Where's Sparkling Lauren?

[merrily]

From last I read, one of the girls (Aisha I think) had a burr in her eye and Lauren posted a picture of it on facebook. She hasn't updated anything more, to my knowledge. Has something happened? I hope Aisha didn't get an eye infection.

[Cheetah]

I was thinking the same thing, but there's actually a new blog post today about their trip to Sydney to visit her dad. Also she's been FBooking about unschooling again.

[freejugar]

i suspect there's a lot of "accidents" like that one that don't get mentioned anywhere

[Cerdwin]

She updated the blog today, after being quiet on all fronts for ages. She spent some time with her Dad, and one of the girls prefers sleeping in closets. Not the walk in kind.

[Cheetah]

Another new post today, about her relationship with her father. Also on the blog sidebar, a little sentence saying they will be in Europe "for autumn"... I assume she means autumn in Europe since it's now just starting winter in Australia. Wonder if they are going to Iceland again.

[flubber]

Another new post today, about her relationship with her father. Also on the blog sidebar, a little sentence saying they will be in Europe "for autumn"... I assume she means autumn in Europe since it's now just starting winter in Australia. Wonder if they are going to Iceland again.

I love seeing my tax dollars put to good use. I must be doing it all wrong. I can't afford an overseas holiday when I factor in my two kids, never mind 4!

Looks like she's headed to northern NSW again, she'll probably meet up with Hellena and family.

[Blahblah]

Hey flubber. My immediate reaction was also wondering how she can afford Europe with 4 kids, and then realizing it is because I am subsidizing her.

And I hope she does spend some time with Hellena - at least Hellena loves her kids and protects them. Maybe Sparkles will learn something.

Edit for spelling.

[Unschool Apostate]

I was really hoping child services had caught up with them and that's why she wasn't blogging.

I'm glad the grandfather has been staying in touch with them.

[FundieWatcher]

Can someone fill me in on them? How are they traveling on taxpayer money? Like the military or something like welfare fraud? And why might cps be involved?

[eightykatie]

I miss her updates!

[amydamy]

Can someone fill me in on them? How are they traveling on taxpayer money? Like the military or something like welfare fraud? And why might cps be involved?

Here is Happy Atheist's summary from the last thread

Latest developments: Lauren is back from her European sex holiday. She and girls are still driving around Australia, ignoring basic nutrition, education, and safety. They seem to be accompanied by Lauren's new man, Marcus, but she's keeping him on the down low. Lately she's taken to spouting about her polyamorous lifestyle, which seems to involve shacking up with whoever's house they are parked at currently. She's not big on the details. Meanwhile, she took the kids to a historic prison for a visit, and they got to learn all about hangings and floggings and such, all while their father is incarcerated.

Some history: Lauren and David Fisher had 5 Children: Aisha (sometimes called Aïcha), Brioni (originally Stephanie), Calista (or is it Callista?), Delaney (now Lana), and Elijah. They quit their jobs and let other people live in their house rent-free while they travelled Australia and New Zealand in various modified trucks, practicing unchurching, unschooling and unparenting. The children forage for food, do not have to brush their teeth, or go to bed. David's sanity slipped away as they distanced themselves from anything conventional, culminating in an unknown amount of marital discord, and David's murder of 7-month-old Elijah.

In the year since Elijah's death, David has been in custody. His hearings keep being postponed, and little is known about his legal situation. It is speculated that he's being held in a psychiatric center.

Lauren and the girls lived in the shed/warehouse behind the family home for a couple months, until Lauren managed to beg enough money from internet strangers to purchase a Coaster, which is a sort of mini-bus. Now she and the girls are back to traveling around Australia. Lauren neglects the girls to a great extent, and denies them and herself the opportunity to grieve. Even though Elijah was drowned in a river, she made a point of pushing the girls into swimming and other water activities, and often posts photos of them playing in unsafe waterways while she herself hangs back to take pictures.

She proudly talks of how she's worked hard to have the girls not view their father's infanticide as a negative, but rather as neutral.

Things were fucked up with this family long before Elijah's death. In Africa after their wedding, they smuggled a child (possibly an orphan) across the border for medical treatment. They did not speak his language, and there was no plan to take him home after his treatment. Their oldest daughter was lost in the bush on Christmas Eve with a man the family had just met, and Lauren did not alert the authorities. At a Chinese New Year parade, the adults lost track of several of the children, including the toddler, and were unconcerned. While staying in a city, they befriended the local drug dealer in order to use her shower. In NZ, Lauren took the baby and hitchhiked to a city to buy a car, leaving David and the girls stranded. She did not tell David she was leaving. The list goes on.

They recently acquired 4 pet rats, which will travel with them in the bus and enjoy their sparkling adventures. We hope the rats do not share the fate of the Fisher's dog, which was "accidentally" poisoned when they could not find a new home for it.

Lauren ran off to France and Iceland for two and a half weeks without the girls. She left all 4 daughters (ages 3 - 8) in the bus, in the company of a woman named Alice. Lauren met Alice in Bali a few months ago, and watched Alice's child while Alice ran off for the weekend to have an affair. Lauren asked on Facebook for another adult to be "present" for the children, and for a place to park the bus (and children) while she's gone. Alice was utterly overwhelmed, cried frequently, and had to go treat herself to a spa day, abandoning all the kids with someone else.

SparklingAdventures.com - be aware that there is a link on the homepage that will take you to photos of dead baby Elijah in the morgue

FJ discussion:

Part 1: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11137 An Australian (Former Fundie) Blogger's Son Dies

Part 2: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14804 Sparkling Adventures Blog

Part 3: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15960 The Return of Sparkling Adventures

Part 4: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18273 Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect - Now with Rats!

Part 5: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19315 Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect - Vive la France

[happy atheist]

To update my last essay:

• There has been no mention of Marcus in quite some time. He's probably out of the picture.

• At least one of the rats has died.

• No news about David.

• Lauren let one of the kids suffer with a prickle in her eye for several days, rather than remove it herself or seek medical help. Oh, and she posted a graphic picture of it.

• Delaney was bitten by a paralysis tick, and Lauren basically just carried her around instead of getting her treatment.

More new posts today, including more justification for educational neglect unschooling.

At this stage in my children’s development, I don’t expect mastery of any subject. Until they demonstrate clear passions and are motivated to hone their skills, I don’t expect to see expertise. This is something that I believe will happen naturally as they mature, as it did for me. I don’t need to impose an artificial timetable on my daughters’ developments. I’m not trying to tick the boxes on a list of objectives. Instead, in staying in tune with each child, I am content to see that this week they know more and different things than they did in the past. But I do need to provide the seeds from which their natural passions will grow, and this is through continual, constant exposure to new experiences.

[Blahblah]

Because learning by osmosis is a proven method???

[Flossie]

Because learning by osmosis is a proven method???

Well, back when humans were lurching around grunting and trying to figure out how to kill animals without being killed, what plants tasted good and didn't make them sick, and how to make that nice hot flamy thing happen at will without burning themselves up, I'm sure that was often the case. Since then, most people have figured out that rather than learn each and every thing all through trial and error, it's better to learn what others know and then build upon it. And then there's Lazy Loony Lauren...

[Georgiana]

Well, back when humans were lurching around grunting and trying to figure out how to kill animals without being killed, what plants tasted good and didn't make them sick, and how to make that nice hot flamy thing happen at will without burning themselves up, I'm sure that was often the case. Since then, most people have figured out that rather than learn each and every thing all through trial and error, it's better to learn what others know and then build upon it. And then there's Lazy Loony Lauren...

Lauren also forgets that back in the days of learning primitively through trial and error, people and especially children had a far greater mortality rate because sometimes your "error" is fatal. You eat the wrong berries in the middle of nowhere, and you could be toast even now. Not only that, even cavemen had the experience of previous generations to go off. There is ample evidence of generations passing down knowledge and skills.

Lauren's children are at a double disadvantage because she doesn't even have any practical "skills" to pass down (besides how to be a terrible mother).

[chaotic life]

Aisha is 9.5. This post is undoutably in response to the fact that there are certain skills that people most certainly DO expect Aisha to have mastered at this point, things like basic math skills and sufficient literacy so that she can read a more complicated chapter book independently.

To the best I've ever determined, Aisha has NOT mastered those basic skills, and at 9.5 the concept that she might be a late learner is fading quickly and those who aren't going to love on the great Sparkly one for her ways are likely starting to comment on those lack of basic life skills that Aisha and rapidly Brioni, who is less than 18 months younger than Aisha iirc, are completely incompetent to accomplish.

My heart goes out to those two girls, because I am positive THEY can feel the condemnation and it's starting to wear on THEM. I have a child with dyslexia and by 8-9 as reading became more difficult to mask his struggles, he was deeply pained by them. He's still remedial compared to his peer groups and struggles to write because he knows his spelling issues show when he writes. But, the difference was that he had a documented learning disability and we continued to WORK on those struggles. Aisha and Brioni are going to be expected to figure this out all on their own.

It will actually be easier for the three younger girls. Once Aisha figures these struggles out, SHE will sadly be able to be a better mother figure for those younger girls than Lauren can be bothered to accomplish. However, until Aisha figures it out, they are all just sunk. And, Lauren is working extra hard to justify and rationalize and negate any though Aisha might be starting to have that maybe she is going to have to take this bull by the horns if she has ANY chance at her own future.

Educational garbage aside (and I don't buy a horsepuck of Lauren's garbage because I AM a successful homeschooling mother who was always electic and often unschooling oriented and never bought the crap she spews but am successfully launching my children into the world in ways I doubt she ever will), given what Lauren has said about her sexual dalliances before, and given the frequency she hands out with Helena and Courroug, I almost question whether she's sharing in that Herpes infested lovenest Helana brags about so much.

[lipstickgoalie]

Here is what I thought when looking at the post about the hotel stay- "Why in hell is she letting those girls not only stand in, but LEAN against the windows, when they are 8 stories up?!?"

Then I remembered this was Lauren we are talking about.

[ladyaudley]

She had given a few FB updates, but mostly links. Nothing interesting.

"This year, my dad turns seventy. He’s still working full-time within an Australian government department, modelling a quality of life that that I hope to be pursuing at that age."

Well, Lauren, I'm sure your dad enjoys that quality of life because he is educated and has worked all his life. I'm not sure living in a bus on your own or mooching off your four resentful daughters will be quite the same.

i'm also fairly sure they've already been to Hellena's... that hood in the first picture of the unschooling post looks like a Hellena creation.

Edited to add:

Man, Hellena is so nice in comparison. and *insightful*

"I really don't know how to describe it [ ETA meeting the Goddess Athena during a Kahuna massage] without sounding like a new age tosser, but happen it did, and no matter what opinion you may have about me and how whacky I am…….I don't make shit up. I do my best to relate the stories of my life as honestly and authentically as possible, and just lately, I've realised that all my favourite stories of mine and other people's……are the stories that we all find it hard to tell each other, for fear of being laughed at, or disbelieved, or having our sanity questioned. And let's face it, most spiritual and religious experiences seem totally whacky unless you experience them yourself"

[Alice_Fraggle]

She's got 4 daughters right? Why are there only 3 shown in most of the new posts?

[ILoveJellybeans]

She's got 4 daughters right? Why are there only 3 shown in most of the new posts?

Maybe she forgot one of them, who is out fending for herself in a wood somewhere miles away from the bus, eating bugs and grass for survival.

[Jesse911]

Maybe she forgot one of them, who is out fending for herself in a wood somewhere miles away from the bus, eating bugs and grass for survival.

Besides the distance to the bus I'm not seeing how this is any different than normal. Honestly I wonder if the girls would be allowed to decide to stay with a new family since they get to make all their own decisions. I'm sure Lauren would have no problem driving her newly renamed slut bus around to all her festivals without having to be bothered with those pesky kids of hers

[Ave Maria]

Help out a n00b -- why is she on this site? Just because she's fun to snark (which DUH! of course she is) or did she used to be fundy Protestant or what?

[chaotic life]

Lauren and David were uber fundie originally.

I notice her discussion on love on her FB of course sparks someone to declare that by Lauren's definition pedophilia is acceptable and perhaps society should not judge such love as well.

[Ave Maria]

Lauren and David were uber fundie originally.

I notice her discussion on love on her FB of course sparks someone to declare that by Lauren's definition pedophilia is acceptable and perhaps society should not judge such love as well.

Yikes. What is her definition of love, anyway?

And thanks for answering my question. Does she identify as any sort of Christian nowadays, or is she just spiritual?

[chaotic life]

She is sometimes cagey, as much of her financial mooching continues to come from her fundamentalist supporters, even now. She has made comments on FB that she does not identify Christian. She's rather new-agey, make up your own religion now. She has talked about righteousness in the past as in the girls are choosing righteousness when they call her by her first name and not when they call her mom or mommy. I think she's really just a whatever spirituality floats my boat today mentality now. But, she IS good at internet marketing. Her career WAS internet marketing before she quit, and it shows in how she markets herself and doesn't easily let herself get caged into anything real, despite her claims of seeking authenticity.

So long as even a little of her funding comes from those Christians, she isn't about to let herself get fully pigeonholed into being not one of them anymore. Thus, I don't think you'll ever get a straightforward answer on what she does believe now.

Someone can share links. David's religious beliefs got so crazy he got thrown out of their last church and there ought to be videos of his rantings still around somewhere.