Dillards 80: Everybody Take a Shot!

[BernRul]

46 minutes ago, muggleborn said:

Looks like Jill is breaking some more Duggar rules.

 

46 minutes ago, muggleborn said:

 

Wow, that's huge. Like this is the first time I've ever thought that about an adult Duggar. 

At my fairly liberal/urban school, there's still a good handful of kids who don't celebrate Halloween cuz it's "satanic." For Jill freaking Duggar to celebrate it is a bfd. 

Edited October 25, 2019 by BernRul

[BernRul]

First, they're celebrating Halloween, before long they're dressing in black leather and singing Sweet Transvestite. This is exactly what the liberal agenda wants! 

[frugalitymom]

I was thinking about Jill and her changing things that she is doing like wearing pants, piercing her nose, and now Halloween and I’m really thinking it’s due in part to her doing everything she was supposed to and things happened like not having kids like her mom and something snapped in her.

 She may have realized being a perfect fundie doesn’t always keep you safe and wearing pants etc doesn’t mean she is less of a Christian. I also think that’s why she isn’t doing as many  family functions like she has in the past because she is viewing things in a different light

[Giraffe]

28 minutes ago, frugalitymom said:

I was thinking about Jill and her changing things that she is doing like wearing pants, piercing her nose, and now Halloween and I’m really thinking it’s due in part to her doing everything she was supposed to and things happened like not having kids like her mom and something snapped in her.

 She may have realized being a perfect fundie doesn’t always keep you safe and wearing pants etc doesn’t mean she is less of a Christian. I also think that’s why she isn’t doing as many  family functions like she has in the past because she is viewing things in a different light

I hope this is exactly what’s going on. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them also have a “WTF?!?” awakening as they have kids and realize how wrong it was for their parents to make them raise their siblings. 

[TeaGrannie]

6 hours ago, viii said:

Yeah, the parking at my hospital is free, but I live in a smaller city. I've never gone to a Canadian big city hospital, so I'm not sure about the parking there. 

I live in Edmonton, Alberta and our hospitals have paid parking too. 

[CooliePickney]

I don't really post but have lurked FJ daily for years. I just wanted to share my medical costs experience from an Australian perspective.

After marrying, my husband and i took out a private health insurance plan to cover maternity and birth in a private hospital, at the time it cost around $60 per fortnight for our family and included all maternity hospital costs in a private hospital, this included my husbands stay and meals (we chose a private king bed room). Medical care included anesthetist, lactation consultant and all the bells and whistles, parking was also free. Private health Insurance covered all of these costs and partially funded my obstetrician checkups. In total the regular ob appointment and tests cost us around $7k out of pocket. If we chose to go through the public system, it would have cost $0, but hospital parking at public hospitals is not free.

My husband had a heart attack shortly after my daughter was born 7 years ago and subsequently had another earlier this year. Our Insurance policy didnt cover cardio for patients under 45 and he was taken to the public hospital. He had three stents inserted and his hospital stay was around a week in a shared ward. He participated in free classes with a dietician, and received follow-up care - this all cost us nothing and the quality of care was exceptional.

After his second heart attack this year, he was admitted to hospital and required further stents, he has now been referred to the "Advanced Heart Failure Unit" and attends gym sessions weekly under the care of nurses, has regular cardiologist appointments, all medical care, tests, treatments, gym cost us absolutely nothing. The only cost to us is his prescriptions which are on the PBA (pharmaceutical benefits scheme) and are quite low cost, he has almost reached the annual threshold at which point his prescriptions are capped at about $11. 

All our family GP appointments are $0 out of pocket. they are covered by medicare which all Australians are entitled too. this is paid in our taxes. As we cancelled our private health insurance we also pay a medicare levy at tax time each year which is around $200.  We dont receive any other government assistance and would be considered middle class, my husband works for a university and i work in a government department. 

Sorry for the long post, i just wanted to share my families experience of requiring urgent care, oh, and there are no wait times. I cannot rate our health care system highly enough. Happy to answer any questions.

 

[justodd]

About a month ago, I got a letter from my insurance company telling me that they needed me to provide them with more information before they could approve some imaging I was scheduled to have done. Annoying in any case, but infuriatingly so in this case, as the letter arrived less than 24 hours before said imaging was scheduled to be done. I freaked out and spent most of the next morning on the phone and even went next door to my urologist’s office to beg for help, frantic about how to make this work in such short time. 
 

in desperation, I even called the number on my insurance card for providers to call, and asked if it was really possible that the request could be denied. I genuinely thought I’d be reassured, but the representative paused before saying “honestly, I’d say 90-95% of these requests get denied.” This was a six month follow up to make sure the surgery I had earlier this year was successful and I no longer had any cancer in my body. The insurance company was willing to risk the chance that I had cancer to save less than two thousand dollars. (I was quoted about $2,200 if I ended up covering it out of pocket, but I think the insurance company’s rate was something like $1,300.)
 

I ended up saying fuck it and caught a Lyft (I don’t drive) to my scheduled appointment with all fingers crossed that I could get it sorted in time. I finally got a call telling me we were good to go ten minutes before my appointment’s start time and my driver and I did a little seat belt boogie-ing in happiness and relief once I was off the phone. This was literally hours of phone calls and stress to make this happen, and I would do it again if I had to. That said, I’m sure a lot of other people in my shoes couldn’t or wouldn’t have jumped through all the hoops I did. Some don’t have the time, some just don’t have it in them to fight for it, and I’m sure some of those who don’t fight it, or just tell themselves everything is okay ultimately pay with their lives just so the insurance company can save a few bucks. I’ve hated how cruel our healthcare system is for years, but that particular incident took it to all new lows. 

[CooliePickney]

20 minutes ago, justodd said:

About a month ago, I got a letter from my insurance company telling me that they needed me to provide them with more information before they could approve some imaging I was scheduled to have done.

This is so horrifying to me, I'm sorry this is something you have to go through in a supposedly civilized country. I just don't understand these values, or how your fellow countrymen think this is ok. This is not ok.

[PennySycamore]

@justodd,  I think what happened to you was horrifying, but I'm also sending you my love.  Cancer is motherfucking bitch!

[justodd]

25 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

@justodd,  I think what happened to you was horrifying, but I'm also sending you my love.  Cancer is motherfucking bitch!

Thank you! Everything came out clear, so at least that part of my story has a happy ending. ?

Also, don’t know if it’s just a coincidence, but I’ve had a lot more stuff ordered since then by my other doctors (who could have imagined cancer would literally be the least of my medical worries this year?!), and all of it has been swiftly approved without delay. I wonder if all the fuss I kicked up made an impression.

[Peaches-n-Beans]

Jill Duggar letter her boys celebrate halloween is a HUGE deal. Like, I used to babysit for a fundie-lite family. LIke they only had 3 kids but they didn't do Halloween, Santa, Christmas Trees, Their kids only got 3 presents each at christmas, and no Easter bunny, easter eggs, easter chocolate. 

I babysat weekly for them for about a year and over the whole month of october I could not get their four year old to go to bed because she was so afraid of halloween, it wasn't even close to halloween when this started but when I asked her reasoning was "The devil comes out and grabs kids on Halloween and what if he does that to my friends?". 

Not celebrating Halloween is one thing,  telling your 4 year old her friends could get kidnapped by the devil is another. And I'm really really surprised Jill isn't following one or both of those. Even if they're not going out on actual Halloween, which I mean yeah Izzy and Sam are maybe a little young for more then like doing the block and going home, this is a pretty big deal. 

[Lillymuffin]

4 hours ago, CooliePickney said:

This is so horrifying to me, I'm sorry this is something you have to go through in a supposedly civilized country. I just don't understand these values, or how your fellow countrymen think this is ok. This is not ok.

The longer things like this, and just the current climate in general, continue, the more I’m convinced the US has lost whatever vestiges of civility it ever had, and is returning to some kind of primitive, Wild West, free-for-all. It terrifies me. If something radical doesn’t change soon... I actually don’t even know how to finish that sentence. 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Lillymuffin
Grammar

[Giraffe]

I agree it’s a huge deal Jill’s kids are celebrating Halloween. I agree with the earlier poster who said Jill may be making up for lost time. DD could be a good influence for that. His reminiscing about what fun he had doing ___________ may make Jill decide “I missed out it on a lot of life; I don’t want my kids to.” Part of that could even be having two kids.

I haven’t watched the Duggars in years but something that stood out to me was how sad the oldest kids seemed at hardly ever getting one on one time with their parents. No matter how good a parent someone is, there’s simply no way they can give enough time to each child. Hopefully that memory is enough to cause most of them to stop at 3 or 4. 

*it was @frugalitymom who mentioned it earlier. 

[Peaches-n-Beans]

3 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

I agree it’s a huge deal Jill’s kids are celebrating Halloween. I agree with the earlier poster who said Jill may be making up for lost time. DD could be a good influence for that. His reminiscing about what fun he had doing ___________ may make Jill decide “I missed out it on a lot of life; I don’t want my kids to.” Part of that could even be having two kids.

I haven’t watched the Duggars in years but something that stood out to me was how sad the oldest kids seemed at hardly ever getting one on one time with their parents. No matter how good a parent someone is, there’s simply no way they can give enough time to each child. Hopefully that memory is enough to cause most of them to stop at 3 or 4. 

*it was @frugalitymom who mentioned it earlier. 

I hadn't thought about this to be honest. I really hope that this is what she's thinking, because while I don't like Derick I think he had a much better childhood then Jill. Yeah he's kind of a dick and definitely has that entitled male attitude going on, but his childhood was much better then Jills. His parents only had two kids, he got one on one time with them and was obviously close to them. I think he wants this for his boys and I think Jill does too now that she's realizing that a family of such a large size has some pretty serious draw backs. 

[CooliePickney]

1 hour ago, Lillymuffin said:

The longer things like this, and just the current climate in general, continue, the more I’m convinced the US has lost whatever vestiges of civility it ever had, and is returning to some kind of primitive, Wild West, free-for-all.

Is the decline of the US health system only fairly recent? I don't recall hearing much about this topic in decades past, but certainly the international media sheds some light on it now.   Embarrassingly I am one of those people who watch Dr Pimple Popper and its heartbreaking to see the conditions people have to live with because they cant afford treatment. - In most cases its clearly an affordability issue however, the patients never actually say that.

[SweetJuly]

@justodd This experience sounds absolutely horrific, and I'm sitting here feeling both mad and sad for you at the same time. I'm happy the scan gave you the all clear and wish you only health and happiness from here on.

My mother had breast cancer some 20 years ago and has been battling with relapses that required more and more invasive treatments. For the past 5 years she has been receiving regular extremely expensive infusions of antibodies that are helping to keep the cancer at bay.

My sister has been fighting leukemia for the past 2 years and had a stem cell transplant in March.

Not once have my mother or sister had to wait for life-saving treatment, not once did they have to worry about anything medically necessary being denied, not once did they have to pay huge deductibles, not once did they have to be concerned about losing their home or livelihood while they were busy fighting for their lives.

Of course things are not perfect in countries with universal healthcare. But I thank my lucky star every night that my family and I all live in countries that have it.

[Bobology]

4 hours ago, Giraffe said:

I haven’t watched the Duggars in years but something that stood out to me was how sad the oldest kids seemed at hardly ever getting one on one time with their parents.

But they have a scheduled 15 minutes/week to 'share their heart' with their parents! (or something like that... Michelle bragged about it once.)

What strikes me in the past 2-3 years is how forlorn 3 of the 4 youngest daughters often seem in posted photos and in film, in contrast to the apparently happy bubbly 4 oldest girls (Jana was always more calm and serious than the rest, though.)

[Screamapillar]

Jill also appears to be wearing a normal one-piece bathing suit in a picture at the pool with Sam that she posted to her Instagram stories. But I would agree that letting the boys celebrate Halloween is a bigger deal than wearing non-modest clothing.

[clueliss]

18 hours ago, CheeseGirl said:

If DD was a full-time employee at Walmart when Israel was born, then the max out of pocket for a family's healthcare would have been around $13,000-$13,500* (It keeps creeping up every year) regardless which of the 3 (2 HRA and 1 HSA) plans they offer.  Walmart uses lots of temps and contractors to avoid having to provide benefits.  Do we know he wasn't a temporary?  I know many people who temp for years hoping for a full time spot to open up.  They bounce around from temp project to temp project every few months.  Maybe he didn't quit WM, but his temp position ended or ended and he wasn't hired for a new placement and they took that as a sign from God to pursue mission-work. 

*I live in Walmart-land and have their insurance

DD was an accountant in the tax department if I recall - not a store employee.

[theotherelise]

He was an accountant and I think he was a full-time employee, but just because he was an accountant doesn't mean he wasn't a temporary employee. The problem of companies using temps is not constrained to any sort of job classification.

I don't think we determined that he had a CPA though. With a CPA, he could have at least picked up some good side jobs via that. It's still kind of ridiculous how little he has used the accounting background. I haven't used my B.S. degree in education, technically, but I have always had a job.

[clueliss]

Actually, as an accountant who will admit to looking at DD's Linked In profile at one point - he does not have a masters in accounting and therefore I don't think could sit for the CPA exam.  (once upon a time that was not a requirement but at some point it was added due to the need to understand all the stuff that computerized accounting systems do.  I'm started in the profession in the late 80's and have experience with 21 column pads and having to cross foot everything)

And in touch agrees - no CPA
https://www.intouchweekly.com/posts/derick-dillard-cpa-160694/

[Giraffe]

8 hours ago, Lillymuffin said:

The longer things like this, and just the current climate in general, continue, the more I’m convinced the US has lost whatever vestiges of civility it ever had, and is returning to some kind of primitive, Wild West, free-for-all. It terrifies me. If something radical doesn’t change soon... I actually don’t even know how to finish that sentence. 

There’s never been a “golden age” in the US for all people. There’ve been many, many “golden ages” for cis-gendered heterosexual whites at the expense of everyone else. I think all that’s happening now is we happen to have an openly white supremacist “leader” at a time where social media exists and has made it easier for anyone to find out how unequal & unsafe things still are.

[OHFL2009]

50 minutes ago, clueliss said:

Actually, as an accountant who will admit to looking at DD's Linked In profile at one point - he does not have a masters in accounting and therefore I don't think could sit for the CPA exam.  (once upon a time that was not a requirement but at some point it was added due to the need to understand all the stuff that computerized accounting systems do.  I'm started in the profession in the late 80's and have experience with 21 column pads and having to cross foot everything)

You do not need a masters in accounting (or a masters at all) to sit for the CPA exam in many states. In my state, you're required to have 120 hours of acceptable college credits, with specific designations of how many of those hours are business and accounting courses, and a bachelors degree in order to take the exam. It requires 150 total course hours in order to actually become licensed, but does not require a masters degree. A lot people do get that additional 30 hours by earning a masters, but some, like my college roommate, double major in undergrad and wind up with enough hours without a masters degree. I don't know what the requirements are in Oklahoma or Arkansas, and I highly doubt he ever became a licensed CPA, but the lack of a masters degree doesn't automatically rule that out.

[AprilQuilt]

14 hours ago, Giraffe said:

I hope this is exactly what’s going on. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them also have a “WTF?!?” awakening as they have kids and realize how wrong it was for their parents to make them raise their siblings. 

I think this is exactly what's happening. And the bonus of Derrick apparently being persona non grata with JB (or at least the show) is that Jill has the freedom to explore a bit more. I mean, yeah, they all let their husbands guide them, but someone like Ben is very much still in the Duggar Inc fold, and is unlikely not to toe the line in most situations, although props to him for not voting Trump. Derrick gets to maybe reminisce about his childhood halloweens and wish the same for his sons, and Jill can feel OK doing it because loads of their contemporaries join in. It's not a huge leap.

This is why I think the great big hoo-ha the tabloids make about 'rebel daughters' wearing pants or whatever are totally missing the point. This is what young, modern Christianity looks like. They really aren't breaking away that much, they are gently drifting into a new image just as all their contemporaries are, and actually as their parents have too: Michelle abandoned the frumper as modesty standard a long, long time ago and I'm pretty sure if she and JB were newlyweds starting a family today, there would be no frumpers. There was a line in the sand that they had to make in the 80s and 90s. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a lot of the kidults use some kind of family planning, because again, Quiverfull was something that a particular branch of Christianity 'needed' to do at a particular time: it was a statement that they felt had to be made. These generation are post-Quiverfull, post-Gothard, post-frumper; they will inspect their faith and make choices they feel to be appropriate to it. Doesn't make their core values any more dilute.

[Blessings of the Corn]

Re: Halloween, pants, etc. I think she also might not know how to deal with what Josh did. She was in this bubble that brushed it off and let "God deal with it" and then she meets D who, for all his apparent short-comings, is more worldly and, like any kind spouse, would be angry at what happened to her. Her "bubble" of modestly and ridiculous standards didn't save her from an awful circumstance and she can see that all that outward junk means jack squat in real life. 

I did not come from a huge family, but I did come from a very religious homeschool family. We spent almost every waking moment together; you'd think we'd be close. I am not close with my mom at all. We have hit heads since I entered puberty and spending so much time together, mixed with toxic religious ideas on everything, drove more of wedge between us. I love her, and we can have fun together, but our relationship is sadly surface. Really she's that way with all of her children - she needs some serious help from past childhood trauma and until she faces that it is what it is.

All that to say, it's not surprising Jill and the grown children don't have much of a relationship with J and M, even if they spend time together for tv. They didn't foster anything beyond their appearance of a huge, weird family.