Seewalds 34: No News Yet

[singsingsing]

Jessa just strikes me so much as someone who would've really wanted to be a blogger, but she missed the blogging trend by a good 5-10 years, so she's making do with Instagram.

[Ivycoveredtower]

31 minutes ago, agentshade said:

"Having kids keeps you young"? Don't make me laugh. Most people I know with an average amount of kids looks 5-10 years older.

If that's not odd enough, since when has someone found seeing their parents kiss endearing? My parents are rarely affectionate when I'm around, but on the rare times they are. . .

I never understood lengthy, praising Instagram (or any social media site) posts. The fact Jessa felt the need to write an essay about her parent's relationship only shows that she's looking for validation and trying to convince herself that her parent's relationship is better than is (probably) actually is. My parents have a decent relationship, but I feel no obligation to talk about it on any of my social media accounts, because I know it's true and don't need validation.

Also, I cannot physically comprehend Jim Boob compromising on splitting parental duties. I've heard about studies showing that even in the most liberal couples where both parties promise to split the work, women end up doing far more caretaking than men ever do. Besides, knowing Boob, he wouldn't feel the need to jump on to cleaning a mess when he can ask one of his daughters to do it instead. 

the providing a stable home thing really got me. yes lets just forget that they let your brother molest you for years. what a stable home that was. 

[llg1234]

I'm glad Jessa posted that essay. It's a great reminder that she is still all-in in regards to her parents' belief system.

[HermioneSparrow]

17 minutes ago, llg1234 said:

I'm glad Jessa posted that essay. It's a great reminder that she is still all-in in regards to her parents' belief system.

Sadly they're all drinking the kool-aid!

[WiseGirl]

47 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

? Translation please.

A buggy is a stroller and I believe the Maclaren major is for children with special needs. @Clairice can correct me if I am wrong.  (I am more familiar with wheelchairs, standers, and other types of mobility equipment).

[Georgiana]

Something is blurred out on Michelle’s shirt. I’m used to that for TV, but that’s quite interesting on a private photo. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

5 minutes ago, Georgiana said:

Something is blurred out on Michelle’s shirt. I’m used to that for TV, but that’s quite interesting on a private photo. 

good catch ga now  I want to know what it says. 

[xlurker]

eh, I kind of read it as just some idyllic perfect marriage jibberish that many people post on social media.  In this case the daughter that wrote it was brought up to obey.  Even if we on the outside know this not to be true,  I believe she believes her words to be true, because she was told this is how it is/was.

[Kayleigh83]

So after I read Jessa’s post, I was randomly clicking around the rest of her feed and I went into her mother’s day post. I scrolled over to the very last photo and the pose looked SO familiar! I went back and looked at today’s, and I t’s the exact same photo, but in the more recent one Michelle’s shirt is changed to a different colour and with the slogan (looks like Nassau Bahamas?) blurred. I wonder why they would do that? Completely accidental find by me, I didn’t even noticed that blurred part at first. 

 

[fluffernutter]

Hmmm. Mr. Fluffer and I just had our 25th anniversary. Our two girls who are still at home made us a card, and the one that lives in Alaska called us. We've got a pretty healthy family, at least I think so anyway. Not sure why they (Duggars, and Bates too) feel the need to incessantly gush. It feels like over-compensating or bragging or something. 

[nst]

8 minutes ago, fluffernutter said:

Hmmm. Mr. Fluffer and I just had our 25th anniversary. Our two girls who are still at home made us a card, and the one that lives in Alaska called us. We've got a pretty healthy family, at least I think so anyway. Not sure why they (Duggars, and Bates too) feel the need to incessantly gush. It feels like over-compensating or bragging or something. 

but are you on a reality tv show....that we don't know of? 

[Ivycoveredtower]

21 minutes ago, Kayleigh83 said:

So after I read Jessa’s post, I was randomly clicking around the rest of her feed and I went into her mother’s day post. I scrolled over to the very last photo and the pose looked SO familiar! I went back and looked at today’s, and I t’s the exact same photo, but in the more recent one Michelle’s shirt is changed to a different colour and with the slogan (looks like Nassau Bahamas?) blurred. I wonder why they would do that? Completely accidental find by me, I didn’t even noticed that blurred part at first. 

 

okay that's just creepy. 

[fluffernutter]

4 minutes ago, nst said:

but are you on a reality tv show....that we don't know of? 

We're more boring than counting on, and that's saying something. 

[apandaaries]

3 hours ago, agentshade said:

"Having kids keeps you young"? Don't make me laugh. Most people I know with an average amount of kids looks 5-10 years older.

My teenager swears she will never reproduce, and that is one of her reasons.  I have many child-free friends, and every time we hang out with them, she points out how much  younger and more relaxed they look. 

Being a parent of a teenager, it it painfully clear how true this is and why.

[SapphireSlytherin]

Even some of Michelle's hair has been turned green by that PhotoShop job. I wonder if Jessa changed the photo to ale it look more current? And Inwould have thought she was better at PhotoShop than that.

[HarleyQuinn]

If it was a logo I could see a company not wanting to be associated with Duggar poison but it looks like a generic tourist shirt. I wonder why she bothered with that Windows Paint job?

[Kayleigh83]

32 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

If it was a logo I could see a company not wanting to be associated with Duggar poison but it looks like a generic tourist shirt. I wonder why she bothered with that Windows Paint job?

Agreed, and weirder still to not only cover the slogan but also change the colour! Maybe her or Ben was just messing around with photoshop skills for no reason? Thought the photo would look more classic or timeless with a plain, more neutral coloured top? Hard to say!

[candygirl200413]

I wonder if she was like "ah a picture like this would be better for this event but I already used it earlier!" but personally I would have just found a new picture instead of wasting time to make it seem like it was a different photo. I feel like you might as well have deleted the mother's day one. 

[Mama Mia]

Meh... I have some facebook friends who do the very long, personal posts for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.... I actually like them. They are always a sanitized version of real life, of course, but I like the details better than a constant plain Happy Birthday/Mother’s Day/Anniversary. 

I’ve gotten a couple from my kids, and they really meant a lot. I mean, I know I made an epic boat load of mistakes raising them - but it’s really nice to hear the good memories. 

I’ve always thought JB was the more affectionate, hands on parent. Partly, I’m sure, because Michele was always pregnant/ nursing and “ touched out “ .  Although they both pawned off all the major care to the older girls. IIRC, the Josh and JD initially also paired up as more informal “helpers” with Joe and Josiah - in the initial specials, but that seemed to come to a stop ( no doubt when they  discovered Josh’s behavior  ) 

The attempts to show JB as inept with kids always seemed fairly staged to me. Like the idiot detergent commercials they used to have where Dad can’t load a washing machine.

 

[Sky with diamonds]

Give us a break, Jessa. Blah. 

[PainfullyAware]

I think this letter is more of a reflection of how Jessa sees herself and her marriage then any serious reflection about her parents marriage. She mentions not fighting in front of the kids, being sarcastic, using put-downs, and being headstrong in a couple of different paragraphs about how great their relationship is.

In some of the interviews on the show Jessa has talked about her and Ben fighting. We have obviously seen her be sarcastic and smug and stubborn. She has also talked about admiring her sisters for being nice and encouraging. I'm sure that Jessica would always have been corrected for not 'talking sweet'. I think most of us appreciate that Jessa is more real and honest than Michelle, but she herself probably feels like that's part of her long list of failings.

[justoneoftwo]

I expect Jim Bob was "involved" in the way many fathers think they are hands on parents.  They are there for the fun part,  and maybe even a lot for the fun part, but for the actual work part they hand the kid back to Jana, or in other parents cases to the mom.

[Pecansforeveryone]

Thank you @justoneoftwo. I am sure Jim Bob loves his children and played with them plenty. However, he had no shame at all in dumping babies and laundry on his young daughters. You won't convince me JB helped lighten their load or even had their brothers help them. I had thought he took pride in never having changed a diaper. (I haven't seen the early specials so I could misquoting other posters.) 

[Lurky]

On 7/22/2018 at 5:21 PM, tabitha2 said:

In all seriousness Only Jeremy and Austin are actually working at paying jobs that we know of. 

I said it in the JD thread too, but Jeremy is no better than the Duggars, in that his job is through his father's church, so he's living off his dad just as the Duggars who work for Jim Bob's businesses are.  I don't count getting paid by dad as a "paying job" unless it's in some kind of legit business (so maybe Jeremy is even less self-supporting than the Duggars who work flipping houses are?)

[tabitha2]

Real talk I think The Duggar girls are used to having a man around pretty much all the time in form of Dad and aside from possibly Jana don’t have a huge work ethic so they are ok with the the half ass side Job set your own pace/hours their men have as long as The  Bank of Jim Bob keeps the Starbucks money rolling in.