Fight For Together / Crawford Family

[Maggie Mae]

Six kids, 1 Appalachian Trail,  Possibly homeschoolers. Dad was in some sort of documentary about gambling. Fake jews. Questionable outdoors skills. Hopefully there isn't already a thread about these people. I don't know how I feel about what they are doing, as I am 100% kids hiking and being outside; however, I'm not sure what is happening with the diaper situation, or the possibly manufactured "drama" for their websites. 

And as an ultra-light backpacker, some of their gear choices are questionable. Then again, I know nothing about the AT as it's on the other side of the country and not on my bucket list. 

Here is their YouTube Channel.

 

[AliceInFundyland]

Just scanning through the list of video titles is cringe worthy.

[JMarie]

Showing their income tax refund check online is probably not the smartest thing, since their address is visible.

[Anonymousguest]

I dunno, I skipped around looking at different vlogs over the past few years and I'm impressed. The family has done a lot together. Ran a marathon, including the 6yr old. Hiked 95 miles. Lots of down to earth discussions. I didn't hear any mention of God or religion at all except one mention of Shabbat. I realize it could be the magic only showing what you want, but the kids seem happy and on board with all their adventures. 

[artdecades]

IDK, I watched like 5 minutes of this video (sorry, can't bother watching the whole thing) and they seem more laid back than fundie.

 

[Howl]

Interesting topic and interesting response on their Tea and Cookies vlog.  It's early in the morning, I'm rocking my butter tea and just remembered that hubs brought home some gluten free butter cookies.  FTW!   

Both were raised in a fundy/conservative Christian environment, but as adults are much more thoughtful Christians.  I like his deconstruction of Piper.  He points out that Piper and people like him think that the Bible is not strict enough or scary enough so Piper et al. think they have to step it up and be stricter and scarier, otherwise people will take advantage of God.  

Interesting comments: "It doesn't need to be overspiritualized to be spiritual."

"You don't have to add language to help God out by scaring people more." 

I was kinda bored and yet I kept watching because kinda interesting.  The tracking of John Piper's use of positive words and negative words (at 24:55) is kinda fun, but John Piper's voice just makes my skin crawl. 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Howl

[AliceInFundyland]

They are Pearl fans and use Scamaritan. I watched a video on training the baby (at 9 months) not to touch the fireplace. Also dad mentions flicking baby on the mouth while on the trail. He does also say he felt like it was too hard (he cut his lip)...

[Howl]

16 minutes ago, AliceInFundyland said:

They are Pearl fans and use Scamaritan. I watched a video on training the baby (at 9 months) not to touch the fireplace. Also dad mentions flicking baby on the mouth while on the trail. He does also say he felt like it was too hard (he cut his lip)...

Well, that changes my opinion 180 degrees.  They are dead to me. 

[Maggie Mae]

15 hours ago, JMarie said:

Showing their income tax refund check online is probably not the smartest thing, since their address is visible.

They are currently "living" on the Appalachian Trail - I don't know if they had to sell their house or just rent it out, but they had a video where they said good bye to the house & rehomed their pets. They expect it to take until August.  

[Palimpsest]

16 hours ago, Anonymousguest said:

I didn't hear any mention of God or religion at all except one mention of Shabbat. I realize it could be the magic only showing what you want, but the kids seem happy and on board with all their adventures. 

I found a lot more religious references than that.  I still can't quite place them doctrine-wise, but they are probably Messianic Jews.  He's been in a 12 step program (gambling?) but is a preacher-type.  No idea where the money is coming from, but they put the house on AirBNB for the duration and seem to expect to get the pets back.

Dad puts the T in TMI.  Enough about getting frisky and talking about poop and barfing, Ben.

20 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

I'm not sure what is happening with the diaper situation,

They claim to be burying the poop but carrying the dirty diapers to the next dumpster.  At least they are not littering the trail.

I think the kids are lovely.  They seem to be doing the AT in about 11-14 mile increments.  Little Felia is doing really well at only 7.  The kids go on ahead, I'd be running ahead to get away from Dad myself, and even put the freaking tents up at one point while Mom and Daddy were still staggering the final mile.  

They explained the kids' names in one vlog.

• Dove (girl).  They liked it even before they married.
• Eden Hope (girl).  Because they hope to return to Eden.
• Seven (boy). Rufus help him.  He must have to say, "No, 7 of 6!" all. the. time.  Something to do with God's rhythm and numbers.
• Memory (girl).  I forget.
• Felia (girl).  Because it means girl and he decided he liked having daughters.  
• Ranier (boy).  Presumably because they climbed it.  He isn't mentioned in that vlog.

[Palimpsest]

Oh, FFS.  Ben abstained from sex for 6 months.  To "recover from lust."  He says the decision was mutual.

https://medium.com/@fightfortogether/six-months-of-abstinence-948584f569f9

The goal:

Quote

I want constant peace and satisfaction in Him, to be a baseline so I can approach Kami with a surplus of love to give her and not a deficit that I need filled. I want to be freed from obsession with sex or the acceptance of any human, move past sobriety and be obsessed with God and returning the limitless love he has for me. Thank you, God, for your promises that you will sustain and provide for me, meet me, and be made perfect in my weakness.

The afterthoughts:

Quote

Feelings of Failure

Not being strong enough to go 6 months without ejaculation

Not being cured of lust, control, or selfishness

Still wanting to use or manipulate Kami to get what I want

Willing to put her desires below my own

Willing to sacrifice our new baby for lust and desire

Feelings of Success

More in touch with my mortality than ever

Realize my dependence on God more than ever

Realize my dependence on my fellows more than ever

Able to enjoy traveling and holidays without sex

Able to feel fully loved by Kami without having sex

Able to submit my sexuality to the guidance and wisdom of someone else

Able to see that my sponsor was not just out to get me by “taking sex away”

Able to prioritize Kami’s postpartum physical and emotional recovery more than ever

Able to see the futility in the pursuit of lust, porn, and replacing God with any physical need or want, especially sexual.

Able to be ok with failure and more able to focus on growth instead of lack of perfection.

OK, then. 

[AliceInFundyland]

Oh, there's a video on the youtube explaining their income. I was falling asleep at that point but: he has a collection of two dollar bills and hard metal coins, he has at least four investment properties, other investments....totaling 1.3 million in assets and $0 liability - for whatever that's worth - BIG on the no liability.  He rambled about an investment (ferries/fairies? in Africa) that cost him $250,000 and he didn't think he'd see a penny of it.

He complains a lot! All about Ben. All the time. When the kids and wife were sick on Day 5 of the trail - he was miserable. If it's too cold he complains, if it's too cold he complains. If they are too complacent he complains.

[Anonymousguest]

It looks like he's founded a couple companies, but I'm not sure if he sold them or what. He claims to have made over one million dollars a year several times. All seems a bit sketch, to borrow a truck from the next generation. 

[Maggie Mae]

I can't imagine putting so much out there. I feel like I know more about these people's sex lives than my own. (obviously hyperbole) There's a birth video somewhere. The parents talk about how they hope to conceive another blessing in the tent. I wonder if they will name it after the Trail somehow? 

I was worried they were stuffing diapers down outhouses or burying them with the waste. Diapers have to add pounds of weight, especially if they are using disposables. I wonder who's job it is to carry the dirty diapers? I hope they are sealing them up in ziplocks as well, as a pee soaked sleeping bag doesn't sound like much fun either. I want to be like "good for them!" but also "yuck!" I am not a through hike kind of gal. We did a week in the grand canyon (we took it unnecessarily slow) and I felt so stinky and gross by the time I got back on the bus to our motel. 

For someone that "Fights for Together" it really is all about Ben. 

 

[AliceInFundyland]

In 2000 he was working construction and red robin. She was going to nursing school. They have two kids. Then then the plan was he’s going to med school while she works.They’ll be medical missionaries and live debt free.

She gets job-cardiothorassic ward. Meanwhile, he dabbles in blackjack. (Eventually he became a pro blackjack player, I assume before the gambling addiction). Then she realizes she doesn’t know basic math skillls (medicine conversions). Boss suggests more school. She is embarrassed as hell (wants to quit)...and he decides (Due to his half korean grit your teeth attitude) she shouldnt. 12 days in she quits. He’s pissed. She is upset cause she doesn’t want to but also doesn’t want to hurt her headship.

They got physical. He then threw her out of the house. She drove away to friends from bible college (in Portland, from Seattle). Her take: I was upset and suicidal.  His take: She left me with the kids and no car when we were supposed to see LOTR. I felt abandoned and blamed. It took me ten years to get over it.

Now they joke and laugh about it. I think he’s been through some absurd amount of therapy plus 12-step that has unclenched his asshole enough to give just enough that she stuck around. She is very deferential even now. And she said she was worse back in the day (nonconfrontational)

I also think he’s an extreme obsessive egomaniac. Everything must be done to a compulsive extreme. Sex breaks, Gambling, Living, The trail, The vlog. He thinks he’s the expert om everything and everyone is out to get him.

And, the vlog is clearly a compulsion. The applachian trail playlist changed from last night to this morning. Last night it ended at day 21. Today at day 16, Yet, they claim to be coming off the mountain once a week? It’s messy.

epihio sp?, blackjackapprenticeship.com, 7 mortgage-freehouses for eventual community living. 

This is like a fundy/hippy hybrid blog explosion nightmare. They have 9700 subscribers.

Edited April 5, 2018 by AliceInFundyland

[Howl]

14 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

I also think he’s an extreme obsessive egomaniac. Everything must be done to a compulsive extreme. Sex breaks, Gambling, Living, The trail, The vlog. He thinks he’s the expert om everything and everyone is out to get him.

After reading everyone's comments, I'm having a totally different take on the vlog that I watched about his deconstruction of John Piper, that's it much more personal than just an exercise in vlogging, because he does go on (and on) about how an addict might negatively react to Piper's words. 

Taking your large family with a very, very young child on the AT is extreme.  No, I mean, REALLY EXTREME. 

Edited April 5, 2018 by Howl

[Palimpsest]

Wow.  That fight when she quit her job is something.  And I agree with @AliceInFundyland, he is still not over it. 

That whole our biggest marriage fight presentation from Ben with fake laughing is: 

"I was right, you were wrong, I'm the better person because I went to fetch you (even though I was right), and we are so much more mature now because we can pretend to laugh.  But you were wrong. 

Have I mentioned that I was right and you broke the bargain.  And I was so the victim because your friends thought I was abusive.  But you pushed my child so I clobbered you and threw you out.  Remember, I am always right so I get to embarrass you about this.  Again."  Yuck.

I wonder if something in the vlog for Day 21 that they took down got them into trouble, and possibly pulled off the trail.  I really hope nothing bad happened to any of the kids.

Oh, and they are not Jewish.  Why on earth would anyone ask?  Just because they have tattoos in Hebrew, teach the kids Hebrew, have a sukkah, and refer to Shabbat.

No, he just kinda likes Jewish vloggers and they think Christian holidays are over commercialized.  So they appropriated some Jewish stuff because Christianity is a Jewish sect, you guys.  It doesn't matter to do the Jewish stuff "right."  Appropriating it just makes them cooler than other Christians because it shows they are not anti-Semitic.

He's a complete ass but I think she's in la-la-land too.

And if they don't, like, stop saying like, I'm, like, going to go, like, nuts.

[Maggie Mae]

They are, like, struggling, with, like, being motivated. Kami, like, needs to, like, force herself to, like, eat something, because, she, like, needs to. 

So they told everyone to be ready to go at 8, and the parents decided to sleep in. Nice. 

They have 5 days to get 70 miles - that's 14 miles a day. It doesn't seem unreasonable, but I don't know the elevation gain. After those four days, they are getting picked up by someone's parents and staying at a hotel. But wait! They found a way to stay in a hotel again! (And eat at a restaurant. I have no desire to pay for a family of 8 to eat at a restaurant.) How are they financing this? 

[AliceInFundyland]

It has to be insanely expensive. They bought so much new stuff before the trip.  All the hotels. The resupplying. The restaraunts. And they are NOT thrifty. Not like other families we follow.

The elder kids do a lot of work. They set up camp and cook. They do laundry. They edit the blog. This correlates with what they do at home. A lot of work. Frequently the girls are cooking or with Ranier while they are rambling at the camera.

I haven’t uncovered the homeschooling/unschooling mystery yet. They blow off a lot of questions about it. Literally. They read them and then say, “we don’t pay attention to our state regulations on homeschooling” I would think that after she failed a job for lacking basic math, school would be important....  Did see them trying to read Grapes of Wrath and Ben leading a  “social media class.”

He goes to sex addict anonymous and she goes to spouses anon. They also have couples therapy. They said that defined their spirituality as much as anything. At least the eldest two girls also go to therapy.

@Palimpsest The whole marriage fights playlist is an exhibit of emotional abuse and gaslightling. They have a pattern. She wants or tries to do something: eat a pastry, needs ibuprofen from the neighboring parent’s house at midnight, celebrate Father’s Day. He has feelings about why said thing is wrong or bad or just inconvenient. The incident gets brought up for discussion on the vlog. She has to recognize that he has a point. No incident is ever completely one person’s fault. Just because she had a headache at midnight, she should have recognized that he was looking out for the family bigger picture.

 

[Jezzable]

I spent a week with this family at a Christian family camp. They remind me of Portlanders - weird/hippie self-sufficient, etc. Their kids were into Classical Conversations and did recitations. He was into blackjack/math and earned a lot of $$ that way. Another income revenue was producing commercials for big-name companies. The commercials showed someone drawing stick figures while narrating the message for the big-name company. They stuck with their family most of the time without mingling with others. I just watched a couple of vlogs and they haven't changed at all. They were constantly on the move then, as they are now. They were hiking then, just as they are now. 

[Maggie Mae]

One of the kids lost her water bottle so Kami dug a used bottle out of the trash. 

The parents rubbed each other's feet while the kids did laundry.

[DangerNoodle]

I joined specifically for this family. Man, I don't know what to think. If I have to say something good, it is that they let their children speak honestly- even if it's negative. There is a video where they ask all the children if they hike the Appalachian Trail if it was up to them. Only one said they would choose to complete it. The other said they wanted to hike it but only for a few months or weeks.

But it is just so cold. And very steep and rocky.  It would take nothing to take a tumble. For most people it wouldn't mean anything more than scrapes but I worry about whoever is carrying the  baby. What if they fall? And with all the snow likely melting soon, could there be flooding? The had to cross a few streams where there were no bridges. I'm intrigued though. And honestly I am enjoying the scenery in their videos. 

This is from their public Instagram. This is the highest point of the trail. 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2018 by DangerNoodle

[Howl]

No words.  That's beyond nuts.  If they have survived for this long, though, they should make it through a late season snowstorm.  I looked on google maps.  Clingman's Dome is on the Tennessee/North Carolina line and the summit is well over 6,000 ft. 

[DangerNoodle]

CPS was called on them about the flicking incident. That was not necessary. It did happen. But he realized he was wrong and unhelpful to do it. There are people that beat their kids with belts and think it is perfectly fine.  CPS interviewed the kids and everything checked out. 

[mango_fandango]

Eden Hope is the most normal of those names. Seven? Memory? Dove? I can’t.