Seewalds 27: Playing not Cleaning

[Bajovane]

Queen Elizabeth will never just step down - she's Queen for life.  For her, it's actually a religious duty so she takes it seriously.  She has delegated some of the work to Charles and is also spreading some of the responsibilities over to William as well.  She's pretty healthy for someone her age.

I cannot imagine what it will be like with her gone.  Charles has big shoes to fill.

[samurai_sarah]

Good news, genealogy fans:

As our fluffy bunny and overlord has promised in her outlook post, any clubs requested can be made. There shall be a genealogy club! Rejoice with me!

 

[kacarlton]

[/url] Ben has been quite active on Twitter lately. His tweet came after retweeting this:
Spoiler  
I definitely don't agree with the Jesusy slant, but it's a lot more than what any of the extended Duggars have said.

I’m actually shocked. I’ve been waiting for more right wing Christians to denounce white supremacy. Good for Ben, even though he’s obviously still fundy.

My ex-husband ( is adopted, as is his older brother (A). Their younger brother © was a "surprise! you can have babies!" baby. When their grandfather died, my then-husband and his older brother were mentioned in the grandfather's will:  A gets nothing. B gets nothing. C gets $20,000, stock certificates, gold coins, etc.
 

Wow. I do not understand people. Did C share with his brothers?

[Carm_88]

From Jessa’s Instagram story. They’re too cute!
Large families will be the death of me genealogy wise.

[SapphireSlytherin]

1 hour ago, kacarlton said:

Did C share with his brothers?

Hah - you're joking, right?

No. And B's daughter (also MY daughter) hasn't seen her "grandparents" in years. She didn't go to her "grandfather's" funeral, either. Although they adored her when she was younger (first grandchild), once C started having kids, A's and B's kids were largely ignored.

[kacarlton]

Hah - you're joking, right?
No. And B's daughter (also MY daughter) hasn't seen her "grandparents" in years. She didn't go to her "grandfather's" funeral, either. Although they adored her when she was younger (first grandchild), once C started having kids, A's and B's kids were largely ignored.

That’s so very wrong.

[feministxtian]

Am I the only one who thinks that Spurgie looks just like his mama? 

[JillsFlowerHeadband]

15 hours ago, feministxtian said:

Am I the only one who thinks that Spurgie looks just like his mama? 

I agree, when I see @Four is Enough ‘s avatar and @Carm_88 ‘s next to each other you can really see it then. 

As an aside, I will humbly admit how wrong I was back in the day when I thought Jill and Derick would be happier and better parents than Jessa and Ben. I do think Jill is trying her best but Jessa seems to have taken to parenting much more naturally and Ben seems WAY more hands-on and involved as a dad than Derick does. 

[VelociRapture]

Jessa added new photos to Instagram, including this gem:

I feel like this is just screaming to be made into an avatar. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

@VelociRapture--Wow! I don't think I've ever seen Ben's eyes that wide open.  He usually seems to have his eyelids at half-mast. (Mine are naturally a bit that way, too. )

[Carm_88]

The full post! Spurgeon was not amused. Henry on the other hand is very amused.

[Thorkim1954]

2 hours ago, Carm_88 said:

 

The full post! Spurgeon was not amused. Henry on the other hand is very amused.

Boy, to me, Henry looks more Duggarish every time I see him.  I hate to say it, but I see some Smuggar in him in this photo.

[JDuggs]

1 hour ago, Thorkim1954 said:

Boy, to me, Henry looks more Duggarish every time I see him.  I hate to say it, but I see some Smuggar in him in this photo.

I think it’s the round face and the receding hairline. Henry is very cute.

[NakedKnees]

I'll just go out on a limb and say it: I love those pics. They look like a NORMAL silly family. If only that were the case.

Good job on the social media recovery work, Jessa  

[AprilQuilt]

On 27/10/2017 at 5:58 PM, ViolaSebastian said:

As I told my aunt when her genetic testing came back, revealing that she was 40% Irish despite not having a single Irish ancestor recorded: Until very, very recently, there was no way to prove a particular man was the father of a particular baby. 

oh my gosh. So embarrassed I never thought of this as an option. My DNA came back as 15% Irish even though there is absolutely no Irish in our family tree. My brother and I have puzzled over it for ages - 15% seems quite a lot to be just one stealth Irish person.

Lots of well-documented Scots though. How reliable are those genetic testings? Could 'Scottish' heritage be misconstrued as 'Irish'? They're all Celts after all.

[singsingsing]

7 minutes ago, AprilQuilt said:

oh my gosh. So embarrassed I never thought of this as an option. My DNA came back as 15% Irish even though there is absolutely no Irish in our family tree. My brother and I have puzzled over it for ages - 15% seems quite a lot to be just one stealth Irish person.

Lots of well-documented Scots though. How reliable are those genetic testings? Could 'Scottish' heritage be misconstrued as 'Irish'? They're all Celts after all.

Depending on the test, reliable enough to not mistake, say, Japanese for Irish, but not really reliable enough to differentiate Irish from Scottish.  

[ThunderRolls]

6 hours ago, JillsFlowerHeadband said:

SNIP

As an aside, I will humbly admit how wrong I was back in the day when I thought Jill and Derick would be happier and better parents than Jessa and Ben. I do think Jill is trying her best but Jessa seems to have taken to parenting much more naturally and Ben seems WAY more hands-on and involved as a dad than Derick does. 

I thought the same as you, too. I feel like Ben and Derick's vastly different parenting styles have affected how Jill and Jessa have responded to motherhood. Jill was stressed out and freaked out by traveling back and forth to CA while Ben provided help and stability (IIRC, Ben was mostly home when Spurgeon was an infant).

I never realized how isolating taking care of an infant was until I had one, and I can't imagine if my husband dragged me down to another country (or even another state) where I didn't know anyone or have any other family. Jill honestly bugs the shit out of me, but man, I do have some sympathy for what she did for Derick's sake as a new mom. Jill was always the Gothard poster girl so her following her husband's lead was pretty much inevitable. Jessa, on the other hand, is more alpha than Jill and is going to do what she wants and will put her foot down if Ben got up to some shenanigans she is not onboard with. I feel like Jessa's stronger personality along with a more supportive husband has allowed her to really enjoy motherhood where as dingbat Derick took that chance from Jill (even though Jill is an adult and could've said, "Fuck off, D, I'm staying Arkansas while you pretend to be Jesus by yourself."). 

[EmmieJ]

6 hours ago, JillsFlowerHeadband said:

I agree, when I see @Four is Enough ‘s avatar and @Carm_88 ‘s next to each other you can really see it then. 

As an aside, I will humbly admit how wrong I was back in the day when I thought Jill and Derick would be happier and better parents than Jessa and Ben. I do think Jill is trying her best but Jessa seems to have taken to parenting much more naturally and Ben seems WAY more hands-on and involved as a dad than Derick does. 

Jesse and Ben seem to enjoy being with their children.  They seem to be able to find the humor in the ups and downs of parenting little ones.  Ben gets down on the floor and let's the boys crawl on him and gently wrestle.  The boys sure seem happy and well cared for.

I hope the same is true for Izzy and Sam.  Derick just seems like he's a huge pill.  His comments about Izzy are often passive aggressive.  I hope he's not home much if he's as big a jerk as he seems.

[AprilQuilt]

30 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

Depending on the test, reliable enough to not mistake, say, Japanese for Irish, but not really reliable enough to differentiate Irish from Scottish.  

oh good. Frankly I've got enough first-world problems to deal with already.

[Carm_88]

23 minutes ago, EmmieJ said:

I hope the same is true for Izzy and Sam.  Derick just seems like he's a huge pill.  His comments about Izzy are often passive aggressive.  I hope he's not home much if he's as big a jerk as he seems.

I hope not too. I hope that he is taking to twitter and taking out all his frustrations that way.

[nastyhobbitses]

25 minutes ago, EmmieJ said:

Jesse and Ben seem to enjoy being with their children.  They seem to be able to find the humor in the ups and downs of parenting little ones.  Ben gets down on the floor and let's the boys crawl on him and gently wrestle.  The boys sure seem happy and well cared for.

I hope the same is true for Izzy and Sam.  Derick just seems like he's a huge pill.  His comments about Izzy are often passive aggressive.  I hope he's not home much if he's as big a jerk as he seems.

I get the sense that Jessa and Ben have more emotional intelligence than Jill and Derick. Derick doesn't seem to grasp that concept. I think he's a very self-absorbed person and expects everyone to think the way he does - Jill will like and quickly adapt to traipsing around the world on a moment's notice because Derick did and could. Israel will sit quietly in the car and do as he's told because Derick can do those things. Jill I think can also be kind of clueless in the emotional intelligence department; I think she might expect Izzy to be compliant because she was as a child just as a matter of personality.

[Nikedagain?]

3 hours ago, Thorkim1954 said:

Boy, to me, Henry looks more Duggarish every time I see him.  I hate to say it, but I see some Smuggar in him in this photo.

He looks exactly like Meredith.

That Duggar gene pool, y'all...

[Lurky]

1 hour ago, AprilQuilt said:

Lots of well-documented Scots though. How reliable are those genetic testings? Could 'Scottish' heritage be misconstrued as 'Irish'? They're all Celts after all.

Meh, Scotland, Ireland and England are so damn close to each other, and there was so much travel between the countries, that I can't believe there are genetic differences that are meaningful, unless someone has history from the far northern islands of Scotland, or deep down in Cornwall.  But there's SO much travel between eg Glasgow and Belfast, or Liverpool/Bristol and Dublin etc etc etc that it's not possible to say, definitively, that one's ancestors are *only* from one of the countries.

[cascarones]

I think we chatted on another thread about the DNA accuracy on the tests. Pretty much everyone here is right, the big thing to remember is it's home tests and not samples taken in a controlled environment, so if the DNA sample they get for an ancestry test is a bit wonky (ie, heat damaged, light damaged, more of the bacteria in your mouth than human DNA) the gaps get filled in via algorithm. Most usually off the name submitted, it's been shown in a few tests that percentages will shift around. For example a Sean O'Brien will wind up with a more "Irish" percentage than a Sean McCullough (same person, samples taken at the same time), who'd get tagged as more "Scottish" overall. There's not a huge difference between the area at the individual spots being mapped and tested, most main ones used currently have been discovered due to genetic diseases over definable, repeatable pattern differences.

They're really fun though, but any true conclusions/ family choices made based on health/paternity need to go through a controlled testing lab. Alright, my professional hat is off and my spooky cat ears are on!

[Marly]

13 hours ago, Carm_88 said:

 

The full post! Spurgeon was not amused. Henry on the other hand is very amused.

I really liked these pictures.
They did make me wonder though: how long are the church services they attend, seeing that they are taking infants with them?
The fundies I know never took children under four years old with them to church, because they considered the services to be too long for such young children. When they turned four, they were old enough to attend 'kiddy church': a special service attuned to children that was held in a different room in the church at the same time as the 'normal' service. The kids only had to attend 15/20 minutes of the normal service, and then they were off to kiddy church. (Mind you, these were very strict fundies: no birthcontrol, man is head of woman, strict gender divisions and roles, women aren't allowed to work outside of the home etc. ) I always thought that this was normal (for fundies). However, I noticed that the Duggars' and Bates'  do bring infants to church with them. How does that work? Are the services really short, or is there a special 'church daycare' room where the infants are being looked after while the partents attend the service? Or do they use some kind of (questionable/objectionable) disciplinary method to teach their kids to be quiet and mindful during service?