This American Life discovers fundie baby-voice

[August]

And they have to give a little explanation that she's not doing a put- on voice or whispering. Very funny.

(from about 30 min in, this week's episode on amateurs)

The facebook comments are puzzled

https://www.facebook.com/thislife/posts ... 0276941337

Emily Lincoln Paige intrigued me. That voice! I would life to see her picture to put a face to that voice.

18 · February 28 at 11:58am

3 Replies · 4 hrs

Heather Ferguson The robot baby segment was one of the best ever.

6 · February 28 at 9:22am

Kelly Curran Hargrave As a brand new mom I really enjoyed the robot baby story.

4 · February 28 at 11:58am

1 Reply

Keoki Kauanoe The soldier safety show is the most bizarre. Coen brothers need to make it into a movie w/ George Clooney as the lead

3 · February 28 at 1:05pm

Michelle Guymon Barbee I NEED to see Paige! Please, Ira, post a picture!

2 · 11 hrs

Erika Guay I enjoyed the robot baby story...but I wanted to know if they made the boys do the same or if they only make girls experience life with a baby....

1 · 8 hrs

1 Reply

Emma Corcoran Paige! A photo please. Her accent is like a puzzle; she sounded like an evangelical Christian valley girl who works in porn movies and has a Swedish mum.

2 · 3 hrs

Hope Sherie Must. See. Paige. There is a story behind that speech pattern...

1 ·

[Howl]

Emma Corcoran Paige! A photo please. Her accent is like a puzzle; she sounded like an evangelical Christian valley girl who works in porn movies and has a Swedish mum.

The only other time I've heard something similar was on a video of Pris, who speaks in what sounded to me like an infantile little girl's voice. It shocked me a little to hear that voice coming out of an adult woman.

This could be a communications major's dream research project and I am intrigued to know if this is a common way of speaking for at least some evangelical/fundie girls.

[Burpies]

I was wondering if anyone was going to post about this! When she explained about her, I thought 'omg! Fundie baby voice!' It was so weird, though, b/c she went to school and was in drama.

[Firiel]

BAHAHAHAHA!

I heard this last night and was thinking the exact same thing.

[August]

IKR? As soon as she spoke, I thought FUNDIE! Then they explained about the purity ring, I almost shat myself when they threw in the voice disclaimer.

[Walking Cat Bed]

I have a friend in my grad program's linguistics track who's studying televangelists...I don't imagine it would be too hard to put the "fundie baby voice" bug in another linguistics student's ear...

[Firiel]

I felt so bad for her when she got a C- on the baby project. She's essentially been taught her whole life that her #1 goal should be parenting (and she even says it-- go to Bible college, find a preacher, have a kid at 21), and she gets a C- on it, even after taking it SO super seriously. On the other hand, her liberal, non-Christian (I think?) friend who thought the project was kind of silly at first nailed it and was not overwhelmed the way Paige was.

[Rubaiyat]

This was fascinating!! Thank you so much for posting it!

I was floored when Paige said she felt sure that real babies weren't as needy as the robot babies. It pleased me that Hillary Frank commented that real babies were MORE needy than robot babies. I've had two extremely, I believe the polite term is "high needs" babies, and it about killed me. We (Mr. Rubai and I) were literally so exhausted that there are huge swathes of our kids' infancies that we don't remember. Without exaggeration, out eldest didn't sleep more than 45 minutes at a shot for over TWO YEARS. I'm getting hives just thinking about it.

I'm always baffled by people that can have baby on top of baby and not literally drop in the street from the exhaustion of it all. I'd love to know how they make sure their babies are "easier" than the robot babies. Is it the voice? How do you even DO the voice, much less keep it up for years and years?

As much as I'm fairly anti-fundy, it broke my heart listening to Paige have a crisis of faith (whether in herself or in her religion or...) right there on the radio show. I know everyone needs to do that at some point so they know who they are, but, bless her heart (yup, grew up southern :lol: ) it was rough to listen to!

Disclaimer, I work in ebil public schools with high-risk teenagers (no! I'm not Meri!) and have for about 15 years. I love my teenagers, and have worked with a metric ton of pregnant/parenting teens. They'll break your heart in half.

Hokay, now I'm rambling so I'm going to stop. This was a great post!!!

[ladyaudley]

heh. When they get the grades, Paige sounds like she meows. I think her grade is worse because she' spent too much time fussing - they only have a short time window to get the right thing, she was probably too busy cooing and pretending. Rachel seems like she had a straightforward "here are the four things. Number one, no. Number two, no. Number three: yep!" I suppose it has something to do with being a well-adjusted, chill person.

Also: Lordy, the voice. It's ridiculous.

[CallmeChaCha]

Holy cow! That voice... :? She sounded like she was crying or about to cry. Also, I thought it was interesting that Paige "cheated" twice. Is that a glimpse of her future, handing off her children to sister-moms?

[Firiel]

Holy cow! That voice... :? She sounded like she was crying or about to cry. Also, I thought it was interesting that Paige "cheated" twice. Is that a glimpse of her future, handing off her children to sister-moms?

In real life, having someone else hold change or rock your baby when have just fallen down and injured yourself is pretty normal, though. I imagine that leaving your child with a trusted friend for 10 minutes while you run home for something you forgot is pretty typical too.

[CallmeChaCha]

In real life, having someone else hold change or rock your baby when have just fallen down and injured yourself is pretty normal, though. I imagine that leaving your child with a trusted friend for 10 minutes while you run home for something you forgot is pretty typical too.

I know, I'm not knocking anybody for that. It was my sad attempt at a fundy joke.

[Firiel]

I know, I'm not knocking anybody for that. It was my sad attempt at a fundy joke.

Baaaaaah... sorry. Internet makes sarcasm hard to pick up on. :embarrassed:

[CallmeChaCha]

Baaaaaah... sorry. Internet makes sarcasm hard to pick up on. :embarrassed:

Sorry! I try to use smilies but sometimes I forget because Tapatalk doesn't have them handy like on the website. :D Well, that, and I can never figure out how to get back to my keyboard lol.

Eta: I left my sack of flour in my locker when I had to do this project. So, yeah. Not really my place to be calling people out on proper parenting [emoji38] (I know it was just a sack o' flour and not a robot baby, but it's still kind of jacked up to leave my flour baby in the locker everyday for a week. I had no love for that thing.)

[Firiel]

Sorry! I try to use smilies but sometimes I forget because Tapatalk doesn't have them handy like on the website. :D Well, that, and I can never figure out how to get back to my keyboard lol.

Oh, it's not your fault. I'm bad at picking up on sarcasm in general. The Internet just magnifies it!

[polecat]

A normal baby is not this needy? Really?

I'm going to guess she plans to blanket train her baby and will assume that her real baby is just a rebellious little asshole who is challenging her parental authority every time it cries.

Nice.

[salex]

This was fascinating!! Thank you so much for posting it!

I was floored when Paige said she felt sure that real babies weren't as needy as the robot babies. It pleased me that Hillary Frank commented that real babies were MORE needy than robot babies. I've had two extremely, I believe the polite term is "high needs" babies, and it about killed me. We (Mr. Rubai and I) were literally so exhausted that there are huge swathes of our kids' infancies that we don't remember. Without exaggeration, out eldest didn't sleep more than 45 minutes at a shot for over TWO YEARS. I'm getting hives just thinking about it.

I'm always baffled by people that can have baby on top of baby and not literally drop in the street from the exhaustion of it all. I'd love to know how they make sure their babies are "easier" than the robot babies. Is it the voice? How do you even DO the voice, much less keep it up for years and years?

As much as I'm fairly anti-fundy, it broke my heart listening to Paige have a crisis of faith (whether in herself or in her religion or...) right there on the radio show. I know everyone needs to do that at some point so they know who they are, but, bless her heart (yup, grew up southern :lol: ) it was rough to listen to!

Disclaimer, I work in ebil public schools with high-risk teenagers (no! I'm not Meri!) and have for about 15 years. I love my teenagers, and have worked with a metric ton of pregnant/parenting teens. They'll break your heart in half.

Hokay, now I'm rambling so I'm going to stop. This was a great post!!!

based only on what we've read in the various blogs and books the fundies recommend, wouldn't they simply ignore their crying babies from the time they were tiny (lori needed her sleep) and or beat them til they were little broken things afraid to whimper?

Imagine getting advice from Michael Pearl on your little insomniac baby.... and worse yet, following it!

[Jasmar]

I guess you can't Pearl-train a robot baby.

ETA: Salex, it looks like we had the same thought at the same time.

[August]

Yeah, the kind of parenting their teacher was looking for isn't the fundy way. I mean, feeding them when they're hungry? Letting them and not you decide if they want changing or feeding? Anyone would think the born are humans!

Holy cow! That voice... :? She sounded like she was crying or about to cry. Also, I thought it was interesting that Paige "cheated" twice. Is that a glimpse of her future, handing off her children to sister-moms?

Seriously though, what I didn't realise before I had my own kids was how physical it was (boobies!) and that all thoseb abies I'd cuddled and babysat were the ones who were able to be comforted by someone else. And that there were herds of strung out mothers with clngy babies out there who weren't hiring babysitters or passing junior around at family gatherings.

[eri]

I naturally have a whispery, immature voice. I sound 10-15 years younger than I am. I can't help it and I don't like it. I don't know where I got it because my mom and sisters have loud voices, but my brother is also softspoken like that.

It is probably socially enforced in the fundie world, but it can be natural too.

[fundiemental]

Paige's voice is something else. Like Priscilla on steroids. But Paige goes to high school in New Jersey, and is involved in school theater. Is it possible that she's putting on a convincing fundie act? Regardless, I want to know more!

Edited to add link to page with pictures of Paige & Rachel (it was linked to on the TAL Facebook page):

longestshortesttime.com/2015/03/01/podcast-51-real-teens-fake-babies/comment-page-1/#comments

[ViolaSebastian]

I'm thinking it's not an act, because when she hit her knee and yelled out 'I'm alright!' it was still in that freaky baby voice. :? Usually people break character when they're in a lot of pain...I think we have the real deal here.

[Howl]

Thanks for the photos link. Rachel is sooooo not into this. Paige obviously can't wait for the real thing.

[thoughtful]

[eri]

Where did this most beautimous image come from?