M Is for Mama 2: Quiverfull/Pinterest

[luv2laugh]

I can’t get over the thought of a Christian school spanking a teenager for getting pregnant. 

First, if a pregnant teen (couldn’t or was not allowed) to abort, wouldn’t the growing belly be painful enough in an environment where she’d be shamed???

How emotionally damaging... I cannot for the life of me imagine the emotional scars they must face from such humiliation...and these same fundies wonder why they have driven women to abort???!!!!  

If fundies care about stopping abortion, they’d need to re-evaluate their own behaviors that are part of the problem. 

Also, abortion rates won’t decrease until we give single mothers the support they need. Catholics, pro-life as ever, at least realize this and are helping mothers in need financially more than any other Christian Church does.

Fundies don’t care too much about stopping abortion otherwise, they would’ve let that pregnant teen from a few years ago walk on her graduation day. It just seems more and more like fundies thrive upon humiliating vulnerable pregnant girls rather than getting them the hell they need.

[BobJonesBabe]

13 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I have no clue what a spanking would do for a pregnant teen beside harm them. If an insane amount of religious shaming wasn’t enough to deter a person, a spanking sure as hell won’t. 

It was horrible. When they found out she was pregnant, both she and her boyfriend were called in to be paddled. 

She was expelled, and he was allowed to finish the year. OF course. That's how it works in fundie-dom. 

But hey, they've been married for over 15 years now. So take that, fundie Christian school. She has commented often that the school's treatment of her was traumatic and scarring. 

[EowynW]

In my former fundie church a teen got pregnant. They tried to force the couple to write an apology to the church and stand up and read it and publicly confess their sin. Family left the church.  Teens ended up getting married and 8 years later are still married with 2 kids. 

[FilleMondaine]

Wait, assault of a pregnant person (in the US, at least)...is an extra-assault? Like, a bigger crime? But if the pregnant person is a teenager, then it's ok??? Also, couldn't stress cause a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? So...those M-F-ers therefore CAUSE abortion! (Yes, extra stress does cause problems for pregnant women. There was a study on the pregnancy-problems of latina women caused directly by Trump's racist policies and their stress)

UGH! What horrible, myopic, misogynistic, cruel, stupid stupid hate-filled people. Thank you both for the updates on your respective acquaintances and how awesome they are. Glad that the girl's family left the church, too. Oh, and the updates on the teenage cousin. It feels so good to hear about their successes and the good support that they did get.

[BobJonesBabe]

4 hours ago, FilleMondaine said:

Wait, assault of a pregnant person (in the US, at least)...is an extra-assault? Like, a bigger crime? But if the pregnant person is a teenager, then it's ok??? Also, couldn't stress cause a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? So...those M-F-ers therefore CAUSE abortion! (Yes, extra stress does cause problems for pregnant women. There was a study on the pregnancy-problems of latina women caused directly by Trump's racist policies and their stress)

UGH! What horrible, myopic, misogynistic, cruel, stupid stupid hate-filled people. Thank you both for the updates on your respective acquaintances and how awesome they are. Glad that the girl's family left the church, too. Oh, and the updates on the teenage cousin. It feels so good to hear about their successes and the good support that they did get.

Exactly. So, so horrible. I read the article about Hispanic women having more frequent spontaneous abortions.

[EowynW]

The church had a weird double standard about stuff though. While they had no problem hauling up victims of sexual assault/molestation to the front for public church discipline, or wanting to publicly humiliate the teen couple, they turned a blind eye to an adult member who was shacking up with a string of guys and who got pregnant. The same year they publicly shunned two 13 year old victims, they welcomed that lady's baby born out of wedlock with open arms. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

48 minutes ago, EowynW said:

no problem hauling up victims of sexual assault/molestation to the front for public church discipline,

Wait. .... wait ..... publicly humiliating and disciplining victims of sexual assault/ molestation!!!??? Like it was their fault???!!  That somehow they caused their own molestation???!!

Mother of Pearl. That is is so effed up as to not be believed. except I do.  

[EowynW]

I don't think I've shared that story here yet. I will tomorrow after work. It's a doozy. 

[smittykins]

12 hours ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

Wait. .... wait ..... publicly humiliating and disciplining victims of sexual assault/ molestation!!!??? Like it was their fault???!!  That somehow they caused their own molestation???!!

Mother of Pearl. That is is so effed up as to not be believed. except I do.  

This is a different(yet similar)case which got national publicity:

Trinity Baptist Church sex scandal

[EowynW]

Remember my Braggie loving sister & brother in law? The ones who are running off to England for 2  and wanted me to take off work to help watch their kids part of that time while they did it? Well they are reminding me more and more of Braggie. They are now really pushing the "we are available for travel and elopements" aspect of their business. They have three kids 4 and under. And rely on free childcare from family to "go have adventures." 

I think they're secretly regretting having 3 kids in 3 years in their first 5 years of marriage (got married super young) and are trying to find ways to not be tied down so much. But damn, they have 3 little bitty kids that they chose to have. They are on government aide for them and live in a low income housing but they are desperately trying to get business gigs that will routinely take them away from their kids. So they can be... hip adventurers with a vlog or something. And are marketing themselves as such. It's weird to me. 

[ophelia]

@EowynW Do they have any former job experience or education so they could have a "normal" 9 to 5 to make ends meet? I know it is not that mundane and fancy and hip, but it pays the bills. 
I hope for them sake of them and their small children they are now on some kind of birth control? Adding more kids to the mix doesn't sound wise to me!

Are you going to spend the holidays together? If so, I hope you still have wonderful and blessed time!

[Glasgowghirl]

Cases of so called Christians hitting pregnant teens doesn't surprise me but if the Catholic school I went to can support and help pregnant students then so can all the others. They just choose not to, they totally ignore the bits of the Bible where Jesus preaches about not casting judgement on other and forgiveness.

[EowynW]

4 hours ago, ophelia said:

@EowynW Do they have any former job experience or education so they could have a "normal" 9 to 5 to make ends meet? I know it is not that mundane and fancy and hip, but it pays the bills. 
I hope for them sake of them and their small children they are now on some kind of birth control? Adding more kids to the mix doesn't sound wise to me!

Are you going to spend the holidays together? If so, I hope you still have wonderful and blessed time!

Both went to college & have bachelors. She has only worked a "normal grind" job for exactly one month 6 years ago, lol. She spent a semester in college then left after getting pregnant with their first. She finished up online later. He hasn't worked a normal grind job in years. Neither of them have ever really had to experienced the pressure of going to mundane jobs & staying a half a step ahead of everything.  Yes he's gotten a vasectomy. 

This is actually the couple we are/were? closest to on Mr. EW's side of the family because they are fellow fundie escapees and faith deconstructors  but lately things have felt odd because they're liberated, hip and "living their best life" and we are in the grind with jobs we have to work and too broke to do anything best lifeish right now. So there's a lot we can't do with them anymore. And they're now busy building their business, vlogging and making friends with other hip couples/parents doing the same. So there's not time for normal people like us anymore especially people who don't have kids. 

[NotQuiteMotY]

On 11/21/2018 at 7:09 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

IBtw, I would have cried for days if my second pregnancy had turned out to be twins. I remember the first ultrasound. All I really focused on was that I only had one in there! I think I shocked the doctor because he was showing me this blob as if I should be interested. But all I cared about is if there was only one blob, not two. 

My first question to the ultrasound tech was, "There's only one, right?"

On 11/21/2018 at 7:57 PM, Kailash said:

P.S. I’m pretty sure we all have moments where we want to hide from our child/children. 

This times a hundred. If we're lucky we can get a minute or two to breathe before wading back into it.

[luv2laugh]

On 11/29/2018 at 2:19 PM, NotQuiteMotY said:

My first question to the ultrasound tech was, "There's only one, right?"

This times a hundred. If we're lucky we can get a minute or two to breathe before wading back into it.

Yes but the real question is do you, like Braggie Abbie, continue to get pregnant with 8+ children (for self-serving, attention-seeking reasons) despite knowing you don’t have the personality to handle that many kids, and when it’s detrimental for your stress levels?

Do you delegate your responsibilities to everyone else (even older children), thereby making everyone else suffer and put up with your heightened stress levels just so you can fulfill your self-serving need to always be pregnant? 

Her whole family must have to walk on egg shells around her as Abbie wrote (and still does) as if she was about to crack at any moment with her kids before she was even pregnant with twins (babies 4 & 5). Since this appears to be a pattern for her, I don’t think things got better. I think she copes by enslaving the three other children to do the parenting for her as well as heavily relying upon her mom.

Perhaps even Shaun is a more active parent than Braggie Abbie is but we don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the is because Abbie only blogs about self-serving things. For having 8 kids, she does not enjoy anything about motherhood. 

It is OK to be short-tempered and not really enjoy motherhood but RESPONSIBLE parents struggling with this stop having more children and get professional help when necessary. She’s done the opposite.

After the twins, Braggie Abbie could’ve went back to teaching (even part-time) and hired a babysitter. She didn’t because she’s lazy and addicted to the attention that having a ”Quiver full” gives her.

On a side note, originally I thought Braggie quit working as a teacher after her first baby came. According an earlier blog post, she mentioned she actually continued working as a part-time teacher until the third baby came. I bet Abbie “pulled a Lori” and kept having babies to stay home.

I believe Ken wanted Lori to remain working as a teacher, despite having kids. Lori worked after Alyssa and she kept throwing out her birth control to make Ken agree to her staying home. Ken would’ve been happy with Lori working as a teacher full-time and being a mother. I think Shaun may have felt similar with wanting Braggie to work as a teacher and she, like Lori, didn’t want to.

[habert]

Excuse that I’m doing this from screenshots, it’s not letting me copy their Instagram posts into here. 

So this post came up as a “suggestion” on Instagram (not sure why except maybe because I poke around Duggar/Bates circles there):

now I don’t think they’re quiverful but they did have 5 kids in 5 years because of two sets of twins. However I got a very M is for Mama vibe from her (less humble bragy, but very pintresty shots and like 800 tags as if attempting to create a career as an inta lifestyler) so I thought you guys might get a kick out of some of these since I didn’t know where else to put it:

Bio:

Spoiler

Quick snapshot of the pinteresty lifestyler of it all

 

Spoiler

How do you have a kitchen this nice?

 

Spoiler

What does this mean?

 

Spoiler

What in the hell??

 

Spoiler

WHAT IN THE HELL

 

Spoiler

She does a BUNCH of those board pics that are popular now and she repeats “we can’t both be beautiful it’s either me or the house” like 3 times, but she doesn’t come up with very pithy ones at all. She also has a bunch of those weird perspective ones where kids are flying all over the house or whatever.

all in all: SUPER WEIRD

 

[luv2laugh]

@habert Strange, that might be a rabbit hole that deserves a thread of it’s own.

The RaisingHowells instagram reminds me very much of Karissa Collins who runs The Collins Family Instagram.

Karissa is a photographer and takes beautiful photos (but overedits them). She has a gorgeous family, is staunchly Quiverfull yet very, very kind, and uses her public Facebook page & Instagram as a Quiverfull evangelistic blog. She encourages everyone to contact her so she can send them a free copy of the book, Be Fruitful & Multiply. If you have spare time, make popcorn and get comfortable... 

https://www.instagram.com/thecollinskids/?hl=en

I made a separate thread on her Instagram here a few months ago. 

 

Actually, I do not mind bloggers and “Instagrammers” who take stunning, professional photos of their home, food, DIY activities, and life. I enjoy the inspiration and have to set a timer to time how long I spend browsing Pinterest otherwise, I could do it all at! 

Although, it’s a moral/ethical concern if the blogger or “instagrammer” is not open, honest, and transparent with their audience. Additionally, it’s a concern if it’s main usage is to boost one’s narcissistic sense of self-worth via posting entirely phony photos.

However, the major problem is if the activity becomes an addiction/compulsion. If Instagram/blogging consumes the majority of one’s time, interferes with daily tasks, affects one’s mental health, and if the children are parenting the other children, as well as doing YOUR (or spouse’s) jobs, then it is not only selfish and lazy but actually, ridiculously irresponsible. 

[PianoGal]

A little late to the thread drift, but the sharing about teen parents and the hypocrisy in how it was dealt with reminded me of incidents that happened when I was growing up. 

I grew up in a church of 200+ members, and it was pretty well known back in the 80s and 90s. Looking back on it now, I realize just how messed up it was. I'm so glad my parents finally got fed up and left.

I remember during one big "camp meeting," 2 teenagers were caught kissing in the back room. They were made to get up in front of the whole church and apologize. The guy was in tears, but the girl rolled her eyes and was obviously annoyed by the whole deal. 

There was another teenage girl who got pregnant right out of high school and hid it from her parents for 8 months. Her older sister came home from college and found out, and gave her a day to tell them, or she would herself. This poor girl was also made to stand up and apologize to the whole congregation. 

But, the real kicker came when the Pastor's son and his family suddenly moved back to town in one weekend. (They had moved about an hour away to the country.) There was no explanation, but of course, you can't keep things hidden for long. Apparently, the wife had been having an affair with a neighbor. She was never made to publicly apologize, and the whole topic was practically taboo. 

When you're the Pastor's daughter-in-law, you get special treatment, I suppose. My mom was livid. I think that was the beginning of the end for her. 

[Seahorse Wrangler]

3 hours ago, habert said:

Excuse that I’m doing this from screenshots, it’s not letting me copy their Instagram posts into here. 

So this post came up as a “suggestion” on Instagram (not sure why except maybe because I poke around Duggar/Bates circles there):

now I don’t think they’re quiverful but they did have 5 kids in 5 years because of two sets of twins. However I got a very M is for Mama vibe from her (less humble bragy, but very pintresty shots and like 800 tags as if attempting to create a career as an inta lifestyler) so I thought you guys might get a kick out of some of these since I didn’t know where else to put it:

Bio:

  Reveal hidden contents

Quick snapshot of the pinteresty lifestyler of it all

 

  Hide contents

How do you have a kitchen this nice?

 

  Hide contents

What does this mean?

 

  Hide contents

What in the hell??

 

  Hide contents

WHAT IN THE HELL

 

  Hide contents

She does a BUNCH of those board pics that are popular now and she repeats “we can’t both be beautiful it’s either me or the house” like 3 times, but she doesn’t come up with very pithy ones at all. She also has a bunch of those weird perspective ones where kids are flying all over the house or whatever.

all in all: SUPER WEIRD

 

All I got from those photos was I hadn't realised Beyblades were still a thing.

[luv2laugh]

13 hours ago, PianoGal said:

There was another teenage girl who got pregnant right out of high school and hid it from her parents for 8 months. Her older sister came home from college and found out, and gave her a day to tell them, or she would herself. This poor girl was also made to stand up and apologize to the whole congregation. 

I never knew churches actually made pregnant girls confess to the congregation until a few days ago. I’m very mad. What an emotionally abusive practice.

[Tigerchild74]

I will admit, the Howell photos made me laugh, and I liked them.  I'm not sure why it is shocking that someone would clean their kitchen before taking a photo of it?  It doesn't mean it's like that all the time.  I mean, when I took pictures of my kids to put on the christmas card, I dressed them in nice clothing that coordinated and made sure their faces were washed and hair brushed, trust me they usually didn't look like that.  Does that make me some kind of weirdo?

Also, I believe the fantasy football thing was an acknowledgement that she shouldn't bitch about her husband's fantasy hobbies when she's gone one of her own.  Given how many times I, as a gamer, have had to sit at women's gatherings listening to people moan about their husband dropping $60 and and a few evenings on a video game and how he's just the stupidest and worstest ever when they've just got done bragging about their new scrapbooking supplies that cost well over $200 and the fact they're going away for an entire weekend for a scrapbooking conference--I mean, might wanna cut the poor dude some slack, no?  Because most people don' really care about the scrapbooks you make even though you tell yourself differently, it IS primarily (or should be) for your own pleasure.  That's okay.  It's also okay for him to have a hobby.  Deal with it.

[So-Virgin-It-Hurts]

On ‎11‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 4:09 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I have a lot of thoughts like Braggie. But I tend to keep it to myself or in therapy. My kids do make me want to run away screaming sometimes. But I try not to let them see it. I don’t want my kids to feel like shit because mommy has a hard time with pretty normal behaviors like constant whining and fighting with each other. I do better one on one with kids. I would be a horrible mom of many. Two is my limit. I can see a lot of my issues in Braggie (like the constant noise and mess) and have a strong feeling she would be a better mom to only 1-3 kids only. You can have “issues” and still be a good mom. Braggie’s problem is that she knows she has issues, but she doesn’t do a damn thing about it. Well I guess she prays. Sorry but that’s not enough. She needs to see a therapist and stop having kids. But she won’t. 

Btw, I would have cried for days if my second pregnancy had turned out to be twins. I remember the first ultrasound. All I really focused on was that I only had one in there! I think I shocked the doctor because he was showing me this blob as if I should be interested. But all I cared about is if there was only one blob, not two. 

To your credit: you recognize who you are, your needs, and your limitations. I just want to point out that the "hard times" of parenting for you described occur mostly in early childhood and primary school years. Some parents do babyhood like they were born for it, some toddlers, some teenagers, etc. Besides the love and unconditional acceptance - parenting at different ages is truly a different skillset. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Just now, So-Virgin-It-Hurts said:

To your credit: you recognize who you are, your needs, and your limitations. I just want to point out that the "hard times" of parenting for you described occur mostly in early childhood and primary school years. Some parents do babyhood like they were born for it, some toddlers, some teenagers, etc. Besides the love and unconditional acceptance - parenting at different ages is truly a different skillset. 

I totally agree! I am a talker. I communicate a lot via “words.” It’s my go to. So when my words are not understood in babyhood and they are completely ignored in the toddler/preschool years, I get so frustrated. My older son will talk with me and understand my words better than his younger brother. So I have an easier time with him now. His younger brother is at a tough age. Everyone I know says age three is just fucking hard. 

[front hugs > duggs]

I came across this one today as one of my suggestions. Christian homeschool mom of 7 to Liam, Kai, Kingston, Desmond, Evangeline, Clementine, and Primrose. Gives me the same vibes as Braggie - not the abuse stuff, but the “my life is so perfect and yes they are all mine!” vibe. 

 

[NotQuiteMotY]

On 12/1/2018 at 7:33 AM, luv2laugh said:

Yes but the real question is do you, like Braggie Abbie, continue to get pregnant with 8+ children (for self-serving, attention-seeking reasons) despite knowing you don’t have the personality to handle that many kids, and when it’s detrimental for your stress levels?

Do you delegate your responsibilities to everyone else (even older children), thereby making everyone else suffer and put up with your heightened stress levels just so you can fulfill your self-serving need to always be pregnant? 

Her whole family must have to walk on egg shells around her as Abbie wrote (and still does) as if she was about to crack at any moment with her kids before she was even pregnant with twins (babies 4 & 5). Since this appears to be a pattern for her, I don’t think things got better. I think she copes by enslaving the three other children to do the parenting for her as well as heavily relying upon her mom.

Perhaps even Shaun is a more active parent than Braggie Abbie is but we don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the is because Abbie only blogs about self-serving things. For having 8 kids, she does not enjoy anything about motherhood. 

It is OK to be short-tempered and not really enjoy motherhood but RESPONSIBLE parents struggling with this stop having more children and get professional help when necessary. She’s done the opposite.

After the twins, Braggie Abbie could’ve went back to teaching (even part-time) and hired a babysitter. She didn’t because she’s lazy and addicted to the attention that having a ”Quiver full” gives her.

On a side note, originally I thought Braggie quit working as a teacher after her first baby came. According an earlier blog post, she mentioned she actually continued working as a part-time teacher until the third baby came. I bet Abbie “pulled a Lori” and kept having babies to stay home.

I believe Ken wanted Lori to remain working as a teacher, despite having kids. Lori worked after Alyssa and she kept throwing out her birth control to make Ken agree to her staying home. Ken would’ve been happy with Lori working as a teacher full-time and being a mother. I think Shaun may have felt similar with wanting Braggie to work as a teacher and she, like Lori, didn’t want to.

To answer your questions... Oh hell no. There are actually two or three threads going right now on FJ about how many kids and when that I've commented on, and I believe I mentioned in at least one that we're probably stopping at two kids because I know I can't take more than that without regular help, among other reasons. I can always call in my parents or in-laws for pinch-hitting or babysitting, but I don't like doing that all the time because my child isn't their responsibility and I know it. Pregnancy is probably the easiest part of parenthood for me so far, still doesn't mean I'm trying to be any of the fundies we follow who are perpetually pregnant.

Abbie and Lori really tick you off, don't they? (Understandably...)