Josiah and Lauren 15: The Drama Llama Rolls On

[Coconut Flan]

Continued from here:

 

[scoutsadie]

I hope Joy truly wanted to attend Lauren's baby shower; I hate the thought that she went because it was expected of her despite her own loss.

And I agree with the poster in the last thread about Lauren's maturity level being that of a young teen. I'd peg her around 13.

[tabitha2]

To be honest in the end it was her own choice. No one blackmailed her to go.

 Not a popular opinion but I am pretty sure they are all happy and excited about their coming baby girls and its not fair for them to have to hide or not celebrate in reasonable way just to spare Joys feelings. She is soon going to be surrounded by new baby girls anyway. 

[anjulibai]

2 hours ago, tabitha2 said:

To be honest in the end it was her own choice. No one blackmailed her to go.

 Not a popular opinion but I am pretty sure they are all happy and excited about their coming baby girls and its not fair for them to have to hide or not celebrate in reasonable way just to spare Joys feelings. She is soon going to be surrounded by new baby girls anyway. 

I don't see anyone saying they shouldn't celebrate but:

1) Joy should be able to not go if she doesn't want to. She may, but she likely wouldn't have a choice in the matter. She'd be expected to go and not going would be a sign that she was sinning. 

2) The cake for Asa is just insensitive given what Joy has been through. 

Edited September 25, 2019 by anjulibai

[tabitha2]

As has been said before as an adult you have to stop blaming your choices on your family or saying they made me do it at some point. I doubt they would condemn her to hell for not going to yet another shower. If nothing else she could say Austin needed her. 

[LacyMay]

1) I personally do think Joy is choosing to go and not being forced. I think they are hard for her but I think she's doing it out of love and wanting to help them celebrate. I also think she's getting a lot of support at them from Jill, Anna and likely Michelle. 

2) I don't think it's about blaming choices on her family or her not taking responsibility. I think it's a matter of people hoping that she's being supported in her choices whatever they are. Family dynamics around loss/pregnancy can be tricky in even non QF families and having so many people is just going to exemplify that. 

[mysweetetc]

There's a big difference between truly having a choice to go or not go, and being in Joy's place with her family dynamics. I know that, if one of my siblings were pregnant, I'd be expected to go to the baby shower. My whole extended family would, at best, look askance at me if I didn't. Certain people would say worse behind my back. Joy of course has a choice, but I would imagine that she was expected to go and likely would have felt pressured if she didn't want to. On the other hand, she's showing remarkable grace for someone so young who's just suffered a devastating loss, so maybe she actually wanted to go. We don't know, but I don't think these kind of "choices" in any family (especially the "keep sweet" Duggar clan) are necessarily as cut-and-dry as we'd like to think.

[SweetLaurel]

2 hours ago, mysweetetc said:

There's a big difference between truly having a choice to go or not go

Was it being filmed?  If so, she might not have had a choice to go to work or not go to work like so many of us in the real world.   

[Glasgowghirl]

I don't think Joy was forced to go to either Amy or Josiah and Lauren's baby showers, as hard as it would have been for her, I don't think she would have missed it for both Amy and Josiah's sake. As awful as the Duggar's are I don't think they would force her to go if she didn't want to. 

[Vivi_music]

52 minutes ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I don't think Joy was forced to go to either Amy or Josiah and Lauren's baby showers, as hard as it would have been for her, I don't think she would have missed it for both Amy and Josiah's sake. As awful as the Duggar's are I don't think they would force her to go if she didn't want to. 

Agreed. Since the miscarriage the Duggars seemed to have been quite supportive of her. I can give them that. For example, Anna was shown baby-sitting Gideon so that Joy could go out a bit on her own. And Joy apparently left Cousin Amy's ''baby sprinkle'' earlier and wasn't in the pictures. I don't think anyone on the family would force her to stay for pics if she didn't want too (that being said, her leaving could be for a ton of reasons and not related to her grief).

So I would lean more towards the idea that she wanted to be there. At least, I hope. Doesn't mean it didn't sting a bit. I'm sure there must be a bittersweet feeling.

As for the Asa cake... well count me in the club who thinks it was too much. ?

[Cheetah]

Where did everything go?  I can't find the threads in the normal place... 

[SassyPants]

17 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

Where did everything go?  I can't find the threads in the normal place... 

Read Fasten your seat belt above^

[Kailash]

33 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Read Fasten your seat belt above^

Thank you for saying that. I thought Fasten your seat belt was an advertisement. ?

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

On 9/25/2019 at 8:20 AM, anjulibai said:

I don't see anyone saying they shouldn't celebrate but:

1) Joy should be able to not go if she doesn't want to. She may, but she likely wouldn't have a choice in the matter. She'd be expected to go and not going would be a sign that she was sinning. 

2) The cake for Asa is just insensitive given what Joy has been through. 

I think Amy would have understood if Joy had a bad day and couldn't go to her baby shower, but Amy is mature(ish) and has the capability to think outside her little bubble of joy.  I think Lauren would have been pissed off if Joy didn't come, because Lauren is a child.  She gave no consideration to Joy with that stupid cake, she can't see outside her own bubble, even though she's experienced a loss of her own. 

 

I'm still giggling at the drama llama. 

 

  

[SassyPants]

This is what happens when women in society are reduced to their reproductive capabilities, when all other goals and endeavors are curtailed. What happens to those who have failures (Lauren, Anna...)? Or what about the infertile (Michaela)? What role do these women have in the cult? What are the alternatives for these married women, and how are these women perceived by the cult, and further, how does that attitude affect the support and guidance they receive? Far as I can tell, Lauren has not received any practical guidance or support at all! 

[Bobology]

15 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I don't think Joy was forced to go to either Amy or Josiah and Lauren's baby showers, as hard as it would have been for her, I don't think she would have missed it for both Amy and Josiah's sake. As awful as the Duggar's are I don't think they would force her to go if she didn't want to. 

I agree about JB/M not forcing Joy to attend a family baby shower. But I'm wondering if they would even know Joy wouldn't want to go. Yes, Michelle understands about stillbirth loss, but would Joy ever feel free enough to admit that she would be bothered by a shower, or Lauren in particular?  A lot of her own feelings/emotions have likely been smacked out of her, so any feelings she may have, Joy herself may perceive to be 'wrong' according to all she's been taught. Some of these 2nd generations could be well into their 60s before realizing what a bad deal they were given as children and even as young adults.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

Yeah, I can't imagine being nothing more than an incubator, and keeper of children and home. Having no authority or decision making beyond what is for dinner or if you wear your hair curled or straight today.  

Edited September 26, 2019 by allthegoodnamesrgone

[kesmom]

The reality is that grieving mothers will make different choices about these type of things. I hosted a baby shower years ago (before I had any kids) for a friend whose neighbor had recently lost a premature baby. She wasn’t sure how to be sensitive to her neighbor so we did some research online about it. What we found was to let the person know about the invite before it was mailed, and to say that there was no pressure to attend and she could change her mind at the last minute if needed. She opted to come and eat/mingle for about half an hour and left before the gift opening.

Joy may very well want to attend the showers. That cake had to be a punch in the gut though. 

[3splenty]

I lost three boys, two pregnancies (one between each viable pregnancy).  I was 11 weeks with the singleton and 12 weeks with the twins.  We found out all three were boys after the testing, which also found all three had anomalies that would be incompatible with life.  My in-laws told me to deal with the first one because "you're not really family" so it wasn't their responsibility to help me.  They never found out about the twins.

My boys each have an ornament on the Christmas tree, blue glitter with metallic snowflakes.  No names, but I know, and that's enough.  Do I wonder what might have been?  Sure.  But I don't let it take me away from the kids I do have.

My daughters know about their brothers, but we don't dwell on it.  It happened, and I love my daughters 100%  My oldest told me, "Mom, I know this might sound mean, but aren't you kinda glad you missed out on the sweat and axe body spray combo?"  Yes, my dear.  Yes, I am.

As my Grandma would have said, Lauren needs to see her actions through someone else's feelings.

[FluffySnowball]

19 hours ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

Yeah, I can't imagine being nothing more than an incubator, and keeper of children and home. Having no authority or decision making beyond what is for dinner or if you wear your hair curled or straight today.  

Even curling their hair might not be their autonomous decision. Didn’t Gothard get off on women with long curls? Maybe now that he’s been sacked, this might have changed a bit though. 

Edited September 27, 2019 by FluffySnowball

[Sonic the Whoredgehog]

I wonder how many comments have been deleted from the baby shower post. I find it difficult to believe that not a single person mentioned Joy or that the cake was insensitive or obsessive. There were a few people asking what the cake toppers said, and if they actually knew the gender, but other than that nothing but praise. And boy is there a lot of it. The humpers are so sickeningly sweet. 

I'm 95% certain that comments have been deleted, but who did it? Lauren seems to manage the page for the most part, but I'm picturing Josiah vigilantly flexing his deleting muscles as he white knights his child bride to shield her from all criticism, sighing and shaking his head as it further sinks in exactly what he's gotten into. 

[SillyDillys]

This is my theory,

Lauren is the oldest of 9 kids? And fundies value the first born in their family. Lauren was the perfect fundie daughter and probably got the most attention, so she's on this pedestal. She married into fundie royalty, however josiah is the 4th or 5th wedding on a TV show after being disgraced in mainstream media. No one really cares, and now shes fighting for attention with 20+ other people. Her pregnancy is being lumped in with the other girls. Lauren's miscarriage was the only thing that stood out from others before joy had her miscarriage. Her family no doubt puts her on this pedestal because she is carrying their first grandchild, but for the Duggars it's sort of a whatever. So I'm sure her family thought the cake was a wonderful idea, they have no idea how nasty it was for Joy

Not making excuses, I still can't stand Lauren, this is just my theory on why she acts the way she acts.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

3 hours ago, Sonic the Whoredgehog said:

I wonder how many comments have been deleted from the baby shower post. I find it difficult to believe that not a single person mentioned Joy or that the cake was insensitive or obsessive. There were a few people asking what the cake toppers said, and if they actually knew the gender, but other than that nothing but praise. And boy is there a lot of it. The humpers are so sickeningly sweet. 

I'm 95% certain that comments have been deleted, but who did it? Lauren seems to manage the page for the most part, but I'm picturing Josiah vigilantly flexing his deleting muscles as he white knights his child bride to shield her from all criticism, sighing and shaking his head as it further sinks in exactly what he's gotten into. 

I'm guessing a LOT, I made a comment, about her being insensitive, and now I'm blocked from their insta, that is 2 Duggars that have blocked me. Man it must suck having to go through life only hearing what you want to hear and blocking out what you might need to hear. 

[Glasgowghirl]

53 minutes ago, SillyDillys said:

This is my theory,

Lauren is the oldest of 9 kids? And fundies value the first born in their family. Lauren was the perfect fundie daughter and probably got the most attention, so she's on this pedestal. She married into fundie royalty, however josiah is the 4th or 5th wedding on a TV show after being disgraced in mainstream media. No one really cares, and now shes fighting for attention with 20+ other people. Her pregnancy is being lumped in with the other girls. Lauren's miscarriage was the only thing that stood out from others before joy had her miscarriage. Her family no doubt puts her on this pedestal because she is carrying their first grandchild, but for the Duggars it's sort of a whatever. So I'm sure her family thought the cake was a wonderful idea, they have no idea how nasty it was for Joy

Not making excuses, I still can't stand Lauren, this is just my theory on why she acts the way she acts.

I agree with you, Lauren is still young and I know a lot of people who are or were selfish like that at her age, her being the oldest and used to having the attention and marrying someone somewhat in the public eye has probably made her enjoy the attention more but most people her age are not married and about to become parents. 

Lauren continues to ignore people telling her that she is being insensitive, first by comparing Grandma Duggar's passing to her losing ASA and then doing the same Joy with Annabell. I think the Asa cake may have pushed the other Duggar's patience with her, Jessa in particular looked majorly pissed and I would not be surprised if she said something to her. 

[anjulibai]

I had not heard that she compared her miscarriage to Grandma Duggar dying. That's really messed up.