Bontragers and Bowers 2

[Themanda Duggar]

I think Chelsy is pregnant. I don’t usually speculate about such things, but there is something in her face, a kind of fullness and softness, that I have seen in the faces of a lot of women I know when they are in the early stages of pregnancy.

[JermajestyDuggar]

4 hours ago, Themanda Duggar said:

I think Chelsy is pregnant. I don’t usually speculate about such things, but there is something in her face, a kind of fullness and softness, that I have seen in the faces of a lot of women I know when they are in the early stages of pregnancy.

She’s been married for over four months now so she probably is. I’m waiting for her to announce any day now. Because I suspect she’s around 3 months or more.

[browngrl]

On 2018-05-07 at 1:17 PM, Themanda Duggar said:

I think Chelsy is pregnant. I don’t usually speculate about such things, but there is something in her face, a kind of fullness and softness, that I have seen in the faces of a lot of women I know when they are in the early stages of pregnancy.

Came here to say the same thing. I suspect we'll see the pregnancy announcement soon.

[HereticHick]

I predict an October due date.

[pandora]

From Joshua Bontrager's most recent blog post (bolding mine):

Quote

Like most children, I displayed my sin nature from an early age. At two years old, I painted myself and the wall before a social outing. My grandma will testify of the time when my brother Carson and I spilled the flower pots in her living room and began to romp around in the dirt.

I was an extraordinarily hyper youngster. My waywardness was mitigated by my parents’ tender forcefulness. I was required to eat the salad I despised before tasting any other morsel of food. My days were structured from morning until bedtime.

This guy is gonna be a dad in July.  

[Pianokeeper]

He uses the passive voice a lot. I wonder how the flavor of his writing would change if we fixed it from: 

I was an extraordinarily hyper youngster. My waywardness was mitigated by my parents’ tender forcefulness. I was required to eat the salad I despised before tasting any other morsel of food. My days were structured from morning until bedtime.

To:

I was an extraordinarily hyper youngster. My parents’ tender forcefulness mitigated my waywardness. They required me to eat the salad I despised before tasting any other morsel of food. They structured my days from morning until bedtime.

Interesting. 

[JillyO]

Quote

Like most children, I displayed my sin nature from an early age. At two years old, I painted myself and the wall before a social outing. My grandma will testify of the time when my brother Carson and I spilled the flower pots in her living room and began to romp around in the dirt.

I was an extraordinarily hyper youngster. My waywardness was mitigated by my parents’ tender forcefulness. I was required to eat the salad I despised before tasting any other morsel of food. My days were structured from morning until bedtime.

Translation:

I was a normal, active child who got into mischief from time to time. My parents beat the crap out of me and starved me into submission.

What a godly example of parenthood.

[Tangy Bee]

Wow he was a "terrible 2" for real. But seriously, a 2 year old is still a baby/toddler. Why would he call himself a sinner at that age?? Are there any comments following this post? When he's 30 he will look back with shame.... I hope.

[Bazinga]

http://bontragersingers.blogspot.com/2018/05/carson-carolinas-love-story.html

Carson and Carolina's Love Story

I don't even know where to start with this. This really does sound like an arranged marriage. I feel like the Bontrager parents were blog hopping and randomly found the Bowers and thought, well hey...they are just like us. Let's force a friendship and potential marriages. I mean, who just invites themselves over to a complete strangers house?

Then it sounds like these poor kids despised each other, but both sets of parents whispered in their ears long enough until they both succumbed to a relationship.

Also, I am SOOO over the standard fundie "love" post. Guy and girl meet. Both didn't like each other. Suddenly they prayed about it and their eyes were open. Carson also contradicts himself. He says at the beginning that he wasn't interested in girls and that 16 was too young to be thinking about girls/marriage. But then later in the post, he said around 16 he felt a stronger urge to pray more frequently for a Godly wide. So which is it? I swear these love posts are like mad libs for fundies. It's the same formula, just insert different pronouns, adjectives, and verbs.

On an aside, Carson and Carolina make a cute couple. I truly hope for their sake that over time, they develop a strong marriage and bond with one another.

[JermajestyDuggar]

There was way too much parental pushing for my taste. They really wanted those four to get together. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence they moved to Iowa right as they started pushing the couples together and then MOVED after they were married and knocked up. So is there a girl in the new state they moved to that they are pushing Charlie towards? Will that just hop from state to state marrying off children as they go?

And again, they don’t ever use the word courtship. They say relationship. And it sounds like they may have had some alone dates. It’s sometimes hard to fit a third person in the cab of a combine. So I’m thinking that was just them on the date. At least they had time to talk alone with one another without worrying about what their eavesdropping little sibling would hear. 

[neurogirl]

Joshua and Cassidy's story is the same too. The Bontragers invited themselves over to the Bowers farm because the Bowers had made an award-winning documentary (now two) about the liberal agenda taking over. It's literally called Agenda. Anyway, it seems that they were getting a lot of fundie fan visits, and I guess the parents decided they were very similar and were going to arrange marriage? Cassidy straight up says she "wasn't impressed with the Bontrager boys social skills" that first meeting. Weird. I wonder if there will be more Boners (lol). 

http://bontragersingers.blogspot.com/2017/12/joshua-cassidys-love-story.html

I much prefer Chad and Erin's where they thought the other person was hot at least. For example, this is what Chad wrote on Valentine's Day of 2016 about the day he met Erin.

"  Happy Valentines Day! This is a really special time of year as I think back to the Valentines banquet six years ago where we first met. You caught my eye…and more than that…you caught my heart. My heart just warms as I think about how sweet and shy you were that evening. I wondered what you were thinking. I couldn’t keep my focus on the game that we were playing…my eyes kept wandering to you. There was something about you that was so enchanting, so beautiful, so pure, so lovely. Now I know that those things were only a small part of the beauty that I know treasure in you.You were my dream come true, the answer to so many prayers, the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me."

Like, maybe being shy and sweet isn't what we want all men to dream of their sweethearts being, but at least he was INTERESTED (and it was reciprocated) and not "my dad told me to talk to her but I wasn't interested so I prayed about it and then I did."

[HereticHick]

Yeah--these two poor kids. It really does feel like a semi-arranged marriage--they both had to convince themselves to even tolerate the other.

Granted, this isn't unique to fundy Christianity--there are people all over the world, every day, having to talk themselves into liking a partner their family has picked out for them.

It really is weird how the Bowers suddenly moved to Iowa, acted like they were BFFs with the Bontragers, got into the farm lifestyle complete with bowhunting and dairy cows, offloaded their two eldest daughters, and moved on. Who knows what their Alabama style is like--maybe depends on what Alabama fundy family they are stalking.

So I guess Charlie will be engaged to an Alabama maiden sometime next spring.

The Bowers may seem so sweet and fun  and smiley and Pinteresty--but there is a disturbing undercurrent of far-right conspiracies running through the headship's brain.

One of Curtis Bower's main feverdreams is that the COMMUNISTS are pushing the HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA to enslave America.

I sh*t you not.

I have no doubt that Curtis happily rubs shoulders with neo-Nazi militia preppers. If the Bowers next move is to Alaska to live off the grid and prepare for the apocalypse (and or race war) I will not be surprised at all.

https://www.idahopress.com/bestread/communist-agenda-makes-its-way-to-our-mainstream/article_6740861e-0b59-5a0e-8e4d-0724bea87f7f.html

 

 

[deborahlynn1979]

That was the most unromantic story I’ve ever read. At least with other cultures, they’re open about the fact that marriages are arranged by the parents. These two seemed to have a pretty strong negative reaction to one another from the beginning. And I laughed so hard at the comment about the other family just inviting themselves over for dinner, like it was totally normal.

[Themanda Duggar]

Ugh!  I hope that this post is more about sucking up to their parents than it is about what was actually going through their heads as they had more and more contact with each other.

Since they’ve both only just left their family homes, they probably still think of themselves more as their parent’s children than as their own individual selves, and are still trying to please them.

what I remember most about Josh and Cassidy’s story was the part where he claims to have thought about what a great father in law daddy Bowers would be, before he ever thought about Cassidy.  Josh sounded like he was born to kiss ass.

I really hope their inner monologues were entirely different than what they’ve written here.

I really hope both of these couples are telling the stories they think they are expected to tell, but that all 4 of them really had uncontrollable and unadmittable impure thoughts and desires they could not righteously fulfill about their future spouses.

[Kariina]

I just...what...

...how do fundies share this stuff without realizing how bonkers it sounds?

Not shaming arranged marriages in cultures and contexts where it's a standard and even requested method to meet someone. But like, what. I used the term "optics" in the Boyer Mother's Day thread, and I'm gonna use it again...optics!!!! The way they describe shoving their teenagers at each other repeatedly is so. Weird. And even divulging how they just weren't impressed with each other for the longest time "hardly at all."

So, uh, Carson and Carolina, what do you actually like about each other? I'm still confused.

And per Joshua's blog post: Growing up thinking normal kid learning experiences somehow makes you exceptionally wayward and sinful...how sad.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

6 hours ago, HereticHick said:

I have no doubt that Curtis happily rubs shoulders with neo-Nazi militia preppers. If the Bowers next move is to Alaska to live off the grid and prepare for the apocalypse (and or race war) I will not be surprised at all.

https://www.idahopress.com/bestread/communist-agenda-makes-its-way-to-our-mainstream/article_6740861e-0b59-5a0e-8e4d-0724bea87f7f.html

Okay, first, I had no idea he was a state rep. Great.

Second, that is the fakest story to ever be faked. He grew a goatee, drove out to Berkeley, "checked into his dorm room,"(?) and was immediately welcomed into a meeting where the feminist cabal casually plotted how they would "take down America"?  Is this meant as an elaborate allegory or does he think people buy this shit?

[CurlyWurly]

I'll admit to being part of the feminist cabal, and to being committed to taking down capitalism, but wow I wish we were ever this organised.  I hate to say it but I really do think Curtis is giving us too much credit. 

I'm also never going to get over the fact that Josh and Cass' wedding photos look like an adorable, although perhaps too young, same sex couple. 

[nastyhobbitses]

On 5/12/2018 at 4:39 PM, Tangy Bee said:

Wow he was a "terrible 2" for real. But seriously, a 2 year old is still a baby/toddler. Why would he call himself a sinner at that age?? Are there any comments following this post? When he's 30 he will look back with shame.... I hope.

There's a reason courts generally won't try children who have committed crimes as adults: because in the eyes of the law (and psychology/neurology), children cannot understand consequences or right from wrong. Saying that a two-year-old is "sinful" for doing pretty bog standard two-year-old boundary testing/mischief/wow I have this body I can control I'm gonna do stuff is assuming that a two-year-old is capable of malice, planning, and understanding the ramifications of their actions, which is stupid because it's a fucking two-year-old. They're not even cognitively capable of understanding that other people have different thoughts, feelings, and perspectives (theory of mind). 

[HereticHick]

I reread John and Carolina's "love" story-- the ONLY time the word "love" is used is in the title. Since divorce is verboten in their universe, I hope that they truly have fallen in love [and just think it is improper to mention it]

Chelsy keeps talking about her courtship with John as being "unconventional"-- I wonder if she means "unconventional" because her parents didn't pick John out and shove him at her [and we assume Steve didn't select her for John either, pants-wearing ankle-flashing fun-loving harlot that she is].

[Melissa1977]

While Christopher and Anna Maxwell marriage sounded arranged, both were adults and I suppose it was their own decision. But Nathan, Joe and John apparently have married in love. 

All these Bontragers boys are too young. Let them choose a partner freely. Those arranged marriages can't work and that young people deserve to enjoy true love and tenderness. Like her eldest sister seems to been living.

I'm shocked but there are families more overcontroling than Maxwells!!! 

*this said, I blame Steve for making difficult to his daughters to marry. 

[usedbicycle]

It's interesting to me that Josh and Cassidy started their relationship first and Carson and Carolina needed some nudging to get it going. Somehow I pictured it the other way around.

On the Bowers blog, Carolina's engagement post is all "PRAISE THE LORD" and "REJOICING" while Cassidy's was pretty anticlimactic. I noticed that at the time of the announcements and always felt like Carson and Lina were the "golden couple" for these families. 

It's also strange that Mama Bower would approach Carson so directly. Did she and the Bontrager parents plot to set them up or was this all a Bowers idea? It's so weird to want to dump off your daughters like that.

[HereticHick]

9 minutes ago, usedbicycle said:

It's also strange that Mama Bower would approach Carson so directly. Did she and the Bontrager parents plot to set them up or was this all a Bowers idea? It's so weird to want to dump off your daughters like that.

I also noticed that--I thought only fundy headships got to do the courtship negotiations!

[JermajestyDuggar]

Mitch and Bryn’s Story sounded more normal. Bryn came back home after she graduated from a California bible college. He noticed her at church. No pushing was required. 

[pandora]

1 hour ago, usedbicycle said:

It's interesting to me that Josh and Cassidy started their relationship first and Carson and Carolina needed some nudging to get it going. Somehow I pictured it the other way around.

On the Bowers blog, Carolina's engagement post is all "PRAISE THE LORD" and "REJOICING" while Cassidy's was pretty anticlimactic. I noticed that at the time of the announcements and always felt like Carson and Lina were the "golden couple" for these families. 

It's also strange that Mama Bower would approach Carson so directly. Did she and the Bontrager parents plot to set them up or was this all a Bowers idea? It's so weird to want to dump off your daughters like that.

One of the parents said during the double wedding that sometime early in knowing each other when one family was visiting another the Bowers and Bontrager parents went out into the visiting family's bus and prayed together that some of their children would marry. Plus back when Chelsy was writing the family blog I recall something about her saying C & C was a much prayed for union. So I'd wager Mama Bowers had not only Carson's parents' blessing, but his siblings' as well.

[JermajestyDuggar]

With all that pressure from your parents and siblings, how the hell can you say no?