Jenna Andersen/That Wife (of Bathroom Baby fame)

[themothership]

Jenna is a nightmare. Neither of her kids speak polish but she dumped her kids with her non English speaking inlaws for a month. :)

[BackseatMom]

I think she's actually a great example of how the cult of domesticity (aka religious house arrest, the idea that women belong in the home, with the kids, period) can fail families. Yes, she was home with T1, things looked picture-perfect - but it's clear that it wasn't working for them at all. She was able to admit that there was more to raising children than simply being physically at home with them, and discovered that her son actually needed outside educational resources. No, she didn't become totally enlightened overnight, but at least I see that her thought process shifted and she stopped thinking about her previous rigid roles and started thinking about what might actually work for everyone in the family.

Well put. I think a lot of people see staying at home with kids as a natural choice for a woman, but it just doesn't work for everyone. What makes me the (2nd) saddest is seeing a person who is obviously not suited to that life stuck there. Those poor kids (they are always the ones I feel the very saddest for in these situations).

[beckerbuns]

I'm kinda glad to see her coming up over here. Had been reading about her elsewhere. What drives me crazy is the sheeple who comment on each and every Instagram post going on about how amazing she is. She clearly can't stand her kids and merely tolerates her husband. I feel sorry for the rest of them for having to deal with her!

[treemom]

Jenna is a nightmare. Neither of her kids speak polish but she dumped her kids with her non English speaking inlaws for a month. :)

Her FIL speaks English. Listen, I dislike TW a bunch too, but at least get your complaints somewhere in the realm of truth. I suspect SIL and MIL do too, but I know FIL does because he has posted on her blog and she has said that.

[themothership]

Her FIL speaks English. Listen, I dislike TW a bunch too, but at least get your complaints somewhere in the realm of truth. I suspect SIL and MIL do too, but I know FIL does because he has posted on her blog and she has said that.

I followed Jenna for around 6mo about a year ago. At that time she made a HUGE deal about not being able to interact with her inlaws due to the language barrier. Sorry for not being up to date on the never ending saga of Jenna's life.

[treemom]

I followed Jenna for around 6mo about a year ago. At that time she made a HUGE deal about not being able to interact with her inlaws due to the language barrier. Sorry for not being up to date on the never ending saga of Jenna's life.

Then don't speak with authority. It's that easy.

[themothership]

Then don't speak with authority. It's that easy.

Not sure what crawled up your ass but here you go....

This is from the time of when I was following her. Her son was 3ish at the time. Obviously uncomfortable, in a foreign country with his grandparents who don't/didn't speak his language well. T2 was a baby at the time. I'm sure she was just as lost and confused.

So please forgive me for my obvious mistake. I am a moron, I am not worthy to breathe the same air as the rest of you.

:(

[treemom]

I corrected your statement because you made it as fact. She said the lack of English. I interpreted that as the family likely speaks polish to each other.

I corrected you, you followed someone for six months a year ago, but that was enough to tell us the reason she was a nightmare because OH NOeS her in laws don't speak English,

When I said you were wrong you got butt hurt. I am so tired of made up shit or things people think they remember being recited as fact. Just say it as a question or phrase it as "I am pretty sure...." Leave room for correction, especially since as you pointed out you barely know her or her blog.

Edited because I was actually shitty in my first sentence in this post. I was reacting to the what crawled up your...statement. Because of course, I forgot people get to make up their own stories based on their perception or understanding and present it as factual facts that actually happened (my best Jenna imitation) under the guise of snark.

Jenna leaving her kids constantly? Shitty. Especially because every time she does she claims to suddenly have figured it out during her mumspringa. And then she does another version of it, or admits to being short constantly with the kids, etc. seriously, we don't have to make stuff up. "Lack of English "doesn't mean no one spoke English, especially because of the years Jenna has said that her father in law does. I just suspect there is a lack as in not completely absent but rather a much less concentration. Because otherwise the strong accents don't make sense. You don't speak your native language with a strong accent, not in that way.

Anyhow, so removed my first shitty statement. Standing behind everything else because I'm tired of the myths people create here, which just gives the snarked on ones the ability to deflect the actual shitty things they do.

[treemom]

Jenna does actually shitty things. I just think we should use those as examples of her failings.

[treemom]

Also from that exact same time was a post where they went to a restaurant (steam punk cafe) and her father in law posted as the very first comment to correct Jenna. Jenna edited the post and noted that. Since you know, you only followed her during that time.

[treemom]

thatwifeblog.com/2014/06/20/wodna-wieza/

[treemom]

Not sure what crawled up your ass but here you go....

This is from the time of when I was following her. Her son was 3ish at the time. Obviously uncomfortable, in a foreign country with his grandparents who don't/didn't speak his language well. T2 was a baby at the time. I'm sure she was just as lost and confused.

So please forgive me for my obvious mistake. I am a moron, I am not worthy to breathe the same air as the rest of you.

:(

I have determined that yes, something did in fact crawl up my ass. I am pretty sure I have a dental abscess and it may have made me more cranky than usual.

So while I stand by the spirit of what I said, I think I was probably bitchy in my execution and I apologize. Feeling bad (even though I didn't put it together until it went quickly downhill yesterday) isn't an excuse for being shitty to people. I am honestly sorry.

[beckerbuns]

Have any of you been following the stuff she's posting on her github (boot camp homework) page? She says stuff like "it took too long to figure out so I didn't do it"... I don't remember ever being able to get away with that crap in school. :pink-shock:

[treemom]

Have any of you been following the stuff she's posting on her github (boot camp homework) page? She says stuff like "it took too long to figure out so I didn't do it"... I don't remember ever being able to get away with that crap in school. :pink-shock:

Yeah, I can't quite figure out what is going on there. Also she doesn't appear to be learning the basics. I don't code...I could, but I'm terrible at it. However, I am a business analyst and so I also get how important knowing the basics are. When I was in school recently (for a relevant degrees instead of my non relevant one) I had to take Java classes. Her owning that she is googling and stack overflowing and just plugging it in is not a good sign.

I would often do that when I struggled, but I would at least try to break it down and understand it and see if I could approach it in a similar but not exactly the same way. And I wasn't even trying to be a ladycoder.

I would say she would do better as business analysis, but probably not.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_analysis)

The money is as good, if not better than some dev jobs. Of course the better money is usually if you have lots of experience, done leanux, agil (especially SCrum) e, waterfall and have cross disciplinary skills, so business systems and digital and change enablement, etc.

I personally love it, and I think if Jenna applied herself she would like it more than coding, but she would also have to learn to listen better and be willing to be (or pretend to be) the stupidest person in the room.

Also her baby feminist/ladycoder position these days just kills me.

But mostly, I wouldn't give a shit if she ever seemed to apply any of the things she claims to have learned in therapy and during her endless mumspringas to the kids.

I am not the worlds best parent. I have yelled at my kid when he didn't deserve it. He lived through a particularly hard year in our marriage which I know he suffered from. I can look a little like I am having a mumspringa sometimes. But my child never had to ask me if I loved him. And he has experienced the when you know better, do better. Whenever I realized I had done less than optimal shit, needed to make changes, etc, I actually did the work to do it.

I wouldn't fault her for some of the extended absences from the kids, if she didn't post stupid shit like loving taking them to the salsa festival but next year she want to do it without the kids.

I hope she is still in therapy.

Edited to add: the I didn't do it is mostly refractoring. Not sure if they are under actual time limits, so I am willing to cut her a break if they are only supposed to work so long on an assignment. But refactoring is really important. And it's an important concept to learn. If she exceeded the time limits she should express it that way, because instead it just sounds like...this was hard, took long, didn't do it.

[beckerbuns]

Her kids just always look so miserable. I think that's the thing that upsets me the most about her. Oh, and lately her going on about feminism and not being defined by her role as a wife. Hello, she's the one who named herself That Wife. But whatever.

[dianapavelovna]

I used to rant about her. Now, I'm not going to say that she's Parent of the Year, but I find it a bit interesting to browse the blog and see how her views evolved. She's definitely a work in progress, and it can get messy to re-evaluate your life, religion and family midstream. I'll give her a bit of credit, though, for seriously taking a second look and discarding a lot of what she thought she HAD to do as a wife and mother. I think she's actually a great example of how the cult of domesticity (aka religious house arrest, the idea that women belong in the home, with the kids, period) can fail families. Yes, she was home with T1, things looked picture-perfect - but it's clear that it wasn't working for them at all. She was able to admit that there was more to raising children than simply being physically at home with them, and discovered that her son actually needed outside educational resources. No, she didn't become totally enlightened overnight, but at least I see that her thought process shifted and she stopped thinking about her previous rigid roles and started thinking about what might actually work for everyone in the family.

I gotta object - things never looked perfect over there after she had T1. Those unbelievably sad DITL posts where all she did was prop his bottle & complain about him crying? Taking away all but five toys because she was tired of picking them up? Fencing him into the corner of the study (more important than a bedroom for him) so she could spend 12 hours on the internet? I agree that she seems to have grown some, and that can only be good for her and her kids, but things were bleak for that boy from day one, and it was painfully obvious.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I gotta object - things never looked perfect over there after she had T1. Those unbelievably sad DITL posts where all she did was prop his bottle & complain about him crying? Taking away all but five toys because she was tired of picking them up? Fencing him into the corner of the study (more important than a bedroom for him) so she could spend 12 hours on the internet? I agree that she seems to have grown some, and that can only be good for her and her kids, but things were bleak for that boy from day one, and it was painfully obvious.

By "picture-perfect", I meant that she was literally posing T1 for pictures all the time. I couldn't find the entry, but I remember one post where you see this room with a few toys artfully arranged on a wall shelf, far out of T1's reach. She wanted things to look nice, and a lot of toys around would be messy.

[withaj]

Guys, I think she might be talking about us... FJ, getting under TW's skin since 20XX...

"I hit publish and remembered there was one other thing that appealed to me about this – a lot of people find me through the site-that-shall-not-be-named, and end up forming negative opinions about me based on what they read there. Some people are going to believe what they want to believe, so I don’t spend any time worrying about them, but I think there is a subset that acts out based on skewed information. It would be nice to work toward the things mentioned above, and lessen the amount of aggression sent my way at the same time. One can hope, right?"

thatwifeblog.com/2015/10/13/that-wife-on-snapchat/

[treemom]

No, she is talking about GOMI. She is not a frequent snarked on person here...

[Koala]

She's is breathtakingly self centered. Everything she writes reeks of privilege- she's the definition of spoiled rotten. :snooty:

what it means to lead a non-child-centered life in a society that places so much pressure on women to lead child-centered lives, how I’m privileged and wealthy

She lives a Jenna centered life. And I suspect she wants everyone else to do the same.

[KnittingOwl]

I started following her after reading here. It looks like we live in the same city or neighboring ones. I've been watching to see if I spot her somewhere.

[beckerbuns]

No, she is talking about GOMI. She is not a frequent snarked on person here...

Literally thousands of pages of snark about Jenna on GOMI.

[beckerbuns]

I started following her after reading here. It looks like we live in the same city or neighboring ones. I've been watching to see if I spot her somewhere.

I live in the same city as her and I always seem to show up where she's just been. Target etc. I know it's going to happen when I least expect it.

[DarkAnts]

Jenna seems to be doing what most of us did in high school and college. She grew up trying to be the perfect Mormon. She did not rebell or question authority. She is finally finding out who she is. But, at her stage in life, it can have a negative effect on the family.

[Seven Severn]

But is the cheese still locked up? The world needs to know!