Family Living on Purpose (FLOP?): Erika Shupe pt. 10

[feministxtian]

I have twin stepdaughters. They're as different as night and day. I came into their lives when they were about 11. Their mother treated them as a unit: "the girls".  I'll admit it took me a little while to be able to tell them apart...but I learned quickly. J is quieter, more serious. H is more outgoing, J knew what she wanted to do after high school and nothing was going to get in her way. H had to find her path. 

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is treating twins as a unit rarely works...

[December]

On 3/18/2017 at 5:15 AM, Howl said:

This is a good thing.  It implies that public school is the new reality and homeschooling is in the rear-view mirror. 

Seriously, that does sound positive. Even if she's not immediately involved in these sort of things, it's not like it's mandatory for broadening the kids' horizons -- just by attending school, they'll get more socialization with other kids their age and exposure to different ideas and perspectives. 

[Howl]

9 hours ago, December said:

Seriously, that does sound positive. Even if she's not immediately involved in these sort of things, it's not like it's mandatory for broadening the kids' horizons -- just by attending school, they'll get more socialization with other kids their age and exposure to different ideas and perspectives. 

I was wondering if previously the kids did get some peer socializing at their church, but that would be just a few hours a week.  One thing we haven't addressed is that these kids, up until now, have been surrounded by siblings all day, every day and in close quarters.  Perhaps that has developed a skill set for getting along and relating to peers that will serve them well in the public school setting.  Maybe having an OCD mom has helped the kids develop habits of structure and organization.  I have no idea, but I'd love to find out. 

Hope those kiddos are happy and flourishing in their new lives.  

[slickcat79]

Quote

Another idea is to dress the two babies each in their own color, all the time. For example baby A always wears pink, and baby B always wears lavender. And you can often find matching outfits in different colors. Easy to quickly identify both in person and in photos. We did not choose this idea because I really like completely identical outfits, even in color, but also because this would require always buying the twins clothes new, but we were choosing to shop consignment. *smile*

Of course you did, Erika 

Quote

Sorry I don’t have more ideas for telling boys apart. But I’m sure you could find some online.

Because putting polish on one of their nails or dressing them in separate colors could NEVER be applied to boys or anything.

Quote

We found that our babies personalities really didn’t begin to emerge recognizably until around age 3. Where we could really begin to identify them by how they were acting, not just by their appearance. And their little faces also did not vary really at all even in the slightest say until this time either. One of my good friends said once about her twins, “They have the same face, but they wear it differently.” *smile* I love this and it’s totally true with identical twins. They hold themselves differently and facial expressions differ. In a photo we couldn’t tel them apart so much, but in person we usually can now at age 6.

They can USUALLY tell them apart in person at age 6. Well done, Erika, real Mother of the Year material.

I guess I can't really test myself on recognizing the Shupe twins, but I don't think they look perfectly identical, even in pictures.

[Coy Koi]

1 hour ago, slickcat79 said:

They can USUALLY tell them apart in person at age 6. Well done, Erika, real Mother of the Year material.

I admit that if I were to have identical twins, I would be really worried that I'd be terrible at telling them apart. I'm just not good with faces. I'm always getting people mixed up on TV (confusing) and IRL (embarrassing!). I guess I'd probably get good at telling my twins apart, but I'm not sure. It would be interesting to know.

[smittykins]

Isn't a DNA test theonly way to tell if they're truly identical twins(unless they're sharing an amniotic sac)?

[Anonymousguest]

2 hours ago, smittykins said:

Isn't a DNA test theonly way to tell if they're truly identical twins(unless they're sharing an amniotic sac)?

Yes. Even identical twins can have separate sacs, and sometimes the sacs get broken during delivery and is difficult to see who was where. Single placenta would men identical, but 2 placentas can fuse into one. My husbands twin cousins had genetic testing done and found they didn't share 100% but more than normal siblings. I can't remember the exact explanation for it, something to do with the timing of the egg splitting?  It might have been same egg, different sperm, but I remember it being more complicated than that. They learned this as adults, that they weren't exactly identical, but it was evident by then. One had curlier hair, one was always a bit taller and wore bigger shoes, one was left handed the other right, etc. Strangers would confuse them, but not those who knew them. 

I've known many sets of twins and I find it disturbing that Erika still confuses them at 6. I can see maybe when you aren't paying attention, or just using the wrong name. But that's not how she makes it sound.

[picklepizzas]

so i feel like i've just been sitting here, waiting impatiently for karen and/or melanie to get social media and basically break free. i'm not sure why, but i would just be SO surprised if they entered a courtship or maintained the fundie lifestyle. almost as surprised as I WASNT to hear that joy was in a courtship. i'm trying to figure out why that is...and i think it may be that i've never gotten the impression that erika was able to surround herself with social supports in drinking the kool-aid? compared to the duggars, bates, smortons, etc., the shupes just seem so...isolated.  they have family they see, a church, but i don't get the impression they are connected with people who encourage and support them in their extremism in the way a lot of the other folks we follow are. and that might be the key for the kids, in terms of having a true chance of breaking away. thoughts? 

[Granwych]

 Being that at least Karen has an outside job, I think that more of the kids will break away.  Erika seems to be loosening the reins quite a bit.  Karen and Melanie are probably getting their "sea legs," so to speak, about getting into mainstream society.   I don't think Erika has that many "encouraging and supporting" friends as many of other fundies we talk about here.  She has her own way of interpreting and explaining Biblical stuff and I'd say that keeps her from building up a large devoted following.

That, and her extremism appears to be softening some lately.

[Red Jumper]

Quote

We found that our babies personalities really didn’t begin to emerge recognizably until around age 3. Where we could really begin to identify them by how they were acting, not just by their appearance. And their little faces also did not vary really at all even in the slightest say until this time either.

I haven't seen a mother IRL who is so detached & blind (metaphorically) to not recognise their child at a very early age.

I can tell my siblings and me apart on pictures where the baby is 1 month old. I could tell one sibling was different to the other one in their character, way, reaction when this new baby started making noises beyond cry. Hell, I was a child, not the mother.

[Howl]

What is Karen's job? 

[formergothardite]

17 hours ago, slickcat79 said:

In a photo we couldn’t tel them apart so much, but in person we usually can now at age 6.

Wow, She can usually tell her kids apart now that they are six.  She is a more detached mother than Kelly Bates! 

I think she has always viewed them as just one child, not two separate humans. 

[Anonymousguest]

4 hours ago, Howl said:

What is Karen's job? 

Front desk person at a gym? I think that is what I remember. Pretty unusual and not at all fundie like at all. It's unusual she has a job outside the home, much less where she will see half naked people. 

[Gobsmacked]

On 17 March 2017 at 4:05 PM, Chocolatedefrauded said:

School is a great place to make parent friends. You already have something in common - your kids! I still am friends with parents from my daughter's preschool class & she's in 7th grade.

but I bet they don't meet her standards. If they were godly enough, they would already know them from church.....

We have friends who we met when our children were at nursery together. We go on holiday together every second year. The kids are all at uni, college and working now. Good friends can be made at the school gate.

[Red Jumper]

25 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

 Good friends can be made at the school gate.

i second that and add:  and at the playground benches.

If your friends have children the same in the same school it allows you to see how other parents handle problems, what they buy for christmas, talk with them about any potentially weird ideas you have ...

so ES might get some really good ideas - or bad ones if she makes friends with other weirdos

[Hane]

On 3/21/2017 at 6:03 PM, Coy Koi said:

I admit that if I were to have identical twins, I would be really worried that I'd be terrible at telling them apart. I'm just not good with faces. I'm always getting people mixed up on TV (confusing) and IRL (embarrassing!). I guess I'd probably get good at telling my twins apart, but I'm not sure. It would be interesting to know.

My daughter once had students in her class who were VERY similar-looking--and acting--identical twins. It didn't help that they had similar names and identical hair styles and their mother dressed them exactly alike every damn day.

[smittykins]

The pastor of the fundie-lite church I attended as a teen/young adult had identical twin daughters, and the only way I could tell them apart was when they got glasses(they each got different styles).

[Coy Koi]

6 hours ago, Hane said:

My daughter once had students in her class who were VERY similar-looking--and acting--identical twins. It didn't help that they had similar names and identical hair styles and their mother dressed them exactly alike every damn day.

I went to Kindergarten with identical twins like this too. I was somewhat friends with them (they came over to my house a few times) but I never even tried to distinguish between them at all, and as far as my Kindergarten memory goes, neither did any of the other kids. Sorry, Melissa and Elizabeth! But we were just little kids and didn't know better. It makes me mad when adults treat twins as the same person. I remember Erika showing the form she uses to keep track of what Christmas gifts she's bought or is planning to buy for everyone, and "Lacey & Lilly" were listed together, of course. It made me think that those kids have probably never received non-identical/shared gifts in their lives. Pretty sad.

[Shiny]

How have we not started calling their home The Flop House? 

[JillyO]

I'm pretty sure Erika has also never talked about just one of the twins doing something. It's always "Lacey and Lilly did this," and "we got that for Lacey and Lilly," and "Karen did Lacey and Lilly's hair." The most separate thing she evers says about them is something like "Lacey got a pink dress and Lilly got a purple dress." That's it. Not once (to my knowledge) has she ever said "Lacey helped Karen plant tulips this morning." Noooo. It's always "Lacey and Lilly helped Karen plant tulips."

[Clementine]

On 2017-03-21 at 9:28 PM, slickcat79 said:

Another idea is to dress the two babies each in their own color, all the time. For example baby A always wears pink, and baby B always wears lavender. And you can often find matching outfits in different colors. Easy to quickly identify both in person and in photos. We did not choose this idea because I really like completely identical outfits, even in color, but also because this would require always buying the twins clothes new, but we were choosing to shop consignment. *smile*

The above quote is from Erika's blog. I don't understand this.

Erika prefers to shop for clothes at consignment shops and that's why she dresses her twins in identical outfits, even in colour?

How common is it to find two identical outfits, even in colour, at consignment shops? I guess it happens now and then, but every outfit for twins for a decade? This explanation really sounds like a bad excuse for Erika to dress her twins in identical outfits because of her OCD. I guess she would freak out if one twin was wearing a purple dress and the other one blue pants.

[JillyO]

1 hour ago, Clementine said:

The above quote is from Erika's blog. I don't understand this.

Erika prefers to shop for clothes at consignment shops and that's why she dresses her twins in identical outfits, even in colour?

How common is it to find two identical outfits, even in colour, at consignment shops? I guess it happens now and then, but every outfit for twins for a decade? This explanation really sounds like a bad excuse for Erika to dress her twins in identical outfits because of her OCD. I guess she would freak out if one twin was wearing a purple dress and the other one blue pants.

You're misunderstanding what Erika is trying to say (because she is not particularly clear).

Erika is saying that some people choose to always dress their twins in a particular color in order to tell them apart. In her example, baby A always wears pink, and baby B always wears lavender. I.e. they would have only pink clothes for baby A and only lavender clothes for baby B. No other colors, ever. Now Erika is saying that the Shupes did not do this 1) because they wouldn't be able to find only pink/lavender clothes in second-hand shops, and 2) because Erika likes for her twins to wear identical outfits, i.e. not even different colors. Probably because that would give them too much of an individual identity.

Now I'm not sure how many completely identical outfits you can find in second-hand stores either, but she seems to have managed. Maybe at her moms of multiples group's events.

[nastyhobbitses]

I think it's probably not good for a kid's psychological development to treat them like some kind of weird Borg unit with their twin. I can only hope that Lacey and Lilly are able to form their own personalities distinct from each other, and gain the courage to assert their individuality.

Though re identical outfits: my sister and I are three and a half years apart, but when we were little, my mom used to get us similar haircuts and dress us in identical outfits when we went to huge public places (like Disney World or New York), because then she'd only have one outfit/haircut to describe if one or both of us got lost. Now we look totally different (different body types, heights, haircuts, glasses/no glasses, fashion sense), so it's pretty much impossible to mix us up.

[slickcat79]

6 hours ago, JillyO said:

You're misunderstanding what Erika is trying to say (because she is not particularly clear).

Erika is saying that some people choose to always dress their twins in a particular color in order to tell them apart. In her example, baby A always wears pink, and baby B always wears lavender. I.e. they would have only pink clothes for baby A and only lavender clothes for baby B. No other colors, ever. Now Erika is saying that the Shupes did not do this 1) because they wouldn't be able to find only pink/lavender clothes in second-hand shops, and 2) because Erika likes for her twins to wear identical outfits, i.e. not even different colors. Probably because that would give them too much of an individual identity.

Now I'm not sure how many completely identical outfits you can find in second-hand stores either, but she seems to have managed. Maybe at her moms of multiples group's events.

You're misunderstanding what Erika is trying to say because her reasoning makes no sense 

Her first reason for not dressing the twins in different colors kind of makes sense - she prefers them to dress identically (kind of a silly preference, IMO, but there's logic there). She follows it with "but also, this would require us to buy clothes new", which is ridiculous. It would be astronomically easier to find a bunch of pink and lavender (or whatever) color clothes secondhand than it would be to find identical outfits in the same size at the same time. She must have put A LOT of effort into finding matching clothes at reasonable prices for Lacey and Lilly over the years, but I'm sure she mostly did it because having matchy-matchy twins suits her psychoses. 

I've actually always thought that one reason she treats the twins like a unit is because that makes her kids "even". 8 kids is a nice even number, and she'd have 4 boys and 4 girls *maniacal grin*

[ILoveJellybeans]

I read one of her previous articles on her old blog, saying that she doesn't buy clothing that is identical most of the time, but she goes for similar styles and colours, like that one twin might wear a white dress with little pink flowers, and another twin might wear a white dress with little pink hearts, or them both wearing blue and white striped tshirts and denim skirts, but they are different brands and slightly different.