Now Scheduling for Summer: Erika Shupe (pt. 7)

[defraudingjezebel]

19 minutes ago, THERetroGamerNY said:

@defraudingjezebel... That is actually THE most tantalizing theory in all of FJ at this very moment.

Oh that it would be true!

Holy smokes, y'all. Erika is editing pretty much most (all?) of the mentions of religion on her blog. I noticed her intro paragraph (on the right side of the blog) seemed to have changed a little bit. For shit and giggles, I looked at google's cache to see the same version of the bio page on April 7th- sure enough it has changed a bit. See for yourself: here's a link to the old version, and here's the new one

Not only that, her "introduction" blog entry has been totally changed to where she mentions encouraging sisters in Christ, to not mentioning Christ at all.

The Old version at this link:

Quote

My heart's desire is to bring you encouragement, bring you vision for how life can be with a large family, bring hope that life with a large family can be pleasant and not chaotic, and to strengthen any discouraged or feeling weak sisters in Christ.

The new version at this link:

Quote

 My heart's desire is to bring encouragement, vision, and hope that family life can be pleasant and not chaotic; to strengthen your parenting journey. And to speak especially (but not exclusively!) to parents of larger-than-average families who desire to learn more practical how-to's for parenting and managing a home.

Like I said before, it seems like she has removed most of her religious-themed posts. 

Then again, her modest swimsuit post is also down on the FB page. Maybe Erika is simply tired of criticism? 

[StepMonsterInLA]

4 hours ago, seattlechic said:

wouldn't it be sad if she bought, wrote, and sent the card to herself? #loser

Snort!

[THERetroGamerNY]

Okay... My curiosity is officially piqued. She has unquestionably altered her posts, and blog, on a very thematic level...

Something is definitely afoot...

[Shiny]

She seems to be removing a lot of what we snark on. We know she reads here, so maybe she's finally had enough. Or maybe she's actually had a change in opinion and has realized her mistakes as a person and mother. If that's the case, I will be the first to applaud loudly. 

[feministxtian]

I won't believe Erika has had a change of heart until she starts showing that her kids are EATING...like enough calories and nutrients to support their growth and activity. I won't believe it until she takes those kids to a REAL pediatrician. Until she tosses the damn schedules and/or puts the kids in REAL school (Christian or public). Until then she's still an over-controlling bitch who should have never had 9 kids. Maybe Bob is finally growing a pair of balls and telling her she needs to lose the control bullshit or he'll toss her ass out the door and let the kids just run wild. 

[mango_fandango]

6 hours ago, defraudingjezebel said:

Holy smokes, y'all. Erika is editing pretty much most (all?) of the mentions of religion on her blog. I noticed her intro paragraph (on the right side of the blog) seemed to have changed a little bit. For shit and giggles, I looked at google's cache to see the same version of the bio page on April 7th- sure enough it has changed a bit. See for yourself: here's a link to the old version, and here's the new one

Not only that, her "introduction" blog entry has been totally changed to where she mentions encouraging sisters in Christ, to not mentioning Christ at all.

The Old version at this link:

The new version at this link:

Like I said before, it seems like she has removed most of her religious-themed posts. 

Then again, her modest swimsuit post is also down on the FB page. Maybe Erika is simply tired of criticism? 

What's particularly odd is that she's removed the sentence about homeschooling their nine kids for 13 years. 

She's also deleted the Scheduling Babies post. This lends credence to the she's-tired-of-criticism theory.  

OMG!! Plus the Why We Homeschool post!! 

It's weird the ones she has deleted. She appears to have deleted her mini series about feeding babies, i.e. bottle feeding them and how they introduce solid food. She's also deleted the Life with Twins post. That's not a particularly controversial one. The only controversial bit might be about getting their ears done at three months, but Erika's hardly the only one. 

The plot thickens...

[mango_fandango]

Erika has also deleted the entire Dressing Modestly section, which would explain the missing modest bathing suits page. I bet it's to do with deleting controversial posts.

Maybe she'll clarify on FB soon?? It's happened so recently, in the past two days.

[Desertrose]

Wonder if I sent I sent her an email she answer?

[klynn]

12 hours ago, JesusCampSongs said:

I have run in circles in fundie-lite megachurches where it was trendy to not allow one's daughters to watch Disney movies because they promoted bad morals and unrealistic ideas of romance. Read: disobeying one's parents and not letting them choose who you date/marry. A double-whammy of sinfulness, if you will. 

While I resent the hell out of my mother for forcing me to attend those churches and exposing me to the toxic bullshit therein, she at least never tried to exert that level of control over my life. 

I'm fairly certain my house would implode if I were to ban Disney movies here.  Plus, they allow for at least 30 minutes of peace for mama

[JillyO]

I'm super curious about what is going on here. Talk to us, Erika!!

[Eternalbluepearl]

Well the Jeubs switched to sending their kids to school so hey, anything is possible. I just remember Erika so critically stating that scripture called her children's peers "fools" and therefore a classroom of kids all the same age made no sense. They were meant to be with kids and adults of all ages. 

[elliha]

I have limited Disney movies quite a lot with regards to my daughter. She is allowed to watch the TV series of the Little Mermaid which is shown on the only children's channel we have and some Timon and Pumba from the same channel. She has learned about Frozen from day care and has a hair brush and two t-shirts with pictures from the film but we do not own it nor have we let her see it. I will however buy it for her for her birthday when she turns 4 probably along with the Lion King and perhaps 1-2 more good Disney films. I have had the approach to not introduce her to Disney but now that she is showing interest on her own I will allow it but still try to keep it under some control. As she gets older I am pretty sure there will be a point where I will no longer limit exposure at all and instead talk about what we see in movies and books but I don't think she is really there yet.

[Granwych]

2 hours ago, klynn said:

I'm fairly certain my house would implode if I were to ban Disney movies here.  Plus, they allow for at least 30 minutes of peace for mama

Brings back memories of when I'd come home exhausted from work...I'd pop in a Disney movie and tell Wychling to wake Mommy up when the movie was done...take a power nap...

[defraudingjezebel]

4 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

Erika has also deleted the entire Dressing Modestly section, which would explain the missing modest bathing suits page. I bet it's to do with deleting controversial posts.

Maybe she'll clarify on FB soon?? It's happened so recently, in the past two days.

There are two situations/ideas that I can think of: The first idea being that maybe she is rebranding herself as a more secular organizational scheduling blog to make herself appeal to a wider audience? In terms of getting more blog hits and everything. Then again, I don't think Erika has even been concerned about the monetization of her blog.

The second situation is, like you and others have speculated, that perhaps she is going to enroll her students into public (maybe private?) school next year. For the past many months, she has posted articles about how to deal with stress and feeling like a failure. Even back then many of us were speculating about her being overwhelmed with homeschooling all 9 kids at once. Now that Karen has a job and is likely to be out of the house many hours a week (and Melanie is approaching that age quickly herself), she has realized that she can't handle everything without an extra older sister around. 

[refugee]

16 hours ago, Antimony said:

Okay, I got side tracked into Erika's drop box from her summer scheduling post. In it, she has her point rewards system thing for when they go out.

I don't know if it's identical to the one of the blog but it includes, as a reward, a roll of scotch tape. Also, pencils. 

She has also taken the liberty of writing a list of all the items that are available for sale at the Dollar Tree. Just...not for the rewards or anything. Just a list of stuff you can buy at a dollar store. 

Actually, my kids have always loved office supplies, to the point where they would rather have, in their Christmas stockings, scads of office supplies, individually wrapped (a package of pens, a package of paper clips, a scissors, a package of pencils, a package of sticky notes, etc.) than the usual stocking stuffers kids get.

One of our joys is to cruise the aisles of the local office supply stores  during their back-to-school sales...

So a roll of tape, for their very own, as a "prize". Yeah, I could see it in our house. There would soon be fantastic 3D art creations made from paper from the recycling bin, and that tape. (Maybe that would be too messy for Erika's house, don't know.)

[withaj]

OH MY GOD. I disappear for a few days and Karen gets a job?????? THIS IS INSANE.

OK, seriously. What the fuckity-fuck is going on? 

[refugee]

2 hours ago, Eternalbluepearl said:

Well the Jeubs switched to sending their kids to school so hey, anything is possible. I just remember Erika so critically stating that scripture called her children's peers "fools" and therefore a classroom of kids all the same age made no sense. They were meant to be with kids and adults of all ages. 

Yeah, that's part of the koolaid regularly served in fundie training sessions (christian homeschool groups, homeschool conventions, sermons in family integrated churches)

[Hisey]

1 hour ago, elliha said:

I have limited Disney movies quite a lot with regards to my daughter. She is allowed to watch the TV series of the Little Mermaid which is shown on the only children's channel we have and some Timon and Pumba from the same channel. She has learned about Frozen from day care and has a hair brush and two t-shirts with pictures from the film but we do not own it nor have we let her see it. I will however buy it for her for her birthday when she turns 4 probably along with the Lion King and perhaps 1-2 more good Disney films. I have had the approach to not introduce her to Disney but now that she is showing interest on her own I will allow it but still try to keep it under some control. As she gets older I am pretty sure there will be a point where I will no longer limit exposure at all and instead talk about what we see in movies and books but I don't think she is really there yet.

I took a similar approach. I did not bring Disney princess movies into my house when the kids were small. We didn't have cable, so they didn't see them there. My thought was, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. I did think they were harmful, because of the sexism and the way the princesses looked. Maybe not VERY harmful, but not something I wanted to go out of my way to expose two little girls to.

As they grew older, they went to preschool and school and were of course exposed to such things. They saw the movies at friends' homes, at school, etc.  I didn't make any effort to "ban" Cinderella or Snow White paraphenalia from my home, but I didn't buy the movies, either. If someone gave my daughter a Cinderella barbie, I was fine with it. It would have been worse and too controlling to get rid of it. If the kids really wanted to see the movies at that point, they could've saved their money to buy them (they didn't). 

There was plenty of other good TV out there that gave me a chance to take a shower.

[apandaaries]

21 hours ago, elliha said:

I agree that spinach is not a food people should eat for protein but I must add that Erika does say that there is bacon in the salad. It is most likely far too little of that too but she does in fact not just serve pasta and spinach. 

She mentions Bacon Bits in the salad.  I'm not sure if those things could legally exist in Sweden; they're just weird chemical concoctions that taste kind of like crumpled bacon pieces. Most of the brands are vegetarian and not a good source of...well, anything, like this: http://www.mccormick.com/Spices-and-Flavors/Other/Bacn-Pieces-Bacon-Flavored-Bits

To return to the hot topic at hand, there are a LOT of changes on the Shupe blog these days!  Girls working and learning to drive, religious references removed, modesty discussions gone...  As was noted, a lot of these are topics we snark on here, but did anyone see the hoopla on her FB page when she showed the modest swim wear.  She got a lot of push back on that one, with people commenting that no one needs to swim in a dress, and that men CAN actually choose to control themselves.  She just kept replying that the swim dresses were "pretty and light and comfortable," but I think she had over 50 comments on that one.  The secular notices that she's gotten have all been about her organization tactics.  Perhaps she's rebranding as a organizational guru with an incredibly clean house.  Weird!   But fascinating.  Can't wait to see what the next few months will show us.  

[tumblr]

Wow, I picked an amazing time to get caught up on The Shupes. 

It's obvious that somethings has changed one way or another. I am leaning towards what someone else said about it just being about making the blog more popular but I would be very curious if it was about real theological change in the family. 

[elliha]

55 minutes ago, amandaaries said:

She mentions Bacon Bits in the salad.  I'm not sure if those things could legally exist in Sweden; they're just weird chemical concoctions that taste kind of like crumpled bacon pieces. Most of the brands are vegetarian and not a good source of...well, anything, like this: http://www.mccormick.com/Spices-and-Flavors/Other/Bacn-Pieces-Bacon-Flavored-Bits

To return to the hot topic at hand, there are a LOT of changes on the Shupe blog these days!  Girls working and learning to drive, religious references removed, modesty discussions gone...  As was noted, a lot of these are topics we snark on here, but did anyone see the hoopla on her FB page when she showed the modest swim wear.  She got a lot of push back on that one, with people commenting that no one needs to swim in a dress, and that men CAN actually choose to control themselves.  She just kept replying that the swim dresses were "pretty and light and comfortable," but I think she had over 50 comments on that one.  The secular notices that she's gotten have all been about her organization tactics.  Perhaps she's rebranding as a organizational guru with an incredibly clean house.  Weird!   But fascinating.  Can't wait to see what the next few months will show us.  

I thought it was just pre-chopped bacon. That is sold as bacon bits here.

[Crocoduck]

I stayed away from the last Shupe thread and it looks like I came back just in time! I'll leave it to the excellent FJ sleuths to figure out if the blog changes are just cosmetic or signify real changes within the house.

[apandaaries]

11 minutes ago, elliha said:

I thought it was just pre-chopped bacon. That is sold as bacon bits here.

Food-like substances tend to be extraordinarily popular here in the States.  With the recipes Erika's shared, I'd be surprised if she were using real bacon.  Remember all those nasty flavored drinks she was encouraging before?  

[elliha]

Just now, amandaaries said:

Food-like substances tend to be extraordinarily popular here in the States.  With the recipes Erika's shared, I'd be surprised if she were using real bacon.  Remember all those nasty flavored drinks she was encouraging before?  

Yes, horrible stuff. I assume they are not gone from the web-page though...

[Black Aliss]

19 hours ago, Shiny said:

They are in the Mt. Vernon area. It's always so funny to me, because I already perceive mt. Vernon to be really conservative and that's one reason we didn't move there. That was before I learned about the Shupes.

Mt. Vernon, where Glenn Beck was honored with the keys to the city a few years back. Mt. Vernon is also not that far from Sedro-Wooley(same county, I think), home of Carri and Larry Williams (child murderers)