Botkin Alert. They are back on the conference circuit!

[Howl]

4 hours ago, Giraffe said:

My sister in law had it when her kids were really young and did risky experimental surgery for it because she said she would rather die in/from the surgery than continue living with the pain.

I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to have with severe pain while trying to parent young children. 

[Columbia]

Y’all. Adulterers are bad. They’re untrustworthy and shouldn’t run the country. Adulterers are criminals. Adulterers like Joe Biden’s sons!!!

Not one word about whether our adulterous president is a criminal. His cheese truly has slid off his cracker. 

[smittykins]

23 hours ago, Howl said:

I just googled this.  It's reported to cause the most extreme form of excruciating nerve pain, "the worst pain known to man," because men haven't given birth? 

Anyway, obviously no picnic.   Treatments here. 

 

I remember an episode of “Mystery Diagnosis” with a young girl who was eventually diagnosed with it, and it took many months and several doctors to get there.  At one point, her pediatrician decided she was acting out/being a drama queen, and told her parents to assure her that nothing was wrong.  And she.was.screaming!  Fortunately, they found a specialist who took her seriously and found the cause.

[CyborgKin]

The Botkin sisters wouldn't need to do much to disappear from view.  It's nearly 2.5 years since they posted on their website.  The only sighting I can think of since then was a pic on the trexarms instagram quite a while back.  (I think it's safe to assume they haven't and won't show up in Geoff's current youtube venture, but I'm not gonna give him the views just to check.)

[Petronella]

4 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

The Botkin sisters wouldn't need to do much to disappear from view.  It's nearly 2.5 years since they posted on their website.  The only sighting I can think of since then was a pic on the trexarms instagram quite a while back.  (I think it's safe to assume they haven't and won't show up in Geoff's current youtube venture, but I'm not gonna give him the views just to check.)

Wow, that long since even a post from them?

Obviously it's fine that they're not married (though amusingly ironic after all their dad's bloviation about their purpose in life being to procreate), but what ARE they doing? Are they still living in their dad's house, under their dad's thumb, assisting their brothers? Because that would suck.

I wonder what they want, what they think about, what they google. College courses? Job ads? Do they have friends outside the family? Do they have hobbies? How much are they obligated to "take care of" the male members of the family?

Question, questions...

[Howl]

2 hours ago, Petronella said:

but what ARE they doing?

Take little baskets of food to local peasant families, keep house and cook, trim Geoff's toenails and WORK at T-Rex Arms.  T-Rex Arms is keeping the fam afloat -- it's all hands on deck! 

The sisters have become irrelevant as fundy culture icons and are now poster children for emotional incest. How many times can you say how fabulous it is to go nowhere,  live vicariously through male relatives and make it believable? Stuck a fork in 'em, they're done. 

Also, I think there's a certain expectation that they would be somehow more interesting because they are quite beautiful women. However, consider their upbringing. These are women in their 30s who are cut off from the outside world and have literally never been outside the Botkin bubble for even five minutes.   I can't imagine a conversation with them that wasn't emotionally and intellectually stunted.  

[FilleMondaine]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

Take little baskets of food to local peasant families, keep house and cook, trim Geoff's toenails and WORK at T-Rex Arms.  T-Rex Arms is keeping the fam afloat -- it's all hands on deck! 

The sisters have become irrelevant as fundy culture icons and are now poster children for emotional incest. How many times can you say how fabulous it is to go nowhere,  live vicariously through male relatives and make it believable? Stuck a fork in 'em, they're done. 

Also, I think there's a certain expectation that they would be somehow more interesting because they are quite beautiful women. However, consider their upbringing. These are women in their 30s who are cut off from the outside world and have literally never been outside the Botkin bubble for even five minutes.   I can't imagine a conversation with them that wasn't emotionally and intellectually stunted.  

Ok, you are hilarious! The baskets of food given unironically to peasants. That does sound like the OG Fundie dream!

Honestly, I know for a fact that there are men who would love to share their hearts and show such a wife the world, and to support late-life learning. 

But I know that there are many more men who would love to be superior and condescending and only support learning and experiencing if the husband were in charge of it.

Of course, there are the really-gross sort of man who would love a non-pedo opportunity to "raise up his wife", or whatever the term is for those gross people who want to marry very young women so that they have a hand in shaping their adult views.

I have met all three sorts of men in the military community, especially.

[Botkinetti]

If the mark of adulthood in their lifestyle is marriage and children how can the Botkin sisters be seen as anything other than failures. Used to adoration they must sense younger married women feeling sorry for them. Except as a cautionary reminder they have no relevance to the movement they were sacrificed to. I wonder if they still believe they are living God’s plan for them or do they feel they have wasted their youth on their father’s idiotic drivel.

[ophelia]

A tell-all-book by them would be worth the read probably.

[Columbia]

2 hours ago, ophelia said:

A tell-all-book by them would be worth the read probably.

I’d give a great deal to read a tell all by Audri and Ben, now that they’ve left. 

[treemom]

2 hours ago, Columbia said:

I’d give a great deal to read a tell all by Audri and Ben, now that they’ve left. 

Me too.  I think they have done incredibly brave things so far.  Obvs we don’t have insight into what the familial relationships are like but Audri on Twitter is ? 

[Howl]

1 hour ago, treemom said:

but Audri on Twitter is ? 

Just checked her out, and this is true!  She loves movies!  There are some posts by others that are very outside the Botkin way of being. 

She and Darby Stouffer are going to see Little Women together!  Also, Darby's twitter bio: Once upon a time John Piper  rebuked me for being too boisterous.

 

 

[nausicaa]

8 hours ago, Botkinetti said:

If the mark of adulthood in their lifestyle is marriage and children how can the Botkin sisters be seen as anything other than failures. Used to adoration they must sense younger married women feeling sorry for them. Except as a cautionary reminder they have no relevance to the movement they were sacrificed to. I wonder if they still believe they are living God’s plan for them or do they feel they have wasted their youth on their father’s idiotic drivel.

There's no way they aren't having doubts and really questioning things at this point. Especially if if one of them wanted to have children, particularly a large family. I bet the doubts began around age 25. 

I just can't scrounge up any hate for them. I only feel bad. 

[hoipolloi]

11 hours ago, treemom said:

Audri on Twitter is ? 

Who she's retweeting is at least as interesting as what she herself tweets.

 

[ophelia]

So what about Darby Stouffer? Did she leave fundamentalism as well? I have to say she can come across quite smug, but that isn't necessarily connected to fundamentalism.

Anyway her latest post somehow touched me:

 

[nausicaa]

9 hours ago, ophelia said:

So what about Darby Stouffer? Did she leave fundamentalism as well? I have to say she can come across quite smug, but that isn't necessarily connected to fundamentalism.

Anyway her latest post somehow touched me:

 

Just skimmed her account, and it looks like she's making fun of the conservatives who are leaving FB and Twitter for Parler and questioning the election results. 

Also she made a 69 "nice" joke. I'm always so proud when we watch our fundalettes grow up and they make their first decent joke. ?

[Columbia]

22 hours ago, treemom said:

Me too.  I think they have done incredibly brave things so far.  Obvs we don’t have insight into what the familial relationships are like but Audri on Twitter is ? 

I admire Audri a great deal. She managed to get out of the cult and off the compound with her marriage still intact; I can only imagine how hard that must have been. I hope she’s found a healthier church and has been able to get some counseling. 

[DomWackTroll]

Darby on Twitter: "I was today years old when I learned Liza Minnelli is Judy Garland’s daughter." And people-- people who obviously know her well-- are like, "Girl, how did you not know that?" Come now, let's not feign ignorance. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

7 hours ago, DomWackTroll said:

Darby on Twitter: "I was today years old when I learned Liza Minnelli is Judy Garland’s daughter." And people-- people who obviously know her well-- are like, "Girl, how did you not know that?" Come now, let's not feign ignorance. 

Was “The Wizard if Oz” allowed amongst the VF crowd? I wasn’t around before the implosion. But for some reason, I could see The VF crowd loving that musical. 

Edited November 13, 2020 by JermajestyDuggar

[Leftitinmysnood]

I don't know about VF and Wizard of Oz specifically, we weren't deep in VF. I suspect Meet Me in St. Louis was the more popular movie in those circles. Judy is a bit of a fraught subject for nostalgic fundies. I remember asking my mom, a big classic movie fan, if Judy was still alive around the 50th anniversary of Wizard of Oz and she wouldn't tell me (I would have been 10). I had the impression she was to be enjoyed in a few movies, but she was not a good person. (Remember, I was 10. A few years later I figured out she committed suicide). Add in the forced abortions, drugs, wrecked psyche, and exploitation and it gets messy fast. And Liza was mainly after the 1963 Focus on the Family cut off for acceptable family fare, so she didn't exist as far as we watched movies, except as a cute kid in the final scene of In the Good Old Summertime. 

[CyborgKin]

On 11/12/2020 at 2:21 AM, ophelia said:

A tell-all-book by them would be worth the read probably.

That would require them to obtain enough awareness to realise they have anything to tell.

[Howl]

Ooooh, it would be so wonderful if Audri had planted a seed of rebellion in either A-S, E or both, but I just can't see it.  

I doubt if the Botkinetti have Instagram or Twitter accounts; if they do, I'm sure they do that weird accountability thing.  

Also, I can see Darby and Audri's generation not knowing who Liza Minelli (age 74) is, much less Judy Garland (died at 47 in 1969), unless your're a movie buff. Reminds me, I need to watch Cabaret again. 

[Marmion]

20 hours ago, Leftitinmysnood said:

I don't know about VF and Wizard of Oz specifically, we weren't deep in VF. I suspect Meet Me in St. Louis was the more popular movie in those circles. Judy is a bit of a fraught subject for nostalgic fundies. I remember asking my mom, a big classic movie fan, if Judy was still alive around the 50th anniversary of Wizard of Oz and she wouldn't tell me (I would have been 10). I had the impression she was to be enjoyed in a few movies, but she was not a good person. (Remember, I was 10. A few years later I figured out she committed suicide). Add in the forced abortions, drugs, wrecked psyche, and exploitation and it gets messy fast. And Liza was mainly after the 1963 Focus on the Family cut off for acceptable family fare, so she didn't exist as far as we watched movies, except as a cute kid in the final scene of In the Good Old Summertime. 

If only more people knew what all she went through during the making of " The Wizard of Oz " .  I think that if they had , they wouldn't be so quick to judge her .   

Spoiler

 

 

[Maggie Mae]

46 minutes ago, Howl said:

Also, I can see Darby and Audri's generation not knowing who Liza Minelli (age 74) is, much less Judy Garland (died at 47 in 1969), unless your're a movie buff. Reminds me, I need to watch Cabaret again. 

When I was a kid, I knew who Liza Minelli was, but I'd never seen her in anything. I think I thought she was a singer? Well, she was a singer. I know she did a lot of theatre and we had a lot of records that I looked through. But it's weird, I don't think I ever saw her actually in anything until Arrested Development. I didn't see Cabaret until after I saw the live show a few years ago.  I was a weird kid, though, I loved broadway, soundtracks, and records. 

[AnnaSofia]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

Also, I can see Darby and Audri's generation not knowing who Liza Minelli (age 74) is, much less Judy Garland (died at 47 in 1969), unless your're a movie buff.

I'm not certain about Audri, but her sister Ellen is definitely an old movie buff. The vintage clothing business she runs with Jessica Courter holds an annual sale in honor of Errol Flynn's* birthday. Based Instagram comments, they're pretty well versed in Golden Age Hollywood. 

Maybe they're giving Darby a crash course.

 

*Of all people.