Duggar home, I wouldn't probably report on it here. Well, the Duggars might be an exception, because they're definitely public figures. But for someone even slightly less aggressively fame-hounding, that's just rude.

What on earth is your point? Are you really that keen on being right? This is a snark/gossip forum, wether people are public figures or not. You are willing to make an exception when it concerns the Duggars? Well, that is what I call hypocrisy, why the exception? The family may be hospitable, but they are not very considered, polite and flexible as hosts. In case you can't afford guests, don't invite them and don't complain about your deplorable financial situation and don't try to push your religion down their throats or even ask questions about

one's reproductive plans. Not to mention their ridiculous schedule, waking up at six and lights out at 9, are they insane, prayer and bible reading? My guests are completely free to go and to do whatever they please, my house, my fridge is theirs and when I set the time for breakfast/lunch/dinner they are free to join me or not and I will not impose my atheism on them, I don't need to, everybody I know is atheist. Any prayer and bible time is fine with me as long as they do it in private in the guest room.

[nelliebelle1197]

This all sounds a bit surreal for me. Worldly enough to have Wifi?

Maybe I'm just a manner stickler but even if it is a shitty visit this 'friend' offered you somewhere to stay and now you are basically taking the piss out of them. I think that is a bit rude.

Thank you. More than a bit, in my opinion.

[Caramel]

I have one set of fraternal twins. During that pregnancy, over ten years ago, my doctor said that as ultrasound was being used earlier and earlier in pregnancies, they were being surprised at how many pregnancies start as fraternal twin conceptions. (at the time, he said that the odds of my conceiving *and bearing* another set of fraternal twins were approximately one in twelve for any future pregnancy. Stats like that are always caveat-y, but I thought it was interesting. Still do.) The anomaly may not be the multiple conception, but the multiple births. So, women who have a lot of multiple pregnancies leading to multiple births may have some advantages of situation or health or something that help them sustain those pregnancies at or near their original number.

I have a friend who is an identical twin. She and her twin have two other siblings, another set of identical twin girls. This is interesting to me because, of course, identical twinning is an entirely different phenomenon. But there may be some factor or factors that encourage identical twinning.

[latraviata]

Thank you. More than a bit, in my opinion.

I'm not exactly the worst mannered person, but given the situation I fully understand her need to vent. Thank god for I pads.

[nelliebelle1197]

Re: the appropriateness:

I think the problem is that this was being done in their home while she was a guest. It was squicky to some (myself included) that she was talking smack about them in their own home. A little distance would be a bit more mannerly

[latraviata]

Re: the appropriateness:

I think the problem is that this was being done in their home while she was a guest. It was squicky to some (myself included) that she was talking smack about them in their own home. A little distance would be a bit more mannerly

Whatever :roll: :roll:

[Coconut Flan]

I'll go out on a limb here and try to explain my view.

I understand the squicky feeling. It wouldn't be my first choice of things to do either. On the other hand, gossip is gossip. To say one kind of gossip is OK and another is not is to split hairs and make rather artificial distinctions. We gossip here daily and I freely join in and enjoy it. To not acknowledge that it's gossip though would be hypocritical.

To illustrate: my moderately fundie neighbor was the neighborhood gossip for years. She "was convicted" by a pastor's sermon about gossip. She now shares what she calls the neighborhood news. It makes no difference if she calls something in my personal life news or gossip. She's still spreading something I might not want told. (Yes, I'm very selective in telling her about some things she wants to know.) I'm sure we could all see the hair splitting and hypocrisy there. I think it's the same in trying to hair split on gossip here. Some of it just disturbs some people more than others. To use a church quote it isn't the sin but it's the degree that is bothersome.

However, many people here jump on the fundies for hairsplitting, cherry picking, and taking things out of context to justify their views. I think jumping on the original poster for not having the exact same ethical or manners compass as someone else here is putting oneself in the same basket. We don't want the fundies dictating our morals, ethics, or behavior so I think we need to allow the other posters here to a fairly great extent the same courtesy that we want from the fundies. Just because you or I wouldn't do it doesn't make the other person wrong or in need of a hand slap.

[latraviata]

Years ago I remember my eldest son taking a vacation with two friend in the Italian Dolomites. The friends had booked the vacation and when they were at their destination it turned out to be a sort of christian youth camp.

They mainly had to hike, climb and conquer the Dolomites every day, all they day long. At night they prepaired their meal on a sort of camp fire, singing all sorts of songs accompanied by a guitar.

My son's suggestion to put some red wine in the Bolognese was immediately rejected with horror.

My son hated every minute of this vacantion, although not very unsportsmanlike, he didn't want to hike and climb (30-35 celsius) every godgiven day. He wanted his feet in a dreamy stream sipping wine or a cool beer and occasionally get something to see from the neighboring villages.

Sometime he got away from the campsite to call me and to complain, after that he returned and behave himself in a participatory and polite fashion, because he could blow off some steam now and then.

[homeschoolmomma1]

I would love to know if this is really true...

Saw this on Yahoo Answers (sorry copy and pasted awhile back- never had time to look into it)

The most prolific mother in history was a Russian peasant who had 69 children in the 18th century, 67 of which survived infancy.

Between 1725 and 1765, she endured 27 multiple births, which included 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets.

The modern world record for giving birth is held by Leontina Albinafrom San Antonio, Chile. Now in her mid-sixties, she claims to be the mother of 64 children. Of these, 55 are documented, birth certificates apparently being something of a less-than-serious concern in Chile.

Because That beats Michelle by... A LOT!

[thekate]

What on earth is your point? Are you really that keen on being right? This is a snark/gossip forum, wether people are public figures or not. You are willing to make an exception when it concerns the Duggars? Well, that is what I call hypocrisy, why the exception? The family may be hospitable, but they are not very considered, polite and flexible as hosts. In case you can't afford guests, don't invite them and don't complain about your deplorable financial situation and don't try to push your religion down their throats or even ask questions about

one's reproductive plans. Not to mention their ridiculous schedule, waking up at six and lights out at 9, are they insane, prayer and bible reading? My guests are completely free to go and to do whatever they please, my house, my fridge is theirs and when I set the time for breakfast/lunch/dinner they are free to join me or not and I will not impose my atheism on them, I don't need to, everybody I know is atheist. Any prayer and bible time is fine with me as long as they do it in private in the guest room.

Wow, Holy Escalation, Batman!

Abigail stated her opinion and in response I stated mine in what I thought would explain the nuance of my thinking. I don't feel like she was attacking me (or my opinions which until that point were unsaid), and I hope she didn't feel I was attacking her. Heaven forbid we have differing opinions or nuance! Thank goodness we're not fundies ourselves!

And since my opinions regarding what's open game for snark for me were unsaid until that post, I'm not sure what you mean when you asked "are you really that keen on being right?" You must be mistaking me for all the other people in this thread who have also expressed discomfort. Maybe the fact that so many have had similar opinions should mean something. Not that you should change your views necessarily, but that you should examine them at least to see why you hold them.

Unless you meant my post about whether a husband's genes would cause pregnancy of multiples for his wife. Because I heard that a lot at my wedding (twins run in my husband's family) so I looked up the facts. It would definitely only affect his daughters' pregnancies, not his wife's.

Were her guests gracious? Apparently not, but that doesn't give a free pass to be ungracious oneself.

As for the Duggars, this whole debate is about the boundaries between public and private. To me, this family's home is clearly private. The Duggars home is not so clearly private since they so aggressively put themselves out there for public consumption. That's why the probably is there. It's something I'm not sure about. Doubts are usually good things within reason, unless that's also disallowed in this non-fundie place.

Although you confused doubts about boundaries for being a hypocrite, I will say yes I am a hypocrite. Who isn't? I'm not perfect about the gossip thing; I bitch about my mother-in-law more than is healthy. I also don't donate blood because of needles and it's icky, even though I think it's a good thing and I've been on the receiving end of donated blood. I believe in raising my son as gender-neutral as possible, but I've never bought him a doll. I think the personal is political and therefore every woman should work, but I'm a SAHM because that's just what works for my family at the moment. I like to think I'm not racist, but I get uncomfortable when passing black men on the sidewalk. I'm an atheist (though agnostic at the time) and had a Catholic wedding. There, that should give you enough hypocrisies to discount any future opinions of mine you may come across on this forum (aka opinions board).

[lemonhead]

I can't comment on the odds of multiple sets of multiples in the same family, and I don't have strong feelings about the appropriateness (is that a word??) of snarking on this family...but having grown up in super-fundie land, I totally believe the lights-out/Bible study/strict schedule details and it does not surprise me one iota that the family's rules would be imposed upon guests. Remember, it's all about control with fundies, and I can see this family having a "as long as you're under my roof" attitude, especially with just mom and the kids around while dad is off at meetings.

[OkToBeTakei]

Latraviata is confusing the fact the actually nobody needs to be right and nobody needs to be anybodies police whilst missing the point that she is trying to be right :lol:

Everybody is entitled to their opinion.

Mine is that whilst sitting in your hosts house and bitching off is a bit off for me. Strangely if the story was told in retrospect as in 'I went to ..and this happened.' May have been more palatable.

There again I think the whole story was bullshit but that again is a personal feeling. There is no wrong and no right. The differences we have is what makes the world go around. For the record those who put their lives online even like this forum voicing their opinion are open to anything including me. Newspapers have peddled this for years.

I just tend to tell people I know 'friends' per se in real life the truth or at least not take the piss out of them in some anonymous online way. We all bitch. Sometimes lines are different to different people.

[latraviata]

Wow, Holy Escalation, Batman!

Abigail stated her opinion and in response I stated mine in what I thought would explain the nuance of my thinking. I don't feel like she was attacking me (or my opinions which until that point were unsaid), and I hope she didn't feel I was attacking her. Heaven forbid we have differing opinions or nuance! Thank goodness we're not fundies ourselves!

And since my opinions regarding what's open game for snark for me were unsaid until that post, I'm not sure what you mean when you asked "are you really that keen on being right?" You must be mistaking me for all the other people in this thread who have also expressed discomfort. Maybe the fact that so many have had similar opinions should mean something. Not that you should change your views necessarily, but that you should examine them at least to see why you hold them.

Unless you meant my post about whether a husband's genes would cause pregnancy of multiples for his wife. Because I heard that a lot at my wedding (twins run in my husband's family) so I looked up the facts. It would definitely only affect his daughters' pregnancies, not his wife's.

Were her guests gracious? Apparently not, but that doesn't give a free pass to be ungracious oneself.

As for the Duggars, this whole debate is about the boundaries between public and private. To me, this family's home is clearly private. The Duggars home is not so clearly private since they so aggressively put themselves out there for public consumption. That's why the probably is there. It's something I'm not sure about. Doubts are usually good things within reason, unless that's also disallowed in this non-fundie place.

Although you confused doubts about boundaries for being a hypocrite, I will say yes I am a hypocrite. Who isn't? I'm not perfect about the gossip thing; I bitch about my mother-in-law more than is healthy. I also don't donate blood because of needles and it's icky, even though I think it's a good thing and I've been on the receiving end of donated blood. I believe in raising my son as gender-neutral as possible, but I've never bought him a doll. I think the personal is political and therefore every woman should work, but I'm a SAHM because that's just what works for my family at the moment. I like to think I'm not racist, but I get uncomfortable when passing black men on the sidewalk. I'm an atheist (though agnostic at the time) and had a Catholic wedding. There, that should give you enough hypocrisies to discount any future opinions of mine you may come across on this forum (aka opinions board).

It certainly does.

You need many words to say absolutely nothing.

[Mudball]

Wait. I thought this was freejinger, where we absolutely live for this kind of information?

:roll:

We have a whoooole thread on encounters with no name fundies out in the real world. suddenly it's uncool? OP didn't post their names or identifying information. This is silly.

That little getaway sounded torturous! I am glad you got away when you could, op. I wouldn't have been able to hack it. No bathroom door?! :shock:

[longskirts]

It is odd to accept hospitality and at the same time bash your hosts on a snark board. You didn't have to accept their invitation and they probably wouldn't have extended it if they'd known you'd criticize them to the world.

Snarking on fundies you know is fine... but snarking about their household which they opened to you as a favor is strange.

[Mudball]

Well, I guess the definition of "hospitality" can be debated. :lol:

But, honestly, nothing that was said struck me as mean, tacky or awful. It seemed like straight forward reporting - she didn't snark on looks, housekeeping, the kids... she reported that she was given a bed time and fed shitty food, the kids living there were made to do a lot of the chores, there was no bathroom door, there was a long ass bible study, there was guilt tripping over finances etc.

It all reminds me of an Anne Lamott quote I like: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.â€

- Anne Lamott

That woman was a rude hostess, or maybe the family is to blame. At any rate, I don't blame the OP for needing to vent and thinking this is a safe place to do so.

[latraviata]

Latraviata is confusing the fact the actually nobody needs to be right and nobody needs to be anybodies police whilst missing the point that she is trying to be right :lol:

Everybody is entitled to their opinion.

Mine is that whilst sitting in your hosts house and bitching off is a bit off for me. Strangely if the story was told in retrospect as in 'I went to ..and this happened.' May have been more palatable.

There again I think the whole story was bullshit but that again is a personal feeling. There is no wrong and no right. The differences we have is what makes the world go around. For the record those who put their lives online even like this forum voicing their opinion are open to anything including me. Newspapers have peddled this for years.

I just tend to tell people I know 'friends' per se in real life the truth or at least not take the piss out of them in some anonymous online way. We all bitch. Sometimes lines are different to different people.

No, it is not so much of being right wether it is uncalled for to write about people during the stay in their house. But this about ungoing arguments, splitting hairs, semantics. Gossip, snark is ok as long as you'r not in their house, public persons or not, in retrospect or at present, or with the exeption of the Duggars a sort of selective justification and/or disapproval. Snark is snark and gossip is gossip and FJ is the platform, you either agree or you don't. Actually it is a discussion about good manners and ethics or both and that becomes very boring and as said selective.

[scc12]

I can't comment on the odds of multiple sets of multiples in the same family, and I don't have strong feelings about the appropriateness (is that a word??) of snarking on this family...but having grown up in super-fundie land, I totally believe the lights-out/Bible study/strict schedule details and it does not surprise me one iota that the family's rules would be imposed upon guests. Remember, it's all about control with fundies, and I can see this family having a "as long as you're under my roof" attitude, especially with just mom and the kids around while dad is off at meetings.

indeed.it would have been one thing to say 'you are welcome to join us for bible study if you like',but to insist they do things just like the rest of the family when they are guests,is for sure,controlling.Although I will give them the bedtime rules,so as not to disturb the rest of the family.I just think they are very early risers and they go to bed quite early.