Tedious, Complicated, and Particular: Erika Shupe, Part 8

[Foudeb]

Everyone's assuming Erika didn't want to work when Bob was unemployed. Didn't they have a gazillion of littles back then? it's quite possible it's Bob who didn't want to stay at home and care for them when Erika would have been happy for a job outside the home. In my experience looking after young children is far more demanding than a 9-5.

[elliha]

50 minutes ago, Foudeb said:

Everyone's assuming Erika didn't want to work when Bob was unemployed. Didn't they have a gazillion of littles back then? it's quite possible it's Bob who didn't want to stay at home and care for them when Erika would have been happy for a job outside the home. In my experience looking after young children is far more demanding than a 9-5.

I don't think they at that time would have even discussed a job outside the home for Erika. Had she worked it would have been a job inside her home. I also think their church strongly discourages women from working outside the home.

[wikinggirl]

10 hours ago, princessmahina said:

Erika's written before how she doesn't think it's necessary to make a difference between the twins and teach them that they're two different people and all that. 

That's just so sad. They can't always be together, unless they marry the same man! I hope Karen will run and bring them with her. 

[mango_fandango]

12 minutes ago, wikinggirl said:

That's just so sad. They can't always be together, unless they marry the same man! I hope Karen will run and bring them with her. 

In the now deleted Life With Twins post, written when they were 17 months, Erika wrote that the only way she could tell them apart was by their earrings. That was OK back then as they had short hair. They have much longer hair now which is often loose, so you can't see earrings much. Almost every other mom of twins says that they can tell their twins apart because of personality differences, eg twin A is feisty and the natural leader, whereas twin B is more laid back and content to follow. Erika claimed in the post that the girls were "completely identical"- but even among identical twins there are usually some physical differences, eg a mole or birthmark or something. 

[mango_fandango]

ERIKA HAS ANSWERED THE PANTS QUESTION!!

Not to the comment i mentioned previously, but to one on the group photo.

She is getting older and, we are working on transferring authority over what, specifically, she wears while still keeping a minimum level of modesty to her. We have done our best to instill the morals, soon it will be between her and God to hash out the personal desire issue. We transition from parent to consultant as she transitions to adult hood.

Sounds a little like Kelly Bates saying "they follow our rules when in our household, but once they marry they set their own rules" with regards to Alyssa wearing pants. 

It just seems weird, though, since Erika was all about the crotch and visual availability and all that jazz. 

[19 cats and counting]

So it looks like Erika is finally allowing Karen some freedoms.  I wonder if the unmarried Shupe kidults will leave or if they'll end up SAHDs (or sons).

[Pammy]

I think she considers clothing a 'personal conviction' issue. (So, other folks make their own decisions, but it would be "wrong" for Erica herself to disobey her settled opinion herself.) Somebody definitely warned her to 'transition' from dictator to consultant, not just enforce the rules until the last possible moment.

I bet she's really annoyed that she hasn't successfully taught them to live by her convictions though! She had over 15 years to get the crotch-arrow message through, and her own daughters didn't buy it. Neither of them. I wonder if she still 'consults' by passive-aggressively mentioning when she imagined boys/men glance at all the wrong places.

[mango_fandango]

59 minutes ago, Pammy said:

I think she considers clothing a 'personal conviction' issue. (So, other folks make their own decisions, but it would be "wrong" for Erica herself to disobey her settled opinion herself.) Somebody definitely warned her to 'transition' from dictator to consultant, not just enforce the rules until the last possible moment.

I bet she's really annoyed that she hasn't successfully taught them to live by her convictions though! She had over 15 years to get the crotch-arrow message through, and her own daughters didn't buy it. Neither of them. I wonder if she still 'consults' by passive-aggressively mentioning when she imagined boys/men glance at all the wrong places.

They only switched to skirts full time when Erika was pregnant with child #6, Tyler. So that was about 2007/8ish? In some old photos you can see Karen and Melanie in shorts. 

[lauraloralara]

Oh my. It makes me so happy to know that the oldest girls were given this bit of autonomy and what did they do with it? Put up a very visible middle finger to Erika, although they might not view it that way. I hope she starts to reevaluate her approach with the littles.

[19 cats and counting]

Clothes or not, Erika needs to start feeding her children more and not give them a supermodel diet.

[Eternalbluepearl]

I hope Erika eventually realizes how shallow and narrow that idea of God is. She must believe God is up there waiting to give her a trophy for keeping gender roles strict and clear in her lifetime on Earth. And the Good Little Worker-Bee For JC award goes to....  

[slickcat79]

1 hour ago, lauraloralara said:

Oh my. It makes me so happy to know that the oldest girls were given this bit of autonomy and what did they do with it? Put up a very visible middle finger to Erika, although they might not view it that way. I hope she starts to reevaluate her approach with the littles.

TBH, I could see it go either way. She may feel that with Karen and Melanie, she never really "had their hearts" because she didn't get into so much legalistic crap until they were older. If that's the case, she may have essentially given up on bending them to her will, but will double down on the littles because of it. 

I think I remember reading a story a few years ago about a woman who felt like she had completely failed in raising her then-adult children. And the kids did have fairly serious problems...I think one was in jail and one was a drug addict. The woman decided to wipe the slate clean by adopting more children, and starting over with raising them fundie. I wish I could find that story again.

[princessmahina]

It sounds to me like Karen and Melanie have both started rebelling and demanding to wear what they want. Eventually they wore Erika down. As a teenager I did the same thing with my mother and a bellybutton ring. 

I don't know how "on board" Bob was with the whole situation, but I maintain that he's a grown ass man who can make decisions for himself. If he didn't want to go along with some of this stuff, he ought to have put his foot down. Or maybe he did and Erika wanted to go further off the deep end than they actually did. 

[refugee]

1 hour ago, Eternalbluepearl said:

I hope Erika eventually realizes how shallow and narrow that idea of God is. She must believe God is up there waiting to give her a trophy for keeping gender roles strict and clear in her lifetime on Earth. And the Good Little Worker-Bee For JC award goes to....  

Or it could be the opposite. Her god is up there, glowering down, just waiting for her to put a foot wrong so he can smash her (and/or those she loves) down. You're supposed to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling," you know.

Don't know if her church is hyper-calvinist or not.

[princessmahina]

5 minutes ago, refugee said:

Or it could be the opposite. Her god is up there, glowering down, just waiting for her to put a foot wrong so he can smash her (and/or those she loves) down. You're supposed to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling," you know.

Don't know if her church is hyper-calvinist or not.

I don't remember what church they attend, but there a few IFB churches in the area where they live. I don't get the feeling that they're Calvinist though.

[refugee]

1 hour ago, princessmahina said:

I don't remember what church they attend, but there a few IFB churches in the area where they live. I don't get the feeling that they're Calvinist though.

Ah. Don't know much about IFB churches except what I've read here. Do they preach an angry god, who like the OT god is barely restrained from breaking out against his people if they don't reverence his holiness enough?

I can't tell you the number of times I heard predestination framed as "the miracle of god's love is that *everybody* deserves to perish (cue flames, hellfire, burning in agony), but he deigned to reach down and save *some*..."

[princessmahina]

16 minutes ago, refugee said:

Ah. Don't know much about IFB churches except what I've read here. Do they preach an angry god, who like the OT god is barely restrained from breaking out against his people if they don't reverence his holiness enough?

I can't tell you the number of times I heard predestination framed as "the miracle of god's love is that *everybody* deserves to perish (cue flames, hellfire, burning in agony), but he deigned to reach down and save *some*..."

I'm not personally familiar with IFB churches, but it sounds like they're often legalistic, fire and brimstone type of deals. The PP is IFB, but I know he's not necessarily representative. 

Maybe it's just because I'm Catholic, but I've never really gotten the point of Calvinist theology, even after taking a "Renaissance and Reformation" history class where I studied it. If it doesn't matter what you do, then why bother going to church? Or dressing modestly? Or doing any of other legalistic things the Calvinist fundies do. 

Then again, I don't understand a lot of what fundies do.

[EmiGirl]

The thing about IFB churches is that 1st letter - independent. They're all different. Some are more mainstream while some are hard core fundy. Most lean towards the fundy, at least in my experience. 

[apandaaries]

2 hours ago, EmiGirl said:

The thing about IFB churches is that 1st letter - independent. They're all different. Some are more mainstream while some are hard core fundy. Most lean towards the fundy, at least in my experience. 

It seems that these churches really stress the Independent part of the title -- the effect seems to be that they all try to out-fundie each other most of the time, but can distance themselves during scandal, crisis, or other necessary time.   I just read I Fired God, by Jocelyn R. Zichterman, and highly recommend it.  Her experiences in her church with her family are horrific.  Clearly it's one person writing about one family in one church, but it's very extreme.  If you need a trigger warning for physical violence and sexual abuse, consider one issued for this book.  But it's worth the read.  

[lauraloralara]

This, at least at one point, was/is the Shupes' church: http://scbiblechurch.org/about-us/our-beliefs/our-doctrine/

As far as my understanding goes (which is limited here; my personal/academic research has been in the Southern Baptist Convention), the total depravity, unconditional election, etc. are undeniably Calvinist - they are actually straight up TULIP doctrines.

[Anonymousguest]

33 minutes ago, lauraloralara said:

This, at least at one point, was/is the Shupes' church: http://scbiblechurch.org/about-us/our-beliefs/our-doctrine/

As far as my understanding goes (which is limited here; my personal/academic research has been in the Southern Baptist Convention), the total depravity, unconditional election, etc. are undeniably Calvinist - they are actually straight up TULIP doctrines.

Yes, if that is their church it is Calvinist. That is interesting because she likes some bloggers who are decidedly un-Calvinist. 

I think most of you give Bob way too much credit. I think he was on board with all Erica's craziness. He had the occasional cameo on the website, including a direct message to husbands about pants in the modesty post. Other than one father's day card with a vague "thanks for staying with us", and a rather from expression on his face in most photos, there is no indication he wasn't 100% "in". His FB is down right scary, and shows he's just as Looney as she is. 

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

10 hours ago, lauraloralara said:

This, at least at one point, was/is the Shupes' church: http://scbiblechurch.org/about-us/our-beliefs/our-doctrine/

Are they regular church-goers?  That's 30 miles away from Mount Vernon.  
I know 30 miles isn't far for some, but where I live 30 miles would take over an hour.

[lauraloralara]

43 minutes ago, Tim-Tom Biblethumper said:

Are they regular church-goers?  That's 30 miles away from Mount Vernon.  
I know 30 miles isn't far for some, but where I live 30 miles would take over an hour.

I'm not sure. Their church has been posted on FJ before, so I googled it to get that link. Unfortunately I can't remember much else about their church habits.

[JillyO]

On 29.6.2016 at 2:08 PM, wikinggirl said:

Poor Lacey and Lilly. Why can't they be treated like individuals? 

Agreed. There is also this gem from the recent extended family beach trip:

"One of the twins" is really all she is to her. Doesn't matter which one.

[wikinggirl]

1 hour ago, JillyO said:

Agreed. There is also this gem from the recent extended family beach trip:

"One of the twins" is really all she is to her. Doesn't matter which one.

She probably doesn't know if it's Lilly or Lacey...