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Erika Shupe *fake smile* Large Families on Purpose *cringe*


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Question: Would you rather be Karen Shupe, general household drudge and sometimes surrogate mommy, but who is allowed to wear tank tops, watch secular movies like Frozen, and read books (even if fiction is limited to four hours a weekend, Erika still lets her daughters read more than that Mally garbage)

OR...

be Jana Duggar, general household drudge, constant surrogate mommy, but gets to go visit friends, go on mission trips, and ostensibly makes her own schedule since Michelle can't be bothered to do so?

I can honestly say I don't know which one I would pick. Both seem so dismal.

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Question: Would you rather be Karen Shupe, general household drudge and sometimes surrogate mommy, but who is allowed to wear tank tops, watch secular movies like Frozen, and read books (even if fiction is limited to four hours a weekend, Erika still lets her daughters read more than that Mally garbage)

OR...

be Jana Duggar, general household drudge, constant surrogate mommy, but gets to go visit friends, go on mission trips, and ostensibly makes her own schedule since Michelle can't be bothered to do so?

I can honestly say I don't know which one I would pick. Both seem so dismal.

Karen.

I can't stand the south.

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Jana for sure.

1) Erika Shupe and I would not be able to coexist for any amount of time under one roof. Period, end of story.

2) The sahm role fits my personality, and it's not something that I would feel burdened by.

3) Jana (imo) has a better chance of escaping for multiple reasons, not excluding the fact that The Queen Baby Machine wouldn't notice until some of "Jana's children" began to complain.

4) Erika Shupe and I would not be able to coexist for any amount of time under one roof. Period, end of story.

Did I mention that Erika Shupe and I would not be able to coexist for any amount of time under one roof? Because that's a fact!

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I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather be Karen Shupe than Jana. I get the feeling that any Duggar kid that wants to escape would have to go into some type of protection program to avoid being dragged back. Erika would just go all Lisa Pennington and huff and puff online. Erika also seems like a system that can easily be gamed, as long as you're more intelligent than she is (not hard). Jim Bob? Not so much. He comes across as a very calculating individual that knows when things are the slightest bit amiss.

In short, I feel like I could take Erika. Jim Bob, not so much. I'd be very depressed if I had to live in the Duggar house, because there, you aren't even allowed to dream.

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At first I'd say Jana since it seems like she has more freedom, but she's too well-known with parents who are too calculating and with resources behind them. If I was Karen, I could split the minute I turned 18, and nobody would know who I was, and would have parents who couldn't pull illegal strings to force me back.

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Has Erica ever said anything about having birthday parties for her kids? I searched for part party and birthday buy surprisingly enough they relate to her Halloween birthday.

What kind of parent doesn't celebrate their kids?

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I'd rather be Jana, just because anyone scheduling me in 15 minute increments and having me go to bed at the same time as a toddler makes me want to kill myself. At least Jana gets to make moment-to-moment decisions, like do Jinger and I want to stop at Starbucks? Do I want to buy myself this skirt?

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Has Erica ever said anything about having birthday parties for her kids? I searched for part party and birthday buy surprisingly enough they relate to her Halloween birthday.

What kind of parent doesn't celebrate their kids?

They celebrate birthdays.

largefamiliesonpurpose.com/2011/03/large-family-practical-how-tos-part-1.html

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OK, so it's a Duggar snark staple and has been mentioned a few times in Shupe threads...

If one of the kids were to rebel, who would you think is most likely to?

My money's on Anna Marie. In so many photos of her, her smile looks totally forced, and does not reach her eyes, particularly in the photos of her birthday... isn't that when you should be happiest?

Also, she has no other girl close to her in age. Melanie is six years older than her, and the twins are five years younger- and from what I've read, they (the twins) seem to mostly play together. I'm sure Anna Marie gets along with Karen and Melanie, but the age gap is huge. Karen and Melanie are in the same school grade and are only thirteen months apart. At least in the Duggar household, Jana, Jill, Jessa and Jinger are all close in age (within four years of each other) and the Lost Girls are also of similar ages. (Joy's just shy of four years younger than Jinger, but seemed to be close to Jill).

Like others I also could see Karen leaving. Someone in the previous thread mentioned going to some homeschool conference and ending up in the same room as Erika. Erika then, apparently, proceeded to tell the leader of the session that her oldest (ie Karen) was not so into the whole homeschooling shebang, that Karen was passing on negative ideas to the others, and Erika was asking how to force a child to like homeschooling more (or something.) Upon hearing her mum was knocked up again, Karen burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. Sure, it could've been tears of joy, but some have also speculated that it was her despairing at having to stick in the house again and looking after another little. (To put things into perspective, Karen is 16 with an August birthday. The new baby was due January 2016, Karen would've been 17 by then. Karen would then have turned 18 in August 2016, when the baby was seven months. Maybe, Karen was thinking she could leave at 18 or be free to schedule her own time- Erika has said that this age is when she anticipates the kids to be scheduling their own time- but if there was an infant in the house Karen would be made to stick around and look after it. When the twins were babies, she was getting up at the crack of dawn to help her mum feed them).

TL, DR: Who do you think will leave Stalag Shupe? I think Anna Marie. Her smile seems so forced. Also Karen. She bears the brunt of looking after the littles. And also apparently expressed some resentment at being made to homeschool.

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I would love for all of them to break free, but obviously that can't happen all at once. Karen would be my bet for first to go, because it does seem there may be a problem there (not with Karen, but her mother). If Karen escapes first, and gets her life sorted out away from her parents, then there is someone for the younger kids to go to as they "age out". She is old enough to possibly remember Bob's parents, and may be able to go to them for help, go to college of she wants, get a job, and just generally live her own life.

I didn't see her reaction to the baby as tears of joy, the total opposite, as you said. I wouldn't mind betting she is stressed and anxious trying to fulfil all the unwanted duties foisted upon her, the pressure to be Erika's idea of perfect as well as having no down time to be herself. The poor kid is nearly 17 and living the life of a much younger child as well as that of a parent, all rolled into one.

Free Karen!

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I would choose to be Jana. I thrive off routine, but Erika's schedule is so controlling I'd feel suffocated. I wasn't that rebellious as a teenager, compared to the usual stereotype, but I'd likely raise all sorts of hell for Erika. Erika is just too damn controlling. Jana likely gets more liberties than Karen simply because Mullet's not going to put that much work into crafting that detailed of a schedule, any schedules going to be ineffective as shit given "Duggar Time," and since Jana's head sister-mom, she probably would have input into the schedule. Karen might get more social liberties (movies, reading, etc), but I'd give that up if it meant retaining some form of autonomy/independence.

A lot of this probably also comes from my pro-Jana bias. She's the Duggar I most identify with personality wise.

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But are we taking age into account? It's not fair to compare a 25-year-old Jana to a 15-year-old Karen. Yes, Karen is hyper-controlled, but I see no reason why she can't be living a relatively normal life ten years from now.

What about Jana ten years ago? What was that, the 14 Kids and Counting era? I would have to say I'd rather be Karen than 15-year-old Jana... I THINK. Fuck, I don't really know! I'm thinking of the parents, mainly. I don't know how Karen's dad is but I gather he's a pushover. Compared to JimBob who is legalistic and patriarchal, I think Karen's dad might be the way to go.

As for the moms... hmm. Erika obviously has serious issues. I think I'd rather have Michelle.

Also, Erika lives in the county north of me. Western Washington is beautiful, and I'd rather live here than in Arkansas.

Plus, Karen is one of nine, whereas Jana was already one of fifteen by the age of 15.

Gah. It's a tough decision, but I think I gotta go with Karen.

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OK. I just spent a bunch of rabbit hole time on Bob Shupe's page. He kind of surprised me. He posts a lot of conservative-viewpoint political stuff, but he doesn't seem nearly as fundy as I would have guessed. He mentions listening to Van Halen at one point. He posts a meme that quotes the word "asshole". And he is apparently a Ferris Bueller and a Star Trek fan.

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OK. I just spent a bunch of rabbit hole time on Bob Shupe's page. He kind of surprised me. He posts a lot of conservative-viewpoint political stuff, but he doesn't seem nearly as fundy as I would have guessed. He mentions listening to Van Halen at one point. He posts a meme that quotes the word "asshole". And he is apparently a Ferris Bueller and a Star Trek fan.

That's interesting. People have also looked up his parents, and they don't seem to be very fundie, if at all. I think Erika's the crazy one in this relationship. I think her family was always religious, but only became 'stronger' later on in life. When Erika was a college freshman, her brother was 15 and a half, and her sisters were 6 and 3. This is also when Erika's mom began to homeschool. Erika's mom wears pants, too.

One thing we snarked on in the previous thread was Melanie's Father's Day card. Short summary: Erika posted a Happy Father's Day album on FB, which contained shots of various cards. Melanie's was more like a thank you card. The penultimate she said was "thank you for always working out arguments with mom, and for staying with our family all these years". Now, as some people know, there was a major fallout between Erika and her in-laws in the past (which is a long story and has its own thread in the archive). Erika mentioned somewhere that Bob's family has a history of divorce, and that she hoped they'd break the cycle within this generation. Melanie could be referencing this, but still, it's a VERY odd thing to put in a Father's Day card. Several FJers pointed this out as a major red flag.

Come to think of it, maybe this is (partly) why Erika is so, so crazy. She's got a whole post on why marriage is her top priority, even above her kids. She mentions that she used to sit the kids down in front of her and Bob and make them play quietly, whilst Mommy and Daddy got time together. The kids were NOT allowed to interrupt. When they were older, they used to do a home date night every week, where Bob would bring home Olive Garden takeout and the kids would eat snack dinners of protein bars and popcorn. It sounds like she's worried that Bob might divorce her again, given the history (kids of divorced parents are more likely to divorce themselves), and will do anything and everything in her power to hold onto him. If Bob and Erika have argued, and Melanie has to put in that she's thankful Bob has stayed with them, this sounds like things have come dangerously close to Bob leaving/storming out. Given that his background sounds nowhere near as crazy as Erika's, this makes me think that Bob may not agree with everything Erika does. Erika is worried about the marriage, and is also trying to control her kids, too. She and Bob are married, but he's an adult. If he finds his home life too toxic he could well leave. The kids are all minors. They cannot leave. Erika probably knows this and tries to control her kids as much as possible, so that they grow up without outside influence and so wouldn't know what their options are.

Wow, sorry for the wall of text. But something is up in the Shupe household, even if Erika likes to make out that she has everything under control.

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I don't know if she's miserable because of her lifestyle, or because she's miserable and the lifestyle is a symptom of her misery.

The control issues she CLEARLY has is obviously covering up for something. Severe anxiety? Some sort of trauma? I don't know, and I don't care. She needs help though. She needs to know that the world will not collapse if her kids brush their own teeth (or *gasp* forget and don't brush one day a year while "camping")

I can't imagine such a high strung person has very many friends in her chosen area of the country. Her blog makes me tired and I want to take her to CO and get her some pot.

Not that I want her to neglect her kids. Just to chill out. Send the kids to camp - let them choose which one. If a couple of them want drama camp and a couple want to go to adventure bike camp, that's OK. You have two adults to drive them and there are usually ways to make things happen. Go to a movie. Give them klondike bars and watch footage of space on your computers. SOMETHING. Do something other than clean, organize, and schedule. YOU ARE SO WEIRD ERICA.

I'd armchair diagnose her has having high anxiety and maybe some ocd. Her need to be in complete control and have a system for everything is nerve-wracking. She seems so unhappy and the million *smiles* reinforces to me her unhappiness underneath the veneer of fake smiles.

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Ok, so what about Karen or Joy Anna? They are about a year apart in age. Who would you rather be?

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I'll go with Joy Anna. There's not really any structure in the house, so she gets to make her own schedule. From the show, it looks like she now has a leadership position, so she gets some autonomy. Also, she gets to drive and go places (even if she has to be accompanied by an accountability buddy). Plus, she's not one of the original four sister moms, so she's less of a parental figure than any of the four older girls.

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I'd armchair diagnose her has having high anxiety and maybe some ocd. Her need to be in complete control and have a system for everything is nerve-wracking. She seems so unhappy and the million *smiles* reinforces to me her unhappiness underneath the veneer of fake smiles.

On another snark board, where LFoP has a looooong thread, myself and some other people were speculating about this. There's another, similar disorder to OCD called OCPD, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The major difference is that, whilst OCD sufferers know that what they do is bad, they still have the compulsion and do it. OCPD sufferers believe that what they do is necessary and beneficial. I read about OCPD on Wikipedia and it just screamed Erika to me. The one thing OCPD sufferers can have that Erika doesn't are hoarding tendencies, but Erika mentioned that before she became a master de-clutterer (her words) she used to keep old books/clothes/etc just in case she'd want them again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive ... y_disorder (not breaking because it's Wikipedia)

Seriously, read the first paragraph. It just screams Erika. From the article:

characterized by a general pattern of concern with orderliness, perfectionism, excessive attention to details, mental and interpersonal control, and a need for control over one's environment, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency.

They may plan their activities down to the minute—a manifestation of the compulsive tendency to keep control over their environment and to dislike unpredictable things as things they cannot control.

The explanation of the difference between OCD and OCPD:

for people with OCD, these behaviors are unwanted and seen as unhealthy, being the product of anxiety-inducing and involuntary thoughts, while for people with OCPD they are experienced as rational and desirable, being the result of, for example, a strong adherence to routines, a natural inclination towards cautiousness, or a desire to achieve perfection.

FJismyheadship: I'd probably go with Joy too, for the same reasons as princessmahina.

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Thanks to a poster on the sugar side of the forum I've fallen down this rabbit hole. What a frightening woman. She belongs in the army, not in a family with small children. That house looks awfully sterile - where are all the toys little children scatter everywhere, where are the messes, where are the schoolbooks and art projects and pictures of the kids?

I vote Duggar on this, they are abuse-facilitating nutcases and dangerous fundamentalists who can't bring up their own kids but at least they let the children be children. Erika would much prefer neatness and order to any manifestation of life.

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Thanks to a poster on the sugar side of the forum I've fallen down this rabbit hole. What a frightening woman. She belongs in the army, not in a family with small children. That house looks awfully sterile - where are all the toys little children scatter everywhere, where are the messes, where are the schoolbooks and art projects and pictures of the kids?

I vote Duggar on this, they are abuse-facilitating nutcases and dangerous fundamentalists who can't bring up their own kids but at least they let the children be children. Erika would much prefer neatness and order to any manifestation of life.

Those children are Erika's army. They're not small children, they're miniature soldiers for God. *cheer!*

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On another snark board, where LFoP has a looooong thread, myself and some other people were speculating about this. There's another, similar disorder to OCD called OCPD, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The major difference is that, whilst OCD sufferers know that what they do is bad, they still have the compulsion and do it. OCPD sufferers believe that what they do is necessary and beneficial. I read about OCPD on Wikipedia and it just screamed Erika to me. The one thing OCPD sufferers can have that Erika doesn't are hoarding tendencies, but Erika mentioned that before she became a master de-clutterer (her words) she used to keep old books/clothes/etc just in case she'd want them again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive ... y_disorder (not breaking because it's Wikipedia)

Seriously, read the first paragraph. It just screams Erika. From the article:

The explanation of the difference between OCD and OCPD:

FJismyheadship: I'd probably go with Joy too, for the same reasons as princessmahina.

Erica reminds me of my extremely controlling mother and the OCPD description also describes my mother perfectly. Our house was pristine at all times, we never had so much as water spots on a faucet. There were many toys we were not allowed to have (legos, paint, magic markers) just because they were messy. She was very controlling with food, we got lunch and dinner only, no breakfast, no snacks. She would go into a state of despair if anything unexpected happened. She would dress us in matching outfits (I'm four years older than my sister) and usually treated us as if we were both my sister's age.

All of it was so people would praise her for having a nice house and well behaved children. She could not have described our personalities, I don't think it ever occurred to her that we had personalities. She had a doll collection (that she claimed belonged to me and my sister). I think my sister and I were just two more dolls, props to make her look good. She would *beam* whenever someone said something about how well-behaved her children were or how nice her house looked. Her biggest fear seemed to be that somebody would say she was not a good housekeeper. We couldn't keep stuff under the bed because that was a sign of a bad housekeeper. She would regularly hiss "I will NOT have it said that I'm a bad housekeeper" in response to some horrible sin like having a single dirty dish in the sink or a magazine on the coffee table.

So, yes, I think Erica is all about being praised for painting the picture of perfection. It's why she goes into such detail about things like pricing for a yard sale. It's so she'll get compliments about how wonderful and organized she is.

Someone mentioned in a previous post that it's as if Erica even wants to control her kids' thoughts. My mother attempted to do this. Many times I was told that I'd "better not be thinking" certain things or better not be even thinking about certain topics.

Reading so many comments about how crazy Erica is actually makes me feel really good. I knew at a young age that my mother was crazy and unreasonable but it just makes me happy to hear it from others.

As for being that controlling being bad for kids. ..my therapist has told me many times that she's amazed that I never had a drug problem. I think the thing that saved me was that I loved to read so I knew none of this was normal, that there was a big world out there and, most importantly, that I would be free when I turned 18. I don't think Erica's kids have that.

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Copied this over from the previous thread discussing Bob and cutting his parents out of their lives.

"She would never let him leave. Ever. She can't crack her porcelain veneer. Bob will be dead before he gets relief from Erika's *beams*.

I actually wonder if she is verbally and emotionally abusive to him. That would explain a lot. She isolated him when Karen was a toddler and Melanie was an infant from his family. He works constantly and she controls every aspect of his free time. Men - especially men with the patriarchical baloney in their brains - don't easily admit to being abuse victims. Verbal and emotional abuse are often subtle and hard to identify. I am usually not on the speculation train, but I can't stand Erika and would not put anything past her. She is a viper in the Hamster Cage of Horrors."

Technically, Bob can do whatever he wants. He could wake up Saturday morning and say "I'm going to visit my parents" and stay all day. He could be out of the house as much as he wants, whenever he wants. He could take any or all of the kids anywhere, including to visit his parents.

He's her headship, the viper would have to go along with it or at least not object. But I can't see that happening. She clearly needs to be in control and I think Bob is probably so used to bring controlled that it doesn't occur to him to object.

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Long time lurker (year and a half), first time poster. *nervous giggle* After seeing the previous Erika thread, I had to comment.

Good god she's nuts.

If I were one of the older girls I would drug Erika and take off in the middle of the night. But only after disorganizing her house, destroying the point chart and feeding the littles ALL THE JELLY BEANS.

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Another carryover from the previous thread

When Erika does 'research' on something, she always looks for things that fit her agenda, like when she did the research about women having babies in her forties. Apparently, the reason doctors tell women it's more dangerous to have babies in their forties is an 'overpopulation control myth', and that women in their forties are just as safe having babies as women in their 20s- women in their 40s actually do BETTER in labour, doncha know? The reason she miscarried twice when she was 40 was NOTHING to do with 'old eggs', no sirree. The quotation marks being hers. She seems to have missed a basic biology lesson- eggs are present in girls from birth, so of course they're going to 'age'.

This seems to be standard thinking among fundies, that doctors and medical science don't know anything about pregnancy and childbirth. Any medical reason for a woman not getting pregnant is just wrong. There is never a valid medical reason to avoid pregnancy. They always say "doctors don't know" and this inclues the results of any pre-natal testing. I wonder if fundies even do pre-natal testing because they would never abort so why bother.

I have a friend from college who became a fundie after she got married. A mutual friend had a very difficult pregnancy that required a lot of testing and monitoring; she was not allowed to be more than a 30 minute drive away from the hospital.

She and the baby ended up just fine. But her doctor told her that she should not get pregnant again, that another pregnancy would be very dangerous, possibly fatal, for her and/or the baby. She got a second and third opinion from doctors that specialized in high-risk pregnancy. They both said the same thing. So she wisely decided to not get pregnant again.

Our fundie friend was disgusted. She said that doctors shouldn't be saying that because they "don't know," pregnancy is natural, God wants you to have babies, etc. She said that if doctors told her that she shouldn't get pregnant, she would ignore that advice.

In fundie land, there's a denial that there could ever be a reason to avoid pregnancy. I suppose they think nothing bad could ever happen to them in regard to pregnancy because they're so godly.

What would Erica do if she had a disabled child who literally could not be kept to a strict schedule? No, you can't have a seizure now, it's not on the schedule.

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Another carryover from the previous thread

This seems to be standard thinking among fundies, that doctors and medical science don't know anything about pregnancy and childbirth. Any medical reason for a woman not getting pregnant is just wrong. There is never a valid medical reason to avoid pregnancy. They always say "doctors don't know" and this inclues the results of any pre-natal testing. I wonder if fundies even do pre-natal testing because they would never abort so why bother.

I have a friend from college who became a fundie after she got married. A mutual friend had a very difficult pregnancy that required a lot of testing and monitoring; she was not allowed to be more than a 30 minute drive away from the hospital.

She and the baby ended up just fine. But her doctor told her that she should not get pregnant again, that another pregnancy would be very dangerous, possibly fatal, for her and/or the baby. She got a second and third opinion from doctors that specialized in high-risk pregnancy. They both said the same thing. So she wisely decided to not get pregnant again.

Our fundie friend was disgusted. She said that doctors shouldn't be saying that because they "don't know," pregnancy is natural, God wants you to have babies, etc. She said that if doctors told her that she shouldn't get pregnant, she would ignore that advice.

In fundie land, there's a denial that there could ever be a reason to avoid pregnancy. I suppose they think nothing bad could ever happen to them in regard to pregnancy because they're so godly.

What would Erica do if she had a disabled child who literally could not be kept to a strict schedule? No, you can't have a seizure now, it's not on the schedule.

I agree with your sentiments! There's a documentary here called One Born Every Minute (there's a US version too) and it's featured episodes mentioning high risk pregnancies: one woman had a heart problem, another had diabetes. (There were likely others where the woman had some issue but I don't remember). Thankfully they were OK afterwards, though.

On this other snark board I'm part of, we discussed what Erika would be like if she had a disabled child. Here's what I said:

She did say somewhere that she would love a disabled child as much as her other kids, because that's how God designed them :roll: (but then I'd expect that with any family). The issue is the rigid schedule. A seriously disabled child is awkward enough in a relatively flexible family, but in such a Maxwellian environment, who knows what would happen. Sure, you're in the middle of teaching bullshit science to Riley, but oh shit the baby's had a seizure and you have to drop everything FAST and take them to hospital. The child will likely be in hospital all day…. BANG there goes the schedule. It's in situations like these where I'd be grateful my kids were out of the house in public school, being educated, so I could fully concentrate on my sick kid. All of Erika's kids are still school-aged, it's not like the Duggars where there are plenty of kids who have finished school to be able to deal with emergencies (like when Josie had that seizure) without the others having to be interrupted and the whole family having to go to hospital. Then again, the Duggars are a lot more lax when it comes to schedules. As we all know, Erika is as anal-retentive about them as the Maxwells.
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