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Seewalds 34: No News Yet


Coconut Flan

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I imagine most of what we are seeing is from an image consultant, which also explains D&J's latest ridiculousness. We know that JB&M met with someone to help them carefully word on Fox News what they would say about Josh. I really think that is why we see a curated version of life for Jessa and Ben. Like, we STILL don't actually know what Ben does for a job. We don't know where they attend church. We know very little about who they actually are, but we can see a very nicely laid out version of their life, full of hip, adorable children.

Jill and Derick have obviously been promoting Cross Church, their terrible website, and Derick's awful views. He has had no filter and his mom coming to his rescue doesn't help. We actually do not know what his job is either, but we have a bigger picture of him and Jill. But we also have a much more terribly planned version. Cinnamon sugar toast recipe?

Jinger and Jeremy have very distinct views. Jinger wears skinny jeans. Jeremy preaches anti-Catholic, anti-LGBT views. But we don't "see" that part, unless you take the time to listen to GCC's youtube sermons. Otherwise you see brainy Jeremy and stylish Jinger. Which totally makes me think image consultant.

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I am sure they have worked with an image consultant, but I don't think they continually do. Jessa's posts are very typical of Instagram mommy bloggers. If you spend enough money and have enough time on your hands, you can easily recreate these sorts of things and become like that. Jessa and Jinger have always been savvy with the cameras and playing up what was popular with the audiences. They are just doing the same thing online. 

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8 hours ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

Jessa is very much the face and voice of the Duggar brand. Counting On is the very nearly Jessa Duggar Seewald show with ...those other people, almost. I wouldnt be at all suprised if Jessa is offered a solo book deal. My Reflections on Marriage, Motherhood, and Faith Because I Know Everything By Jessa Duggar Seewald. 

I saw "book deal" and started chanting "TELL-ALL! TELL-ALL! TELL-ALL!" to myself. Out of all the older ones I could see Jessa being the most likely to do it; she's pretty savvy and I think if she saw money to be made/a way to preempt bad PR or distance herself when the next huge scandal breaks, she'd write it.  

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My issue with Josh is not so much what he did (or did not do to Anna), but what he absolutely did to his sisters.  I have grave concerns about a 15 year old who molests much younger children.  Someone in his own age range could be sexual curiosity (if the touching is mutually agreed upon and not with a family member), but young children is very concerning.  There is no proof of course that he re-offended (after the incidents we know about), but I would have far more hesitation around him based on that then his stepping out on Anna (if that's what he did do).

 

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Not commenting on Ben specifically, but I work along with kids/teens/young adults. There's a phase I call the "asshole phase," which most kids go through. It starts between the ages of 15 and 18, and generally lasts about a year, and they go from a sweet kid to a complete asshole. Usually they level out after that, and become a socially competent human being. Ben was young. Maybe he was going through his asshole phase. Maybe he's gotten better. Maybe he's gotten worse. I don't know, I don't know him. But what I do know is that people are usually very different people at 19 than they are at 23. I just spent a few weeks where my interns were 17-19 year old guys, and hoooooly shit they're a whole other species (anyone know what a "yeet" is? I'm old). I'm not much older, but those years are when people are figuring themselves, and they change. A lot. I sure as hell did.

As for Josh vs Ben, Ben was cheering on an asshole (D-wreck) doing an asshole thing that might have (but did not) hurt an innocent animal when he was a very young man. Josh committed heinous crimes against other human beings as a teen, as well as being a horrible husband as an adult. Sure, their underlying cult beliefs are equally terrible, but based on those examples, how the hell can you compare the two?

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Ben is the only one (to my knowledge) that has publicly said they thought something different than the family (not voting for Trump, supporting BLM).  He has shown some growth.  

Josh on the other hand hasn't demonstrated any.  If he did, I would say he grew and changed and thats all good (not erasing the bad, but it is good and give me hope, much like with Ben).  But he hasn't. 

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It’s only his family whom he hurt he had to demonstrate or prove anything to. We can’t know If he has or has not shown growth and change because he Is not a public figure anymore.

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Fundies claiming "all sin is sin" is extremely damaging. I know it messed me up during my time in fundie circles. It keeps predators and abusers from being held accountable. (I mean Bill Gothard at this point, more so than Josh Duggar.) Not only do the Duggars stink at "ministrying" and "serving" others, they do active harm along the way. Jessa and Ben are a part of that harm on some level. They are promoting a heavily sugar coated version of women being "barefoot and pregnant." They are doing this while being more financially comfortable than the average family. They are privelaged, and I so fervently wish they would acknowledge that privelage. There is no way a family of color or a Muslim family would get a television show to advocate what the Duggars advocate. I do appreciate Ben sitting down to talk with Flame. Being willing to sit down and listen is a 1st step. 

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18 minutes ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

Fundies claiming "all sin is sin" is extremely damaging.

...I do appreciate Ben sitting down to talk with Flame. Being willing to sit down and listen is a 1st step. 

I agree with this, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is equally damaging coming the other direction. I have seen some people feel like they were smacked down for praising baby steps from some of the fundies discussed here. I mean, sure, wearing pants isn't a life-changing decision, but it is a step away from their parents' rules. Ben sitting down to listen to Flame and speaking against Trump are pretty big steps, compared to the robocalls Michelle used to do! Sure, they're still fundies. But I feel like acknowledging small steps is a good thing. They aren't going to go straight from JimBob's pocket to promoting atheism and tossing out condoms at a pride parade. But maybe those small steps will take them toward understanding, and eventually get them away from the pro-life, no one else is as Christian as us, you're all going to hell stuff.

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19 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

I agree with this, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is equally damaging coming the other direction. I have seen some people feel like they were smacked down for praising baby steps from some of the fundies discussed here. I mean, sure, wearing pants isn't a life-changing decision, but it is a step away from their parents' rules. Ben sitting down to listen to Flame and speaking against Trump are pretty big steps, compared to the robocalls Michelle used to do! Sure, they're still fundies. But I feel like acknowledging small steps is a good thing. They aren't going to go straight from JimBob's pocket to promoting atheism and tossing out condoms at a pride parade. But maybe those small steps will take them toward understanding, and eventually get them away from the pro-life, no one else is as Christian as us, you're all going to hell stuff.

I'm a firm believer that its unlikely they will ever be tossing condoms at a pride parade, but that doesn't mean they are still fundie or not free. 

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Well, that is about as 180 as it gets though.

 

I wouldn't be tossing out condoms at a pride parade either, does that now make me fundie? :pb_rollseyes:

Whit and Zach are, imo, the best example for what I'm trying to bring across.

1)  I have an inch they are preventing pregnancy 2) she is wearing pants, maybe not around his family, but in private, which I get, she doesn't want to disrespect them, but she still made up her mind to dress like she wants and dress her children like she wants. Sure, some might say Zach said it's ok for him, but we don't actually know that, and I think she is making more decisions than he is 3) she has a job. It's not a full time job, but she does have two children, and if she had a full time job and he had a full time job, they'd have to put the children into daycare or leave them to family. I personally do not have kids yet, but I absolutely plan to spend the first couple of years at home, if I can afford it. I think it is also a big step for Whitney to do training at this point (when the kids are still quite young) because I think that shows she wants to work down the line. 

I think that is three things that sort of show how they are slowly moving away from some of the believes the OG Bates have, but yeah, they voted for trump, so they must still be 100% fundie. That would make a couple of million fundies in America then, wouldn't it?

 

Jessa and Ben surely have carved out a nice niche for them, and I wouldn't say the way they represent themselves isn't dangerous for everyone.

I just think they have showed, in whatever small steps, that they have changed some things that the OG Duggars do. I think J&B are way more involved with their children, and they are making decisions equally, and that is a big step in those circles as well. I also hope, and sort of feel like, that they are somewhat preventing (NFP, presumably) to have another child atm, and that is also a step up from Michelle. Because we all know that Michelle would've stopped breastfeeding a long time ago, in order to get herself another precious blessing..

I also think that getting married, having a child or two certainly matures a person a lot, and 4 years at that age, is a looong time that can make a hell of a difference. I know what one year living abroad did for me, and in the end I came back home and I wasn't responsible for a spouse and a newborn.

 

I sound too much like a leghumper, so I am stopping now, but the point I wanted to make is that it's unlikely for them to go from growing up in rompers to throwing out condoms at Pride Parade, because tbh, that is a far strech for most people who are not SUPER outgoing.

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I certainly don't want to shame posters for seeing baby steps in Ben and Jessa. I'm a big believer in seeing nuance. I just want to acknowledge the unintional ways otherwise sweet, kind, well-intentioned people can cause harm. A lot of our fundies are very sinscere about going on missions because they just really want to help people. If they spend people's hard earned money passing out candy, passing out useless tracts, and painting a building that was painted last week, I need to warn of the dangers of "good intentions" from otherwise decent people. 

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Here's the question that always runs through my mind whenever someone mentions that some fundie couple seem like very caring and involved parents (in this case Jessa & Ben, which I do agree with btw).  What, if anything, do we know about how the Duggars/Bates/any other mega-family parents we discuss here parented their first 2-3 children?  Would their parenting styles have looked similar before they were overwhelmed with umpteen children?  

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11 minutes ago, emscm said:

Here's the question that always runs through my mind whenever someone mentions that some fundie couple seem like very caring and involved parents (in this case Jessa & Ben, which I do agree with btw).  What, if anything, do we know about how the Duggars/Bates/any other mega-family parents we discuss here parented their first 2-3 children?  Would their parenting styles have looked similar before they were overwhelmed with umpteen children?  

I think it really depends on when they switched from raising or parenting their children to "training" their children.  That's really the root of it.  If you are "training" a child, there's going to be less involvement and caring even if you just have one child.  That's sort of the nature of the beast because training is based upon a top-down system of just praise/punishment rather than the increased parental involvement of discussing, explaining, and validating.    Are you invested in just getting your child to do what you say and not do things you don't approve of?  Or are you invested in helping your child learn and grow, understanding WHY some behaviors are OK and others are not?  And I think the Duggars started with the Pearl methods very early on, possibly before Jessa.  

Case in point: Jill only has 2 kids, but seems to have stuck hard to the training she learned in Duggarville, and I think we can see a huge difference between her and Jessa.  So just because you only have 2 kids does not mean the parenting style becomes more involved.  You can adopt this style of parenting anytime.  

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I try to keep my baseline for change standard across the board. Fundamentalism, addiction, people readjusting to society after prison (the US is punishment based, not rehabilitation and society reentry based).

Ben has shown growth and change in maturity level, in his interactions with community, in learning the reach of his voice and when to use it and steadiness in that path.  Josh is still shunned, so I can't make a judgement there. 

Yes, it's social media and heavily filtered, but as we've seen with Derick, that's no deterrent to showing true colors.

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The reality is eventually everyone, even the most hands-on, gentle, engaged parent has a breaking point. There is simply a limit where everything becomes stretched to thin. There are any number of reasons why the birth rate has steadily declined. Big families were not a romantic notion in times past, not even for the wealthy. They were largely born of necessity and limited effective means of preventing them. The Duggars apply romantic modern day ideals onto structures of times past. It's a big clash that's set up to fail spectaulalry. 

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48 minutes ago, SeekingAdventure said:

I sound too much like a leghumper, so I am stopping now, but the point I wanted to make is that it's unlikely for them to go from growing up in rompers to throwing out condoms at Pride Parade, because tbh, that is a far strech for most people who are not SUPER outgoing.

I was deliberately going far with that one, because I have (rarely) seen posts here that were basically "as long as they're still Christian they're still evil patriarchal horrible fundies, and they might as well put the frumpers back on!". I think most people here see nuances and shades of gray and that even going mainstream protestant would be a huge jump for people raised the way the Duggar kids were, and get that not blanket training and not considering pants on women "sluttish" are steps in the right direction. But just like many fundamentalists think "all sins are equal", there are some black and white thinkers going the other way, too.

It happens in every community, really. In the cloth diapering forums there'll be the ones who scoff at those who use services, and say they might as well use disposables if they're not going to make their own cloth wipes and hand-knit wool soakers and line dry their diapers themselves. It's impossible to be "crunchy" enough for some people, there'll always be someone living off-grid, raising all their own food, and making all their own clothing from fiber they raised and spun themselves and looking down on anyone who buys fabric from a store. There'll be vegans who think vegetarians are sell-outs who hate animals because they eat eggs. There'll be fundamentalist Christians who act like Westboro Baptist. 

I didn't mean to stir things up, but having read here for several years even before registering, it occurred to me that the "all sins are equal" thing we decry in fundies is almost the exact same as the "all christian acts are fundamentalist patriarchal acts" that we sometimes see.

No, I don't think they'll be tossing out condoms at a pride parade. But it's entirely possible Ben and Jessa might someday meet a gay couple or transgender person and actually treat them like people and NOT post horrible things about them on Twitter like Derick or hand them a tract or pray over them publicly. That would be a step forward, I think.

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@Alisamer yeah, I did get that you meant that, and I know exactly what you mean. People see baby steps but say that is not a change, because apperantly only a 180 is a change, and I think that is ridiculous.

 

And yeah, we don't see every parent with only one or two children, but we see the curated view of both Jessa and Ben and Jill and Derick, wwhich both have two boys, both guys are in school, at least thats what we know, and both girls are SAHM. But still the difference is mindblowing. And yes, I know, it is a deliberate decision what they show us, but we can see what Jessa thinks is a good example of parenting, and we can see what Jill thinks is 'good' parenting?

We have no idea what it looks like when chaos strikes in either house, unlike you consider Jessas dirty house post, but seeing what they think is great family life, there is still a big difference.

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@Alisamer, that situation with Ben and Jessa would be a big step forward. There are still relatively few churches that are LGBT inclusive or affirming. It also says far more about their ability to treat people with empathy and compassion than does them drinking wine asnd wearing shorts. 

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31 minutes ago, Georgiana said:

I think it really depends on when they switched from raising or parenting their children to "training" their children.  That's really the root of it.  If you are "training" a child, there's going to be less involvement and caring even if you just have one child.  That's sort of the nature of the beast because training is based upon a top-down system of just praise/punishment rather than the increased parental involvement of discussing, explaining, and validating.    Are you invested in just getting your child to do what you say and not do things you don't approve of?  Or are you invested in helping your child learn and grow, understanding WHY some behaviors are OK and others are not?  And I think the Duggars started with the Pearl methods very early on, possibly before Jessa.  

Case in point: Jill only has 2 kids, but seems to have stuck hard to the training she learned in Duggarville, and I think we can see a huge difference between her and Jessa.  So just because you only have 2 kids does not mean the parenting style becomes more involved.  You can adopt this style of parenting anytime.  

I think this is exactly what I was getting at.  With 2nd generation couples like J&B or Jill & Dwreck, we have had the TV show and social media documentation from the time their kids were born to show us signs of which way they have chosen to parent.  

What interests me in regards to what we can expect from the 2nd generation is when and why their parents started parenting by "training" their kids a la the Pearls.  Is there some sort of fundamental difference in parenting philosophy?  Did it coincide with becoming more fundamentalist in belief system?  Did they become overwhelmed with the number of children they had and looked for terrible solutions?  

My long winded point in posing these questions is that we discuss parenting techniques as seeing small glimmers of hope for certain couples moving away from the methods and choices of their parents.  I want to see the shades of grey and accept those glimmers optimistically.  But I think that looking at their parents' (the OG Duggar/Bates/whoever) history as we discuss the dangers of fundamentalism for the 3rd gen children now being born into this cult can provide valuable insights.

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1 hour ago, emscm said:

Here's the question that always runs through my mind whenever someone mentions that some fundie couple seem like very caring and involved parents (in this case Jessa & Ben, which I do agree with btw).  What, if anything, do we know about how the Duggars/Bates/any other mega-family parents we discuss here parented their first 2-3 children?  Would their parenting styles have looked similar before they were overwhelmed with umpteen children?  

As to JimBob and Michelle - my own opinion, backed by my perceptions of them as people and nothing else, is that they were probably halfway decent parents to the first one, two or three offspring, but I think both parents were always too enamored of themselves and each other to have been full on doting parents.  

From what we are allowed to see of Ben and Jessa and the way they interact with their two boys, they seem to enjoy their boys, to like them and their personalities, as well as love them.  What they share seems natural to me.  Usually Jessa posts videos and pictures that show happy little kids, but she also offers glimpses into occasional less than perfect moments, like when she's trying to get a picture before church of Ben and the boys, and Henry is wiggling and fussing.  That shows a parenting moment most of us can relate to and laugh about.   She has posted videos that show Ben getting down on the floor and playing with the boys, and them crawling all over him, having a fun time.  (Have never seen that once with Derick and his sons.)  

On the other hand, many of Jill's Instagram photos and videos make me uncomfortable and I have felt sorry for those boys many times.

I hope what Jessa shows us is genuine, not careful PR and behind the scenes, they are using Pearl methods of "training" their children.  I worry that Derick's ineptitude for fatherhood, and Jill's inability to see Derick as anything but #bestpapaever!, will negatively impact their children over time.

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I just think its harmful when people say the small changes fundies make somehow aren't good enough. 

I know that when I was still struggling with addiction, that such words made me not even want to try and change. I mean why bother if what steps I were taking weren't good enough? 

A step in the right direction is  still a right step - even if it isn't a gigantic leap they're still moving toward being a better person. 

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4 hours ago, justoneoftwo said:

I'm a firm believer that its unlikely they will ever be tossing condoms at a pride parade, but that doesn't mean they are still fundie or not free. 

I would happily toss out condoms at a pride parade.  Do they come in neon colours?  Haven’t seen one for 50 years.

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17 hours ago, nastyhobbitses said:

I saw "book deal" and started chanting "TELL-ALL! TELL-ALL! TELL-ALL!" to myself. Out of all the older ones I could see Jessa being the most likely to do it; she's pretty savvy and I think if she saw money to be made/a way to preempt bad PR or distance herself when the next huge scandal breaks, she'd write it.  

i don't think she would have a problem detailing everything that the family went through with josh in after the scandal because she subtly shaded him last week and it was slightly shocking. 

money is the goal for jessa 

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