Dillards 80: Everybody Take a Shot!

[FighterJet]

On 10/4/2019 at 2:44 PM, Charliemae said:

I agree. The way she said "and this is with only two kids" felt like she was talking to herself. 

Or maybe she was "feeling inferior" compared to her mother's massive 19-kid-brood. Or maybe realizing all the attention she'd missed out on.

[FighterJet]

18 minutes ago, HideousGreenShirt said:

I have a slightly different read on Jill. I suspect it may not be popular here.

I recently rewatched a bunch of old 19kac episodes, then the courtship/wedding ones and listened to as much as I could bear of that awful Growing Up Duggar audiobook.

I'm beginning to suspect that Jill was so vocal about all their rules and convictions to convince others and perhaps herself, that this was the one correct way to live and she was going to be the best one at it. I'm not certain that she bought into it fully and I think the Josh molestations/lack of consequences may have hit harder with her. 

I look at her on those old shows and I don't see the sweet, compliant helpmeet-in-training that she was supposed to be.

She's bossy, given special privileges, frequently talks back to her parents and takes control of situations.

One of the episodes in Asia, she cuts Jim Bob off, demands extra money and then is allowed to go off alone with just the older girls and camera crew.

She is the only sister to have been allowed (with accountability buddy) to pursue so many extra curriculars: midwifery, volunteer fire fighter, EMT (maybe?) training, College Plus courses. She is the lead speaker on the audiobook, probably 65% is her and the rest is shared between the other girls. She insisted that she and Jim Bob travel to meet Derick in Nepal instead of waiting a couple of months - sure TLC probably encouraged it because it was a good "look how insane these people are" storyline. But compare it to every other daughter's relationship. 

It could be viewed that she was allowed these extras because she was the perfect, Godly daughter and "earned" them, or it could be that she pushed for them more aggressively. 

Look at her behaviour compared to Jana, Jessa and Jinger. Sure, Jessa would organise and occasionally sass her parents, but aside from that one coffee making volunteer day with Jinger, what special treatments did she receive and what rebellious attitude has she really displayed?

Don't get me wrong; Jill and Derick hold and spout despicable, hateful beliefs and they're always going to be conservative Christians, but Jill is interesting to me. I'm not convinced she is/was the truest believer in the bunch. Her wardrobe changes, the sex posts/blogs, the current lifestyle... I'm interested to see what the Dillards will get up to in the next few years. 

I agree with the posters who say Jill comes across as lonely. I've long thought she desperately needs some close friends to hang out with and/or a job. I would love to see her boys in day care and her in a part time job. She is so good with people and seems to really crave interaction with others. I think waitressing a couple days a week would be perfect for her. And later on if she had the kids in school and limited her family size, perhaps she could train or study for a legit career that she actually loves. I don't think Derick would prevent her from choosing this path, especially if he ever settles into a real job himself for more than a couple of months. 

The squeaky wheel is the first to get grease. Jill could have convinced her parents/family she were the most obedient precisely because she was so outspoken as she was... actually testing waters.

Derdick isn't the sharpest tool in the box, on top of being an obnoxious twitter bully, but let's face it: at his core, he's the most "liberal" out of all the husbands (upbringing, life experiences, choices...), and she was likely well aware of that when they started courting and her family described her as "boy crazy", which is just a fundie word for horny, I believe. She allowed her MIL to influence her (ok, not exactly a big deal, but not your average IFB MIL either).

Botched birth or not, Jill has 2 children and she and Derick have been somewhat vocal about... limiting family size? Didn't he mention he wanted at least 2 children? Sibylline, Derick.

Jill attends social functions with enthusiasm even though she doesn't seem to have developed any meaningful, lasting friendly bond as of yet. She has selfies with "controversial figures according to the Gothard bible" such as a young Muslim mom and a woman who celebrated universal suffrage. She listens to contemporary Christian singers which is a big no-no for most fundies. She considers school for her kids, at some stage.

Jill will not perhaps be hyper surprising, nor rebellious, by mainstream standards, but given these premises she's still worth keeping an eye on.

[Georgiana]

Jill also clearly sees herself as a mentor and deeply wants to be seen as a Christian influencer, able to give advice to other Christian women and have other women look to her for inspiration/help/tips.  It's a very natural role for her since it's basically what she was before her marriage: the perfect Christian daughter that everyone looked up to, asked for advice, etc.  Jill took after JB in a lot of aspects, I think, but one of the most pronounced is that they both found their "purpose" though fame and TV. I don't think TLC was ever just about the money to either JB or Jill.  I think they both found being in the public eye deeply fulfilling on many levels.

But Jill is now struggling with that.  She's lost TV, so she no longer has that platform.  As more and more of the Duggars get married, her status as a special married adult has lost some of it's shine.  Soon, the wives of her buddies and even her buddies themselves may be GIVING her advice instead of coming to her for advice because they will have larger households than her.  

She genuinely does know how to run and manage a large household, but without one of her own, it's really hard to find a natural avenue to blog/instagram about that.  Were she more connected to the TTH, she would be a natural fit for the head babysitter, which she could use as an in-roads to talking about management of many littles.  But I think that rift or no rift in the family, the truth is that it's too hard for TLC to film when there are people there unwilling to be shown, and therefore the Dillards would only be welcome on non-filming days...which would be too irregular for Jill to assume a regular role within the family (I also think filming concerns are a major reason Jill is seen with the family less frequently.  She can't just show up anytime like the rest of them can).  

So I think some of Jill's sadness is realizing that despite her best efforts to be the perfect, Christian wife in a perfect, Christian marriage that other Christian women naturally idolize; she's just regular.  She has a normal family with normal struggles that don't just magically go away.  She's not a shining, perfect example of godly womanhood like she thought she would be, qualified to give advice on solutions that just came naturally to her.  She's just like most women.  And now she has to find beauty and happiness in living her normal life instead of the attention and praise that she expected to come from being a paragon of the QF and SAHD movement.  

And she's probably beating herself up over it, because she was raised to believe that if she did everything right, God would give her a perfect life.  She doesn't have the perfect life she envisioned, so naturally, she must be doing something wrong.  

[FighterJet]

1 hour ago, HideousGreenShirt said:

She is the only sister to have been allowed (with accountability buddy) to pursue so many extra curriculars: midwifery, volunteer fire fighter, EMT (maybe?) training, College Plus courses. She is the lead speaker on the audiobook, probably 65% is her and the rest is shared between the other girls. She insisted that she and Jim Bob travel to meet Derick in Nepal instead of waiting a couple of months - sure TLC probably encouraged it because it was a good "look how insane these people are" storyline. But compare it to every other daughter's relationship. 

It could be viewed that she was allowed these extras because she was the perfect, Godly daughter and "earned" them, or it could be that she pushed for them more aggressively. 

I think she was able to earn privileges because she learned how to "play" her parents' game and oriented her demands on ambiguous domains they couldn't say no to.

How could they deny her College Plus courses and "work" experience when all she wanted to do was helping women deliver babies when filling quivers is the cornerstone of their religion? How could they prevent her from becoming a volunteer fire fghter without contradicting their Christian beliefs about selflessness? How could they say no to the extra money she demanded when she made it look like she needed it to fulfill the SisterMom role she'd been awarded by her very parents?

[SassyPants]

I don’t know how much “filming” is a reason for the absence of the Dillards at the TTH. Most of the “Counting on” members do not even live at the TTH, and I’d venture to say that most of the filming is done elsewhere. 

Have we seen Derick at the TTH in recent times or since  the rift with TLC?  I think the divide is more about DD flexing his muscles than JB banning the Dillards. I think DD is still pissed about how the Josh incident was handled and how that impact affected he and JIll.

 

I also think that the Dillards really show harmful not truly knowing your partner before marriage can be on that union. Derick thought he was marrying an independent, adventure seeker, and Jill thought she was getting a mini JB who would continually impregnate her year after year, supporting the family without ever having to leave her side. These 2 clearly did not know one another well enough to jointly care for a cactus, let alone each other or a family.

Edited October 7, 2019 by SassyPants

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

24 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

I don’t know how much “filming” is a reason for the absence of the Dillards at the TTH. Most of the “Counting on” members do not even live at the TTH, and I’d venture to say that most of the filming is done elsewhere. 

Have we seen Derick at the TTH in recent times or since  the rift with TLC?  I think the divide is more about DD flexing his muscles than JB banning the Dillards. I think DD is still pissed about how the Josh incident was handled and how that impact affected he and JIll.

 

I also think that the Dillards really show harmful not truly knowing your partner before marriage can be on that union. Derick thought he was marrying an independent, adventure seeker, and Jill thought she was getting a mini JB who would continually impregnate her year after year, supporting the family without ever having to leave her side. These 2 clearly did not know one another well enough to jointly care for a cactus, let alone each other or a family.

I'm starting to wonder, after reading here about Jill being at TTH more than I realize, that perhaps Derrick is trying to limit her time with her family so she can grow (up) and expand her thinking and world view? I mean not a lot, Derrick is still a hateful little fuckwad, but he's a hateful fuckwad that appreciates education and thinks having more kids than you can emotionally and financially support is stupid.  If he can get past the whole gay/trans are bad because right wing Jebus says so, he might even be a 1/2 way decent guy, and I can't believe I just said that. ?

[SassyPants]

20 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I'm starting to wonder, after reading here about Jill being at TTH more than I realize, that perhaps Derrick is trying to limit her time with her family so she can grow (up) and expand her thinking and world view? I mean not a lot, Derrick is still a hateful little fuckwad, but he's a hateful fuckwad that appreciates education and thinks having more kids than you can emotionally and financially support is stupid.  If he can get past the whole gay/trans are bad because right wing Jebus says so, he might even be a 1/2 way decent guy, and I can't believe I just said that. ?

Saying this very quietly, I tend to agree. 

[Giraffe]

IMO, She was micromanaged for so long that she struggles with living a solo adulthood. I knew someone once who was nearly incapable of doing things alone - she always found cheerleaders who would go with her and “help” her decide what to buy. “Help” in the sense that if she had others along with her they would make the decisions and she wouldn’t have to. It was infuriating and in some ways Jill seems similar. DD may have expected someone independent like his mother, able to function without him there constantly, and what he got instead was someone who knows how to function in a group, and even seen as an asset to the group because she’s a cheerleader, but struggles to function as her own person. 

[fluffernutter]

I kind of relate to Jill in a tiny little way. My kids are grown now, but when they were young we moved a lot for my husband's work. I found being at home with the kids pretty isolating. I had a hard time making friends and getting to know people since we moved so much and I was kind of shy. I was probably pretty clingy back in those days. The days felt long and lonely. My husband would come home and I was sooooo happy to have an adult to talk to and another set of hands to help. I remember packing a lot of picnic lunches and meeting my husband at work. He always seemed happy to see us, and the kids were happy to see him. As time went on, I started to join mom groups and when the girls started pre-school they began to have friends which sometimes led to me making some more mom-friends. But those first years, I did struggle. 

[LacyMay]

11 hours ago, HideousGreenShirt said:

I've long thought she desperately needs some close friends to hang out with and/or a job. I would love to see her boys in day care and her in a part time job. She is so good with people and seems to really crave interaction with others. I think waitressing a couple days a week would be perfect for her.

This for me would be one of the big litmus tests for how much of a real change the Dillards have made. Right now I'm not convinced that the needle has moved that far from the right but if I saw her get a job even a part time job at a Christian bookstore I would be more convinced. Right now all of the married Bates girls except Michaela and Erin seem to be in pants as well as Jinger and Abby (or at least we have photos of Abby in a prettty nike tank top) so I'm really not sure how much weight we can put on clothing. Getting a job outside of the home though would be a bit more of a departure in my mind. 

 

On an unrelated note I'm really not sure that Jill taking a lead from Cathy is really a great thing. This is the women who kind of aggressively backed Dericks nonsense on social media and along with him and Dan made those ridiculous wooden spoon jokes that weren't in the best of taste. She's better than Michelle but she's far from who I would want Jill to turn out like. 

[CarrotCake]

53 minutes ago, LacyMay said:

Right now all of the married Bates girls except Michaela and Erin

And Tori.

So still 3/6

[princessmahina]

13 hours ago, LacyMay said:

This for me would be one of the big litmus tests for how much of a real change the Dillards have made. Right now I'm not convinced that the needle has moved that far from the right but if I saw her get a job even a part time job at a Christian bookstore I would be more convinced. Right now all of the married Bates girls except Michaela and Erin seem to be in pants as well as Jinger and Abby (or at least we have photos of Abby in a prettty nike tank top) so I'm really not sure how much weight we can put on clothing. Getting a job outside of the home though would be a bit more of a departure in my mind. 

 

On an unrelated note I'm really not sure that Jill taking a lead from Cathy is really a great thing. This is the women who kind of aggressively backed Dericks nonsense on social media and along with him and Dan made those ridiculous wooden spoon jokes that weren't in the best of taste. She's better than Michelle but she's far from who I would want Jill to turn out like. 

I think I missed the wooden spoon jokes! Was it something about spanking? 

[Bad Wolf]

Yes. Dan and Derrick wore shirts saying "I survived the wooden spoon" or something like that. I can't remember exactly. 

[FluffySnowball]

Although the conversation has moved on a bit, I had a closer look at some comments on DD’s vaccine post and they are comedy gold. Of course it’s sad some people actually believe such abhorrent anti-vax nonsense and refuse medical care based on misinformation, the smear campaign against Planned Parenthood is successful at least among a certain group of people and the Dillards have a bunch of odd followers, but still, I had to laugh quite a few times: 

Edited October 9, 2019 by FluffySnowball
Screenshots didn’t upload at first so I had to retry.

[Charliemae]

My favorites are the ones like "God already gave you the immunity to fight the flu", where I can't tell if they're being sarcastic or serious.  

[FluffySnowball]

17 minutes ago, Charliemae said:

My favorites are the ones like "God already gave you the immunity to fight the flu", where I can't tell if they're being sarcastic or serious.  

I was wondering if some posters (not necessarily the ones I mentioned in my previous post) were pulling DD’s leg. But I’m sure many, if not most, were serious. 

[Shouldabeenacowboy]

54 minutes ago, Charliemae said:

My favorites are the ones like "God already gave you the immunity to fight the flu", where I can't tell if they're being sarcastic or serious.  

I would love to think they are joking, but I am afraid they are serious. 

[princessmahina]

1 hour ago, Charliemae said:

My favorites are the ones like "God already gave you the immunity to fight the flu", where I can't tell if they're being sarcastic or serious.  

The thing that bothers me so much about that argument is that the flu shot isn’t necessarily about you. Maybe you do have the immunity and that’s great! But what about the elderly? The immune compromised? The babies? Should we just let them die because God didn’t “give” them the immunity? 

People make me so mad sometimes. 

[theotherelise]

On her stories (according to a bit of the title and a chapter which are visible), Jill is reading this book: Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out

Interesting. More on the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07DT3K6FG?ref=aw_sitb_digital-text

[bella8050]

I wonder if she'll loan it to Michelle after she finishes. 

She also did another free ad for her friends skincare MLM. One step forward and one backwards.

[sixcatatty]

5 hours ago, princessmahina said:

The thing that bothers me so much about that argument is that the flu shot isn’t necessarily about you. Maybe you do have the immunity and that’s great! But what about the elderly? The immune compromised? The babies? Should we just let them die because God didn’t “give” them the immunity? 

People make me so mad sometimes. 

I'm immune compromised. I spent the month of January 2018 with both types of flu, one after the other. I was hospitalized twice. The docs also discovered that I have asthma. I was still recovering when I had to go to court in early March. Nearly passed out three times.

Those "God gave you immunity" folks are more than welcome to go through all of that. I'm getting this year's version of the flu shot tomorrow.

Edited October 10, 2019 by sixcatatty
took out words

[finnlassie]

14 hours ago, bella8050 said:

I wonder if she'll loan it to Michelle after she finishes. 

She also did another free ad for her friends skincare MLM. One step forward and one backwards.

Gotta help a hun out with their small business, right?!

[bella8050]

Yeah @finnlassie her friend is definitely a #bossbabe. She gave Jill a three step package that I looked up and it costs close to $250. Wonder what will happen when the freebie pack runs out. Jill is the perfect target for a hun pushing self care items.

[finnlassie]

2 hours ago, bella8050 said:

Yeah @finnlassie her friend is definitely a #bossbabe. She gave Jill a three step package that I looked up and it costs close to $250. Wonder what will happen when the freebie pack runs out. Jill is the perfect target for a hun pushing self care items. 

I'd rather see her have some REAL small business skin care, which are likely all way better, and also cost WAY less.

[Kelsey]

2 hours ago, bella8050 said:

Yeah @finnlassie her friend is definitely a #bossbabe. She gave Jill a three step package that I looked up and it costs close to $250. Wonder what will happen when the freebie pack runs out. Jill is the perfect target for a hun pushing self care items.

She could probably just buy equal products at ELF for like $12.