Which fundie change surprised you the most?

[JermajestyDuggar]

Some fundies have changed over the years. Some changes are pretty minor while others are rather dramatic. For example, Zsuzsanna Anderson used to crap all over medicated hospital births but opted to go to the hospital when she was in labor with #10 and loved every minute of her epidural. Erika Shupe has sent her children to public school. The Jeubs have as well.

Which fundie change shocked you the most? Which change do you want to know more about? It would be pretty interesting to make a list of the fundie transformations. But kind of hard to do. 

[mango_fandango]

Erika is the only one I really know about. She did what amounts to a complete 180 in her beliefs. She’s totally disappeared, which is a shame. 

What irritates me about her is that she was so horrible to anyone who disagreed with her, ie put their kids in public school or who didn’t wear skirts only etc. She was so rude. She didn’t have to explain why she put her kids in public school but she should have at least apologised for being so nasty and judgmental.

[Teaistheway]

I also think the Shupes' change seems to have been the most dramatic.  I think that Bob's heart wasn't in it and he eventually stopped indulging Erika and put his foot down; maybe as a result of a bit of rebellion/feistiness from Karen. I'm sure they are still conservative Christians but I'm very glad to see the kids being allowed to live more normal lives.  I just wish that she had continued to blog, seeing it from her viewpoint would interest me.

[GenerationCedarchip]

I think the Phillips clan surprised me most. I kind of expected them to perhaps go fundie-lite after the fall of VF.  From reports of mutual acquaintances, I suspect that's where JT will fall and DWP seems to be going off the rails. Beall and the rest of the family are pretty quiet but they seem to have left fundie-dom by and large. Aside from their constant WWII event traveling, I do admit to being curious about what's going on there.

[acheronbeach]

46 minutes ago, GenerationCedarchip said:

I think the Phillips clan surprised me most. I kind of expected them to perhaps go fundie-lite after the fall of VF.  From reports of mutual acquaintances, I suspect that's where JT will fall and DWP seems to be going off the rails. Beall and the rest of the family are pretty quiet but they seem to have left fundie-dom by and large. Aside from their constant WWII event traveling, I do admit to being curious about what's going on there.

Agreed.  Dougie and his proud social media love of skimpily-dressed European dancing girls was not what I could have ever predicted.  

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, acheronbeach said:

Dougie and his proud social media love of skimpily-dressed European dancing girls was not what I could have ever predicted.  

Couldn't have predicted it, specifically, but am absolutely not surprised by it. 

To most people except his leghumpers, Doug Phillips was an obvious sociopath & scammer. It was only a matter of time before he either tired of being a "Christian," or got found out & run out of Dodge.

[Hane]

What shocked me the most about Dougie’s fall from grace was that it involved not a man but a woman. 

Although there were pings about his unhealthy attraction to Lourdes years ago:  In his old blog, he gushed about a “young lady” who was an exemplary homeschool graduate. He also mused about filming a scientific “documentary” that would include a “young lady” in its cast.  (We at FJ were quick to point out that it wouldn’t be a documentary, but fiction.)

And who could forget the vomit-inducing video of him singing a duet with his daughter Faith, using her “nervousness on stage” as an excuse to keep holding her hand and kissing her throughout the performance?

[Marian the Librarian]

The biggest surprise-but-not-a-surprise for me was Peter and Kelly Bradrick's divorce. For a marriage that was trumpeted far and wide as the holiest of Biblically eternal holies, they sure crashed hard.

[Sobeknofret]

48 minutes ago, Marian the Librarian said:

The biggest surprise-but-not-a-surprise for me was Peter and Kelly Bradrick's divorce. For a marriage that was trumpeted far and wide as the holiest of Biblically eternal holies, they sure crashed hard.

And fast! It may have been just me, but it seemed like everything fell apart with amazing speed. That one left my mouth hanging open. After that terrible, fawning post over their wedding that Doug wrote and the post on militant fecundity that Scott Brown wrote in praise of their marriage, they still fell apart.

[luv2laugh]

Jill Duggar Dillard wearing pants and getting a nose ring!

[Georgiana]

1 hour ago, Sobeknofret said:

And fast! It may have been just me, but it seemed like everything fell apart with amazing speed. That one left my mouth hanging open. After that terrible, fawning post over their wedding that Doug wrote and the post on militant fecundity that Scott Brown wrote in praise of their marriage, they still fell apart.

Pity it didn't fall apart faster, honestly, as that would mean less kids caught up in this mess.

Zsu is probably the darkest change for me, and I really did not see this spiral coming.  She went from someone who seemed to be a hateful nut, but still arguably a decent wife and good mother who enjoyed her children to someone SO overwhelmed and checked out that she makes baby slings for her undersized* 9 year old so that Zsu can pass off her newborn to his child-mom only a week after his birth.  The Anderson House used to seem BETTER than many fundie households in many ways (generally so long as PP was out of it), but now it is probably the darkest house of horrors we follow.  And no, I didn't count the Naugs because I don't consider Poop Mountain a real house.  

The downfall of the Dillards was also pretty surprising to me.  In retrospect, it shouldn't have been, I guess.  But I'm not out here claiming to be a fortune teller.  I genuinely thought Derick was better than this.  And yet, he's SO much worse than I ever could have imagined.  Ditto to the rise of the Seewalds.  I never found EITHER Jessa or Ben particularly likable, but goddamn if she isn't killing the "Relatable Christian Young Mom" social media persona.  It's a pretty big change, IMO, because Jessa had a tendency on Eleventy Kids and Whatever to come off as very abrasive.  Makes me sad, honestly, because Jessa got outside her parents' home, made some blunders....and then LEARNED from them, changed her style, and started killing it.  What if instead of marriage and immediate pregnancy she was given a chance at true independence or education?  What could she have become?

 

*Normally I would not refer to a child using such an impolite term as "undersized".  However, I think it's important to stress here to our non-Anderson following readers JUST HOW TINY Becca is.  It is, IMO, beyond where I would use the term "petite".  She is VERY small, and while most 9 year olds may be able to carry around a baby from time to time, she should not be holding her brother while standing.  Her body is just too small to support weight like that, but Zsu has her WEARING him.  

[NakedKnees]

Although the changes are still superficial, I find the gen 2 Duggars interesting because with their fame, I really thought they would keep up the brand more than they are these days.

The Shupes have shown what are probably the deepest and most surprising changes to me. I really didn't expect them to make the 180 they have.

I'm not surprised Zsu is experiencing mom burnout and is smart enough to not die on that hill. I'll only be really surprised when that bunch rolls back their anti-LGBT rhetoric, and I doubt they ever will.

The downfall of VF is interesting but so far no one has SURPRISED me with their behavior, if that makes sense. I have a lot of hope for Justice and a couple of the other kids from that mess though.

[Sobeknofret]

2 minutes ago, NakedKnees said:

The downfall of VF is interesting but so far no one has SURPRISED me with their behavior, if that makes sense. I have a lot of hope for Justice and a couple of the other kids from that mess though.

Justice seems to have escaped thoroughly. I enjoy his instagram when he posts; he leads such a fascinating and interesting life. The only girl that I think will make a success is Virginia. She's still pretty young and moving towards a more secular life; I was pretty jazzed to see that Beall is letting her play youth soccer. I just hope that Joshua and Delaney move more towards fundie-lite, although I think he was pretty thoroughly steeped in the kool-aid.

[Georgiana]

Also, I TOTALLY thought the Botkinettes would get married or eventually repudiate SAHD-hood.  

If you went back to 2009-2010 Gee and told her that those two good looking and intelligent women would STILL be living at home "helping daddy" in their late 30s, would give up their audience and fundie presence entirely as opposed to growing with the times and transitioning, and that the only remaining pillar of the Botkin empire would be freakin' T-Rex Arms*, I would have called you a liar.  Those women seemed to have it ALL together.  

Frankly, I'm a bit peeved we DON'T have a book about what to do when Prince Charming never shows up.  You told me you had all the answers, Botkinettes.  You told me you knew better than me how to live my life.  Well, since we're both unmarried in our 30s, why don't you tell me NOW how much better your lives are than mine?

*I also probably would have called you a liar for telling me that ANYONE would be dumb enough to call a business of any flavor "T-Rex Arms".  What are you trying to say, that you're puny and futile?

[JermajestyDuggar]

Zoo isn't that surprising to me. I think most quiverfull fundie homeschooling mom's start out doing a decent job as mothers and homemakers. We just never saw Michelle, Kelly, or Jill Rod with a few children. I wouldn't be surprised if they were pretty decent mothers back then (kind of like Zoo when she started blogging and only had 3 or 4). If you are fertile and don't use birth control, you will eventually hit your tipping point. Whether it's child #6 or child #10 is anyone's guess. But I always knew Zoo would eventually hit that point. Some fundies are lucky enough to 1) be less fertile than average or 2) marry later on in life and don't get the chance to hit their tipping point. But for you marry as young as zoo and PP and you aren't infertile, you will eventually be sister momming.

[Sobeknofret]

8 minutes ago, Georgiana said:

Also, I TOTALLY thought the Botkinettes would get married or eventually repudiate SAHD-hood... 

I genuinely believed that Elizabeth Botkin was going to eventually marry Joshua Phillips. 

[hoipolloi]

31 minutes ago, Sobeknofret said:

I think he was pretty thoroughly steeped in the kool-aid.

He also spent impressionable years of his life being a co-star of the Dougie Show due to DPIART's relentless VF marketing campaign, whether it was the over-priced catalog products or phony lifestyle. 

[Naga Viper]

I'll go with BRADRICK! as well. I didn't follow Erica in her prime, so that one was less mind-blowing on a purely subjective level.

Zsu, though. I'm scared thinking about how much further the situation in that little house might be wound up before it finally blows.

[JermajestyDuggar]

If we look at the current young and relatively small fundie families, we can see many of them are doing ok. But that's because life is so much easier when you are still in the newlyweds stage and can afford the few children you have. So it's entirely possible that  Jessa's family, Joy's family, Erin Paine's family, and Alyssa Webster's family all look very different a decade from now. Shit gets real when you have a bunch of kids under 10, constantly pregnant, and not enough money to live the Instagram perfect life you enjoyed when you had 2 kids.

[Georgiana]

32 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Zoo isn't that surprising to me. I think most quiverfull fundie homeschooling mom's start out doing a decent job as mothers and homemakers. We just never saw Michelle, Kelly, or Jill Rod with a few children. I wouldn't be surprised if they were pretty decent mothers back then (kind of like Zoo when she started blogging and only had 3 or 4). If you are fertile and don't use birth control, you will eventually hit your tipping point. Whether it's child #6 or child #10 is anyone's guess. But I always knew Zoo would eventually hit that point. Some fundies are lucky enough to 1) be less fertile than average or 2) marry later on in life and don't get the chance to hit their tipping point. But for you marry as young as zoo and PP and you aren't infertile, you will eventually be sister momming.

Yeah, I agree. I guess what's more shocking to me is not that she hit her tipping point, but the degree to which she hit it. Even Michelle and Kelly were good enough about caring for newborns.  They never seemed to cherish their kids, but they all seemed to at least like their babies (even if only as an accessory ala JRod). But Zsu really took a plunge with the loss of Jake and now seems unable to effectively bond with her newborns. I don't think we've ever seen anyone pass off a weeks old infant before.

And Zsu used to REVEL in her babies. She LOVED tending to them. Even after she was clearly overwhelmed, she still lavished care on her infants. Now, she starves them and passes them off to anyone that will keep them quiet. She frequently seems to resent them.

I just can't recall another mother who seemed this disinterested in her newborn child. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I will say the starvation of Chloe surprised me because who the fuck knowingly starves a baby? But that's about it. 

[mango_fandango]

I agree about the Dillard/Seewald situation. Before they had kids, we were predicting that Derick was gonna “rescue” Jill, that perhaps their children would have a shot at some kind of decent education, yadda yadda. Instead, they had two disastrous stints in Central America, Jill had two difficult births, and Derick has turned out to be a dick.

By contrast, we thought that Ben was immature, was there any real love there, would they be any good as parents, etc. As it turns out, Ben has turned out to be a better father than any of us expected, and Jessa a better mother. 

[Jellybean]

1 hour ago, Georgiana said:

(Snip)

*I also probably would have called you a liar for telling me that ANYONE would be dumb enough to call a business of any flavor "T-Rex Arms".  What are you trying to say, that you're puny and futile?

That was my response too (along with the fact that there’s a shortening - like Crisco - in the UK called Trex, so it’s slippery and unhealthy). 

On the T-Rex name, someone (I think it was @CyborgKin) pointed out that I’d missed the reference to the company selling small arms. Duh!

[JermajestyDuggar]

Future fundie changes that wouldn't surprise me:

Whitney Bates finds homeschooling to be too difficult and sends her kids to a private Christian school.

Erin Paine almost dies from complications of pregnancy/birth and Chad puts his foot down and they start using condoms or NFP. But they will already have quite a few children already.

[GenerationCedarchip]

52 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

He also spent impressionable years of his life being a co-star of the Dougie Show due to DPIART's relentless VF marketing campaign, whether it was the over-priced catalog products or phony lifestyle. 

He also spent impressionable years seeing it all fall apart and his father's hypocrisy being exposed.  I suspect-though i have no inside knowledge- that there is a lot of soul-searching going on in private. I just hope he and Delaney are able to build a happy home. Living a few states removed from family drama likely helps.