Jinjer 45: First a Preacher then a Seminarian

[Palimpsest]

46 minutes ago, CarrotCake said:

@Palimpsest that's interesting to read! I knew the church was not very big but I did not realize it was this small. How can they still pay enough money to Jeremy to pay for his family?

Of course they also have some money from the show (which might explain their nice house) but any other person in his job would need to make a living from it.

The church in Laredo is actually a small house - only unusual for a church plant in that it isn't in a strip mall.  Jeremy actually started out as a co-pastor there, but the other guy seems to have left.  And here is the congregation in 2016:   

A couple of the men in that group seem to be the substitute preachers when Jeremy is off doing his own  thing.  Like going to Dallas, attending Duggar weddings, or visiting his Mom in PA.  And some of those people are visible in Jinger's baby shower pics.

What is surprising to me is that they rarely post pictures on Facebook about their multiple church outreach activities.  Photos or they didn't happen.

Usually with Fundie church plants like this the pastor gets a stipend from the sending church and often makes ends meet by having another job.  Used car salesman is quite a popular choice.  Jeremy and Jinger, however, have private means.  Jeremy could have savings from his soccer career, they could have their own contract for the Counting On TV work, and Jinger should have collected her back pay from 19K&C.  And her share of the royalties from Growing Up Duggar.  Who knows.

As to whether Jill and Jinger's lives are empty - who knows.  They were raised to be SAHW and SAHM and may be quite content with their immediate family and church friends.  And they may just be more introverted and less socially outgoing than Jessa and the Bateses.

The others are obviously better than Jill at curating their social media - but sparkly social media presence does not necessarily reflect their real lives or their happiness levels. 

 

[AtlanticTug]

7 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

I really don’t understand all the disdain towards any of the sisters for not “working”, or traveling with their husbands.

I can only speak for myself - I don't care what they do with their time, I only found it unfair that people were regularly ragging on Jill for tagging along with Derick and basically having no life aside from her "clinginess" when Jinger is absolutely no better and married to a man who, in my view, stands to be far more offensive/destructive in his life than the socially inept Derick.

Aside from that, I do firmly hold that the Duggars are lazy. This is not a matter of misogyny, because I see the entire family, men and women to be much the same. It also has nothing to do with working vs SAHM Moms. Jill's and Jessa's cooking skills are absolutely atrocious. I remember Anna being really bad as well when we watched the early days of her marriage and what she was preparing for dinner (spoiler: canned vegetables).  It's sad because JB and Michelle did actually bust ass and work pretty hard in the beginning of their marriage, they had real estate licences, they made money and were largely self-made. But their kids are pretty lazy top to bottom. Maybe with the exception of JD/Jana but since we really don't know that much about their daily lives, I'm not sure I can say it with certainty.

[SassyPants]

9 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

I really don’t understand all the disdain towards any of the sisters for not “working”, or traveling with their husbands. They are stay at home mom’s. Before that they are the old fashioned word - housewives. Their social media feeds don’t look markedly different than any of the many mom’s of young kids I know in real life. 90% of their posts are about their kids or a visit with family or some new recipe. Their’s  are more likely to be scatered  with posts about a night out at a club or show than God references - but really, that’s the main difference. 

They can afford to travel and stay home with their kids, largely because they have a job of being a tv personality, or because their parents built up a mini business empire, so they don’t have to bust ass at some job they don’t necessarily want. 

It’s kind of misogynistic, IMHO, to go down the “ just “ a housewife / stay at home mom route. And I’m someone who went to college while having babies and worked full-time while raising them. 

Actually, the only SAHMs are Anna and Jill (and loosely Michelle). The rest are all employed by Figure8/TLC.

[CorruptionInc.]

3 hours ago, AtlanticTug said:

Aside from that, I do firmly hold that the Duggars are lazy. This is not a matter of misogyny, because I see the entire family, men and women to be much the same. It also has nothing to do with working vs SAHM Moms. Jill's and Jessa's cooking skills are absolutely atrocious. I remember Anna being really bad as well when we watched the early days of her marriage and what she was preparing for dinner (spoiler: canned vegetables).  

No-one obviously told the Duggars that if you can read, you can cook. That or someone did; they just chose not to listen.

[Palimpsest]

5 hours ago, AtlanticTug said:

Maybe with the exception of JD/Jana but since we really don't know that much about their daily lives, I'm not sure I can say it with certainty.

Really we can't say anything with certainty.  Especially about the Duggars.

We look at a semi-scripted UnReality TV show.  Or some of us do.  I have eschewed the show for several years because I will not support TLC's child exploitation.  These days I read FJ for others' reactions and critique carefully by other methods.

I've also been studying the Duggars for years.  Too many years.

Jim Bob is not a country bumpkin (although he pretends to be one).  He is shrewd and cut-throat.  He earned a good enough living prior to his first TV appearance.  The Duggars appeared barely to be making it in 2004 (the original 14 Kids and Counting) because he had blown a few $100,000 on his (failed) political campaigns.  

In 2002 (after serving as a State Rep) he tried to become a candidate for the US Senate. He got his butt seriously whopped by Hutchinson.  That took $$$.

He also ran with no success for the Arkansas State Senate in 2006.  The voters must have remembered what a single issue guy he was in his first term.  Both those campaigns bled money from the family coffers - and that is probably why he decided to sell his family and their privacy on TV by signing up for a regular series.

5 hours ago, AtlanticTug said:

Aside from that, I do firmly hold that the Duggars are lazy. This is not a matter of misogyny, because I see the entire family, men and women to be much the same. It also has nothing to do with working vs SAHM Moms. Jill's and Jessa's cooking skills are absolutely atrocious. I remember Anna being really bad as well when we watched the early days of her marriage and what she was preparing for dinner (spoiler: canned vegetables). 

But are they?  I think the older girls worked like dogs bringing up their younger siblings.  I can't blame any of them for wanting to put their feet up for a bit on getting married.  As for their cooking skills - they were taught the dump the condensed soup method by Michelle and were cooking for 20.  The same for Anna really.  There is not much pleasure in cooking for huge numbers every day unless you are a chef who loves cooking.  And learning to cook healthily and using fresh vegetables for smaller numbers is a skill they had to learn.

As for the boys, I think Joe works with JD and those two may have a small level of independence from the dad.  The other adult boy-kids probably all work for Jim Bob's businesses in some shape or form.  And he probably isn't a nice or easy employer.   Also there should be no shame in working for the family business per se.  Many people and non-Duggars do it.

2 hours ago, CorruptionInc. said:

No-one obviously told the Duggars that if you can read, you can cook. That or someone did; they just chose not to listen.

Eh, no.  I graduated from university barely able to boil an egg.  There is a vocabulary and skill set for cooking that I still had to learn.  And today I can read very well, can cook quite - possibly very - well, but am still a rotten failure as a baker.   Baking is too much like chemistry.

 

 

 

[Meggo]

On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:27 AM, CarrotCake said:

To me they just seem lost being at home. As I said, the episode where Jinger is trying to do the laundry looked so sad, like she had no idea what to do with her time but wait for Jeremy to come home. I get the same feeling from  Jill being so clingy. With Jessa I see less of this since she seems to always go to the TTH or goes out with friends.

 

 

Jinger was probably baffled because she was used to laundry taking days and now it took - what - two hours? 

I was a SAHW for a while when I was unemployed (and my house has NEVER been cleaner & I have never been skinnier) but as a SAHM? Totally different. 
But maybe they take the kiddos to library story time? Drop in play groups? 

[Lurky]

On 12/5/2018 at 1:26 AM, AtlanticTug said:

Why they are such horrible homemakers I'll never understand, but again, it comes down to the fact that this entire family is lazy at the core of it.

I say this a lot about the Duggars and Bateses, but none of the daughters WERE taught to be home makers.  Yes, they were sister-moms to their siblings, but that meant they never had to deal with a baby and a toddler (eg) as they were given their "children" in rotation.  And yes, they worked like dogs, but that was in their "jurisdictions" - so Jinger spent a lot of time slaving in the laundry room over never-ending piles of washing, Jessa was in charge of organising the family/packing for holidays and IIRC, the schooling, and IIRC, Jana in charge of the cooking but they were never in charge of a house like normal people are, where a person or a couple has to juggle 7 breakfasts and suppers a week AND shopping AND cleaning AND laundry AND looking after the kids etc etc. 

I think it would be much harder to run a full household in conjunction with a partner and 3 kids than it would be to be in charge of the laundry for 20 people (although being that laundry maid would be so much more boring and like drudgery, because it would be never ending).  I don't think they've ever been taught to multi-task, or juggle priorities, and that would make home keeping feel so much more scary/impossible than for the average 20-something - especially compared to people who get a taste of positive-responsibility as a teen, then get to be responsible for a room at college/in a share home, then work up to a single place etc etc.  These young women literally go from a jurisdiction to a sole home-maker, serving their husband, so i don't think they struggle because they're lazy, but because their parents haven't prepared them in the slightest.

[Mama Mia]

On 12/5/2018 at 12:55 PM, SassyPants said:

Actually, the only SAHMs are Anna and Jill (and loosely Michelle). The rest are all employed by Figure8/TLC.

I think that makes the constant shade about their “doing nothing” even worse.

[AtlanticTug]

3 hours ago, Lurky said:

These young women literally go from a jurisdiction to a sole home-maker, serving their husband, so i don't think they struggle because they're lazy, but because their parents haven't prepared them in the slightest.

But the thing is many of us lived a more typical life where we maybe had a sibling or two, didn't have to take care of a baby or toddler daily ever, didn't have jurisdictions, etc. Growing up, I had chores, like walking the dog, vacuuming once a week, etc and as I got older in high school I was interested in baking so I did that with my Mom a lot but I didn't really cook meals aside from simple stuff like scrambled eggs, barbecuing some meat or roasting potatoes. My parents were rather obsessive about higher education and were trying to raise academics, not homemakers (good, bad, take your pick). Most of my friends were like that and some of them who lived in multi-generation homes where their grandparents were with them wouldn't even know how to boil water because their grandmothers would do all the cooking. Then I went away to college and law school and managed to figure these things out, bit by bit. I guarantee you that these women did a lot more house-related work than I or my friends did growing up but they appear to all be incredibly bad compared to us in adult life. Which is why I think that they're just not that driven, ambitious or hard working. They get by on the bare minimum they were taught as if they totally lack any sort of intellectual curiosity. Jill could be looking up new recipes and trying new things to cook and bake if she wants to blog about it. But no, she's just opening up cans of condensed soup like her mother would have 25 years ago. Jessa cooked the instruction manual in her oven and treated a slow cooker like Columbus discovering America. I don't even know what Jinger did before she had Felicity aside from taking photos of BAAAAABE. Joy appears to be helping out Austin at work, which is encouraging but her to-do list at home was also mindboggling. 

Bottom line - their parents may not have prepared them to be wives/mothers/SAHMs but most of ours didn't prepare us either and we managed better. 

[SassyPants]

I think the parenting and rearing that the Duggars received is the perfect example of why having 19 children is a reallllllllly bad idea. I am sure that JB and M’s methods slowly morphed over time in direct relationship to the dwindling amount of time that they had. If Jill’s parenting was lousy, can you imagine what Jed and Jer received?

[nausicaa]

On 12/5/2018 at 10:22 AM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

and again not everyone needs that to have a full life.  

I do think it's unhealthy to not have any interests or hobbies outside of one's own husband and kids. People are obviously going to have differing energy levels, and not every woman needs to be a defense attorney or go scuba diving every weekend (cake decorating, quilting, and volunteering at church also count as hobbies). But as someone whose mother never really figured out who she was and just had kids cause that was what she was "supposed to do"-- I know it wasn't a healthy dynamic for her or us then, and it's not healthy for her now as a retiree. 

Those kids will grow up. And it is a burden and overwhelming at times to feel your mother has nothing outside of you. My sister had to take on the role of my mom's best friend at age 11--because my mom had no adult friends. As a grown woman now, I have no template for how to form friendships or balance my own goals with relationships. 

If you are a young woman who finds herself a SAHW and can't figure out anything to do with your time other than laundry and waiting for your husband to come home, then some key developmental and self-discovery stages were missed and, imo, the relationship is unhealthily codependent. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

14 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

I do think it's unhealthy to not have any interests or hobbies outside of one's own husband and kids. People are obviously going to have differing energy levels, and not every woman needs to be a defense attorney or go scuba diving every weekend, but as someone whose mother never really figured out who she was and just had kids cause that was what she was "supposed to do"-- I know it wasn't a healthy dynamic for her or us then, and it's not healthy for her now as a retiree. 

Those kids will grow up. And it is a burden to feel your mother has nothing outside of you. Also--not the best example to set for one's own daughters (again, just relating personal experience here).

If you are a young woman who finds herself a SAHW and can't figure out anything to do with your time other than laundry and waiting for your husband to come home, then some key developmental and self-discovery stages were missed and, imo, the relationship is unhealthily codependent. 

my point was not everyone has the same level of need for socializing being implied by some here .

I was very focused on my kids and husband when they were small without losing myself emotionally or intellectually .

we all have our own experiences and while they're all valid for each of us, they can't necessarily be applied across the board .

[nausicaa]

2 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

my point was not everyone has the same level of need for socializing being implied by some here .

I was very focused on my kids and husband when they were small without losing myself emotionally or intellectually .

we all have our own experiences and while they're all valid for each of us, they can't necessarily be applied across the board .

As an introvert, I completely agree about not needing the same level of socialization. I'd be a hermit by some people's standards. 

I agree things can't be applied across the board, however, (and again, I could be completely wrong, I don't know these people personally) from what I've seen, I do think Jill and Jinger exhibit an unhealthy dependency on their husbands, intellectually and emotionally. That's not completely their fault--I'm looking at you, Michelle and Jim-Bob. 

[Lurky]

6 hours ago, AtlanticTug said:

I guarantee you that these women did a lot more house-related work than I or my friends did growing up but they appear to all be incredibly bad compared to us in adult life.

Sure, they did more housework, but they weren't doing as wide a range of it, or having the freedom to make decisions about it.  Jinger being laundry-maid for her mega family for years, and being responsible for a buddy team isn't the same as learning incrementally.

I get that some teens have never done anything around the home at all, and looking after themselves in college is a huge shock, and to be honest, I look askance at their parents and upbringing too, because I believe that a healthy upbringing involves teaching kids (at appropriate ages and levels) to do things like use a washing machine, cook for oneself, do household chores, use a supermarket etc etc.  But at least a student who has to learn that by scratch going to college is learning it in an environment where they are surrounded by peers etc.  Whereas doing it Duggar/Bates style, the daughter is the only one responsible for home-making, and is learning it with a husband who expects her to serve him, and more likely than not, with a honeymoon baby on the way.

I just don't believe for a moment that the Duggar/Bates way of handing out jurisdictions prepares their daughters to run their own households at all.  A lot of the daughters have talked about struggling to cook for 2, because they only know cooking (or rather, "cooking") on a mass-production scale.  The Duggars have never even been allowed to manage their own time, or their own space, even - they haven't even had their own clothes, sharing wardrobes with their sisters.  Yeah, they drudged a lot, but if Michelle was serious about preparing them for their own QF family, she'd have rotated Jurisdictions every 6 months, so they all learned how to do laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping, planning etc etc, rather than being an expert J'Slave in one area, but helpless in others.

[SorenaJ]

6 hours ago, AtlanticTug said:

Joy appears to be helping out Austin at work, which is encouraging but her to-do list at home was also mindboggling.

Mindboggling? Not to me. I do that all the time. Some people are list makers, and write everything down. Some people feel a sense of accomplishment ticking things off their to-do list. Some people need a to-do list to get motivated to start doing stuff. Some people have ADD and a to-do list is a necessity to not sit and chill about all day. 

And expecting your kid to be academic is definitely bad. Not everyone is. We need carpenters and plumbers and people to take care of the elderly. 

[lumpentheologie]

4 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

my point was not everyone has the same level of need for socializing being implied by some here .

I was very focused on my kids and husband when they were small without losing myself emotionally or intellectually .

we all have our own experiences and while they're all valid for each of us, they can't necessarily be applied across the board .

I agree that not everyone needs to be doing something outside of the home to have a good life. 

I work from home (and it's very solitary work) and am pretty happy with leaving my apartment only 2-3 times a week in the winter. I socialize mainly with my husband and visit with a friend maybe 2-3 times a month. I'm pretty introverted and happy with not being overstimulated, but I realize this probably sounds terrible and isolated to a lot of people. 

Even if I didn't work, I would be pretty happy with my life being this way. I have lots of things to occupy me around the house, lots of books to read, things to research online, TV to watch, long baths to take, yoga to do, etc.

I rarely feel bored, and I find it puzzling when people express "What on earth do they do with their time all day??" when the Duggar girls are home alone pre-kids. Not everyone needs the same amount of stimulation, and I imagine it must be heaven for some of them to be home alone after sister-momming in a crazy house for the previous 15 or so years. 

[DillyDally]

5 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

I agree that not everyone needs to be doing something outside of the home to have a good life. 

I work from home (and it's very solitary work) and am pretty happy with leaving my apartment only 2-3 times a week in the winter. I socialize mainly with my husband and visit with a friend maybe 2-3 times a month.

I have only one question: Are you me??? 

[lumpentheologie]

7 minutes ago, DillyDally said:

I have only one question: Are you me??? 

I hate to break it to you this way, but you're really my clone. 

There are actually a bunch of us and they figured we'd never run into each other since we're programmed to never leave the house. 

The internet really fucked up that plan though ?

[singsingsing]

I just want to take this opportunity to remind people that the Duggar daughters' supposed ineptitude in the homemaking realm was purposely exaggerated by TLC. 'Girl gets married and is hopeless in the kitchen/taking care of a house/taking care of kids' is one of TLC's pet plot lines. We've all done brain dead stuff, but usually no one's filming us at the time. Most people tend to adopt a self-effacing sort of humour where they play down their strengths and exaggerate their weaknesses in situations like that as well. We don't know what the reality is. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

39 minutes ago, lumpentheologie said:

I hate to break it to you this way, but you're really my clone. 

There are actually a bunch of us and they figured we'd never run into each other since we're programmed to never leave the house. 

The internet really fucked up that plan though ?

Clone268 checking in.

The Internet lets my introverted self socialize without having to stress over what to wear, how early to be there, how my hair looks, etc. 

I've always said I'd be the perfect NYC hermit. I'd happily live in Manhattan, surrounded by millions of people I don't know and that I don't have to talk to, in a tiny walkup with a cat.

[lumpentheologie]

39 minutes ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I've always said I'd be the perfect NYC hermit. I'd happily live in Manhattan, surrounded by millions of people I don't know and that I don't have to talk to, in a tiny walkup with a cat.

This was literally my life for the last 7 years until I decided it wasn't worth the rent anymore/American politics scared me away. It was great while it lasted. 

There's something great about being in a place where you have almost endless options for observing things and no obligation to talk to anyone. That's also why I love traveling. 

[JillyO]

7 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

Even if I didn't work, I would be pretty happy with my life being this way. I have lots of things to occupy me around the house, lots of books to read, things to research online, TV to watch, long baths to take, yoga to do, etc.

I rarely feel bored, and I find it puzzling when people express "What on earth do they do with their time all day??" when the Duggar girls are home alone pre-kids. Not everyone needs the same amount of stimulation, and I imagine it must be heaven for some of them to be home alone after sister-momming in a crazy house for the previous 15 or so years. 

The only reason I sometimes wonder about that is because they don't really seem to do any of the things you list. They barely seem to read any books apart from the bible, hardly any TV shows or movies are holy enough for their sensibilities, they certainly don't appear to be researching anything online.

So let's say they take a half-hour bath each day, work out for half an hour each day (I doubt it, but whatever), spend an hour reading their bible... that leaves like 8 more hours in the day where their husbands are at work (assuming they actually have a job outside the home). I'm not saying anyone who stays home must be bored. Just with these specific people, they don't really seem to do a lot of the things that keep regular people busy even if they don't have a job.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

7 minutes ago, JillyO said:

They barely seem to read any books apart from the bible, hardly any TV shows or movies are holy enough for their sensibilities, they certainly don't appear to be researching anything online.

there is no way to know this based on a semi-scripted 'reality ' show and social media with an agenda.

I'm  not saying they have rich inner lives, but there is no way to know what they do or how they really feel.

[lumpentheologie]

2 minutes ago, JillyO said:

The only reason I sometimes wonder about that is because they don't really seem to do any of the things you list. They barely seem to read any books apart from the bible, hardly any TV shows or movies are holy enough for their sensibilities, they certainly don't appear to be researching anything online.

So let's say they take a half-hour bath each day, work out for half an hour each day (I doubt it, but whatever), spend an hour reading their bible... that leaves like 8 more hours in the day where their husbands are at work (assuming they actually have a job outside the home). I'm not saying anyone who stays home must be bored. Just with these specific people, they don't really seem to do a lot of the things that keep regular people busy even if they don't have a job.

I get where you're coming from with this, but I guess I secretly hope that they do do those things? 

Probably not the way I do, but they could totally be reading Christian books, trying out new hairstyles/outfits, watching TV (Jinger watches The Crown and we know Jill watches secular movies as well--even if they stay with PG/PG-13 stuff there's still a lot out there), figuring out what kinds of home furnishings/food/whatever they actually like and don't like as opposed to just dealing with what was given to them before. I could totally spend an hour and a half working out and another hour and a half cleaning every day if I had the time. We don't know whether or not they research stuff online, but I bet some of them do--it's the first time they've been given internet access without their parents looking over their shoulders.  

We won't really ever know much about it though, because all these things would make for really terrible TV, and not terribly interesting instagram posts. 

(And just to be clear I don't think doing any of these things makes them less fundie, although by expanding their horizons they might open the door to some new ideas.)

[MsSaylor]

I want to chime into this conversation but my feelings are kind of all over the place. Ive been a sahm during the daytime hours for about 2 years now. I work evenings and weekends and one weekday shift (about 32 hrs a week). So it kind of sucks and is the worst of both worlds lol. My two older kids are in school so its just me and my 4 yo most of the time. Im incredibly bored with my life but at the same time Im in a comfort zone and am afraid of the alternatives at this point. I have slowly lost most of my social life and mostly only socialize with my husband, family members and online/texting with a few friends.  I do have some semblance of hobbies but not like most people. Im not crafty or at all interested in any of the homemaking areas of interest like decorating, cooking/baking etc. I spend most of the day doing a few chores, on fj/my phone and of course taking care of my daughter and playing with her and sometimes errands. I used to work out at the Y which was really good for me and included socializing but we had to give up our membership for now. Anyway there are things I could be doing but Im not interested and dont want to. At this point I barely even clean because I just am so bored and dont care. I am definitely getting depressed with it. Even though Im an introvert I really dont like being at home all day and I like to be busy all the time.  Ugh its hard. I think my life would ferl more normal/full/busy the way I like if I get a day job and am home with my family including my husband in the evenings and weekends so it is easier to get out and do things as a family. But I would need a nanny to do school pick ups etc and that is hard bc oldest has special needs plus money. I understand a lot of your prespectives.