Seewalds 27: Playing not Cleaning

[Coconut Flan]

Continued from here:

 

[HarryPotterFan]

My response to Spurgeon learning the alphabet: he's already smarter than my first boyfriend!

As for reading, I learned when I was 4. My kindergarten teacher asked my mom if she knew I could read. Uh...duh? Pretty big milestone!! Hard to miss that. One of my brothers didn't learn until he was 8. He had no interest until GameBoy and along and he needed to read to play Pokémon  He has a PhD now so he's doing pretty well for himself.

[kacarlton]

Regarding the newest pictures: again with the developmentally appropriate toys! Did we ever see any of those at the big house?

 

[TheWayTheWorldWorks]

It's been a long time since I checked on the Seewalds but I wanted to pop in to share the quote that was hanging in the random house my girlfriends and I rented this weekend.   I was shocked to see the name outside of FJ!

[nvmbr02]

17 minutes ago, HarryPotterFan said:

My response to Spurgeon learning the alphabet: he's already smarter than my first boyfriend!

As for reading, I learned when I was 4. My kindergarten teacher asked my mom if she knew I could read. Uh...duh? Pretty big milestone!! Hard to miss that. One of my brothers didn't learn until he was 8. He had no interest until GameBoy and along and he needed to read to play Pokémon  He has a PhD now so he's doing pretty well for himself.

My oldest learned to read and I didn't notice it. No, I didn't have a billion other kids or anything. She had been "reading" to us for several weeks and both my husband and I thought she had memorized the books since she usually pulled out her favorites that we had read to her hundreds of times. It wasn't until a trip to the library that we figured out she was actually reading. She was 4ish at the time and hadn't started preschool yet. Oops. 

[HarryPotterFan]

3 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

My oldest learned to read and I didn't notice it. No, I didn't have a billion other kids or anything. She had been "reading" to us for several weeks and both my husband and I thought she had memorized the books since she usually pulled out her favorites that we had read to her hundreds of times. It wasn't until a trip to the library that we figured out she was actually reading. She was 4ish at the time and hadn't started preschool yet. Oops. 

Oops. I probably ran to my parents screaming, "Mommy! Daddy!! I can read!" I have a vague memory of doing that the first time I counted to 100, and had to show off my new skill.

[front hugs > duggs]

My brother taught himself to read without my parents knowing. He'd always read the sports pages in the newspaper and they assumed he was just looking at pictures. 

They learned the hard way: visiting a t-shirt store on vacation, he read aloud "fuck you, fuck me, fuck the world" and my parents were stunned! Then laughed hysterically 

[Rachel333]

I used to read everything I possibly could too! My parents say they stopped getting the newspaper once I started reading aloud articles on things like rape and murder and asking what those words meant.

[LittleOwl]

4 hours ago, front hugs > duggs said:

They learned the hard way: visiting a t-shirt store on vacation, he read aloud "fuck you, fuck me, fuck the world" and my parents were stunned! Then laughed hysterically 

This reminds of a time when my cousin was very little... (nothing to do with reading).   

On some toys packaging over here, they use little plastic screws.  So, at lunch one day my cousin passes his shiny new toy to his dad to unscrew the packaging.  My cousin then loudly proclaims in the busy restaurant "My Daddy is really good at screwing!"  

[Melissa1977]

Despite I dislike dirty houses. Despite I loathe hateful fundies. Despite I used to think Jessa was bitchy... I have to say that in some ways, I like Seewalds. They may be a bit lazy (came on, 2 adults with no job can do better with a home, specially regarding dirty diapers PLEASE!!!!) BUT they are priorizing the kids, they are not training them to sleep or letting them alone in a blanket, as far as one can deduct looking at their IG. These kids have toys and books and probably 99% more time with mom/dad that Duggars have never had. And most important, Jessa and Ben look happy (a real, not fake happiness) and it's the best "food" for a kid.

This is not a disclaimer, their beliefs are horrible and there's a lot they should do better (specially to look for a good job), but if they stay with a few kids they can have a funny, nice life. Sure they will have more kids, but I wonder if Jessa is smart enough to know when to stop and not becoming extremelly overwhelmed.

[SongRed7]

1 hour ago, Melissa1977 said:

came on, 2 adults with no job can do better with a home, specially regarding dirty diapers PLEASE!!!!)

Ben actually has a job. We don't know what and there has been a lot of speculation but he does work and is taking college courses

 

[Melissa1977]

18 minutes ago, SongRed7 said:

Ben actually has a job. We don't know what and there has been a lot of speculation but he does work and is taking college courses

 

Ok, I'm sorry, I thought he wasn't working.

[AprilQuilt]

since Benessa are both so close to/admiring of JinJer, and bearing in mind also that:

- it sounds like they have two poor sleepers now, very close in age, which must be tough
- they are too overwhelmed to DUST THEIR VENTS
- they seem to want to pour a lot of time into playing with/teaching the kids
- they know that their 'brand' succeeds by being cuddly and moderate re religion

...what do you think the odds are that the Seewalds might let themselves be persuaded to do whatever it is the Vuolos are doing to limit their family size? Genuine question. From a more cynical viewpoint, I think Jessa gets that the glory isn't in having THE MOST kids, but in having THE BEST ones, who can recite the alphabet and ace age-appropriate toys, who are loving and charming and nicely turned-out rather than half-feral Lost Kids with no bedtime. She gets validation from her celeb status and social media presence anyway; she doesn't need a million kids to prove she's super.

From a practical PoV, she must be spread pretty thin already, and I bet ready to find a religiously-sanctioned rationalisation to not continue to procreate at the current pace. On the one hand she has the example of Sierra, who shows it's possible to dip strawberries and do trendy lettered bible verse while still popping out kids. On the other, Jinger has dared to not get knocked up for over a year after marriage (we don't know that's by choice, but I think it is) and no thunderbolt has smote her and she has not been socially ostracised. She's broken a path now, I wouldn't be surprised if Jessa followed. Given how ungovernable the Duggars felt she was, and her sass on social media, I think she's enjoying having some autonomy, and knows - even if she would never/is not able to verbalise it - that heaps of kids will make it much harder for her to have identity as an individual; she must also know that it won't be possible to give future children the same level of attention Spurge and Henry have thrived on. I can see her and Ben having a family more the size of his, like six or seven kids. Respectably big  but not crazy-big, and well spaced. I wouldn't be surprised if God put it on their hearts to NFP cherish the precious children they have. Not that we will ever know.

Just my musing. I hope this is fair speculation and not overstepping anything.

[Jenn The Heathen]

My oldest struggled to read.  He didn’t really grasp it until he started kindergarten.  Now he’s in 4th grade and is one of the top readers in his class.  He reads for pleasure without being told.

#2 started reading a few days before his 5th birthday.  By the time he started kindergarten, he was reading small chapter books on his own.  Getting him to read now is a struggle.

We did all the same things with both of them.  They had the same teachers at the same preschool.  Sometimes personality plays a huge part in it.

[SassyPants]

10 hours ago, HarryPotterFan said:

My response to Spurgeon learning the alphabet: he's already smarter than my first boyfriend!

As for reading, I learned when I was 4. My kindergarten teacher asked my mom if she knew I could read. Uh...duh? Pretty big milestone!! Hard to miss that. One of my brothers didn't learn until he was 8. He had no interest until GameBoy and along and he needed to read to play Pokémon  He has a PhD now so he's doing pretty well for himself.

Same in our house. Our later reader never read kid books though. He started on chapter books (age 6) vs the basic readers that our early reader (age 4 ) used.  I'm not convinced that being an early reader is really an indication of much. Both of our kids are equally successful as adults, and the later reader was by far the more naturally gifted student.

[TheMustardCardigan]

1 hour ago, AprilQuilt said:

...what do you think the odds are that the Seewalds might let themselves be persuaded to do whatever it is the Vuolos are doing to limit their family size?

That is, if they actually are doing something to limit their family size! We don't know.

[elliha]

32 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Same in our house. Our later reader never read kid books though. He started on chapter books (age 6) vs the basic readers that our early reader (age 4 ) used.  I'm not convinced that being an early reader is really an indication of much. Both of our kids are equally successful as adults, and the later reader was by far the more naturally gifted student.

Swedish children start school at age 6 and school is not mandatory until 7. I learned how to read after 2-3 weeks of school. One of the reasons school starts later is just that finding that children don't seem to win that much from learning how to read earlier than that. Most children here go to play based preschool and letters and numbers are introduced but not pushed on kids that are not interested. My daughter is five and she can write her own name, she knows most letters, she can count and recognize numbers quite well. She has learned it because she wanted to but was never forced to do so. I sometimes show her how to read and have her say the letters in different words and I am sure if she was encouraged to read and write she would already be doing so but I also see kids, in particular boys, that would never be happy doing things like that. I wouldn't protest greatly if they started school at 5 but no earlier than that in my view.

[Carm_88]

I was reading at 3, my Dad read me books upon books every night. He eventually started shoving books under couch cushions*, they just couldn't be found! He likes my reading habits a lot more now that we share books!  

*There are only so many times that you can search for Little Blue Ben and read one of the many fairy tales. 

[SongRed7]

3 hours ago, AprilQuilt said:

what do you think the odds are that the Seewalds might let themselves be persuaded to do whatever it is the Vuolos are doing to limit their family size? Genuine question. From a more cynical viewpoint, I think Jessa gets that the glory isn't in having THE MOST kids, but in having THE BEST ones, who can recite the alphabet and ace age-appropriate toys, who are loving and charming and nicely turned-out rather than half-feral Lost Kids with no bedtime. She gets validation from her celeb status and social media presence anyway; she doesn't need a million kids to prove she's super.

I'm not a big believer that everything they do is a calculated PR campaign-- at least with Ben and Jessa. (OK they are kind of my pet fundies)  I think they are truly just trying to find/be themselves which is a mix of their upbringing along with their own self discovery about what they believe as they mature.  I find them to be genuine. That's not to say I agree with all of their beliefs, but I think they are earnest...more so than Jill/Derrick who I think are just a mess.

While I think Ben/Jessa went into marriage thinking "as many blessings as God gives" I do think the reality of the situation, plus the influence of Jeremy/Jinger may cause them to personally rethink that belief.   I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually had 4-5 kids, but I don't think they are going to race to have the most either.   I could be wrong...just riding the ISB.   

 

[Flossie]

My first two learned to read with no problems.  My first could read by the time she went to school, my second didn't read when she started Kindergarten, but she knew her alphabet and some of the sounds, so she picked up reading very quickly, too.

My last struggled.  Teaching her at home didn't work, I couldn't find the key to her learning style.  Her teachers at first weren't very successful and she soon landed in Special Ed for reading.  Luckily, when she was in the 4th grade, we found a couple of 'learning to read' computer games that she enjoyed enough to solve the word puzzles in order to keep playing.  

But what really helped was her discovering the Naruto books.  Think of a comic book where the pages have pictures of the characters, but the dialogue is more advanced and there is a lot more conversation than in the old Archie comic books.  They're also longer, 6-8 chapters averaging 20 pages per chapter, so they have a proper cover and a spine.  Trying to pry the story out of those books provided the encouragement my daughter needed to keep going.  At first I'd tell her what the words were and what they meant, but she realized that if she could sound out the words herself she'd be able to move along faster.  For the first time she stopped balking at the laborious process of learning to sound out words, and her reading improved dramatically.  

We started buying her one or two Naruto books every couple of weeks.  She'd read them over and over again, learning more words each time.  Knowing more of the words, understanding them better, made it easier for her to stop to ask me for definitions of the harder words, and in the process she'd learn the proper pronunciations, too.  Sometimes she'd start back at the beginning of her growing library and was always surprised at how much more there was to the story now that her reading comprehension was better.

She eventually read her way out of Special Ed, into regular classes, and was in the AP classes in high school.  I'm proud of all my kids, for various reasons, but one of the things I'm most proud of for my youngest is how hard she worked to learn a skill that came easily to her siblings.  It gave her the confidence to tackle difficult subjects later on in her education, and that confidence will serve her well for the rest of her life.

[jacduggar]

1 hour ago, TheMustardCardigan said:

That is, if they actually are doing something to limit their family size! We don't know.

Yep. The average couple takes a year to conceive a baby. The Duggars and Bates just appear to be hyper fertile or meticulously planning pregnancies. The Vuolo’s haven’t given me a compelling reason to believe they are “family planning” anything other than leaving it up to god. 

 

Jessa’s dirty diaper pile is really gross. I hope she’s okay. Dusting the vents is one thing, leaving a pile of diapers full of human waste laying around is entirely different. 

[AprilQuilt]

14 minutes ago, SongRed7 said:

I'm not a big believer that everything they do is a calculated PR campaign-- at least with Ben and Jessa. (OK they are kind of my pet fundies)  I think they are truly just trying to find/be themselves which is a mix of their upbringing along with their own self discovery about what they believe as they mature.  I find them to be genuine. That's not to say I agree with all of their beliefs, but I think they are earnest...more so than Jill/Derrick who I think are just a mess.

While I think Ben/Jessa went into marriage thinking "as many blessings as God gives" I do think the reality of the situation, plus the influence of Jeremy/Jinger may cause them to personally rethink that belief.   I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually had 4-5 kids, but I don't think they are going to race to have the most either.   I could be wrong...just riding the ISB.   

 

 

My thinking is more or less the same as yours. I don't think they are scheming - they are in earnest about their beliefs and they seem like loving parents - but I think Jessa is smart and maybe has a touch of the Jim-Bobs re sniffing out the opportunity in a situation (not grifting, though, thank Rufus). She's right to: it's precarious to rely on reality TV to pay the bills, and it helps to have a positive public profile. If she wants a continued media presence and public interest, she's behaving very sensibly. 

I agree that maybe they've rethought a few things since they were married. We've seen them grow as people in other ways. I've a vested interest because they are my pet fundies too  but I really hope she isn't swamped with more kids than she can handle. Maybe Michelle's worth was wrapped up in that, in their circle and for TV, but this generation of daughters already have a platform. They can evangelise (if that's what they want to do) in other ways than being a brood-mare.

1 hour ago, TheMustardCardigan said:

That is, if they actually are doing something to limit their family size! We don't know.

No, we don't. I added that disclaimer to my other mention of them in the post but not in this one. Sorry. I feel broadly comfortable assuming this is their choice, firstly because they've said (Jeremy's said?) on the show that they see kids in their future but not immediately (was it a 2-year plan?), and also the behaviour of their family on that season finale sofa thing. They closed ranks to shut down the question of when JinJer were going to have kids. My siblings and I do something similar when my grandparents ask probing questions. I think it's been discussed privately and a stock answer agreed on. None of that's conclusive, and as mentioned on the J-Rod thread, the Duggars are like a great big Rorschach Test that everybody interprets differently. But that's my 2p.

[Captain Obvious]

11 hours ago, front hugs > duggs said:

My brother taught himself to read without my parents knowing. He'd always read the sports pages in the newspaper and they assumed he was just looking at pictures. 

They learned the hard way: visiting a t-shirt store on vacation, he read aloud "fuck you, fuck me, fuck the world" and my parents were stunned! Then laughed hysterically 

Ha! How old was he when he did that?

[singsingsing]

I wouldn't really be surprised if a lot of these couples ended up getting a memo from the Lord that NFP is totally cool. Most of them have parents who weren't raised quiverfull but grew up, questioned their upbringing/values, and chose to do things differently. It only makes sense that the next generation would in turn question their parents. We've already seen various adult Duggar kids make different choices and tweak their values, whether it be wearing pants or listening to previously forbidden music. Family planning is a bigger step, but it's definitely not outside the realm of possibility, for any of them.

All that said, it's way too soon to assume that any of them are, or are on the path to, family planning. Yes, even Jinger, but especially Jessa. Rationally, yeah, one would assume that having two babies in quick succession might dampen her enthusiasm to have 20 kids herself, but maybe it's only made her more eager to get that football team. Who knows. Seeing Jinger enjoying a currently childfree existence may not have much of an effect on her, because that ship has already sailed for Jessa. She'll never have that, and she already has two babies, so hey, what's a third (and a fourth, and a fifth...)?

Anyway, I'm rambling. In a nutshell: possible? Yes. Any real reason to believe that any of them, especially Ben and Jessa, are currently using NFP or birth control? No.

[Carm_88]

Also, I want to point out that maybe Jessa thinks that Jeremy and Jinger are missing out not having kids. She clearly enjoys Spurgeon and Henry.