Dillards 28: A Walk Down Memory Lane

[mpheels]

9 minutes ago, lomo6 said:

*snip*

 

Finally, re: Jill's writing. I tutored high school students at an average suburban public school and have seen way worse. I also graded some papers as a TA and you'd be surprised at how many people can get into a name-brand universities and still produce incoherent writing riddled with grammatical errors. 

 

Oh so much of this. I'm a doctoral student at a "big name" school. I TA mostly for master's students, and many are international students. I'm always mindful of students writing when they are not native speakers - I don't want to penalize someone for their grammar when it's the time they are writing a paper in English. On more than one occasion, I assumed a student was a non-native speaker based on their writing, only to meet with them one-on-one and learn they are US educated from kindergarten through grad school

[church_of_dog]

On April 5, 2017 at 10:12 AM, Bad Wolf said:

Maybe she just wanted to see how many down votes she could get. 

negative 44 as of this moment.  When a post on FJ gets 50 upvotes, it gets a big red heart.  What happens when a post gets 50 downvotes?  I vote for a skull & crossbones...

[Bethella]

18 hours ago, PainfullyAware said:

She was 17 when they married and not that much older when she miscarried, so it wouldn't be that hard to imagine she was vulnerable to accept that arrangement. 

Michelle was at least 21, probably 22 when she had the miscarriage, I don't think her age had anything to do with it. 

[PainfullyAware]

4 hours ago, Bethella said:

Michelle was at least 21, probably 22 when she had the miscarriage, I don't think her age had anything to do with it. 

I guess I was thinking that if Jim Bob started wearing her down at 17 then by a few years later it would have been even harder for her to leave. He seems very controlling. Having that start at a young age was probably very formative to Michelle. Of course she was an adult and therefore responsibility for her own choices but I'm just suggesting that her indoctrination to quiverfull started with a toxic relationship where she has less power, and the headship/helpmeet dynamic was overlaid on top of that. The miscarriage was probably the justification for formalizing what was already a power imbalance in their relationship.

[lomo6]

9 hours ago, mpheels said:

Oh so much of this. I'm a doctoral student at a "big name" school. I TA mostly for master's students, and many are international students. I'm always mindful of students writing when they are not native speakers - I don't want to penalize someone for their grammar when it's the time they are writing a paper in English. On more than one occasion, I assumed a student was a non-native speaker based on their writing, only to meet with them one-on-one and learn they are US educated from kindergarten through grad school

Haha yup, almost the exact same experience. I'm now thinking about one of the worst offenders whose poor writing abilities just routinely stunned me. She attended a top 20 university for undergrad, then managed to get a huge, prestigious fellowship (i.e. full-ride) for the master's program at my top 10 grad school. Oh, and did I mention that our field is in the social sciences, where writing is basically all you do? 

[singsingsing]

One of my best friends in high school was top of the class, straight A student, teacher's pet (and the English teacher in particular absolutely adored her), all of that. So at the time I just kind of assumed she was a genius. And maybe she is, but damn, that girl could not write to save her life. One day she asked me to proof read her essay. It was awful. Just awful. I had so much cognitive dissonance that day. She went on to get a BA in English and an MA in a related field. Very bright woman, no doubt about it, but her writing was by far worse than Jill's.

Oh, and I have another friend who has an MA in History. His writing is shockingly bad. I mean, really, really appalling. Ten times worse than anything I've ever seen from a Duggar.

[HermioneSparrow]

1 hour ago, singsingsing said:

One of my best friends in high school was top of the class, straight A student, teacher's pet (and the English teacher in particular absolutely adored her), all of that. So at the time I just kind of assumed she was a genius. And maybe she is, but damn, that girl could not write to save her life. One day she asked me to proof read her essay. It was awful. Just awful. I had so much cognitive dissonance that day. She went on to get a BA in English and an MA in a related field. Very bright woman, no doubt about it, but her writing was by far worse than Jill's.

Oh, and I have another friend who has an MA in History. His writing is shockingly bad. I mean, really, really appalling. Ten times worse than anything I've ever seen from a Duggar.

Sometimes people who are academically inclined are not geniuses but hardworking disciplined people. The girl that graduated top of my class in high school got a full ride at the best college in my country and it took her EIGHT YEARS to complete her degree. My sister was very lazy at school (she failed quite a few classes) but she has fantastic grammar and writing skills, I always say she's exceptionally smart and doesn't realize it.

The duggars never got a good education, we don't know if those kids are brighter than we think. I think Jessa is very bright.

[singsingsing]

2 minutes ago, HermioneSparrow said:

Sometimes people who are academically inclined are not geniuses but hardworking disciplined people.

That's exactly it. My friend in high school was very hardworking and very disciplined. That's what saved her. In contrast, I am not hardworking or disciplined (at least when it comes to school - for some reason it's a completely different story at work) and the only thing that saved me was my writing ability. I personally think being hardworking and disciplined is going to get you farther in life than your writing ability, and I worry far more about the Duggars' apparent lack of discipline and willingness to actually work than their mediocre writing skills.

[HermioneSparrow]

24 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

That's exactly it. My friend in high school was very hardworking and very disciplined. That's what saved her. In contrast, I am not hardworking or disciplined (at least when it comes to school - for some reason it's a completely different story at work) and the only thing that saved me was my writing ability. I personally think being hardworking and disciplined is going to get you farther in life than your writing ability, and I worry far more about the Duggars' apparent lack of discipline and willingness to actually work than their mediocre writing skills.

Completely agree!! 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

39 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

I worry far more about the Duggars' apparent lack of discipline and willingness to actually work than their mediocre writing skills.

This right here, I will take the hard working stupidest fucker you will ever meet over a smart lazy entitled brat any day of the week. 

[Four is Enough]

1 hour ago, singsingsing said:

 I worry far more about the Duggars' apparent lack of discipline and willingness to actually work than their mediocre writing skills.

This. For cryingoutloud, WHO sustains a family while sitting at home all day staring at them? They don't mind going to the doctor, but condemn that same doctor for working with "defrauding" people, that is , naked ones.  They eschew any meaningful work their children (or they themselves) could do, for grifting and bearing more children.

In the past, it might have been more  common for an entire family to live together or nearly together. But they tended a large farm or they herded animals... they didn't just do nothing. How can they live without any interests, hobbies, jobs?

[VelociRapture]

6 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

This. For cryingoutloud, WHO sustains a family while sitting at home all day staring at them? They don't mind going to the doctor, but condemn that same doctor for working with "defrauding" people, that is , naked ones.  They eschew any meaningful work their children (or they themselves) could do, for grifting and bearing more children.

In the past, it might have been more  common for an entire family to live together or nearly together. But they tended a large farm or they herded animals... they didn't just do nothing. How can they live without any interests, hobbies, jobs?

I wouldn't be surprised if they did things not shown on tv for some reason. I mean, I doubt any of them are super productive, but I find it tough to believe they don't have things to fill their time. Like the Dills doing that Bible class or Benessa's women's shows. Were those shown at all?

(Or maybe I'm just naive and projecting because that would be such a boring way to live.)

[singsingsing]

Yeah, I have no issue with families living together/close by, family businesses, working with relatives, etc. but, I mean... you gotta do something. I know Jim Bob buys and rents out properties. I'm sure he brings in pretty decent money doing that, but how many sons can he really bring into that business, assuming that they're all going to be supporting wives who don't work plus a dozen or more children? Their various used car lots, towing activities and pilot's licences don't really seem like they could sustain large single-income families, either. They have the TV show, but some of them barely appear on it, and it's not going to last forever. They don't seem to be really marketing themselves in a way that can sustain them beyond the end of the show. Being a professional celebrity still takes work.

Something has to give. You can't have your wife stay home and not work and have a billion kids and be a missionary/youth pastor/part-time tow truck driver/used car salesman with a 12-5 schedule. It's disturbing to me to see the conveyor belt of courtships, marriages, and babies,  the women all uneducated and determined to never sully themselves with work outside the home, the men all un- or underemployed, all eschewing birth control, and all convinced that they're God's gift to humanity, on a special mission to spread their religion via their TV show. I think reality is going to bite them in the ass. Hard.

Edit: I don't doubt that they do things. I'm sure they do plenty of things. I'd estimate that what we see on the TV show and social media accounts for maybe 5% of their actual lives, if that. I have absolutely no doubt that they have hobbies and friends, and engage in various activities, that we never see or hear about. But unless they all secretly have full time jobs or successful businesses that they're keeping under wraps, I can't help but think they're in trouble.

[lomo6]

19 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

Yeah, I have no issue with families living together/close by, family businesses, working with relatives, etc. but, I mean... you gotta do something. I know Jim Bob buys and rents out properties. I'm sure he brings in pretty decent money doing that, but how many sons can he really bring into that business, assuming that they're all going to be supporting wives who don't work plus a dozen or more children? Their various used car lots, towing activities and pilot's licences don't really seem like they could sustain large single-income families, either. They have the TV show, but some of them barely appear on it, and it's not going to last forever. They don't seem to be really marketing themselves in a way that can sustain them beyond the end of the show. Being a professional celebrity still takes work.

Something has to give. You can't have your wife stay home and not work and have a billion kids and be a missionary/youth pastor/part-time tow truck driver/used car salesman with a 12-5 schedule. It's disturbing to me to see the conveyor belt of courtships, marriages, and babies,  the women all uneducated and determined to never sully themselves with work outside the home, the men all un- or underemployed, all eschewing birth control, and all convinced that they're God's gift to humanity, on a special mission to spread their religion via their TV show. I think reality is going to bite them in the ass. Hard.

Edit: I don't doubt that they do things. I'm sure they do plenty of things. I'd estimate that what we see on the TV show and social media accounts for maybe 5% of their actual lives, if that. I have absolutely no doubt that they have hobbies and friends, and engage in various activities, that we never see or hear about. But unless they all secretly have full time jobs or successful businesses that they're keeping under wraps, I can't help but think they're in trouble.

 

Yeah, taking away the TV show, JimBob has the kind of businesses that could maybe sustain 2-3 hardworking sons and their reasonably-sized families. But if all his kids get married and have an average of 5 kids, that's almost 200 people to support. JB might have a real estate empire of sorts, but this is Northwest Arkansas. Unless the Duggars manage to take over the entire state, some of the kidults are going to have to get real jobs at some point.

[HermioneSparrow]

I can't even comprehend how there are families supported by a single income. Nowadays almost nobody can afford that luxury, so how they do it considering they have like a billion kids is a puzzle to me.

[bal maiden]

13 hours ago, mpheels said:

Oh so much of this. I'm a doctoral student at a "big name" school. I TA mostly for master's students, and many are international students. I'm always mindful of students writing when they are not native speakers - I don't want to penalize someone for their grammar when it's the time they are writing a paper in English. On more than one occasion, I assumed a student was a non-native speaker based on their writing, only to meet with them one-on-one and learn they are US educated from kindergarten through grad school

You are kinder than me: I feel that by the time you are doing a Master's degree, your language skills should be developed enough to communicate clearly in your language of study. Yeah, I'm not going to be a dick about an odd mistake, or something that's easy to correct, but I've had MA students who barely seemed fluent in English  And, as with another poster above, I am in the social sciences, so words are pretty important... 

That aside, I have also experienced native speakers with horrible writing. I have read published journal articles and books with horrible writing... 

[keen23]

7 minutes ago, HermioneSparrow said:

I can't even comprehend how there are families supported by a single income. Nowadays almost nobody can afford that luxury, so how they do it considering they have like a billion kids is a puzzle to me.

Well, when your single income is TV money, it does make it easier.

I'm not saying that everyone has to work outside the home, but I honestly don't understand what people without jobs (and without health reasons that prevent them from working) do when they have no kids at home. Like my boss's wife- their kids are now in school full time, she has a nanny after school, but she doesn't work. And she doesn't volunteer at the school. Most of her instagram photos are her and her friends out getting mani pedis, shopping and day drinking at brunch. 5 days a week. I don't get it.

[mpheels]

6 minutes ago, bal maiden said:

You are kinder than me: I feel that by the time you are doing a Master's degree, your language skills should be developed enough to communicate clearly in your language of study. Yeah, I'm not going to be a dick about an odd mistake, or something that's easy to correct, but I've had MA students who barely seemed fluent in English  And, as with another poster above, I am in the social sciences, so words are pretty important... 

That aside, I have also experienced native speakers with horrible writing. I have read published journal articles and books with horrible writing... 

In theory, I completely agree. I'm in a "STEMpathy" field - applied statistics and research methodology for medicine/public health. We have a strong emphasis on translation from science to practice, so language is incredibly important, even for students in the more traditional bench sciences offered at my school. Unfortunately, we get a lot of pressure from administrators to give good grades and make sure masters students are "satisfied" with their experience. Many are funded through their home country's health ministry, and there is a sense that these governments will stop funding students if they don't get straight A's. It's very frustrating...

[VelociRapture]

47 minutes ago, HermioneSparrow said:

I can't even comprehend how there are families supported by a single income. Nowadays almost nobody can afford that luxury, so how they do it considering they have like a billion kids is a puzzle to me.

Husband and I are one of those fortunate couples - I'm home with the baby by choice. And, honestly, it depends on a lot of factors. The most important of those, I think, is sheer dumb luck. Yeah, we worked hard, made a ton of good choices, and sacrificed to get to this point - but a ton of couples do the same things and still need both parents working to make ends meet. So I'm going with pure dumb luck playing a massive role.

I look at the married Duggars and just scratch my head. Most parents want a better life for their kids and do what's needed to make that happen. I don't get the feeling that's necessarily the case with the married Duggars. I'd love for them to prove me wrong on that, but I'm thinking it's easier to live on one income when you aren't worrying about saving for college or anything.

[bal maiden]

45 minutes ago, mpheels said:

In theory, I completely agree. I'm in a "STEMpathy" field - applied statistics and research methodology for medicine/public health. We have a strong emphasis on translation from science to practice, so language is incredibly important, even for students in the more traditional bench sciences offered at my school. Unfortunately, we get a lot of pressure from administrators to give good grades and make sure masters students are "satisfied" with their experience. Many are funded through their home country's health ministry, and there is a sense that these governments will stop funding students if they don't get straight A's. It's very frustrating...

I hear you on the pressure to have 'satisfied customers'. Shan't say more due to maintaining my own privacy. But, oh, I hear you. 

[lomo6]

48 minutes ago, keen23 said:

Well, when your single income is TV money, it does make it easier.

I'm not saying that everyone has to work outside the home, but I honestly don't understand what people without jobs (and without health reasons that prevent them from working) do when they have no kids at home. Like my boss's wife- their kids are now in school full time, she has a nanny after school, but she doesn't work. And she doesn't volunteer at the school. Most of her instagram photos are her and her friends out getting mani pedis, shopping and day drinking at brunch. 5 days a week. I don't get it.

So it sounds like your boss's wife is just living a life of luxury. That has always existed for the privileged few. My paternal grandmother was basically Betty Draper - emotionally distant chainsmoker who did very little "parenting" despite having all the time and money in the world.

In the case of more regular middle class STAHMs whose kids are now in school, I think they generally serve as a sort of catch-all for anything that goes awry in the family (kid gets sick and needs to stay home from school, elderly relative needs a little more help around the house, furnace breaks and maintenance guys say they're coming between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., etc.)...

But, perhaps a little less generously, they also  manage to  to stretch out the time it takes to do a lot of routine chores and activities that working people might do more quickly or just neglect all together. One relative who's in this category will often tell me about driving 20 miles to use a 10% off coupon, when she could have gone to a store 5 mins away. Sure, maybe she saved $10, but someone working 40+hrs/week would have found that a waste of time.

 

[neurogirl]

Relating to jobs, on the Duggar family site the little girls have future goals listed like doctor, vet, and artist. Compare that to the older J slaves whose goals were always "wife and mother." When do you think "God" will lay it on their hearts to desire to stay at home? Or do you think the younger kids will have more freedom to earn money now that the family is accustomed to a certain lifestyle?

[mpheels]

2 minutes ago, neurogirl said:

Relating to jobs, on the Duggar family site the little girls have future goals listed like doctor, vet, and artist. Compare that to the older J slaves whose goals were always "wife and mother." When do you think "God" will lay it on their hearts to desire to stay at home? Or do you think the younger kids will have more freedom to earn money now that the family is accustomed to a certain lifestyle?

If you go way back to the Raising 16 Kids special, they did identify real career goals for the older girls. Joy = nurse, Jinger = chef, Jessa = beautician, Jill = missionary, Jana = Midwife. 

[ljohnson2006]

It's too bad none of the girls can pursue those careers. 

[BabyBottlePop]

3 minutes ago, mpheels said:

If you go way back to the Raising 16 Kids special, they did identify real career goals for the older girls. Joy = nurse, Jinger = chef, Jessa = beautician, Jill = missionary, Jana = Midwife. 

I honestly believe the girls were allowed to pick those career choices but JB and Michelle had no intention of them actually pursuing them. I feel like it's their version of wanting to be a Major League Baseball player or a movie star. It's fun to pretend but we know it'll never happen.