Mrs Anna T - Baby on the way!

[Sister_Wife]

I haven't checked in with Anna in a while, but last night as I was catching up on her news, I saw she mentioned in this post

ccostello.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/time-of-changes.html

that she is halfway through her third pregnancy. She confirms in the comments that this is her first mention of it on the blog.

Her youngest just turned 4 on Rosh Ha-Shana.

[Alcyone]

This is quite a surprise! I thought she had obliquely hinted numerous times that she either could not or would not have more children. I wonder if I misunderstood her past posts. She can be very...subtle.

[bea]

Oh, I think her previous posts were about how mmmaaaaybe it's okay to have smaller families if the mother can't handle back to back to back pregnancies and babies.

Prior to actually, you know, HAVING A BABY, Anna T. was very gung ho on the big families for God thing. Then, like so many of these idiots, she realized that real life is different than fantasies or books. Her second child came much close to her first than I think she was ready for, she had a difficult pregnancy and what she saw as an awful hospital birth experience (based mostly, IMHO, on her totally unrealistic expectations), and I honestly think she suffered from both post-partum depression and PTSD afterwards. She was isolated with a baby and a toddler and no help and I think it may have dawned on her that she wasn't going to be able to do this 15 times. So she decided it was okay, that G-d was cool with "intentionally spacing" kids (aka birth control).

When her husband was laid off and she had to go to work in the field she was educated in and trained for in order to support them, that didn't lead to the same kind of revelation, that there isn't one right way to do things and prayerful, religious people can come to different conclusions about what their own families should do. That part was just sort of swept under the metaphorical rug, where her exhaustion and her husband's inability to do the housework exactly right just proved her point, that women weren't meant to work. Except she was working, able to do so because she was educated and trained, and able to support her family, even if she resented the ever-loving FUCK out of it.

I tend to see Anna the same way I see Gretchen. They knew everything about everything before they had any experience with those things - marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, child raising, working, financial management, etc. Then they discovered that real life is way way way different than books and movies and Grandma's stories and their own imaginations, and had to adjust their own beliefs to fit the lives they were living. Oddly, both of them have left the record of them knowing everything about everything on their blogs, and have never (except with Anna T. and the children issue, which I give her credit for doing) taken the time to explain to their followers about how real life changes your closely-held beliefs with a hard cold dash of reality.

[Jana814]

Can someone remind me who this woman is.

[Sister_Wife]

Can someone remind me who this woman is.

Orthodox Jew living in Israeli Settlement. We first met her when she was writing for the website, Ladies Against Feminism.

[Jana814]

Orthodox Jew living in Israeli Settlement. We first met her when she was writing for the website, Ladies Against Feminism.

Thanks!!

[singsingsing]

I first encountered Anna T when she wrote a blog post about this wonderful blogger she followed who was letting her 16-year-old daughter get married, and how fantastic that was. That 16-year-old was Autumn, who as most of us know unfortunately found herself married as a teenager to a lying, abusive scumbag. Thankfully she got out, her family supported her, and she is no longer fundie. Gonna assume that's not how Anna T expected it to transpire.

[fundiefan]

The poor girl is going to faint dead away with yet another responsibility. What's worse, the poor kids - three now - will grow up with a mother who can't (won't) cope with life.

[Sister_Wife]

Baby Boy Israel born mind January...

ccostello.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/we-did-it-again.html

[Idolatry]

Her writing is beautifully sentimental at times, and then bam on the politics.

I can't relate to a narrator who calls 45-50 hours a week "long hours."

[2xx1xy1JD]

One thing about her is that she'll occasionally revise her rigid positions on various things after some life experience.

I liked her post on how she started co-sleeping, after always vowing that she wouldn't: ccostello.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-way-of-no-way.html

Brought back memories of Girl 1 as the baby who absolutely refused to sleep in her crib. I know there are recommendations against co-sleeping, but the safety stats are bullshit if they don't account for (1) whether families were following safe co-sleeping practices or not and (2) the risk posed by exhausted primary caregivers who aren't co-sleeping.

[meep]

Wasn't she living in the West Bank? Did they move?

[bea]

She has started posting again. Oddly, now that she has three small children and lives in a fairly isolated area, she is learning that having no contact with anyone, and being home with your children constantly, is difficult. Considering how difficult she found working an eight hour day, I wonder how she is dealing with the relentless demands of motherhood. You don't get weekends off, that's for sure.