Seewalds 19: Dust Bunnies and Babies

[Destiny]

Continued from here:

 

[Bim]

I have to wonder now that the Dillards are moving back to CA and Jessa seems to be the new baby producing golden child if Jim Bob and Michelle will help set Jessa and Ben up with a new house, or if they'll stay crammed in that small house, especially if she gets pregnant again or adopts like they've been teasing. 

[Carm_88]

I think that Jessa will eventually get a bigger house. Maybe just because they will want to set up some newly married couple in that house.

[ViolaSebastian]

Going back to a topic the last thread touched upon, I highly suggest this metafilter on emotional labor. I read through it and had so many light bulb moments about past and current relationships.

Quote

Housework is not work. Sex work is not work. Emotional work is not work. Why? Because they don’t take effort? No, because women are supposed to provide them uncompensated, out of the goodness of our hearts.

http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor

[Bim]

1 hour ago, Carm_88 said:

I think that Jessa will eventually get a bigger house. Maybe just because they will want to set up some newly married couple in that house.

True, if Joy gets married I can see Jessa and Ben's house going to Joy and Austin.

Do we know if the duggars sold the stoneybrook house (I think thats what they called Jill and Derricks first house)

[Carm_88]

2 minutes ago, Bim said:

True, if Joy gets married I can see Jessa and Ben's house going to Joy and Austin.

Do we know if the duggars sold the stoneybrook house (I think thats what they called Jill and Derricks first house)

I doubt Joy and Austin, I assume they will live at his family's camp or at least near it. My guess would be Joe and the Caldwell girl that he is potentially courting. By the time, all that is announced Jessa may be pregnant again. Especially since both of the Caldwell girls are underage.

[Bad Wolf]

Initially, Jessa said she wanted a small houses so there wasn't as much to clean. That's changing as her family expands.

[Denim Jumper]

You know, I wonder if BEN wants to stay in that house until they are established enough to buy a bigger home on their own? Yes, he arrived at the compound as a horny teenager, but he's a husband and father now; he might find it emasculating to have a home provided by his inlaws. 

[Bim]

34 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Initially, Jessa said she wanted a small houses so there wasn't as much to clean. That's changing as her family expands.

I totally agree with her though. I would've HATED the stoney brooke house or that ridiculously large guest house the the dullards stayed in. Way too much to clean and baby proof. 

I could see them getting a house thats still small but just another bedroom or two. Since they're just renting (although who knows if they're actually paying) from grandma duggar I wonder if they would just rent from another family member. Don't Jana and JD have houses in their names?

[Glasgowghirl]

On the subject of cleaning I am good at cleaning in work and doing the living room, kitchen and bathroom for my parents but my room is messy, I have a lot of books and college stuff and I'm not the best at putting clothes away. I have now started trying to set aside time to do it but college work gets in the way more often than not. In the earlier Duggar documentaries Jill and then Jessa were incharge of doing the laundry, most of that was when they lived in their old house that is a lot of daily laundry for barely teenage girls, Michelle did claim she would put a load on during the night to try and keep up but she should have been the one doing most of it and have the kids helping not the other way round. I feel some of the girls now recent doing most of the work growing up and have now given up. Jinger especially couldn't wait to leave to go with Jeremy.

[RosyDaisy]

The property may be under any Duggar's name. However, I believe JB actually controls it.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

12 minutes ago, Denim Jumper said:

You know, I wonder if BEN wants to stay in that house until they are established enough to buy a bigger home on their own? Yes, he arrived at the compound as a horny teenager, but he's a husband and father now; he might find it emasculating to have a home provided by his inlaws. 

I wonder this as well, I wouldn't want one of those McMansions. When DH & I got married I got pregnant about 6 months after we married, and we were living in 1 bedroom apartment, so we bought our 1st house, it was very small a little over 900 sq feet, it was 3 bedrooms 1/2 bathrooms and had a laundry room and kitchen & dinning/living room that was it. We moved in 12 days before DS was born (he was 4 weeks early) the house was perfect for the 3 of us  21/2 years latter DD was born and even with her it was still nice.  The house was great I could see into the kids bedroom from the family room, and I could hear them no matter where they wandered in the house. Plus it had a completely fenced in backyard, I could do dishes (no dishwasher) laundry, fold laundry and see the kids in the yard, it was wonderful.  We lived in that house until DD was 4 1/2 and moved into the almost 1900 sq foot house we live in now.  I still have very fond memories of that house, we simply outgrew it. We are coming up on being empty nesters probably in the next 6 to 7 years and we are looking to go back to a small 900 sq foot or less house. 

[Lurker]

I never understood the amount of laundry they did in the TTH. They did not have sheets or covers.  They slept in their clothes.  They did not use tablecloths, or fabric napkins and it seemed they use paper towels in the kitchen for everything.   They did not have multiple dish cloths to dry dishes because they use disposable everything.  They used disposable diapers, wipes, etc.

How does just clothes and towels add up to the 80 loads of laundry?

 

 

[Bad Wolf]

I've wondered that too. Especially since they have large capacity washing machines.

[Karma]

It looked to me like they all wore a completely new outfit every day.  One episode when they were going away in the RV, they carried the clothes in hangers outside, complete with shirt and jeans/skirt for each day.  Twenty one (or maybe 20, if josh had left) complete outfits a day would mount up quickly.  They possibly all have clean towel each day as well?

This video of the girls room shows covers on the older girls beds (weirdly the little ones have just sheets).  There's a similar one of the boys room showing quilts on the beds as well.  I know we have seen photos of uncovered mattresses in the boys room before, but I think that was when they had extra guests staying?  

 But still, I don't see how they do more than 11 loads of laundry a day.

[GoddessOfVictory]

As far as cleaning goes, my parents keep a nicely cleaned house. They're not neat freaks but they keep things tidy and both help out with the chores. However, if you stepped into my room (yes, I'm currently a SAHD*) you would think you'd stepped onto an alien planet. I bow to the Law of Horizontal Surfaces, which means if there is a horizontal surface, it will get covered by something, sooner rather than later.

I can't help it. I just seem to attract piles of stuff, which sit around until I go into crazy cleaning mode. My only excuse is that I'm basically sitting on a house's worth of stuff I've collected for that magical day when I can finally move into my own home. However, I have been better lately, working on getting rid of stuff I no longer need, not buying stuff unless I know I'll use it, and figuring out ways to organize better. It's a work in progress.

ETA: *Not a SAHD in the fundie sense. I work full-time in a job outside the home. I just live with my parents to save right now.

[Iamtheway]

My husband once described me as ”not a very good wife but a pretty good person”. Sums it up nicely I think.

[Kangaroo]

4 hours ago, GoddessOfVictory said:

ETA: *Not a SAHD in the fundie sense. I work full-time in a job outside the home. I just live with my parents to save right now.

Oh I know that feeling! I too am a SAHD, though im working part time while completing my degree. (Started my final year today actually! I'll be 24 once I'm done.)

Sydney is far too expensive for anyone to genuinely be able to afford move out, so my parents (and basically every one of my friends parents) are happy to let us live at home. Personally, living with your parents here doesn't have the same negative connotations because it is just unaffordable.

That being said, I would LOVE to have my own place. To cook my own food, have my own furniture, run my house how I want. 

I do have a lot of freedoms, especially compared to fundie SAHDs, but I feel horrendously constricted here. I mean, I've only got one brother, my own room and two very fantastic and not religious crazies for parents. I completely get why these girls up and leave at the first chance they have, and why I feel bad for Jana in particular.

 

[Karma]

Except that my daughter starts back at Uni next Monday, and will (hopefully) be finished uni at 21, you could be my daughter, @Kangaroo! 

Yep, Sydney rents are crazy, and house prices are insane.

[jas]

I think, because their family is so big,  the way they divide the jobs up means the "training" the girls get is way too specific to be useful to an adult in charge of their own household. It seems like each girl had a specialised job that she was very good at, but they didn't rotate the jobs enough or spend enough time teaching new skills for them to be competent in all areas. 

Jessa seems to have been good at organising: packing clothes and supervising the education of her siblings. She didn't need to be good at cooking since there was someone else who specialised in that. Her skills as an organiser are much less useful to her now in her own small family.

[Foudeb]

Is that much "training" really needed though? Buy a cookbook, look up some youtube video on how to do that bit of DIY you're clueless about, read the instruction manual on your washing machine, discover with great awe that clothes that have not been ironed can still be worn without any significant loss of life and limb etc.

if my widowed 75-yo grandfather could learn to do it after a lifetime of being waited on hand a foot, a healthy young person can.

 

 

[Carm_88]

8 hours ago, Karma said:

It looked to me like they all wore a completely new outfit every day.  One episode when they were going away in the RV, they carried the clothes in hangers outside, complete with shirt and jeans/skirt for each day.  Twenty one (or maybe 20, if josh had left) complete outfits a day would mount up quickly.  They possibly all have clean towel each day as well?

Why would you need to change your skirt/pants every day? I mean the boys slept in theirs, so that may account for them, but even still. Jeans/skirts are hard to get dirty, you need to really work to get something that's worth throwing it in the laundry basket. Cardigans can definitely be worn again. Most clothes can! You think as a big family, they would realize this and it would save them time. 

[choralcrusader8613]

This discussion made me think of this image I found a while ago about how much a person could go between washes (barring stains and such, obviously):

[Gobsmacked]

14 hours ago, Lurker said:

I never understood the amount of laundry they did in the TTH. They did not have sheets or covers.  They slept in their clothes.  They did not use tablecloths, or fabric napkins and it seemed they use paper towels in the kitchen for everything.   They did not have multiple dish cloths to dry dishes because they use disposable everything.  They used disposable diapers, wipes, etc.

How does just clothes and towels add up to the 80 loads of laundry?

 

 

Reading this, they are not a normal family. We know that, but to see their strange ways of doing things listed like this really does make the weird stand out.

How anyone has a comfortable nights sleep in that house is beyond me.

When  #1and 2 where little, the evening routine included bath and warm clean Jammies.

Those poor howlers and lost girls. We can only hope that they don't do this with their own families. 

To see this list just magnifies the awful parenting provided by J-B and meeeechelle.

[Mela99]

16 hours ago, Denim Jumper said:

You know, I wonder if BEN wants to stay in that house until they are established enough to buy a bigger home on their own? Yes, he arrived at the compound as a horny teenager, but he's a husband and father now; he might find it emasculating to have a home provided by his inlaws. 

That's a possibility. They DID say in the People interview post-HWS that they 'constantly check the market'. 

Though Binjermin didn't find it too emasculating to fix his father in law's toilet's so I'm less inclined to believe that...