Michaela & Brandon Keilen 5: She Goes By Michaela

[JordynDarby5]

One of my friends is the youngest of six but she's a lot younger then the four oldest. Her parents had four kids close together and stopped there. They got a surprise pregnancy about nine years later and realized the baby would be so much younger then his siblings he wouldn't have much experience growing up with a sibling so they had one more baby two years later, so he could have one growing. The older four are closer while my friend and her brother are closer. They grew up together. To go back to the Victorian era, Queen Victoria's oldest daughter realized when her mother was pregnant or after she gave birth to #9 that their relationship would be more like aunt and niece then sisters. Because the age different and she would soon be leaving to live in Prussia. 

Edited June 8, 2019 by JordynDarby5

[AliceInFundyland]

Even a shorter gap can have an impact.

Remember that thread drift about school start times?

So when I started it was December or January and I was in Massachusetts. Additionally, I was in the Montessori program. So, two grade levels at a time would be combined.

When we got to Kansas I was 8 and should have placed into 3rd grade according to their sttart date being August. But my b-day was October. I'd been in the 3/4 mixed. So I went to 4th grade.

And Bro went right to kindergarten. Those first two years were only time we were together in school. (4/5 for me, K/1 for him)

Fast forward. Right before senior year parents divorce

There's a lack of commonality to how we relate to our parents and how we each experienced them and school that probably explains our situation now.

Edited June 8, 2019 by AliceInFundyland

[BullyJBG]

On 6/2/2019 at 1:58 PM, Anna Bolinas said:

 

But fundies take it too far, as usual. There's no reason to beat a baby for doing things that babies do, like crawling or crying or what have you. There's also no reason to beat a child for doing things that children do, like talking back or throwing a tantrum. 

Is there a thread somewhere that defines back talk? I was accused of it in the workplace(praise God I don't work there for that person anymore) when I was just answering a question. Pardon me for the thread drift.

[rebeccawriter01]

Unlike the Duggars who seemed to spread out the responsibility of the sister moming a bit more until the girls started getting married, the Gil and Kelly seem to have primarily put that all of Michaela. That's not to say the other girls were not given any responsibilities, but from what they have said and shown, Michaela was the pseudo mom of the situation. Kelly Jo assigned jobs/chores based on abilities and preferences. Erin's job was to teach piano to the younger kids. Alyssa cooked. It was obvious that they treated Michael as she was essentially a nanny to her own siblings. 

They might have had partners or buddies, but it was clear that Michaela was assigned to be a child raiser in that family. Think back to the episode where Brandon was going to propose. Michaela was considering going up to DC to surprise him. Kelly, who was trying not to give away that she knew he was about to propose, tells her that she can basically spare her since Tori was on break from school and could help with the kids while Michaela was gone. While she was trying to push Michaela to go without telling her why, it was ridiculous to me that a grown woman in her 20s (as she was then) was subject to getting permission from her parents to go see her boyfriend based on the availability of childcare for children that aren't even hers. 

Sure, Kelly Jo talks a good game about not wanting to take advantage of Michaela who seems to want to work hard for everyone else. Yet she meets her at the door with sewing jobs. She leaves small children at home with her when they go out of town. While we've seen Kelly Jo "supervise" some of the girls (Tori, Carlin, Josie) when it came to cooking, we have never seen her actually cook or do anything other than delegate such tasks. The closest I can recall to actually seeing her do kitchen work was when they were on vacation and she cooked that one fish for Gil while her daughters cooked the meal for the rest of the family. 

[Ali]

22 minutes ago, rebeccawriter01 said:

Yet she meets her at the door with sewing jobs. 

I remember one of the items had an adjustable waistband. It was either a scene set for T.V. or Kelly had no idea what an adjustable waistband was.  Either way, it appeared like she was not doing much parenting.  

[JordynDarby5]

2 hours ago, Ali said:

I remember one of the items had an adjustable waistband. It was either a scene set for T.V. or Kelly had no idea what an adjustable waistband was.  Either way, it appeared like she was not doing much parenting.  

I lean towards the latter because like rebeccawriter01 points out. We never actually see Kelly doing anything. They never show her doing anything. We've seen the girls cook. They've shown Zach and Warden (Erin teaching him) cooking, Erin too of course. I think Erin's been the one introducing her siblings to vegetables after she got married. Tori teaching her siblings with Kelly no where to be seen. She loves to claim she's so behind. Like one episode their doing a baby shower and I love You day, she's "so behind" and then delegates everything to mostly her daughters. Or when she was so behind or worried about getting one of the weddings done I think Tori's, but her sister was doing the cake, someone else was doing food, and had Michael fixing the flower girl dresses. While Kelly conveniently did nothing. Oh, she also wanted to do that eye surgery during that time too even though she would be down for days and was shocked that she was talked into waiting until after the wedding. Yeah, God knows every hard working Mom who actually raises her kids, homeschools  them and helps with her daughter's wedding totally tries to have laser eye surgery so she'll be down during that time and have even more excuse not to do anything. I do love who Carlin and Josie (or was it Carlin and Katie?) tried to make it sound like how bad it would be to have their mom down for the week or so right before but they really couldn't pull it off. It basically would be like every day at home. Not worry though Michael visited during that time to help out.  

[Anna Bolinas]

7 hours ago, BullyJBG said:

Is there a thread somewhere that defines back talk? I was accused of it in the workplace(praise God I don't work there for that person anymore) when I was just answering a question. Pardon me for the thread drift.

Idk about anyone else, but in my opinion, talking back is when you respond in a rude or snarky way to someone, who is usually asking you to do something. So say my mom told me as a kid to clean my room and I said, "Clean it yourself if you care so much, I'm not doing that," that would be talking back. But it seems like, from the little you've said of your situation, you were just answering a question and your boss or whoever overreacted to it. Answering something isn't the same as talking back, at least not to me.

[VelociRapture]

6 hours ago, JordynDarby5 said:

I lean towards the latter because like rebeccawriter01 points out. We never actually see Kelly doing anything. They never show her doing anything. We've seen the girls cook. They've shown Zach and Warden (Erin teaching him) cooking, Erin too of course. I think Erin's been the one introducing her siblings to vegetables after she got married. Tori teaching her siblings with Kelly no where to be seen. She loves to claim she's so behind. Like one episode their doing a baby shower and I love You day, she's "so behind" and then delegates everything to mostly her daughters. Or when she was so behind or worried about getting one of the weddings done I think Tori's, but her sister was doing the cake, someone else was doing food, and had Michael fixing the flower girl dresses. While Kelly conveniently did nothing. Oh, she also wanted to do that eye surgery during that time too even though she would be down for days and was shocked that she was talked into waiting until after the wedding. Yeah, God knows every hard working Mom who actually raises her kids, homeschools  them and helps with her daughter's wedding totally tries to have laser eye surgery so she'll be down during that time and have even more excuse not to do anything. I do love who Carlin and Josie (or was it Carlin and Katie?) tried to make it sound like how bad it would be to have their mom down for the week or so right before but they really couldn't pull it off. It basically would be like every day at home. Not worry though Michael visited during that time to help out.  

Yeah, I think @rebeccawriter01 is absolutely right. We don’t even see her doing anything on their social media - no cooking with the kids, no cleaning with them, nothing about homeschooling them... the only times she’s really shown with the kids is when they get to do something fun. She can try to twist some of that stuff into “what a great learning opportunity y’all!” but it doesn’t cover up the fact that she appears pretty lazy. I’m not really buying the idea that shes the type of parent who enjoys parenting her older children more than when they were young - I think she just enjoys the fact that the older kids are finally capable of doing her work for her and I think she’s very aware that the older kids bring tons of attention to the family and she likes that attention.

For all her many, many (so many) faults we have at least seen evidence on social media of Michelle cooking with her kids at times. It’s usually a quick video one of them took where she’s baking for a holiday with them or supervising the younger kids as they cook (because they’re old enough to be able to do most stuff on their own now), but that’s still more than I can remember seeing about Kelly. 

(And, of course, Gil is just as bad as Kelly. He seems just as allergic to parenting and work as she does.)

[Melissa1977]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

For all her many, many (so many) faults we have at least seen evidence on social media of Michelle cooking with her kids at times. It’s usually a quick video one of them took where she’s baking for a holiday with them or supervising the younger kids as they cook (because they’re old enough to be able to do most stuff on their own now), but that’s still more than I can remember seeing about Kelly

Michelle cooking was as staged as Kelly playing. I think the shows pick the activities that fit better them (Kelly is way more active and funny, while Michelle is more comfortable doing quiet activities). But both are unmothers. I always keep on mind that Michelle left a tiny weak premature to fly to a foreigner country and the distress and desperation that Jana and Jill suffered when Josie got ill. No cooking lesson can erase the negligence.

[JanasTattooParlor]

16 hours ago, BullyJBG said:

Is there a thread somewhere that defines back talk? I was accused of it in the workplace(praise God I don't work there for that person anymore) when I was just answering a question. Pardon me for the thread drift.

I agree with @Anna Bolinas that talking back is usually considered a sarcastic or rude response, but growing up my parents made it clear that any answer other than “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” to an order or question were talking back, so maybe the person had the same outlook? I know for me, if I had ever asked a question in response to an order I would’ve been grounded or told that I needed to fix my attitude and do what they say. 

[VelociRapture]

3 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

Michelle cooking was as staged as Kelly playing. I think the shows pick the activities that fit better them (Kelly is way more active and funny, while Michelle is more comfortable doing quiet activities). But both are unmothers. I always keep on mind that Michelle left a tiny weak premature to fly to a foreigner country and the distress and desperation that Jana and Jill suffered when Josie got ill. No cooking lesson can erase the negligence.

I know that. I was specifically talking about social media though, not the show. My point is that Kelly doesn’t even seem to pretend for their own social media when it would be ridiculously easy to stage something simple to showcase how “good” a mother she is. They have complete control over what they share there, but still no evidence of Kelly lifting a single finger to actually do anything helpful.

[QuiverDance]

Agree about age difference being huge. I’m 9 years older than my sibling, and we grew up completely differently. My parents got much more permissive with age. He just was not as sheltered. He’s also a millennial while I am gen x. 

[Melissa1977]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

I know that. I was specifically talking about social media though, not the show. My point is that Kelly doesn’t even seem to pretend for their own social media when it would be ridiculously easy to stage something simple to showcase how “good” a mother she is. They have complete control over what they share there, but still no evidence of Kelly lifting a single finger to actually do anything helpful.

You're right! Kelly is lazy even to fake!

There's a very revealing video where both mothers show their real face. It's an old Duggar episode where Bates are visiting them. Jana organises the house. Michelle just hangs around being nice the her guests. Kelly does nothing. Erin and Gil are in charge of the little Bates (kids #13 and #14 maybe). JB is obnoxious. In short, both mothers act as queens or as CEOs and they show no attachment to the kids, except to the older daugthers AKA beloved maids.

[lizzybee]

Yes, like others have mentioned, it's just not possible to have a normal sibling relationship with a huge age gap. My sister is 12 years younger than me and I will forever be a sister-mom. My dad jokes he raised two only children because he essentially did. My sister started kindergarten the fall after I graduated high school. He graduated me and enrolled her all in the same year. We weren't fundie*at all, but I remember holding her down and doing her hair, caring for her by myself sometimes over night (I was 18+), going to every function and game I could, etc. etc. She was emotional when I met and married my husband, and yep, cried at my wedding because our dynamic inevitably changed. She's now a fun, young auntie that my children adore. 

I kinda feel Michaela on the eating candy/gingerbread house thing for a couple of reasons - and I'll preface this by saying I'd probably choose to not do the activity. As others have said, you can't build a house if you're eating the building materials. I also don't like my kids to have much sugary treats. My toddler doesn't even know what candy is, for example. An age difference like hers and theirs, yeah I'd be firm too. Disobeying and lying is also not okay regardless of what you believe. With my toddler, essentially I'm training him to obey me, so if I say no or not to do something, I have to follow through when he disobeys me because now it's the principle of the thing. She asked them not to do something, they did it, and she's in charge for the time they're with her just as if she were their parent. I can't blame her for having consequences or disobedience. I get it. Someone has to be the adult with the rules. If she hadn't asked them not to eat the candy and then they got in trouble for it, that would have been wrong.

I'll go ahead and say the obligatory thing that I agree that as an actual parent there will be a lot more problematic things Michaela is in all likelihood to do because of her upbringing that would make her as a mom be worrisome. I don't think this is a good example though. Now if she had her copy of the Pearl's book at the ready and was showing the camera man her favorite passages and techniques, yeah, that would be eyebrow raising. Back to reality though, I can speculate that Michaela could go either way if she has an actual child of her own to care for after years of infertility. She might double down in gratitude i.e. "God has at last trusted me with this blessing, I'm not going to let him down by stepping one toe out of the lines I was taught" or she might look at that much longed for baby and say,"no one's going to hurt you on my watch and especially not me." Unfortunately, I tend to think even in the case of the latter, it would be possible that once in the trenches of parenthood and the trying moments that it would not be at all a surprise if she reverted back to what she was taught in desperation to make a child obey. Does that mean she doesn't deserve to ever be a mother? I don't know, but I am glad it isn't up to me to decide. 

*If you see me referencing my fundie roots it wouldn't have been from my father's house. My grandparents are hardshell baptists, my step mother's family were fundamentalist Pentacostals, and her sister went full Jehovah's Witness when I was a teen. My adult fundie experience was all my own kool-aid drinking, though my grandparents' example did a good job of setting the foundation work. 

[JordynDarby5]

2 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

You're right! Kelly is lazy even to fake!

There's a very revealing video where both mothers show their real face. It's an old Duggar episode where Bates are visiting them. Jana organises the house. Michelle just hangs around being nice the her guests. Kelly does nothing. Erin and Gil are in charge of the little Bates (kids #13 and #14 maybe). JB is obnoxious. In short, both mothers act as queens or as CEOs and they show no attachment to the kids, except to the older daugthers AKA beloved maids.

That's pretty much how they are or want to be. Queens. They want all the attention and none of the work. Servants to cook, clean, raise and educate their kids.  Perfectly happy to grift or use people to give them what they want. Money, cars, trips, cook, clean, and raise their kids even if its their own kids. 

[JordynDarby5]

4 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I know that. I was specifically talking about social media though, not the show. My point is that Kelly doesn’t even seem to pretend for their own social media when it would be ridiculously easy to stage something simple to showcase how “good” a mother she is. They have complete control over what they share there, but still no evidence of Kelly lifting a single finger to actually do anything helpful.

It is surprising. Given how much effort she does put in to keeping the very nice shiny image. You'd think she'd put up pictures of her faking cooking or cleaning. No, apparently that's too much work for her.  

[llucie]

7 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I know that. I was specifically talking about social media though, not the show. My point is that Kelly doesn’t even seem to pretend for their own social media when it would be ridiculously easy to stage something simple to showcase how “good” a mother she is. They have complete control over what they share there, but still no evidence of Kelly lifting a single finger to actually do anything helpful.

Kelly even seems to brag in a way how she always has someone to do things for her. Like recently she needed to make a cake for her sister wedding and she posted about how thankful she was that Michaella helped her because otherwise she couldnt have finished it. Like why would you compromise yourself to do something that you know you cant do on your own? I see the same exact behaviour in Erin too, compromising herself to do stuff that she knows will require the work of her husband and not hers. 

[3SecondSideHugger]

@lizzybee I kind of disagree about the sibling relationships given me and many other families I know. Granted, in my social circle pretty much everyone had a stay at home mom (educated, talented moms) and the kids never had to act as second parents. My own oldest sibling is 9 years older than my brother and we never looked at her as a maternal figure (still don’t as adults haha she’s the least at that). Everyone’s siblings also went away for college at 18, so if anything, lots of younger siblings didn’t know their older ones that well because they were out of the house. Now, I’d say quite a few of my friends are very close with their oldest siblings as adults they have bonded. I think a lot of it has to do with married families that remain a close family unit rather than the age difference in siblings. Just detailing my personal experience, but i note a lot of posters have divorce as a factor in their families when discussing age difference/relationships. 

@Melissa1977 you are so right. We never see either of those moms truly do anything, it’s all on the kids. It’s so sad, but I don’t think we’ve seen this generation of kids perpetuate that in their own households. Maybe because they can’t physically get by if they did nothing? They both really detach after newborn duties are done.

 

 

[nelliebelle1197]

16 minutes ago, llucie said:

Kelly even seems to brag in a way how she always has someone to do things for her. Like recently she needed to make a cake for her sister wedding and she posted about how thankful she was that Michaella helped her because otherwise she couldnt have finished it. Like why would you compromise yourself to do something that you know you cant do on your own? I see the same exact behaviour in Erin too, compromising herself to do stuff that she knows will require the work of her husband and not hers. 

It's part of her schtick. She thinks it is a good thing she has all her kids so well trained she does not have to do a damn thing.

[VelociRapture]

4 minutes ago, llucie said:

Kelly even seems to brag in a way how she always has someone to do things for her. Like recently she needed to make a cake for her sister wedding and she posted about how thankful she was that Michaella helped her because otherwise she couldnt have finished it. Like why would you compromise yourself to do something that you know you cant do on your own? I see the same exact behaviour in Erin too, compromising herself to do stuff that she knows will require the work of her husband and not hers. 

Apparently Erin was the one who volunteered to make the cake for her Aunt Kay’s wedding. I believe that Kay has made wedding cakes for all of Kelly’s married kids as wedding gifts and Erin wanted to do the same for her as a thank you. That’s a sweet idea, but Erin ended up traveling out of state for Chad’s sister’s wedding the same weekend and couldn’t do it - I’m assuming this was a case of “short Fundie engagement” striking again by having the weddings the same weekend. Kelly appears to have volunteered to make it instead (and I would hope Erin at least gave them ample notice she’d be unable to bake the cake because it’d be kind of crappy if she sprung it on them last minute.) I’m not sure how much help Michael gave her - it’s definitely possible she did everything and Kelly just lurked nearby pretending to help. I think she mentioned in the comments that without Michael’s help the cake would have been crumbs, so I would assume Michael helped to actually bake it too. It doesn’t look as nice as the professional cake, but I think it still looks pretty nice. Michael did a good job. 

All that to say, the cake situation doesn’t appear to be a case where Kelly purposely volunteered herself knowing full well she was incapable. It seems more like she stepped in as a last resort because Erin couldn’t do it as promised and they wanted to make sure they still offered a cake. I’m just glad Michael made sure her Aunt got a cake that looked nice enough.

[lizzybee]

@35secondsidehugger I can only speak to my experience, of course, but I've known a good bit of situations like mine as well. My sister's parents did divorce when she was seven and that was definitely a factor. Our family is close and we love each other very much. I'll amend my I assertion that it's not possible to have normal sibling relationships with such an age gap and say I did not find it possible in my circumstances. I relate to a lot of these older girls we follow with younger siblings because I had a similar connection with mine. I mean my sister and I loved each other so much and I wanted to be there for her all the time but we weren't exchanging confidences or fighting over the bathroom or clothes. More like I was coming for parent's day at school to have lunch with her because she asked me to.  She'd cling to me when I'd try to leave after visiting and that was really hard knowing she didn't want me to go. It was just a different dynamic to siblings closer in age. Even now she's in college just beginning her story as an adult and I'm a SAHM in her 30's. We enjoy being together but we're just never in the same place in life. I'm still kind of hoping as the decades pass it's going to matter less and less. Like surely when she's 40 and I'm 52 it's not going to seem as big of a difference as it did at 18 and 6 or even now at 33 and 21. 

[llucie]

10 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

Apparently Erin was the one who volunteered to make the cake for her Aunt Kay’s wedding. I believe that Kay has made wedding cakes for all of Kelly’s married kids as wedding gifts and Erin wanted to do the same for her as a thank you. That’s a sweet idea, but Erin ended up traveling out of state for Chad’s sister’s wedding the same weekend and couldn’t do it - I’m assuming this was a case of “short Fundie engagement” striking again by having the weddings the same weekend. Kelly appears to have volunteered to make it instead (and I would hope Erin at least gave them ample notice she’d be unable to bake the cake because it’d be kind of crappy if she sprung it on them last minute.) I’m not sure how much help Michael gave her - it’s definitely possible she did everything and Kelly just lurked nearby pretending to help. I think she mentioned in the comments that without Michael’s help the cake would have been crumbs, so I would assume Michael helped to actually bake it too. It doesn’t look as nice as the professional cake, but I think it still looks pretty nice. Michael did a good job. 

All that to say, the cake situation doesn’t appear to be a case where Kelly purposely volunteered herself knowing full well she was incapable. It seems more like she stepped in as a last resort because Erin couldn’t do it as promised and they wanted to make sure they still offered a cake. I’m just glad Michael made sure her Aunt got a cake that looked nice enough.

But why voluteer if you have no idea what you are doing in the first place? Thats the thing that annoys me about Kelly. That and that she thinks its cute that she is unable to cook, bake or teach all her children herself despite the fact that she decided to had 19. She is always with the "i dont know what i will do when Carlin moves out" " i dont know what we would have done without Alyssa cooking" etc. That is not cute at all to me. But she seems to think it is because she keeps pointing it out. Sure it shows she has trained her children well to work for her i guess, but as a mother it doesnt leave her in a good place.

[just_ordinary]

I don’t get the problem with sibling relationships because of age. Is a much older sibling more prone to baby and babysit the younger one- sure. But if a sibling takes on a parenting role the actual parents are to blame. 

And who says how a sibling relationship has to look like? In my opinion many people confuse close relationships to siblings with best friends. Siblings are relatives by chance not by choice. Their relationship can be close and friendship like or they might not get along too well or are more distant due to very different characters. Siblings can be like cats and dogs, only see each other a handful of times a year but still love each other deeply. Age shouldn’t play a part here. Of course they have different experiences but as long as they love each other it’s a good sibling relationship in my book.

[front hugs > duggs]

My sister moved out of the house for college when I was 3, so I really don't have any memories of living with her. My brother is only five years older than me. He and I went through our parents divorce together, where as my sister was 27 at that point. I say that I have two siblings, but caught myself saying I grew up as one of two, because I didn't "grow up" with my sister. We had SIGNIFICANTLY different life experiences with our childhoods and family situations because of the gap between our ages. Also our experiences with our mom - my mom was 25 when she had my sister, and 40 when she had me. She was a significantly different mother to each of us.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

4 minutes ago, front hugs > duggs said:

She was a significantly different mother to each of us.

I totally relate to this.  My eldest sister was estranged from our dad and I adored him.

Years later I asked if she resented me and she said no - he was a different person with you, “I had a father.  You had a daddy. “

Not always to that extreme but people change and being raised by the same people but at very different places in their life will give a very different parenting experience.