Joy and Austin: 248 Days Since the Wedding and Still Counting

[viii]

4 hours ago, singsingsing said:

She's only a year older than them. What's the age cut-off for blanket training? 

For us, it was basically anything 7 and under. After that, you were expected to be able to sit in your chair for 2 hours of church without causing distractions. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

23 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

COP (Certified Old Person) here. When I went to school, teachers were allowed to hit, spank, slap, whenever and for whatever reason. Miss your spelling words, talking in class, or get your math problems wrong, you had to be hit to help you learn.

Sometimes, it became a challenge, how to annoy the teacher so much that she would be driven to slapping our palms with a ruler. No, we weren't masochists, I think it was our way of taking control.

Same.

In fourth grade, my teacher made the class clown sit right next to her desk. His desk faced the wall, directly under the chalkboard. She regularly bopped him on the head with her pingpong paddle when he acted like a little shit. (Christian grade school)

In seventh grade I, and the rest of my PE class except for one girl, were paddled by the PE teacher (because we didn't dress out for class), with a wooden paddle drilled with random-sized holes. All of us had blistered welts on our asses. Later that day, she wrapped the paddle with duct tape. The next morning, my dad and all the other girls' dads, showed up en masse at the principal's office. She was verbally reprimanded and told to turn in that paddle and replace it with one without holes. (public junior high school)

 

 

[nastyhobbitses]

16 hours ago, lizzybee said:

My husband and I were talking about something this weekend that made me think of blanket training and punishing children. We were discussing how our 14mo doesn't really understand consequences yet. We get frustrated with him a lot at dinner because he likes to play and do the windshield wiper motion with his hands on his food tray, effectively knocking his dinner in the floor. Thing is, he still wants his food. I'll take the tray off when he starts doing that and will fork feed him or give him one piece at a time to save his dinner. He'll eat every bite. We get frustrated, but ultimately the deal is he doesn't understand that if it goes off the tray he can't eat it - and why would he understand that? What does he know about dirt and germs or wasting food? He's just playing and being a baby.

So blanket training, for example, is a way of teaching consequences in a very cruel way. But I'm preaching to the choir on that one. Honorable mention to Derrick and his awful human nature comment (or whatever he said, you know what I mean). Why do we have to assume the worst about our children from the gate? It's our job to teach them and love them not treat them like deviant criminals.

I think a lot of times when they're little it's easy to get mad at them until you process why they're upset, why they're behaving a certain way, or whether or not they understand if a behavior is wrong. 

And yet the same fundies who expect infants to have adult reasoning and understanding of cause and effect/emotional manipulation will go "BUT HE'S JUST A KIIIIIIIIDDDDDDD" when their teenage son sexually assaults multiple people. 

Pick one, assholes. 

[CaricatureQualities]

#9 of  The 11 Satanic Rules of the Earth (from the Church of Satan) is simply  "Do not harm little children". 

The Pearls and those who follow and support them really need to let a little Satan in their lives, IMO.

[shock928]

In light of the Michael Pearl talk - I am just deeply disturbed. Thankyou to Jellybean for the Patheos link and Mizandry for the book link. I read all of the Patheos reviews - and also watched most the the Pearl interviews. So, I decided to do a little experiment. I decided that I would write down a normal day in my life of being a middle class stay at home mom - a home without any spankings or rods. And just for a little background I also believe in God - but I don’t believe he wants me to use a rod and I consider Jesus to be loving and peaceful. 

For this I will use: C1 (first child, 3 years, 4 months old) C2 (second child, 2 years, 4 months old) C3 (third child, 1 year 3 months old) C2 has developmental delays and Sensory Processing Disorder he is also non-verbal to put it into context.

When I witnessed an occurrence of “disobeying,” according to what I read from the Pearl’s method I will write POS (heh, heh) Pearl Obedience Spanking.

 

8:00AM We wake up- I tell C1 and C2 to sit at the table so I can make them breakfast. They take about 5 minutes to finally sit down, because they are excited to see mom and are running around giving me hugs and yelling around the room “Good morning!”

POS - Pearls would have spanked for not immediately obeying me to sit at the table.

8:30AM C1 has only finished half of her breakfast and has left the table. I tell her to eat one more bite- she doesn’t want to and tells me “No, I’m done.” So I let that one go.

POS - Pearls would have spanked C1 for not immediately obeying.

9:00AM C3 is trying to climb a chair, and I’ve told him not to and redirected him about 3 times now. The fourth time, he falls off the chair and bumps his head. I go to him and comfort him, and then redirect him again.

POS - Pearls taught to not comfort after a child gets hurt. So I would have been told to ignore - and he would have gotten swats to the hand for trying to climb when I told him not to.

9:15AM I get out coloring books for them to color, and C1 and C2 are happily coloring while C3 toddles around happily. C2 takes C1’s color, I tell him not to take and redirect him. But he gets upset and cries about it. I give him a new color and reiterate he can color - but he cannot take things out of C1’s hands.

POS - Pearls would have swatted C2’s hand for not immediately obeying what mom said not to do.

10:00AM I get out the Pack N’ Play for C3 to play in, so that I can tidy up the kitchen and put some laundry in for the day. C1 and C2 begin rough around the Pack N’ Play and I tell them they need to play gently. I hear C1 cry because C2 is playing pretty rough. I take him aside and calm him down a bit before letting him go back to playing.

POS - C2 would have had a swat for not immediately obeying.

10:45AM C1 pushes C2 for taking a toy. I take her arm and then I tell her not to push her brother or she will get a time out. She pushes him again. I take C1 to her room for five minutes to calm down. She comes back and plays nicely afterwords.

POS - I’m sure that would have been a rod for not listening to mom the first time.

11:30AM Now it’s quiet/nap time and it’s time they each go to their own rooms for quiet time. They are expected to nap or they have the choice of playing with toys for the duration of quiet time but they have to stay in their rooms.

11:42AM All of them are in their rooms now, and I hear C2 playing with his cars and banging around.

POS - According to the Pearls - a child would be spanked for not laying quiet at “nap time.”

1:47PM It’s about 2 hours for nap/quiet time so now they can come back for the remainder of the day. C1 has wet her bed. C2 has had a poop party and smeared poop all over his walls. (A regular occurrence here because he has SPD.) 

POS - According to the Pearls - a child still wetting the bed at this age would be spanked and I'm sure one who painted the walls with poop - and then taken outside to be hosed down with the water hose. No… not kidding.

2:00PM Put all her sheets and blankets in the wash. Scrub all the poop from the walls. And C3 is trying to climb the chair he fell off of earlier so he goes to the Pack N’ Play until I finish changing C2’s diaper, cleaning him up and scrubbing the poopy walls.

3:15PM We go to run errands. C2 and C3 are very crying and upset to be put into their car seats. I ignore this and tell him “It’s for their safety.”

POS - Pearls would have spanked for not being quiet and obedient in this case.

5:19PM We are home and it’s the end of the day when they get crazy. C2 runs over and tries to climb on the counter to take a banana. I tell him he can’t climb on the counter, and he can’t have a banana unless he signs for one. (He’s non verbal.) He signs for food. So I give him banana.

POS - Pearls would have swatted him not to climb on counter.

5:32PM I start making dinner. I hear C2 crying but I didn’t see what happened. C1 takes a toy away from him, and I tell her not to grab toys from her brother. She comes over and opens a kitchen cabinet to grab a kitchen towel and wipe off her hands. I tell her to put it in the laundry basket when she’s done and instead she throws it on the floor. I go over to her and take her hand and lead her to the kitchen towel I tell her to pick it up and put it in the laundry basket. And she does.

POS - The Pearls would have swatted grabbing anything from kitchen cabinets a long time ago!

5:45PM We have dinner and C3 keeps throwing his food on the floor - I keep cleaning it up and giving smaller portions at a time. Hey- he’s just a baby!

POS- Pretty sure that would call for a swat.

6:02PM I tell them they can watch one movie before bed. I put on Finding Nemo - C1 starts yelling that she doesn’t want to watch that one. But I go over to her and hold her hands to tell her we’ve already picked the movie. She calms down.

POS - Yelling is disrespectful.

7:30PM Time to get ready for bed after cuddling on the couch. We get them all ready for bed- but not after chasing C1 and C2 around (which we’ve made into a little game) but by the time C1 gets into her room she is now upset and isn’t ready to go to bed. She starts yelling “It’s not fair! No bed!” I tell her, “No, we’re getting ready for bed.” I let her yell for a little bit until she calms herself down. 

POS - Swat for not instant obedience, and also disrespect in yelling at mom.

7:56PM Bedtime songs are sung, everyone is tucked in for bed. I hear C3 crying a little bit- I check in on him and tuck him in again. After about 10 minutes I hear C1 playing with her toys and I leave her be.

8:20PM Check on C1 and she’s still playing with toys - I retuck her in, give hugs  and leave.

 

A day with my beautifully strong willed children I love dearly- who are allowed to show emotions and make mistakes! No rods necessary.

If I tally it all up it makes me want to cry. How many spankings or swats would they have gotten conservatively on a normal day? (And according to the Pearls it sometimes isn’t one swat it’s 7 or 8 and it has to hurt. But just for separate instances I will only say 1 per incident.)

C1 - 8. And a water hose for bed wetting.

C2 - 8. And a water hose for painting the walls with his poop.

C3 - 4

In total they are suggesting 20 different swats/spankings and that’s only if I only swatted once per incident. It makes me want to cry. These teachings are wrong on every level and I'm not surprised some of their "followers" abused their kids and even killed them. It makes me sick.

 

[sta_sha]

The Pearls are scary. I hope that Joy and Austin don’t follow them, but I have my doubts. Joy seems like she’s in pretty deep.

I recently posted on a parenting board looking for tips to help my twins sleep through the night. They aren’t old enough to “sleep train” yet, but I was looking to do some reading to prepare. The number of people who recommended Ezzo was terrifying! 

Eta- when I say sleep train, I really just want tips on how to get them to sleep through the night. I definitely don’t plan on “training “ my boys to do anything. 

[viii]

Isn't it horrible when you really break it down like that? Growing up being spanked, it was typically 3 swats before incident, so it would be 8 x 3, 8 x 3, and 4 x 3 = hitting your children 60 times. 

[justoneoftwo]

Its horrible to say, but if you had been doing it all along they would be shells of themselves, and the number of punishments per day would go down.  Because they would be so broken already.  Maybe its just me, but that sounds even worse than the hitting.

[shock928]

3 hours ago, justoneoftwo said:

Its horrible to say, but if you had been doing it all along they would be shells of themselves, and the number of punishments per day would go down.  Because they would be so broken already.  Maybe its just me, but that sounds even worse than the hitting.

I totally agree... They wouldn't have shown so much personality and strong will. They'd be too afraid. : (

[shrewlu]

On 2/5/2018 at 10:46 AM, justoneoftwo said:

I love how willful my child is!  How people can see that and not see a strong personality I don't know!

This is exactly how I feel about my son. He's 18 now and very opinionated with a strong personality. Did (does) he drive me crazy? Sure. But when I think about beating his amazing & strong spirit out of him in the name of "obedience" - it is an awful thought. I love that my son is so authentic to himself and sure of his personality. It's truly a beautiful thing and it makes me very sad that the Duggar kidults might (probably) not ever appreciate that strength of spirit in their own kids. 

[mollysmom]

On 2/1/2018 at 7:20 AM, kachuu said:

Ugh-

 

I had a friend who tried to give me the Pearls' book "Created to be his help meet" - as a belated wedding present. I actually flipped through it (before knowing anything about the Pearls) and found a chapter on always giving sex to your man and being available regardless of anything (including if it causes you pain because clearly that's your own problem) and was so disgusted. I googled book reviews & went down the rabbit hole of the Pearls & Train up your child.

Needless to say, the book was left in the trash in a hotel room where we were staying. I cringe just thinking about it.

My parents used this book in raising us. Needless to say, I'm 40 years old & estranged from my parents. Fucked up teachings. Fucked me up  good.

[Jenn The Heathen]

My youngest son is strong willed and brilliantly gifted.  I’ve found the best way to deal with his personality is to find things that he can focus all that energy on.  For a couple of months, it was solving a rubix cube.  Now it’s those adult coloring books and wanting to design and sell t-shirts with my cricut.  I can’t imagine wanting to get rid of that drive.  He’s going to need that will to change the world. 

[nastyhobbitses]

Not a parent, but I'm of the opinion that beating your kids is lazy, selfish parenting. Instead of bothering to learn about your kid's personality/learning style/emotional needs and how to guide and direct them based on those things, just beat the shit out of them until they're so scared of you that you don't have to give a shit about them as individuals! And they'll be so mentally broken that they won't even have a personality for you to learn or care about anymore! 

If/when I have kids, I think I'd focus on teaching the nature of choice and consequence as early as they can understand it. OK, you can not eat what I made for dinner, but you have to either make what you want yourself or go hungry. OK, you can wear what you want, but you have to suffer the consequences if it's not school dress code, and you have to buy it yourself if I don't approve of it. Or convince me why I should buy it. If you don't like a rule, you need to come up with three reasons why it should be abolished or changed. I pretty much learned a lot of life skills out of spite (fuck you mom I'll MAKE MONEY to BUY MY OWN CLOTHES and then I'll WASH THEM MYSELF AND THEN I DON'T HAVE TO FOLD THEM TO YOUR STANDARDS. Fuck you mom I'll LEARN TO COOK FOR THE FAMILY because you said that you don't have to do the dishes if you do), so I figure that if I incorporate that sense of "hey I can do more adult things if I learn to act like an adult" into my parenting, my kids will learn to be self-sufficient faster. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

8 hours ago, nastyhobbitses said:

If/when I have kids, I think I'd focus on teaching the nature of choice and consequence as early as they can understand it.

And then you'll have a kid and everything you ever thought/planned will go right out that window when you're desperate for sleep, or a shower, or to shave both legs on the same day.

LOL

[VelociRapture]

48 minutes ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

And then you'll have a kid and everything you ever thought/planned will go right out that window when you're desperate for sleep, or a shower, or to shave both legs on the same day.

LOL

I’m in the middle of this right now. Velocibaby is very stubborn and strong willed - I absolutely love that and find it hysterical, but there are times when it gets a bit much. Sometimes you have to just throw your hands up, say fuck it, and pop on some “Daniel Tiger.”* I’m going to take a wild guess and say I’ll be tossing my hands up, saying fuck it, and doing stuff I didn’t intend to do a lot over the next few decades until I finally just give up completely and die. 

*For those who don’t know, Daniel Tiger is an animated show aimed at preschoolers. It was created by the Fred Rogers Foundation (the man who starred on “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”) and it’s actually a really great show that teaches tolerance, acceptance, and how to handle big feelings or problems. There are some little winks to Mr. Roger’s neighborhood - like part of the theme song and Daniel taking off his shoes and unzipping his sweater at the end of each episode. I highly recommend it to parents of toddlers, especially because it airs on PBS (meaning no commercials trying to sell your kid stuff!)

ETA: I feel like DT has been great for me as a parent too. I’m not the most patient person and I can have a bit of a short temper at times, but Daniel’s parents and the other adults are always portrayed as being very calm and patient. When I start getting frustrated or angry, I try to remember things they’d say on the show to the kids and I say those things too - like, “I see you’re very upset and that’s ok” or “It’s ok to feel sad sometimes. Little by little you’ll feel better again.” That kind of stuff helps me feel a lot better because I feel more in control of the situation - and I think that, in turn, helps my daughter feel safer and calmer faster.  

[DillyDally]

So what't the FJ consensus on Joy's due date? Husband is out of town next week and I won't have to hide tabs/act innocent whenever he creeps up on me*, so I will be ready for the babywatch  

*For the record, he doesn't do that, I'm just paranoid.

[shock928]

9 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

I’m in the middle of this right now. Velocibaby is very stubborn and strong willed - I absolutely love that and find it hysterical, but there are times when it gets a bit much. Sometimes you have to just throw your hands up, say fuck it, and pop on some “Daniel Tiger.”* I’m going to take a wild guess and say I’ll be tossing my hands up, saying fuck it, and doing stuff I didn’t intend to do a lot over the next few decades until I finally just give up completely and die. 

*For those who don’t know, Daniel Tiger is an animated show aimed at preschoolers. It was created by the Fred Rogers Foundation (the man who starred on “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”) and it’s actually a really great show that teaches tolerance, acceptance, and how to handle big feelings or problems. There are some little winks to Mr. Roger’s neighborhood - like part of the theme song and Daniel taking off his shoes and unzipping his sweater at the end of each episode. I highly recommend it to parents of toddlers, especially because it airs on PBS (meaning no commercials trying to sell your kid stuff!)

Daniel Tiger has saved my sanity on many occasions! I also love how he teaches and especially about emotions! I still put on the old school mister Rogers as well  I love his teachings. He was deeply spiritual/religious but he showed it by teachings not by cramming it down peoples throats or in a negative way- and I just think it was brilliant.

[Screamapillar]

It blows my mind that the Pearls want people to start disciplining babies at four months. At four months anytime my daughter rolled over or reached or wiggled to grab something out of range my reaction was "OMG she's clearly a genius and destined for Olympic gold!"

 

 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

@VelociRapture as the mother of a soon to be 18 year old strong willed young woman, you will forever being throwing your hands up and saying fuck it. I'm not sure when DH and I even stopped pretending to have any authority over her but its pointless she's getting her way come hell or high water. Now She's not a total brat, she's a straight A student and works hard for her grades, has a job, stays out of trouble, will tell her friends they are "fucking stupid" for smoking pot and screwing every guy that pays them attention. She doesn't drink, she doesn't do drugs, she has a part time job, is good at saving money, and honestly very rarely breaks any rules, but there are times we would love for her to just not have this person over or go to that persons house at 9:30 at night, (her school curfew is 11:00) on a school night. But she will do it anyway. She knows what she wants and she just does it, no matter who she irritates in the process. This will come back to bite her in the ass at some point, but we, her parents, don't know anything, so.  She'll also grow out that too.

[SweetJuly]

8 minutes ago, DillyDally said:

So what't the FJ consensus on Joy's due date? Husband is out of town next week and I won't have to hide tabs/act innocent whenever he creeps up on me*, so I will be ready for the babywatch  

*For the record, he doesn't do that, I'm just paranoid.

I think the consensus was something around mid-February.

Personally, I am ready for this baby to be born!

Curious about the sex (not gender!) and name 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

24 minutes ago, SweetJuly said:

I think the consensus was something around mid-February.

Personally, I am ready for this baby to be born!

Curious about the sex (not gender!) and name 

She could feasibly have this baby any time between now and March 14th? Depending on if she is due Feb 16th or 22nd as both have been rumored.

[JillyO]

Didn't her BIL say Joy is due in two weeks in those horrible e-mails about the Pearls? That was sometime last week, right? So presumably her due date it sometime next week. Although since both of her sisters have been overdue with their first, I'm assuming the baby will come a few days late.

[tabitha2]

Duggar babies already live on Duggar time.  

 

[manda b]

With my five year old I use the corner. When she is acting up, I give her a choice,. I tell her to stop or go to the corner, four out of five times she stops.

[SamuraiKatz]

My youngest son is strong willed and brilliantly gifted.  I’ve found the best way to deal with his personality is to find things that he can focus all that energy on.  For a couple of months, it was solving a rubix cube.  Now it’s those adult coloring books and wanting to design and sell t-shirts with my cricut.  I can’t imagine wanting to get rid of that drive.  He’s going to need that will to change the world. 

Good call! Don't crush that spark. My favorite coloring books are John Wik's Tessellation books from Dover/Creative Haven.