Sparkling Lauren, a super special sparkling surrogacy and a "gayby"

[lilith]

If her daughters have a little bit of brain they know how to get the food they want "I like this stuff and the energy from it will be much better" My niece is a drama-queen and she could have done something like this. But fortunately my brother is not putting in on the internet (well, he might be very unsparkling)

Can you imagine the conversation when one of the girl's "energy" leads her to desire the special energy exchange offered by a happy meal at McDonalds?

[16strong]

I'm not too happy that she made her daughter cry over YOGURT, but at least she realized her mistake and apologized (on the blog, anyway). I hope she apologized to Aisha in real life, too. This is probably the first time I've seen the Sparkling One admit that she was wrong and hurt someone else with her practices. I'm taking note, because I don't expect to see such an occurrence again for a very long time, if ever.

[August]

I think those who are saying restricting the diet of your family is mean or bad are insane. Everyone (even Little Miss Consensual Living, apparently) restricts their children's diet. Are you really saying you'll let them buy absolutely anything at the supermarket? Even Coke? What about the candy aisle? Lucky Charms?

We only buy milk from happy cows (the clue is not the word organic,it's the word grass-fed), but for other dairy I go for healthy. My kids have begged to have those fat free, sugar free high protein yoghurts with an ingredient list as long as your arm, including red and blue food colors, and thickeners and sucralose because they liked the look of the flavor. Of course I say no, because they're even worse than a Snickers, and they whine, and we move on. Why would you let them eat that instead of, say ice cream, which generally is healthier and has way more treat factor.

(has anyone else noticed a massive spike in grass fed yoghurts lately? Or is it just my store has started carrying them?)

[Brittany15]

We also need to remember that these are kids are used to doing whatever they want. When they are met with restrictions this probably really does not sit well. Most kids are told "no" multiple times a day and learn to deal with it. Lauren's girls aren't and its probably really hard to hear. When Aisha was told she couldn't have the yoghurt she wanted she didn't know how to deal with it because this is not something she usually hears.

We should also remember that these kids are not dumb (uneducated- yes, dumb-no). I have a feeling they know how to play Lauren. Kids will push any boundary they are given to test how far they can go. Lauren's girls have learned that with the right words boundaries don't even exist. Aisha wanted a certain yoghurt? She knew with the right words she could get it and she did.

[momof2treasures]

I think most parents try to guide their children to eat decently but most families do not restrict their kids diet to only grass fed dairy , organic only etc etc. We strive for a balance of fruits and veggies, home made meals as well as treats that all kids like. I don't expect every morsel they eat to be nutritionally and environmentally friendly and I hate when I see parents being food police. It will only cause issues. Lauren's daughter probably just really wanted the damn yogurt. You know when adults get a craving or really want a certain food? Yeah kids get that too.

[freethemall]

We also need to remember that these are kids are used to doing whatever they want. When they are met with restrictions this probably really does not sit well. Most kids are told "no" multiple times a day and learn to deal with it. Lauren's girls aren't and its probably really hard to hear. When Aisha was told she couldn't have the yoghurt she wanted she didn't know how to deal with it because this is not something she usually hears.

We should also remember that these kids are not dumb (uneducated- yes, dumb-no). I have a feeling they know how to play Lauren. Kids will push any boundary they are given to test how far they can go. Lauren's girls have learned that with the right words boundaries don't even exist. Aisha wanted a certain yoghurt? She knew with the right words she could get it and she did.

This, all this. Especially the first part about getting what they want - they may be living a super-hippy-crunchy-ascetic-boho lifestyle, but these girls are going to be pretentious entitled brats when they're older, that or they're going to get super sick of the lack of structure and rebel by living much more conventional lives that will be nothing like what Lauren is raising them for.

I actually haven't looked at sparkling adventures for quite a while and was very surprised with all the surrogate "gayby" stuff. I think the last time I looked at the blog or FJ forums everyone was talking about how she was gallivanting around without her kids visiting these guys and now it seems the true relationship has been revealed. Very interesting.

[Mama Mia]

Meh/eh. I don't think these are really the only two options. I had a lot of anxiety about weird things as a child. Mostly, if my mom picked me up from school and didn't tell me we were going to the grocery store and then just turned into the grocery store, I would burst into tears and cry for a long time. It had nothing to do with what was going on or the grocery store or my day -- I just could not handle not having that information ahead of time. Something about the disconnect between what was happening and what I imagined was going to happen (driving home) made me really anxious. I still feel this way about varying things but since I'm an adult I no longer cry about them. I can imagine other children being this way. Like, Aisha not having an enough options, I can see that being upsetting in the same way I was upset by the surprise grocery store trips as a child. I was also really food sensitive and wouldn't eat cheese if it was warmer than 40 degrees (fahrenheit) or wouldn't eat oatmeal if it was watery. I don't like to think it was that I was picky because I was all about trying new foods and all kinds of foods but I was very textually sensitive to bizarre things for a long time and when presented with something I felt unable to eat, it was frustrating because I felt trapped by it. Can also see this being a yogurt problem. I either grew out of it or had enough agency to not have to deal with it (ie I can put my cheese in the freezer for 2 minutes before I eat it because I live alone and can choose and express my desire to do so now, hoorah!)

If it is hormones, woo boy. I don't know how Lauren will deal but I would bank on a ceremony of the-time-of-womanhood-is-upon-us-and-it-is-sparkling-magical or something along those lines. Would bet money on that.

God, I really hope Aisha isn't that kind of kid. Can you imagine what a mess she would be 24/7 if she freaked out over such incredibly minor change in plans ( sorry you had to go through that, a couple of our kids seemed fairly sensitive to things like that, but no where near that extreme -- good thing with 8 kids and randomly patched together after school plans cause we both worked 40+ hours a week- they would of been a wreck).

I kind of disagree with folks who say Aisha never has any restrictions, given the past few posts, it seems like she is the type of kid who really, really wants some more conventional experiences. Over the past few months Lauren has talked about how much the kids liked living in a house, how they shouldn't be guided/ helped with their school curriculum, the incident with Aisha chopping off her sisters ratty hair......To me that all points heavily to at least one if the kids, likely her first born-- putting a ton of pressure on Lauren to live like the other kids she sees.

So while other kids are told "no" about going to the park before cleaning their room, or staying up late or skipping their school work-- she's being told no to requests for school, a regular home etc.

[keen23]

I think those who are saying restricting the diet of your family is mean or bad are insane. Everyone (even Little Miss Consensual Living, apparently) restricts their children's diet. Are you really saying you'll let them buy absolutely anything at the supermarket? Even Coke? What about the candy aisle? Lucky Charms?

SNIP

Um, yeah, I let my kids get Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and every other kids cereal under the sun. Because it's a small battle, and IDGAF.

[bumblebee]

I think most parents try to guide their children to eat decently but most families do not restrict their kids diet to only grass fed dairy , organic only etc etc. We strive for a balance of fruits and veggies, home made meals as well as treats that all kids like. I don't expect every morsel they eat to be nutritionally and environmentally friendly and I hate when I see parents being food police. It will only cause issues. Lauren's daughter probably just really wanted the damn yogurt. You know when adults get a craving or really want a certain food? Yeah kids get that too.

I think it depends on where you are in the world and what kid/parent circles you grow up and mix with. When I was growing up (I'm in my 20s) there were a lot of parents who tried to police everything their kids put in their mouths and there were equally those who let them eat any junk they wanted. I'm sure most were in the middle and sensible about both the healthy food and the treats but I remember a few of mothers giving my mum strict lists of what could be eaten during playdates, parties, sleepovers etc.

The internet is currently filled with mommy bloggers who claim they only feed their kids organic or kiddie Paleo or no sugar ever or whatever other thing, which is not necessarily bad as long as kids are getting the right nutrients, although they'll probably end up with their kids splurging on whatever they weren't allowed in college etc.

It's just the inherent chaos and contradiction in Lauren's life that makes whatever she posts automatically strange and OTT.

[happy atheist]

Um, yeah, I let my kids get Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and every other kids cereal under the sun. Because it's a small battle, and IDGAF.

The rule in our house was that they could have sugar cereal every other day. alternating with Cheerios, or oatmeal, or granola, or whatever healthier option they liked. Everybody wins.

[Mama Mia]

My mom was super crunchy, healthy food only back a million years ago when I was a kid. I would do what kids do and gorge on white bread and sugary cereals and soda at friends houses.

When my kids were growing up I wasn't as good about non- fake food as mom-- but I also had more mouths to feed, demanding job and less money for all-organic. We actually did fast food way too often just due to being too worn out to do anything else. But I think even given all my food errors, I did much better food wise than I would have if my mom hadn't been so health food conscious.

For example, we didn't just buy soda to have at home--- but would get it for birthday parties. They didn't have sugary, fake cereal for breakfast... But we would get some to have as a dessert once in awhile. I would read the labels and not get products with artificial sweeteners ... But didn't always get organic, all natural, because too expensive sometimes.

I think policing what you yourself buy for your kids is fine. It's your money, and why waste it on toxic crap. But I think it's also a good idea to not police what your kid eats at other people's houses ( barring allergies of course) because it's really important for kids to understand that everything is not the same everywhere, and that's okay. And to occasionally allow some leeway for crap food- because otherwise it's just too much of a forbidden fruit to kids.

[Artemis]

When do you suppose it might occur to Lauren - or Hellena, for that matter - that Aisha might be quite old enough now not to have her issues broadcast across the internet?

I hope you are reading here, Hellena. Because, I, for one, will believe Lauren might stand a chance of being a halfway, maybe approaching reasonable, possibly decent parent when she gets her children off the internet and gives them some privacy. They have not consented to having their lives exposed to all and sundry.

And that business of 'your shadow side is showing' when anyone makes a comment that isn't fully supportive/sycophantic? That's meretricious crap.

Lauren shows her shadow side all the time - every time she parades her narcissism and her selfish disdain for her children's right to self-determine. Because they don't self-determine. They struggle, drowning in her wake, trying to survive on her psychobabble and hogwash. The fundie is still strong in Lauren - fanaticism is fanaticism, no matter what form it takes.

[chaotic life]

Lauren does NOT restrict her children's diets in regards to junk food. She's posted mulitple times about how she allows the girls to eat "whatever they want" because that is truly a core value in TCP philosophy. They can go to the candy store and buy anything, and never had to brush their teeth. Brioni can be strict vegan and Lauren makes NO effort to make sure she is getting her B vitamins or any other deficiencies that such a diet in a five year old might create. But, Lauren is so entrenched in her alternative hippy phase that she has an arbitrary rule on dairy based upon nothing but her own carzy theories about altering the energy of food.

So, a kid who can have sugar and junk if she wants without restrictions is not allowed to have the yogurt she wants because it's not organic. When Lauren was vegan, the girls weren't allowed to have meat because Lauren didn't want it. Lauren is NOT as laid back as she presents. She has always had strict rules she subscribes to. Her current strict rules are highly alternative, but her prohibition on non organic dairy is just as arbitrary and nonesensical as her rules were back when it was controlling when the girls could eat and where they could eat because Lauren was obssessed with keeping her house meticulous in her babywise days.

I completely get having rules on food. But, Lauren's rules are not logical, consistent nor something choosen by the children themselves. They are whatever obssession and presentation Lauren wants dejour and therefore imposes upon the girls. That she doesn't limit junk food, but restricts non-organic yogurt despite there being none her daughter liked in the store is simply an example that underneath the Sparkles, its all about LAUREN and not the children, like it's always been.

[flubber]

Has Hellena always been as prolific a commenter on Sparkles blogs?

I really don't understand having a rule that relates to ONE type of dairy product...when it all comes from the same milk.

And as above - you can't be all 'my children can do whatever they like' but oh wait...they can't eat that. It's all or nothing Lauren! :snooty: :snooty: Most of us live happy mediums, if you're going to declare on the internet you're super sparkly speshul coz you let you kids do whatever, do it with consisitancy.

Oh shit, what's that...must be my shadow showing

From the comments:

"I am a lazy seat-of-your-pants-Mum trying to do the best by my kids regardless of my feelings for their food options"

Some honesty - and sums me up :-) Sparkles just needs to admit that's what she is instead of cacheing it in sparkling terms.

[August]

Mama mia, not having sugar salt and fat is doomed to backfire. A balanced diet, especially for a child, includes all three. The problem is the artificial colors and flavors, and the extra salt and sugar in absolutely everything, so it becomes background noise. Put salt and butter on vegetables, use full fat dairy, bake, make candy, have ice cream. With a little looking you can find things like ice cream without artificial colors (edy's/dreyer's is quite good), apple sauce without added sugar. The decent things even come in individual packages with cartoon characters on them (chobani yoghurt tubes, stonyfield yoghurt drinks, there's no added sugar applesauce pouches, too). When you consider birthday parties, Halloween, valentines, Christmas and going out for ice cream in the summer, are they really being deprived, or having them limited enough to make it special?

I have to buy non-grassfed cheese and butter because there's only one option and it's way way too expensive for our budget. Every little bit helps, same as with crap food. It's all dose dependent.

Um, yeah, I let my kids get Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and every other kids cereal under the sun. Because it's a small battle, and IDGAF.

You're the one who has to live with them after eating that crap.

[Brittany15]

The thing is Lauren's food restrictions have absolutely nothing to do with the health of her kids. She sees her choices as animal or eco friendly- not necessarily healthy for her. There is nothing wrong with making these choices; however, she is obsessing over these and not trying to make sure her kids are actually eating well balanced diets. She has said that they pretty much eat what they want all day and don't do "meals." These are small kids who don't know how to make good food choices and need to be taught. I see nothing wrong with restricting junk food- kids need limits. But I have a feeling Lauren would let the girls eat a gallon of ice cream- as long as the cows making it were happy.

[Mama Mia]

Mama mia, not having sugar salt and fat is doomed to backfire. A balanced diet, especially for a child, includes all three. The problem is the artificial colors and flavors, and the extra salt and sugar in absolutely everything, so it becomes background noise. Put salt and butter on vegetables, use full fat dairy, bake, make candy, have ice cream. With a little looking you can find things like ice cream without artificial colors (edy's/dreyer's is quite good), apple sauce without added sugar. The decent things even come in individual packages with cartoon characters on them (chobani yoghurt tubes, stonyfield yoghurt drinks, there's no added sugar applesauce pouches, too). When you consider birthday parties, Halloween, valentines, Christmas and going out for ice cream in the summer, are they really being deprived, or having them limited enough to make it special?

I have to buy non-grassfed cheese and butter because there's only one option and it's way way too expensive for our budget. Every little bit helps, same as with crap food. It's all dose dependent.

.

:clap: :clap: absolutely agree. I'm really fortunate to live in an area where organic/free-range/grass-fed and so on are in very high demand, so easy to find and helps some on the prices. Unfortunately when my kids were young there were waaaaayyyy too many times I'd just say fuck it, and go through the Mc Donald's drive through on the way home from work. But I did try to balance that out by buying non-fake versions of everything to the extent possible. Even if it was little differences - like the organic, real vanilla squeeze chocolate for milk for a treat, instead of the powdered mix with a zillion artificial ingredients. It was pricier, so they got it less often, but that's probably not a bad thing in the long run.

[Antimony]

New post about grief and Elijah. Possible response to comments about the surrogacy? Likely response? I haven't had time to read it in full yet.

[happy atheist]

Oh, it's definitely in response to the negative comments about the surrogacy. What it amounts to is, "I processed my grief very quickly because I'm so spiritual. My daughters, too. So stop it with the worrying, internet."

In my own personal experience, my unwavering faith in spiritual realities gave me the tools to consciously process my grief and loss very rapidly, although remnant pain surfaces now and again to remind me that my work isn’t complete. My children, too, have been given the space, care, love and assistance to help them work through their own emotions surrounding our family’s experience with death and loss.

Two years on, my daughters and I have moved through our individual grief-mountains. If you meet us, you’ll see that for yourself. Until then, just accept it as being so. We are living on the other side, participating wholeheartedly in a joyous, adventurous life.

[ViolaSebastian]

The jist: She's a spechsul grief snowflake who has entirely worked through her grief. Her special spirituality has enabled her to move through grief with lightning speed. We're all projecting our grief onto her when we point out that it may be difficult and triggering for her to give up another son. Oh, and her daughters? Also spechsul grief snowflakes that have completely processed their grief.

[thoughtful]

I completely get having rules on food. But, Lauren's rules are not logical, consistent nor something choosen by the children themselves. They are whatever obssession and presentation Lauren wants dejour and therefore imposes upon the girls. That she doesn't limit junk food, but restricts non-organic yogurt despite there being none her daughter liked in the store is simply an example that underneath the Sparkles, its all about LAUREN and not the children, like it's always been.

This.

Notice that Lauren had some of us posting about how rigid and strict she is, and others how those kids have no rules and can get whatever they want. And I don't think either opinion is wrong -- I think the answer is "C. All of the above."

I think it all depends on Lauren's whim of the moment and arbitrary crap -- a toxic mix of leaving out what she is too lazy to do and adding what she is obsessed with at the moment because she thinks it will make her appear deep and sparkling and authentic.

I have noticed, when working with children, that, other than those who had actually been abused, some who seemed to be the most troubled had adult examples at either end of the strict-and/or-organized spectrum, and very few in the middle.

I think most of us grow up with people setting our rules, and modeling desired behavior, who, even if they differ, are somewhere near the middle of that spectrum.

But if one parent is a totally rigid rulemonger, and the other a completely disorganized "whatever" type, if Grandmom is enraged at normal kid stuff and Grandpop is sneaking the kid sips of his beer and teaching him curse words for fun, how does a child figure out what the system is?

In Lauren, these girls have a parent who is both extremes at once -- a real "WTF will she do next?" loose cannon, who could veer from free and sparkling to arbitrarily rigid about tiny things at any moment. As her child, I think I would feel like she could lure me into relaxing, only to shame me for "not walking in righteousness" a minute later, for some standard I was supposed to magically infer, or remember from last year.

ETA left-out word

[Antimony]

This sort of reminds me of my own family. Not exactly but semi-similar situation and the surrogacy reminds me of my Aunt's prolonged (and strange) response to the death of her son;

My aunt and uncle are not a good genetic match for children. I can't remember what exactly it is but any children they have are about 90% likely to have this terrible heart disease with a big long name that nobody speaks about anymore. I think it shortens life spans under like 20 years (if anybody knows what this could be, please let me know because I cannot remember it for the life of me.) Anyway, their first child died at age 2 after spending most of his life in the hospital and he was a sweetheart. After his death, their immediate response was to have another child (my aunts wants, my uncle was not as much about this plan. He used to be a funny person, class clown, but now he doesn't talk anymore.) Of course, their second child has this same condition and has spent the large majority of his life in and out of hospitals and heart surgery and liver medication and the like and I even think chemo. It's very sad and it already kind of irked the family that they wanted to do this even though they knew the child would suffer terribly, simply for the sake of having a child entirely biologically theirs. The worst part for the family though is that they decided to not parent this child, apparently, because of their guilt of their late son and to compensate for the pain he is in constantly. So, predictably, he's an awful person. He has every toy/gadget he could want (I think he got an iPhone at like age 7), he tells his parents what to do (never the other way around, he once told his mother to drink a straight up glass of vodka and she did it and came to christmas hungover and sick), he isn't told "no" when he attacks people (he picked up a stool and started hitting me with it one Christmas and stomping on my hands, they didn't make him stop), he won't speak to the family, routinely insults the food, routinely insults the family, calls our grandmother stupid, nobody says no. He also recently (he's like 12 now) hacked into his school's database and deleted an entire semester of grades -- no punishment, none. (His parents logic is that if a 12 year old could hack into it, they deserved it and it was the school's fault.) His behavior has basically put an end to family gatherings for holidays because nobody can take it anymore (I can't tell if we can't cope with him or if it is actually his mother's refusal to do anything, but either way it makes having a normal holiday impossible.)

I don't know why this reminds me of Lauren but it really does -- maybe it goes under the "ways to grieve that hurt others around you" or the "strange treatment of 'replacement' [for lack of a better term] children."

Also, I have a kind of strange question -- I found FJ basically this year, so, was Sparkling Adventures always the blog title? Or was it something else before she became so...sparkling? I dug through some of the old posts where she has a house and the playroom and it all seems much less sparkly. :shrug:

[lilith]

Her arrogance is breathtaking, as is her denial. She and all four of her daughters just happen to be the most enlightened humans ever and have attained nirvana and risen above all these emotions us poor mortals feel? But she wasn't enlightened enough to notice David's deteriorating mental health and save her fucking son (and save David from committing a tragic act from which he will never recover, even if she has) or to seek help for her crippling post natal depression?

Oh, and one of her terribly enlightened children who magically processed her baby brother's death and is so amazingly full of empathy that she's just fine with giving away her next baby brother, broke down publicly a few days ago about yoghurt. Fucking yoghurt choices are too much, but losing TWO baby brothers is just dandy.

[lilith]

This sort of reminds me of my own family. Not exactly but semi-similar situation and the surrogacy reminds me of my Aunt's prolonged (and strange) response to the death of her son;

My aunt and uncle are not a good genetic match for children. I can't remember what exactly it is but any children they have are about 90% likely to have this terrible heart disease with a big long name that nobody speaks about anymore. I think it shortens life spans under like 20 years (if anybody knows what this could be, please let me know because I cannot remember it for the life of me.) Anyway, their first child died at age 2 after spending most of his life in the hospital and he was a sweetheart. After his death, their immediate response was to have another child (my aunts wants, my uncle was not as much about this plan. He used to be a funny person, class clown, but now he doesn't talk anymore.) Of course, their second child has this same condition and has spent the large majority of his life in and out of hospitals and heart surgery and liver medication and the like and I even think chemo. It's very sad and it already kind of irked the family that they wanted to do this even though they knew the child would suffer terribly, simply for the sake of having a child entirely biologically theirs. The worst part for the family though is that they decided to not parent this child, apparently, because of their guilt of their late son and to compensate for the pain he is in constantly. So, predictably, he's an awful person. He has every toy/gadget he could want (I think he got an iPhone at like age 7), he tells his parents what to do (never the other way around, he once told his mother to drink a straight up glass of vodka and she did it and came to christmas hungover and sick), he isn't told "no" when he attacks people (he picked up a stool and started hitting me with it one Christmas and stomping on my hands, they didn't make him stop), he won't speak to the family, routinely insults the food, routinely insults the family, calls our grandmother stupid, nobody says no. He also recently (he's like 12 now) hacked into his school's database and deleted an entire semester of grades -- no punishment, none. (His parents logic is that if a 12 year old could hack into it, they deserved it and it was the school's fault.) His behavior has basically put an end to family gatherings for holidays because nobody can take it anymore (I can't tell if we can't cope with him or if it is actually his mother's refusal to do anything, but either way it makes having a normal holiday impossible.)

I don't know why this reminds me of Lauren but it really does -- maybe it goes under the "ways to grieve that hurt others around you" or the "strange treatment of 'replacement' [for lack of a better term] children."

Also, I have a kind of strange question -- I found FJ basically this year, so, was Sparkling Adventures always the blog title? Or was it something else before she became so...sparkling? I dug through some of the old posts where she has a house and the playroom and it all seems much less sparkly. :shrug:

Oh yes. It used, in true fundie fashion, to be called The David Fisher Family Blog. Her neglected book club is still called the DFF Bookclub.

[chaotic life]

This is the stage of grief called DENIAL.

I've met many, many parents who have walked these journey of losing a child. Every single one of them tells you do not EVER fully "get through" the grief. Nor have I ever met a single parent, myself included, who wanted to "get through" the grief.

You do not get through it and come to the other side where it doesn't impact you. You adjust to a new reality where your feet can hold onto the ground and waves have to be stronger, or more unexpected to know you over like the early waves of grief do.

Rather than chastise and disregard what experts and other parents have taught me, I have taken their comfort to heart, because they have walked this longer than I have.

The ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to reach the place where Lauren claims she is, is to not have been attached nor loved the child who died in the first place. Maybe Lauren is capable of that, but her daughters are not. And since she never got ANY support for herself, except for her sparkly rainbow friends, and only got the Social Services mandated support for her girls for the duration that the authorities required it and not a day longer, I don't believe one word she spouts off about parental grief.

Lauren wants to be special. She wants it to not be a life-changing event. I don't think she was unattached with Elijah. I think denial is easier than facing the reality that this is the rest of her life, and is forever, permenantly changed. I have known parents 30+ years out who tell me exactly the same thing as those who have lived less time since the loss of their child. Lauren is the only person I have EVER seen claim she can just "get over it" and move on with her life. Perhaps it helps her function, but it doesn't change the fact that she has no right to dictate to her daughters that they do it with her.