Bates Family Part 16 - Babystep Bates

[PennySycamore]

@Exjw2015deed, breastfeeding can cause a delay in the return of menses and fertility.  For moms that want to use lactation amenorrhea as a part of their family planning need to know how it works, what they need to do to extend the natural infertility of breastfeeding and the signs that the mom's fertility is returning.

To add to what @princessmahina just posted, breastfeeding does not have to be exclusive although other foods may lead to a sooner return of fertility.  Exclusive breastfeeding with frequent nursing and the breast used as a pacifier is almost always effective at delaying menses, but the period of delayed fertility can be extended in some mothers if the baby continues to nurse at night, the feedings are still frequent, complementary foods don't start too early* ( the AAP's recommendations are around the middle of the first year which works well) and the baby continues to nurse into toddlerhood.  Many moms do find that pumping breastmilk is not as effective as nursing at the breast in delaying the return of fertility.  I didn't get my periods back until about 18 months with my first baby.  

 

*Years ago, infants commonly started solids very early -by two or three months, if not even earlier.

 

[RoseWilder]

8 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

These quiverfull fundies talk way too much about not using birth control that I find it funny that they suddenly clam up when it seems they may be preventing pregnancy.

But did Alyssa ever talk about not using birth control originally? I remember some of the Bates and Duggar kids talking about how they're "leaving it up to God" when they were first engaged/married, but I don't remember Alyssa ever talking about it. Did it happen and I missed it?

[TuringMachine]

2 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

But did Alyssa ever talk about not using birth control originally? I remember some of the Bates and Duggar kids talking about how they're "leaving it up to God" when they were first engaged/married, but I don't remember Alyssa ever talking about it. Did it happen and I missed it?

Remember that these kids are taught that abortion is murder and birth control is an abortifacient.  For her to not be against birth control would be a big deviation from their beliefs. So I'm going to need bigger proof that she's using it than simply her not saying she isn't. Now could she be doing some sort of natural family planning? Maybe. But we have no way of knowing this. These people love to lie and spin the truth so I don't take anything they say at face value including Alyssa's "we're in no rush" and Erin's "this pregnancy was a surprise."

[RoseWilder]

12 minutes ago, TuringMachine said:

Remember that these kids are taught that abortion is murder and birth control is an abortifacient.  For her to not be against birth control would be a big deviation from their beliefs. So I'm going to need bigger proof that she's using it than simply her not saying she isn't. Now could she be doing some sort of natural family planning? Maybe. But we have no way of knowing this. These people love to lie and spin the truth so I don't take anything they say at face value including Alyssa's "we're in no rush" and Erin's "this pregnancy was a surprise."

The fact that Alyssa was raised to believe that birth control is evil tells us nothing about her beliefs. A lot of people are raised to believe certain things, and are even heavily pressured to do so, and end up believing something totally different from their parents. 

And you seem to be confused about what my point was. A previous poster was saying they find it funny that these Fundies start out saying they're not using birth control and then clam up when it seems as if they might be using it, and I was pointing out that I don't think Alyssa was one of the Fundies who started out saying she wasn't using birth control. I recall Zach/Whitney, Josh/Anna, Jill/Derrick, Jessa/Ben all saying "we're going to have as many children as God gives us," but I don't recall Alyssa saying anything. The point of my post wasn't that Alyssa is or isn't using birth control. My point was just that I don't think she was one of the Fundies who publicly announced at the beginning of their engagement/marriage that they weren't using birth control. 

[theinvisiblegirl]

Also, if she was using birth control, with how taboo her family/the cult thinks it is, would she really make it public knowledge? Would she even tell her family, let alone the world?

[OrchidBlossom]

2 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

The fact that Alyssa was raised to believe that birth control is evil tells us nothing about her beliefs. A lot of people are raised to believe certain things, and are even heavily pressured to do so, and end up believing something totally different from their parents. 

And you seem to be confused about what my point was. A previous poster was saying they find it funny that these Fundies start out saying they're not using birth control and then clam up when it seems as if they might be using it, and I was pointing out that I don't think Alyssa was one of the Fundies who started out saying she wasn't using birth control. I recall Zach/Whitney, Josh/Anna, Jill/Derrick, Jessa/Ben all saying "we're going to have as many children as God gives us," but I don't recall Alyssa saying anything. The point of my post wasn't that Alyssa is or isn't using birth control. My point was just that I don't think she was one of the Fundies who publicly announced at the beginning of their engagement/marriage that they weren't using birth control. 

Alyssa married into a family steeped in ATI/IBLP, which pushes the anti-birth control rhetoric. She continues to appear on a show that supports and normalizes IBLP/ATI and continues to (at best, passively) profit from and promote their beliefs. She was raised to believe that using birth control is at worst murder and at best spitting in god's eye. She has made no affirmative statements or actions that disavow those beliefs, and while she has made no statements expressly affirming them her actions continue to support IBLP and continue to support the rhetoric. So why would I assume she is breaking from their beliefs?

If I recall (and I could be wrong, here, for whatever reason the Bates tend to run together a bit for me) Alyssa did make very vague "we will see what happens"/"we will see how many I end up with" statements in previous seasons of the show. So I tend to think that even in the light most favorable to Alyssa, we don't have any evidence that she is planning to or has begun to prevent conception, we only know that perhaps her preference is a smaller family. We don't know whether she will act on it and even if she ends up with a relatively small family since, as someone upthread mentioned, the average number of children that a woman who never uses birth control will conceive and carry to term in her lifetime is closer to 6 to 8 we will never really KNOW what she did or didn't do with her fertility. But unless I see evidence to the contrary, and especially while I continue to be confronted with evidence in support, I assume she is continuing to follow the IBLP/ATI mold to a substantial degree.

Also, since Alyssa was engaged and married in that period between United Bates of America and Bringing Up Bates, we may never know what she was and was not proclaiming during her courtship, engagement, and marriage. She has the benefit of MUCH less recorded information on her thoughts, beliefs, and opinions as far as those issues go.

[CorruptionInc.]

Alyssa could not be very fertile. 

Michael could also be in this category - I am shocked she has not been pregnant this long!

 

[TuringMachine]

3 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

The fact that Alyssa was raised to believe that birth control is evil tells us nothing about her beliefs. A lot of people are raised to believe certain things, and are even heavily pressured to do so, and end up believing something totally different from their parents. 

I disagree. It tells us at the very least growing up this is what she believed. I mean why wouldn't she have believed her parents? Now as an adult she could have changed her mind, sure, but there is no indication that has happened so why think that it has? Besides where would she have gotten new perspectives to change her beliefs? She went right from her parents house to being the wife of a man raised on the same beliefs she was. 

[formergothardite]

Seems to me like Alyssa is making a vague statement that can be taken several ways, rather like Erin's statement about no longer associating with Bill Gothard.

~If you are fundie, love the family or are in IBLP and watching the poster family on television, it will be appear that Alyssa is trusting God, because technically you aren't supposed to be rushing to have children or going out of your way to try and get pregnant, you are supposed to leave it up to God and not worry about it. Saying she wants six children is no worse than if she had said she wanted 19 children. 

~If you aren't fundie and are hoping that Alyssa is going to become less fundie, it can be taken as a sign of birth control and becoming less fundie.

Only Alyssa really know what she means and she isn't going to be more specific about it. As long as she is associating with IBLP I'm firmly in the camp that she changed into a more "liberal" version of IBLP, but she is still a follower of the cult. 

 

[Melissa1977]

Alyssa has never said she was leaving the number of kids to God. When she was courting she said no way she could handle 19 kids, and with a weird face she said "maybe 10", but it didn't sound very enthusiastic. After having Allie, she said she wanted 6 (John said he wanted 8 but that it was up to Alyssa). And recently she said she wanted to space kids in order to enjoy Allie.

I understand many of you want her to loudly say "I'm using natural family planning or condoms or pills" or whatever. But it's not realistic. She may be taking a (slightly) different way of life than Bates, but there's no way she's gonna talk about birth control in TV. It's about respect for her parents and it's about helping them to keep a TV program that it's feeding all her little siblings.

Yes it would be great to see a fundie kid breaking free and doing something revolutionary. But the truth is that most of people (fundie or not) try to keep some privacy and respect their family beliefs in public.

I edit to add that Websters are not really quiverfull. Some of John siblings have 3-4 kids and they are older, so considering their ages they could have a lot more. So probably John doesn't think birth control is so bad. Who knows.

[formergothardite]

If she is using birth control all while getting to be a part of the IBLP poster family, that makes it a little worse, IMO. She is part of the top family and her dad is in a position of power, so she gets all the praise while not having to obey the rules? That isn't a positive. 

16 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

It's about respect for her parents and it's about helping them to keep a TV program that it's feeding all her little siblings.

They don't need the TV program to feed the kids. Gil gets paid by IBLP, has a church that I'm sure pays him, plus he could actually go make sure his tree business is running well enough to bring in money to support all these kids he had. This TV program makes evil look harmless and hurts victims of IBLP. The Bates don't need it, they want it. 

She shouldn't have to discuss her birth control with the world, but she as long as she continues to associate with IBLP, I don't know why we should think she is moving away from the cult. 

[Melissa1977]

7 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

If she is using birth control all while getting to be a part of the IBLP poster family, that makes it a little worse, IMO. She is part of the top family and her dad is in a position of power, so she gets all the praise while not having to obey the rules? That isn't a positive. 

They don't need the TV program to feed the kids. Gil gets paid by IBLP, has a church that I'm sure pays him, plus he could actually go make sure his tree business is running well enough to bring in money to support all these kids he had. This TV program makes evil look harmless and hurts victims of IBLP. The Bates don't need it, they want it. 

She shouldn't have to discuss her birth control with the world, but she as long as she continues to associate with IBLP, I don't know why we should think she is moving away from the cult. 

I understand you are personally hurt by IBLP and I'm very sorry for that, but I have another point of view. Is Alyssa really associated with IBPL? or is she just associating with her family? As far as I know, since got married Alyssa has not been in Big Sandy or other IBPL events and she's not preaching about that. As I always say, I'm sure Alyssa has fundie beliefs, but fundie or not, she has to visit her parents and it doesn't mean she is sharing 100% of their beliefs. What should she do? Stop visiting her parents or not being recorded at all for their show?. Do you really think Alyssa is the the show to endorse IBLP or just because it's a family question?

Suzanna Keller often visits her parents, does it make her fundie or IBLP associated? no it doesn't.

 

[Palimpsest]

3 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

I edit to add that Websters are not really quiverfull. Some of John siblings have 3-4 kids and they are older, so considering their ages they could have a lot more. So probably John doesn't think birth control is so bad. Who knows.

Correlation does not imply causation.  

You still do not know whether they are Quiverfull or not. Taliban Dan only had 6 children but he preaches quiverfull beliefs.

Not all Quiverfull families are as blessed with obsessed with having as many children as is humanly possible or as hyper-fertile as the Duggar and Bates families.  Most seem to have <10 children. 

Looking at the present IBLP BOD,  who presumably all preach against birth control and for accepting as many children as God gives them:  

Stephen Paine - 10

Gil Bates - 19 

David York - 8 (4 are reversals)

And ... Tim Levendusky, the present board president, has only one son.  Do you think that means he isn't quiverfull either?

[JermajestyDuggar]

11 hours ago, TuringMachine said:

Remember that these kids are taught that abortion is murder and birth control is an abortifacient.  For her to not be against birth control would be a big deviation from their beliefs. So I'm going to need bigger proof that she's using it than simply her not saying she isn't. Now could she be doing some sort of natural family planning? Maybe. But we have no way of knowing this. These people love to lie and spin the truth so I don't take anything they say at face value including Alyssa's "we're in no rush" and Erin's "this pregnancy was a surprise."

Like I said earlier I don't think she's using hormonal birth control. NFP is a type of birth control. It is doing something to control the amount of times you become pregnant. I also wouldn't be surprised if they used condoms or the pull out method.

[RoseWilder]

8 hours ago, OrchidBlossom said:

Alyssa married into a family steeped in ATI/IBLP, which pushes the anti-birth control rhetoric. She continues to appear on a show that supports and normalizes IBLP/ATI and continues to (at best, passively) profit from and promote their beliefs. She was raised to believe that using birth control is at worst murder and at best spitting in god's eye. She has made no affirmative statements or actions that disavow those beliefs, and while she has made no statements expressly affirming them her actions continue to support IBLP and continue to support the rhetoric. So why would I assume she is breaking from their beliefs?

If I recall (and I could be wrong, here, for whatever reason the Bates tend to run together a bit for me) Alyssa did make very vague "we will see what happens"/"we will see how many I end up with" statements in previous seasons of the show. So I tend to think that even in the light most favorable to Alyssa, we don't have any evidence that she is planning to or has begun to prevent conception, we only know that perhaps her preference is a smaller family. We don't know whether she will act on it and even if she ends up with a relatively small family since, as someone upthread mentioned, the average number of children that a woman who never uses birth control will conceive and carry to term in her lifetime is closer to 6 to 8 we will never really KNOW what she did or didn't do with her fertility. But unless I see evidence to the contrary, and especially while I continue to be confronted with evidence in support, I assume she is continuing to follow the IBLP/ATI mold to a substantial degree.

Also, since Alyssa was engaged and married in that period between United Bates of America and Bringing Up Bates, we may never know what she was and was not proclaiming during her courtship, engagement, and marriage. She has the benefit of MUCH less recorded information on her thoughts, beliefs, and opinions as far as those issues go.

Again, you're missing my point. I wasn't debating whether she is using birth control or not. I was responding to a previous poster who was saying that she thinks it's funny when fundies talk about not using birth control and then clam up when it seems like they might be using it. And I was saying that Alyssa wasn't one of the people who said she wasn't going to use birth control.

I have no idea why you're responding to me as if I was debating whether she was using birth control or not. I'm simply saying she never said before she wasn't using it so there's no inconsistency is how she's approaching it now by not coming right out and saying it. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

There is a dr I my OBGYN group that is an expert on NFP. He teaches his patients all about it. It is a valid form of birth control.

[season of life]

I never watched United Bates of America or Bringing Up Bates. I know Erin and Michael had their weddings televised. Can I assume Alyssa never had her courtship and wedding televised? I don't think Zach's wedding was on TV.

As for Alyssa's comments. I have no idea whether she is using birth control or NFP. Maybe she did word her statements vaguely so she wouldn't have to make her family status known. Maybe she meant it that she wasn't in a rush and was relying on something to prevent pregnancies, like condoms or breastfeeding. Nothing is confirmed. We just have to wait and see when Alyssa has her 2nd baby. 

[RoseWilder]

7 hours ago, TuringMachine said:

I disagree. It tells us at the very least growing up this is what she believed. I mean why wouldn't she have believed her parents? Now as an adult she could have changed her mind, sure, but there is no indication that has happened so why think that it has? Besides where would she have gotten new perspectives to change her beliefs? She went right from her parents house to being the wife of a man raised on the same beliefs she was. 

No, it actually doesn't mean she believed it growing up. Lots of people are told things by their parents growing up and never believe it even then. 

Maybe she believed it then, maybe she didn't. But being raised to believe that tells us nothing about what she believed. 

And I don't even understand your comment of "where would she have gotten new perspectives to change her beliefs" - she obviously has access to the internet and can read about the world around her. She has plenty of opportunity to be exposed to other viewpoints. And maybe she still hasn't read up on that stuff. But maybe she has. 

It's kind of funny to me that any time someone points out that the Duggar or Bates kids seem to be making steps away from how they were raised, people shout "there's no proof of that" and then then immediately start making assumptions in the opposite direction that there's no proof of. There is absolute proof Alyssa has moved away from some of the non-Fundie related beliefs she was raised with (clothing, mothers having a job), and some signs that she's moving away from the Fundie stuff (but no proof of that one.) So while I don't know for sure that she's leaving Fundiedom, you don't know for sure what Alyssa believed as a child or what she believes now. 

[19 cats and counting]

22 minutes ago, season of life said:

I never watched United Bates of America or Bringing Up Bates. I know Erin and Michael had their weddings televised. Can I assume Alyssa never had her courtship and wedding televised? I don't think Zach's wedding was on TV.

 

Alyssa's wedding was on 20/20 or one of those ABC shows.  You barely saw the wedding as they were on the show in 2011 and half of the wedding show was clips from 2011.

I think Gil cares more about his daughters having their weddings televised as a way to help pay for them.  Traditionally the groom's family does not pay for the wedding.

[JMO]

Is this week the season finale? The episode descriptions for the rest of the summer look like reruns. 

[OrchidBlossom]

2 hours ago, 19 cats and counting said:

Alyssa's wedding was on 20/20 or one of those ABC shows.  You barely saw the wedding as they were on the show in 2011 and half of the wedding show was clips from 2011.

I think Gil cares more about his daughters having their weddings televised as a way to help pay for them.  Traditionally the groom's family does not pay for the wedding.

I think the full video of the wedding is available somewhere... not sure if anyone wants to sit through another fundie wedding but I could have sworn I saw it somewhere at one point. 

[VelociRapture]

@season of lifeI think another poster mentioned that UBoA ended before her courtship really started. If I remember, that show ended sometime in 2012 and the Websters didn't start courting until November 2013. BUB started filming a few months after her May 2014 wedding to John (I think filming started in October, so maybe five months later.) 

Which means the entire courtship likely went unfilmed - so we likely won't know some of the things they may think the way we might with the Keilens.

I know Zach and Whit have allegedly give on record as saying they'll have as many as God gives them. I can't remember if the other married couples have or not - it wouldn't surprise me if the Keilens have said that. I think the Paines said after they had Carson that they'd need to pray about more children or something - but who knows what that actually means or if they intend to prevent somehow.

[imokit]

40 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

I know Zach and Whit have allegedly give on record as saying they'll have as many as God gives them. I can't remember if the other married couples have or not - it wouldn't surprise me if the Keilens have said that. I think the Paines said after they had Carson that they'd need to pray about more children or something - but who knows what that actually means or if they intend to prevent somehow.

The Paines were initally going to have as many as god gave them, after the miscarriages and Carson they changed to praying and saying they'd think about it and talk to doctors.  I imagine that the number of children they go on to have will be hugely influenced by this pregnancy, how easy it is for Erin to manage a baby and injections and a pregnancy and how safe the delivery goes.  If this is pregnancy is awful I can see them slowing down, if it goes well I predict the return of the baby train.

[TuringMachine]

4 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

No, it actually doesn't mean she believed it growing up. Lots of people are told things by their parents growing up and never believe it even then. 

This is a pretty poor argument. Yes lots of people don't believe what their parents taught them but lots of people weren't raised the way Alyssa was. Alyssa was raised isolated from anyone with different beliefs, with a very limited education, to never question her parents, and discouraged from thinking for herself.  All of this makes the idea of her not believing what her parents taught her very unlikely.

4 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

And I don't even understand your comment of "where would she have gotten new perspectives to change her beliefs" - she obviously has access to the internet and can read about the world around her. She has plenty of opportunity to be exposed to other viewpoints. And maybe she still hasn't read up on that stuff. But maybe she has. 

I meant that she didn't go to college and there's no evidence of her having any significant interactions with anyone outside their belief system. Yes I admit she does now have internet access, so yes she could have read into it herself. Though that being said there's still no indication that she has.

4 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

It's kind of funny to me that any time someone points out that the Duggar or Bates kids seem to be making steps away from how they were raised, people shout "there's no proof of that" and then then immediately start making assumptions in the opposite direction that there's no proof of. There is absolute proof Alyssa has moved away from some of the non-Fundie related beliefs she was raised with (clothing, mothers having a job), and some signs that she's moving away from the Fundie stuff (but no proof of that one.) So while I don't know for sure that she's leaving Fundiedom, you don't know for sure what Alyssa believed as a child or what she believes now. 

Part of this is because extraordinary claims tend to need more evidence for people to believe them.  The idea that the very isolated Alyssa still believes what her and her husband were taught growing up is very believable. It's what a lot of people would expect to happen. At least on this forum anyway. So you don't really need a lot of proof for people here to think that this is what the reality is. The idea that she has somehow had an extreme shift in beliefs, on the other hand, is a little more unexpected, so people are going to require more evidence to believe it.  

[justmy2cents]

1 hour ago, JMO said:

Is this week the season finale? The episode descriptions for the rest of the summer look like reruns. 

Should be going til the end of July.  Here's the planned episode schedule which I copied from Batesfam blog:

Sneak Peak Previews!

 

We are so excited to share the new episodes that will be airing in the month of July! 

 

 The Big Chili
July 7, 2016
The Bates family performs at the annual Volunteer Fire Department Chili Fundraiser.

The Great Bates Clean-up
July 14, 2016
The Bates family does some spring cleaning with Kelly Jo leading the project; Gil gets sentimental about getting rid of things.

Bates say the darnedest things
July 21, 2016
Taking a look back and highlighting the funniest and wackiest things the Bates kids have said and done.

Birthdays and Boyfriends
July 28, 2016
Allie Jane and Carlin share a big birthday bash back in Florida; Kelly Jo and Gil meet Tori's boyfriend's family.
 

Please remember that the titles are subject to change so make sure that you tune into preview Tuesdays!