Andrea Reins is Engaged!

[Giraffe]

Marrying a man with 9 kids sounds like a special kind of hell.

No matter how excited & hope filled any of them are, I can only imagine how hard the reality check is going to be for all of them over the next months & years. This sounds awful for all of them, but especially for Andrea. I’m her age and never married. I second everyone who’s brought up “she waited this long to marry for THIS?!?” 

I feel sad for her. I suspect a month from now (that long??) she’s going to wake up and know the awful truth: it would have been better to be an old maid in fundydom desperately wishing for marriage than marrying a stranger with a passel of children. 

Yes, maybe the sister-moms will keep sweet and automatically give deference to Andrea, but I’m too cynical to think it’s going to go smoothly. If I were in their shoes I would’ve outwardly seemed sweet while sabotaging her behind her back.

I know I’m super jaded but I don’t see this being a good scenario for anyone but the dad. He’s the only one who gets anything positive out of this. 

[tabitha2]

She may have visions of a Maria Von Trapp experience. It’s a fundie favorite I believe.

[MamaJunebug]

8 minutes ago, tabitha2 said:

She may have visions of a Maria Von Trapp experience. It’s a fundie favorite I believe.

Based on their clunky Sound Of Music takeoff video, I’d say that’s a given. 

[Aine]

18 hours ago, Giraffe said:

Marrying a man with 9 kids sounds like a special kind of hell.

No matter how excited & hope filled any of them are, I can only imagine how hard the reality check is going to be for all of them over the next months & years. This sounds awful for all of them, but especially for Andrea. I’m her age and never married. I second everyone who’s brought up “she waited this long to marry for THIS?!?” 

I feel sad for her. I suspect a month from now (that long??) she’s going to wake up and know the awful truth: it would have been better to be an old maid in fundydom desperately wishing for marriage than marrying a stranger with a passel of children. 

Yes, maybe the sister-moms will keep sweet and automatically give deference to Andrea, but I’m too cynical to think it’s going to go smoothly. If I were in their shoes I would’ve outwardly seemed sweet while sabotaging her behind her back.

I know I’m super jaded but I don’t see this being a good scenario for anyone but the dad. He’s the only one who gets anything positive out of this. 

I think you're inserting your own values here a bit too. I became a foster mother through kinship care for my cousin's three sons under 5 years old (they were 4, 2, and 3.5 months old) at 21 in the middle of my undergrad because there wasn't another adult in my family that the state would let care for children. Everyone in my life thought I was "throwing everything away", it wasn't my "responsibility", and I found out later many of them had openly discussed how long it would take before I completely spiraled.

Our version of CPS in my state (FACS) said the placement would only be 6 months but it ended up being 3 years. It was the most life changing decision I've ever made as I moved back from the US to Australia to care for them. It was difficult but never for a moment did I regret it or become upset by the complete shift in my life including my relationship with my partner, juggling the move along with school/parenting/friends/other family, being the only one in my friend group in Australia with kids, finances etc (basically everything!). We even moved for adoption when FACS just kept extending care. It was the best years of my life and the most rewarding by far. I have never felt so content and like I belonged exactly where I was than that time in my life.

For me, the value of family has been taught to me from both sides of my family tree in different ways. On my maternal Aboriginal side, it is the spiritual and cultural beliefs and practice of 'kinship'; on my paternal side, it has always been the tight-knit multi-generational Irish-Catholic family led by patriarchs and matriarchs that would invite anyone in off the street for a meal and loved each other unconditionally. Upturning my life never felt like it was a 'rational' choice. I knew who I was on some level and even though I was terrified, I didn't doubt that I could do it and it was the decision I could live with.

The values that Andrea has been raised with are different to mine and to your's and a lot of us might agree with some of them because there is evidence some can be damaging (e.g. male headship) but to some degree, this is what she was raised to want and she seems happy. I'm sure she'd rather she'd courted and married at a younger age, and that her family composition was more 'traditional' but she doesn't seem to be the type to marry a man if she didn't want to be a mother to his kids. It is definitely part of the 'package' she agreed to and at least she can put her daily efforts and love into little people who will hopefully return it back ten-fold for years to come. It doesn't mean it won't be difficult, challenging, exhausting, and stressful but I'm sure she'll have things to laugh at, hugs, kisses, and lots of pride as they achieve and master new things that will offset some of that.

None of this is to say that her new husband basically sending out a message that he needs a new wife to pastors around the place isn't creepy and there aren't some concerns here. There are. However, I think that her cultural context, values, and just that kids give back some joy too need to be taken into consideration.

[MamaJunebug]

@Aine, wow. 

Thank you for sharing your story and for your important insights and POV. 

I have one question for you and one for the assembly.

For Aine, how are your young cousins doing?

For the assembly, have we heard how Kelly Reins is doing as the sole SAHD Of The Reins Household?

[nausicaa]

1 hour ago, MamaJunebug said:

For the assembly, have we heard how Kelly Reins is doing as the sole SAHD Of The Reins Household?

She seems to post much more on social media than Andrea does. She hasn't said much about her personal feelings on her situation, but I will give her credit to seeming to be very supportive of Andrea's marriage and seems to have helped with a lot of the wedding prep. It looks like she actually sewed some of the little girls' dresses for the ceremony and then stayed afterward to help get the house set up while Andy and Andrea are on their honeymoon. 

[Giraffe]

4 hours ago, Aine said:

I think you're inserting your own values here a bit too. [snip]

Thank you for sharing your experience & perspective on this.  You’re absolutely right - I was seeing this only through how I would feel at this moment if I were to be in her shoes. 

Hopefully her experience is much more like yours than my bitter vision. I not long ago left a hyper authoritarian church where I saw behind the scenes. Things on the outside seemed very idealistic but as i got to know people more I saw an ugly underbelly. Your response is a good look at ways in which I still need to grow, and I appreciate your response. 

[MamaJunebug]

On 5/15/2019 at 12:14 PM, Howl said:

Took me a minute to process that.  THAT Stephen Hammer.  According to LinkedIn, Mr. Harvard Lawyer is still a law clerk for the US Court of Appeals in Columbus, Ohio. 

According to the interWebs, base pay for law clerks at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals is $91K - $99K. 

But as it has been explained to me, clerking for a Judge is “practicing pure law,” and very respected within the profession. While it doesn’t have the multi-million-$ paydays of mass tort law or personal injury, it’s also seen  as a stepping stone into any just about any kind of legal career path an attorney  may want.  This comes from one of those aforementioned, wildly wealthy, mass tort types. 

[Marian the Librarian]

4 hours ago, nausicaa said:

She seems to post much more on social media than Andrea does. She hasn't said much about her personal feelings on her situation, but I will give her credit to seeming to be very supportive of Andrea's marriage and seems to have helped with a lot of the wedding prep. It looks like she actually sewed some of the little girls' dresses for the ceremony and then stayed afterward to help get the house set up while Andy and Andrea are on their honeymoon. 

Thanks for the update - may I ask where you're seeing this? Kelly's FB page hasn't been updated in quite a while (at least, not that I can see). I've been thinking Hmm, that's odd, especially given how tight she and her sister are. Maybe I've been blocked...add me to the list of those wondering how she's adjusting to being the only remaining SAHD.

[teachergirl]

I follow her on IG. She did a ton of wedding prep although their road trip was a bit laughable  They spent 2.5 hours looking for rooms in Memphis and she made a weird multicultural hashtag about Louisville ( ( it seemed a bit racist to me)

. She has hashtagged  everything with she said yes. Call me in the cynical camp but an almost 40 SAHD who marries a much older man with 9 children who doesn't even know him doesn't scream romantic to me.  Her dad's post was even worse, what battles exactly were won? Your oppressive theology is the reason why your daughters were still at home.  I can't stand the Reins sisters, their mix of health woo and anti choice, public school rants on LAF piss me off.

[nausicaa]

5 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

Thanks for the update - may I ask where you're seeing this? Kelly's FB page hasn't been updated in quite a while (at least, not that I can see). I've been thinking Hmm, that's odd, especially given how tight she and her sister are. Maybe I've been blocked...add me to the list of those wondering how she's adjusting to being the only remaining SAHD.

Instagram. She did have some wedding posts on Facebook, but not in the past few weeks. 

@teachergirl The multicultural hashtag was weird to me too. Glad I'm not the only one. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by nausicaa

[DangerNoodle]

5 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

add me to the list of those wondering how she's adjusting to being the only remaining SAHD.

I'm curious myself. I never followed Andrea. But I always checked in to see what nonsense her sister was up to. 

Kelly Reins is just very, very dumb. She believes Infowars stuff. And she "sells" Plexus.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

But as it has been explained to me, clerking for a Judge is “practicing pure law,” and very respected within the profession...it’s also seen  as a stepping stone into any just about any kind of legal career path an attorney  may want.  

Oh, I agree absolutely!  I didn't mean to imply that clerking was less than.

I'm sure Stephen has every step plotted out carefully, and this trajectory could be heading eventually  to a judgeship or (somewhat less likely) political office or even both (state attorney general). 

Also, his salary can go far if the city he's in a city with a reasonable cost of living and normal housing costs. 

[Marian the Librarian]

5 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Instagram. She did have some wedding posts on Facebook, but not in the past few weeks. 

@teachergirl The multicultural hashtag was weird to me too. Glad I'm not the only one. 

Thank you!

Plexus and Lyme, Plexus and Lyme, Plexus and Lyme...lather, rinse, repeat. Whoever here said it's the SAHD's go-to neurasthenia of our age was spot on.

[petrushka]

3 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

Thank you!

Plexus and Lyme, Plexus and Lyme, Plexus and Lyme...lather, rinse, repeat.

Please someone use this for a new thread title ?

[MamaJunebug]

Looks like Elizabeth B has gained a little weight? I’m certain, like Marcus Serven restricted his daughters to skipping rope in the basement (rather than walking down the rural Missouri roads they lived on), Geoff B has strict rules about the kinds of physical exercise A-S & E can pursue. (FB photos, though I can’t remember on whose FB account.)

Edited July 4, 2019 by MamaJunebug

[Aine]

On 7/1/2019 at 7:30 PM, MamaJunebug said:

For Aine, how are your young cousins doing?

My 3 gorgeous boys are doing okay. We only recently had contact reinstated as my cousin (who never visited in those three years) was mad we moved for adoption. We had basically 24 hours. when we were in the second part of the adoption process, to say goodbye to them and then didn't have any right to have contact with them. We went without that for another 3 years and that was hell. My almost decade-long relationship didn't survive the adjustment of being a family to just being 'us', although we tried.

The oldest got an indigenous scholarship (like I did when I was his age) and is in a private boarding high school and doing so brilliantly in academics, sport, and leadership. He wants to be a medical doctor in remote communities one day.

My second oldest will start high school (grade 7) next year and has already been accepted on an indigenous scholarship to a different school to his brother. We're waiting to see if he gets other offers of admission. He's our 'wild card' kid- feels things deeply, very charming, the clown of any group, super outgoing, extremely creative, and more likely to fall into peer pressure than either of his brothers so we're stoked. 

Our youngest, my Bub, I worry about him out in the community I spent a lot of my childhood because he's always been such a gentle little dreamer and still is. We'll see how he does without his brothers.

Their Dad, I spent many childhood years living in the same house as him, is doing okay. He's distant and absent and still drinking heavily but seems off all of the hard stuff and he and I are back to a pretty good relationship. He's trying. He really is. He is still battling terrible depression and PTSD- the curse of many of us out that way- but he's hanging in.

Those boys have already made the world better by their presence. I know they'll keep doing that. No matter my own grief around the loss of them from my life or how much caring for them "shook up" my world, I have never regretted it. They're phenomenal little dudes.

[MamaJunebug]

@Aine, thank you. My heart aches and soars for you! You all are in my prayers. 

[AmazonGrace]

A wife is cheaper than a sitter huh.

[nelliebelle1197]

On 7/2/2019 at 1:00 AM, MamaJunebug said:

But as it has been explained to me, clerking for a Judge is “practicing pure law,” and very respected within the profession. While it doesn’t have the multi-million-$ paydays of mass tort law or personal injury, it’s also seen  as a stepping stone into any just about any kind of legal career path an attorney  may want.  This comes from one of those aforementioned, wildly wealthy, mass tort types. 

Clerking is a BFD and hard to get. I hate that Hammertime got such a prestigious gig.

[MamaJunebug]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

A wife is cheaper than a sitter huh.

Sweet fellowship + a sitter = adultery 

[Howl]

I drove by a Lutheran church yesterday that advertised Sweet Fellowship on their electronic marquee. 

[Queen Of Hearts]

22 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

Sweet fellowship + a sitter = adultery 

Just ask Doug Phillips (who is a tool)!