M is For Mama - where quiver full meets Pinterest

[sleepy_doggos]

On the college thing: my parents didn't pay for college. They made it very clear from early on that paying for college was our individual responsibility. However, and that's a big however, they worked themselves to the bone sending us to private college prep schools and trading their time and skills for us to do varied activities (like my mom sewed costumes and my dad did accounting for my dance studios so I could take lessons). They provided the basis plus and expected us to take that and run with it, earning scholarships to pay for school and working on the side. I also borrowed from them for college tuition and paid it back. A wealthy family member's thoughtfulness helped greatly as well with expenses. Only one of us three had substantial debt from undergrad, and the one in question worked really hard and paid it off before 30.
That being said they also were emotionally and physically supportive before and after university-- I'm living with them now rent free while attending grad school.
It's not the same as homeschooling your children and then presumably expecting them to be commercially successful, but parents who don't create funds for their child's higher education are not necessarily depriving them of something. It also doesn't sound to me like they are actively discouraging higher education, just that they don't want to prioritize it financially.
Is it a selfish decision for abbie and co? Probably. With my parents it could be justified because all extra funds went to our private school bills, and this family isn't doing that. I just can't see it as evil for you to clearly communicate to your children what you are and aren't planning to do in their lives-- it gives them time to prepare. I knew I would have to earn my way (with loving support) and I did, and I still have a lot of pride in that.

Tl;dr not all parents!

[EowynW]

Yes. I understand why some parents can't/won't pay for college but they still have a responsibility to put their kids on a successful path by giving them a quality education, helping them aim for scholarships, helping them get a job and save in their teenage years, etc etc. Too many fundie parents do what mine did and bitch about "these entitled kids wanting help with college" while doing ZERO to help them in other practical ways. 

[FecundFundieFundus]

I frankly don't understand being able to financially pay for college other than your own. According to financial planners, we're years behind in what we need for retirement. It would be nice to give our kids an easy start like that! But not at the expense of insisting they bankroll our retirement. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Although Braggie May have gotten lots of her stuff at thrift stores, I know she spends some money on that wallpaper. Even if she gets a good deal, she has to buy a lot of rolls. This is because most of her wallpaper choices have patterns that need to match up and that causes a lot of waste. Buying a bunch of rolls of wallpaper adds up. 

[CatholicLite]

What bugs me the most is how open she is about being a bad mother/ the moments she hates her kids, such as her recent post. Here's the caption: (sorry, it's a looooong one)

Quote

I'm not sure if it's hormones or sugar detox hanger or pregnancy exhaustion or just plain ol' ugly sin nature, but little things have been really getting to me lately. 
Yesterday, it was the fact that the twins could not finish a word of reading to save their lives. I could feel my soul shriveling a bit more every time they read the word "little" as "luh-ih-tuh...." "Uhllll!" I wanted to shout. "Litt-UHL," for the love of all the half crazy homeschool mamas!!!! Or what about finding an entire load of clean clothes mixed in with the dirty hamper? "We needed the basket for folding, and I thought they were dirty." ?

This morning, I heard Theo wake up roaring and spitting and was already girding my loins for a morning of epic will battles. 
So, it was a welcome salve to this tired mama's frayed nerves to discover him like this when I went looking for him--swaying gently in the arms of his big brother, who knows just how to tame the beast of unreasonable 3-year-old angst. (Maybe I need to get in that hammock too). This was the same big brother I had been genuinely miffed at for *salting* his BACON at lunch yesterday. ?

Do I have a point? 
Um, grace? For me, for you, for them. 
Not the false grace that is so popular, either. The one that says, "Girl, you do you. I understand. Everybody makes mistakes. Have a glass of wine." No. The clear-eyed, truth-filled grace of Jesus that looks at us caught in our sins and says: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." THAT is the kind of grace that transforms lives--the kind I'm asking the Lord to impart to me today that I might offer it freely to my children and others as well. 
#motherhoodissanctifying#motherhoodishumbling #motherhoodisagift

She's so open about the moment's she's upset, and to me, she kind of throws her kids under the bus. I know parenting is hard (I have no kids of my own), but I can't understand why someone would be so open on a public platform of all the little things she's annoyed by her kids- does anyone really want to hear that? Unless other mom's want gratification for how much they get angry at their kids. It just doesn't seem right to be venting this much about your kids to strangers.

Oh! and the hashtags! What the hell? What does that have to do with anything. 

And, the not-so-subtle dig at people who don't do things the way she does! Grr. Can she be more petty?

She doesn't seem like she's quite able to deal with having 7 kids.

[JermajestyDuggar]

She’s complaining about how her children are doing the laundry. Most kids will make mistakes when doing laundry! And reading. She seems to have some really high expectations for those kids.

[FecundFundieFundus]

You can be honest about struggling with your temper/mood without publicly criticizing your kids like that. She could have just said she was getting irrationally irritated by totally normal kid things and blah blah Jesus is like cut that shit out, bitch. 

My toddler drives me absolutely bonkers some days, but let's be real: as the adult, it's MY job to rise above the pinches/headbutts/screams. I chose to have kids and it's no secret kids can be annoying little terrors. My bad days aren't his fault. 

I'm so glad my mom didn't have the internet while I was growing up. She'd be a Braggie.

[BobJonesBabe]

18 hours ago, CatholicLite said:

This morning, I heard Theo wake up roaring and spitting and was already girding my loins for a morning of epic will battles.

How sad to think of your toddler that way. Maybe it’s time to stop adding to the continual chaos? 

And “epic battle of the wills?” You can have a toddler who does crazy toddler antics without having to frame it as though you are going to battle with him. ? And in her case, it may actually mean physical battle toward him (We all know she means spanking). 

[Miranda]

So many of these fundies talk about their children as if they’re the enemy. I don’t get it. 

[TuringMachine]

I realize this is a little early, but I like making, so I'm gonna channel @Carm_88 and start a name guess list:

Boy Names:
Alvin: JermajestyDuggar, Anonymousguest, erunerune, mysweetetc
Calvin: Anonymousguest
Micah: TuringMachine
Sebastian: TuringMachine

Girl Names:
Alvina: erunerune
Camille (Mila): JermajestyDuggar
Coraline (Cora): JermajestyDuggar
Eleanor: TuringMachine, JermajestyDuggar
Genevieve (Vivi): TuringMachine
Georgianna (Gia): JermajestyDuggar
Matilda (Tily): TuringMachine

[EowynW]

46 minutes ago, Miranda said:

So many of these fundies talk about their children as if they’re the enemy. I don’t get it. 

It's a common theme. I've heard preachers/teachers talk about them being born as little vipers that you must train & break. 

[FecundFundieFundus]

20 minutes ago, EowynW said:

It's a common theme. I've heard preachers/teachers talk about them being born as little vipers that you must train & break. 

Some people just don't like kids and are either ignorant of normal childhood development or ignore it. I know a very liberal Christian teacher in a secular school system who is constantly posting about how terrible children and their parents are for normal stuff, like small kids having poor impulse control or not wanting 7 year olds to spend their evenings doing homework. I just about baked her a damn cake when she announced she's leaving teaching after this year. 

Now I just need to unfriend her before she finds out I believe in play based education lol

[CatholicLite]

3 hours ago, FecundFundieFundus said:

Some people just don't like kids and are either ignorant of normal childhood development or ignore it. I know a very liberal Christian teacher in a secular school system who is constantly posting about how terrible children and their parents are for normal stuff, like small kids having poor impulse control or not wanting 7 year olds to spend their evenings doing homework. I just about baked her a damn cake when she announced she's leaving teaching after this year. 

Now I just need to unfriend her before she finds out I believe in play based education lol

Why would someone decide to be a teacher and not like kids? Jeez, it's not that hard to realize that kids are developmentally different from adults, and should be treated with patience.

[FecundFundieFundus]

I think in her particular case, her dream career fell through and she took up teaching as an afterthought to keep food on the table.  

The sad thing is, I think most people I've talked to had at least one teacher with that same attitude. One of my language teachers in middle school  h a t e d  us. He retired after our year (in hindsight, might have "retired" when a parent found out he was manhandling problem students). The fifth grade science teacher would mock students until they cried and bullied "outcast" kids with family problems- again, all in hindsight. Smelly kids with hygiene problems, kids with behavioral issues, one kid who had ADHD/hoarding issues and couldn't keep their desk organized and decluttered. If you showed weakness to her and didn't have a parent who would call her up and complain, she targeted you. 

For the record, most of my teachers were okay. And a few were so caring and supportive they may have saved little FFF's life; definitely wouldn't be who I am today without educators. It was kind of sounding like I went to schools run by Ms. Trenchbull. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

My 8th grade science teacher (my HS was 8-12)  hated teaching.   I think she also hated children. She had wanted to be a doctor like her father, but he wouldn't allow her to go to med school (girl ya know) so she majored in Chemistry and Physics at the local (all girl) teacher's college.

By the time I had her she'd been teaching 20-25 years. My HS was small and rural so not enough chem and  physics class to be full time load.  So she was stuck teaching a single class of 8th grade science to round out her full load of 5 classes.

8th grade science was supposed to be earth science . That's what all the other 8th graders were studying.  But Mrs. X refused to do that and taught us a very, very slightly watered down version of her chemistry class. Chemistry as you may know involves balancing equations and it's extremely helpful to have a couple of years of algebra under your belt.

8th graders had not yet taken algebra.

Most of us in the class sat there every day in shocked silence, completely lost.  Some had older sibling(s) who had or were taking chemistry so they had help.  I fully admit I passed with a C+ because I cribbed (with his knowledge and permission) from my lab partner whose sister was taking chemistry at the same time and gave him her notes and tests.  Oh yes -- Mrs. X gave us basically the same tests as the chem classes.

In the entire school year I asked 1, just 1, question in that class. I timidly my hand and with a disgusted look Mrs X  snarled "What do you want"  I said " Mrs X could you please explain ABC again" She nastily said "What have you been doing the entire time I explained it the first time. " I said "I was listening but I still don't understand"  She roared back "You stupid girl, I don't have time to answer your ridiculous questions.  If you are too stupid to understand the first time, I'm not going to bother with you and not going to explain it again."

As you might imagine the class failure rate was rather high.  The principal knew what Mrs. X as doing, had been doing for years, but no one ever tried to stop her.  Also everyone knew she was only marginally nicer to the chem/physics classes.

When It was time to sign up for chem for my junior year, I begged and pleaded with my father not to make me take her chem class.  I bargained to take every higher math class taught if I didn't have to take chemistry and then physics senior year.  He agreed, and laughed that he'd heard Mrs. X was a "piece of work"

Mrs. X kept on as she was until she retired many years after I graduated.

Long after HS I told my mother the 1 question story.  She was aghast I'd say things like that about Mrs. X who was "... One of the nicest women I know,  Always so elegantly dressed when you see her out."

TL; DR   This is how bad teachers remain in classrooms for years.  Adults see the teacher out of the classroom as a fellow adult who acts perfectly normal.  Adults don't see the monster that rears up the minute the teacher sets foot in the classroom.

In my day, possibly still, if you complained about a teacher it was because you had done "something" or weren't applying yourself. The teacher was just strict and demanding the class's best work.  No adult was ever going to admit the teacher was a raging hateful bitch who took out her unhappiness and bitterness on her classes.

 

 

[AliceInFundyland]

My fifth grade teacher was a bully. She told (unforutately cast throughout our school careers) one of the nerdier boys that “if she had a nickel for every time he picked his nose, she’d be rich.” She also dumped his entire desk out in front of all of us. 

My own incidents with her were unpleasant. I liked school before that year.

She was, I think, unhappy at home. Her own kids were troublemakers. They were also very Catholic. That dynamic may have made some trouble. There was a teen pregnancy. ....

But she also could be gregarious and outgoing. 

[CatholicLite]

I had a cello teacher in grade school who obviously was miffed that she didn't make it big in the orchestra world who constantly took out her annoyance on us 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. She once removed a kid from her room for laughing. LAUGHING!

[ViolaSebastian]

I would hope that it's improved somewhat from the days of women having only two vocations from which to choose. I have an aunt who shouldn't be near anyone's children (even her own), but became a teacher because that's what women did. Thankfully she's retired now, but phew, was that a bad choice no matter how you look at it. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

One of my high school teachers had a temper. You could tell. It very rarely came out but when it did you knew she was pissed. If you didn’t piss her off, she was actually incredibly enjoyable. She had a good sense of humor. She ended up being arrested years later for assaulting her husband. I hate to say it but it didn’t really surprise me. 

[luv2laugh]

Braggie is a real stinker. It’s super obvious that struggles with, in Christian-ese “deep rooted sins that have taken stronghold in the life of a Christian”. Talk about major flaws of character, Bill Gothard style. She’s failing at all of them. She comes off as extremely self-centered and self righteous. She LOVES the comments she gets of people snickering about all the many children she has. Braggie is so selfish that she and her husband DIYed a PAPER thin house in the MIDDLE of NOWHERE most likely to live out her fantasy of showing a “fake rich” life to blog viewers. Braggie LOVES to pretend like she lives in some strongly built, high quality home in a good neighborhood but it’s so false. She feeds off making everyone believe she is living a perfect, joyful life. Why? Braggie has adopted the fundamentalist view of forcing her young children to not show discontentment and to always show joy, especially in doing her chores. She doesn’t allow her children to have any sort of actual emotions and admits that compassion is not her strong suit. Narcissist, much? Secret relative of Lori? I feel so sorry for how she is “training” her poor children. She freely admits she makes her 7, 5, and 3 year olds do things such as vacuuming and folding laundry while chanting mantras such “hard is not the same thing as bad”.  She says she only allows her children to play Wii for 30 minutes once a week yet she indulges herself at the gym up to 5 times a week. What is wrong with her? Abbie is the most spiritually harmful fundamentalist I’ve ever seen on FJ besides Lori Alexander. Her blog gives me shudders similar to testimonies from people on Recovering Grace recounting the horrors of growing up in a fundamentalist home. This is a woman who openly admits working her children to the bone, punishing them for complaining, forcing them to only respond joyfully to all things, and more! I cannot even form proper sentences to convey the sadness I feel for those children and how she’s twisting the Bible to make them serve HER.

Braggie claims to be all about the hard truths. Ready for some hard truths? Girlfriend needs to stop being lazy and forcing her children to do her work. She needs to do it herself and her work-at-home husband, Shaun need to also help. Maybe she should cut down on her self-centered hobbies instead of outsourcing her children to do her work. 

Abbie loooooves to brag about how she was a straight A student and teacher. Really? Funny considering she doesn’t care about helping her children get on the path to go to the best universities. She doesn’t even care if they go to college at all. Abbie looooves to brag that Shaun is a SUPER smart, 4.0 GPA college graduate programmer. Really, Braggie? Let’s be honest... IF we are ALL about the brags here, then why isn’t Shaun working in Silicon Valley at the top tier tech firms like all the other top tier computer science grads from top colleges such as MIT and even the top state universities are? No, y’all are in rural east TX and he has that side gig doing the computer consulting.  Nothing at all wrong with that but honestly, don’t pretend you two are both something you are not. Be sincerely humble. Seriously, you have reminded readers millions of times how super genius you and your programmer husband Shaun are in addition to how OH SO EASY school came from both of you and now obviously, does for your kids. In addition, you go to great lengths to remind everyone of the businesses of Paint & Prose, Shaun’s computer consulting side gig, rental properties you own. Honestly, no big deal many people do similar. However, telling your readers about it a billion times? Insecure, much? It really seems like she’s overcompensating for things. Now, dishing out all the “sour-puss” snark here but it’s hard be humble about it when Braggie can’t be humble at all. Braggie desperately tries to be something she’s not. She does not need to remind everyone that she was a nerd and that Shaun is a nerd thus her children must be receiving “the best” education! Prideful, much? Being so appearance obsessed can’t be very Christian... She really needs to take a seat, many seats, and calm down... 

I probably won’t be following her much longer as there is only one Lori Alexander I can stomach. Braggie has a bunch of young ones unlike Lori which makes it just too sad for me.

Note: this phone is making all my grammar go bonkers on auto-correct today! I sound a lot like Bro. Gary here.

[JermajestyDuggar]

Braggie got a fucking dog. What is it with these fundies and accumulating pets we know they won’t take care of? Well at least the dog will be cared for by the children. They do everything else. And when the children forget to take him out and he pees on the beautiful rug, Braggie will go ballistic on her children for the millionth time that day. Fun.

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

@luv2laugh  I want to upvote and love your post x1000.  You are spot on about Braggie.

[TuringMachine]

They have 8 cats?

[JermajestyDuggar]

54 minutes ago, TuringMachine said:

They have 8 cats?

They are probably all outdoor cats. Because Braggie would most likely shit her pants if a cat scratched her furniture or left hair all over.

[CatholicLite]

Geez. How does one take care of (soon to be) 8 children AND 8 animals? I hope those animals aren't neglected, because it doesn't seem feasible that they could all be taken care of.