The Bates on GMA....and a special tonight.

[doggie]

this is part of having a large family so they can provide for you in their old age. you be they have it figured out and it is already starting.

[bananacat]

What annoys me is the whole "debt free" thing. I'd be debt free too if people donated goods and services to build me a house, gave my family a vehicle, and paid my medical costs. They're debt free because they receive charity, not because they've paid cash for everything they own. Now I have no problem with people accepting charity, just people who accept it then brag about how they have no debt.

But they're not even debt-free, now that they owe money to their teenage son.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

Who paid for Erin's hand surgery? Even day surgery can be pretty pricey

[mythoughtis]

the chickens will come home to roost later....

when all the boys have married, and the girls are still all at home.... Gil will have to work until he drops to pay for them all. You can bet that the boys will not have money to do it for him as they will have their own litters to support.

Plus, they've all been taught that 'God will provide'.

Because there are not enough fundie boys to marry fundie girls, there are fundie girls still living at hom in their 30s, never having supported themselves. This is not something that these fundie fathers have truly considered.. until it happens.

Once of these years, Gill (Kelly is likely to die in childbirth) will end up at one of his children's homes surrounded by noisy toddlers, with just a twin bed in one of the kids's rooms to sleep in.... and no money to do anything with.

[Prek teach]

Being wheeled in on an office chair to partake in a b-day celebration that he's not aware is taking place. On camera. While juju coos how the family is still debt free...

[Guest Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure if it were a Hispanic family saying ERs have to take everybody the tightyrighties would be up in arms.

But since its the bibl believing Bates family its a good thing. Pizzes me right off.

How did Lawson make his money to be able to afford to give his parent over 4k and loan to the other kids and buy groceries???

[Daenerys]

I think the reason fundyism is so girl-heavy amongst the younger generation is because if the family doesn't have a lot of girls, particularly a lot of girls early on, then EVERYTHING in the house falls to the mother. One woman can't do the cooking, washing and cleaning for 15: it's not possible. So those kind of families end up dropping out and going to a more liberal church, narrowing the pool of potential males.

I don't know why so many look up to Sarah Mally who is unmarried in her thirties. She's got no qualifications and nothing to do but promote her book about waiting for the right man. She knows a lot about waiting, and it's hardly admirable that, considering a QF man wouldn't probably want someone that age, she hasn't dedicated her life to something more constructive.

[ladypuglover]

I'm pretty sure if it were a Hispanic family saying ERs have to take everybody the tightyrighties would be up in arms.

But since its the bibl believing Bates family its a good thing. Pizzes me right off.

How did Lawson make his money to be able to afford to give his parent over 4k and loan to the other kids and buy groceries???

He has had his own lawn care business since the age of 13.

[Guest Anonymous]

He has had his own lawn care business since the age of 13.

Perhaps he should have hired his effing father.

And the food these folks eat. Its got to stunt their freekin brains.

Perhaps I over react but on a good day I can look out my window and see my QF neighbors. :roll: That is when they let the kids out of the house. Luckily her womb has been shuttered locked and latched.

[Buzzard]

Unlike the Duggars, the Bates family isnt going to be able to set up their kids in houses and businesses when they start getting married. lawson needs that money so that he will be able to support himself and his bride when that time comes. I wonder how many years they just set him back.

[Daenerys]

Well as one of the few QF men, he's got the pick of the pack. I wonder if fundy girls know the odds they're up against (they must figure it out at ATI conferences etc...). Must be a bit scary if you're one of the less pretty or bubbly ones: I mean if they can't talk to you first, all they're going on is outward appearances, and if you're a shy plain jane it would be easy to get overlooked. That must be a terrifying thought if the entire goal of your life is marriage.

[doggie]

makes me wonder if the boys won't get married so they can support they parents.

[Daenerys]

makes me wonder if the boys won't get married so they can support they parents.

...but will they really feel that obligation when Michaella et al have actually raised them? I should think with the gender imbalance they may have enough of a job (and feel more obligated to) support their older sisters.

I wonder if we'll see a lot of unwed fundy girls living with their brothers in the future. After all, it's an 'escape' and yet not improper, as they're still living with family and probably helping to raise another set of kids.

[Daisy4]

This topic reminded me... did anyone else remember when they said that someone wanted to court Michaella when she was 16? They didn't allow it because she was too young. I wonder if there is a story behind that.

[FloraDoraDolly]

This topic reminded me... did anyone else remember when they said that someone wanted to court Michaella when she was 16? They didn't allow it because she was too young. I wonder if there is a story behind that.

I don't know, but since the fundies play for keeps I can understand her parents not wanting her to court at that age.

[kb2]

I was really annoyed with Gil's discussion of families in the past that had 10 or 11 kids and managed to get by with a lot less.

I have seen my entire family tree all the way back to the early 1700s on my mom's side. No one, not nobody had 10 or 11 kids from the same mother. Most families had 5 or 6ish kids make it from one mother, and if there were more children it was because the wife died and the father remarried, and the second wife had 5 or so kids. The closest to 10 children from one woman it got was my grandfather's generation, where he had 7 siblings. A great-grandmother died in childbirth.

[GeoBQn]

I can't stand the reporter referring to them as "The Bates." She's reading from a script for a voice-over, they should have known better!

[ladypuglover]

I don't know, but since the fundies play for keeps I can understand her parents not wanting her to court at that age.

I agree.

I have seen my entire family tree all the way back to the early 1700s on my mom's side. No one, not nobody had 10 or 11 kids from the same mother. Most families had 5 or 6ish kids make it from one mother, and if there were more children it was because the wife died and the father remarried, and the second wife had 5 or so kids. The closest to 10 children from one woman it got was my grandfather's generation, where he had 7 siblings. A great-grandmother died in childbirth.

But on my mother's side it was common to have up 16 children to live to adulthood. And that is also going back to the early 1700's.

On my father's side it was common for them to have up 12-14 live to adulthood going back just as far.

So it depends on the family, availability of food, illness factoring in, war and ahost of other things. Some families were huge and some of those huge families had a majority of children live to reproduce and others had a majority of children die. Some families were average or small and had majority live or majority die. All factors but it is true that from 1750, family size went down every generation if you are looking at the entire nation as a whole.

[tabitha2]

My mothers mothers family History has been meticulously researched by a distant relative and is on the web.Since they were Polish Catholic peasants first tracking to America and then slogging around 1870's Texas they had eleventy million kids and half those kids died along the way.

[marmalade]

Betcha [Gil] votes for people who would gleefully put a stop to ERs treating people who can't afford to pay.

The irony, it BURNS! The asshole is so anti-gubmint, but he'll sure take that massive child tax deduction with the Earned Income Tax Credit on top of it, and free ER care. Speaking of which, I wonder if that's how Erin got her fixed...someone might want to direct the hospital to Kelly's blog on that; she openly said it was tendonitis.

Gil and Kelly are now making speeches at the ATI conferences, so I imagine their only cost is the gas, and I wonder if he can write that off as well, as an "employee" of IBLP.

Michaella will be the SAHD who takes care of Gil and Kelly (if she survives) in their old age. At this point, I have no clue what will happen to them when their teeth rot, Kelly's bones constantly break due to osteoperosis, Gil has a heart attack, or either of them are stricken with cancer.

Let's see how the Lord provides for them then. Even Lawson won't be able to foot those bills. At least Boob and Michelle have insurance (although it's probably the fundie co-op, and have set up a living trust, so both they and their children should have a modicum of financial security (unless Boob gives his fortune to Gothard and Dougie). Heck, my not-nearly so fundie parents gave what turned out to be close to $100k to those crooks at Focus on the Family. It's their money to give as they see fit, but there were five children who could have used that money. Especially my sister whose husband has had and somehow survived different forms of cancer for about 20 years now.

As for family trees, although only related by adoption, my mother was the youngest of 12; half of those were born in Italy, so you get the idea there. The four youngest girls were given up to the foster care system when my mother was 6 months old. My dad was youngest of 6 and worked his ass off on a working farm in Indiana. Can Gil Bates say the same? He's more in line with my Italian immigrant relatives who were too poor to keep all their kids than what these fundies fantasize about...life on a large plot of land, blah blah blah...

[DamnPrecious]

I hate watching Kelly talk. Her mouth is weird and mushy.

[moreorlessnu]

I hate watching Kelly talk. Her mouth is weird and mushy.

I have to give her props for being more articulate than Michelle. Kelly, at least, knew the proper terminology to say that midwives don't "administer" epidurals. I just can't see Michelle using the same level of language.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

'm pretty sure if it were a Hispanic family saying ERs have to take everybody the tightyrighties would be up in arms.

Can anyone imagine TV fawning over a HUGE non-white family on welfare? Or, say, your average white trash family with 8 or 9 kids by 6--9 fathers with marriage & remarriage to at least one of them?? Of course not!

How did Lawson make his money to be able to afford to give his parent over 4k and loan to the other kids and buy groceries???

Boys in this movement, like in the FLDS, go to work EARLY. He started his lawn service at 13. A lot of homeschooled kids, even those preparing for rigorous colleges (and there are MANY such) structure their day they way they want and do other things during public school hours, like work either as a volunteer or for pay if they are old enough. Lawson has been very successful in lawn care (there's a kid in my kids old school that was REALLY successful at this--had a beautiful paid for truck to prove it too!) but since he has the equipment, etc., but doesn't pay rent he has extra. I'm very impressed by this kid. As I said before, I don't mind him helping his siblings and, if it were a one-time thing (say after a huge medical bill was paid) I wouldn't care that he paid for groceries. But he isn't the father so he shouldn't be doing this in my book.

[Guest LilaFowler]

I wonder how Erin can afford to pay him back, what was it, $1k? I know she teaches piano, but is it really that lucrative? Does she have that many students?

[xDreamerx]

I just finished watching. I was annoyed. It's one thing to ask your child to pick up the groceries with your money, it's another to expect him to pay for it. It also irked me that Gil was wearing the shirt that was so supposed to be for Zac. Gil isn't a parent. He's a mooch who mooches off his own kids. Don't even get me started on the fact that they made the reporter wear certain clothes for swimming.