Crystal Paine "Burning Questions"

[Queen Of Hearts]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

And another one that has not breathed a whisper about the changes that brought her to this new place?  Or has she discussed that?

Crystal never seemed totally fundy the way some we snark on here are. She seems more like a typical young adult who grew up and gradually granted her ways as she aged and experienced life. Her family's changes seem to have been very gradual and she may not have even realize the real extent that she was changing at the time the changes were happening. 

[Howl]

Thanks for clarifying! As some of y'all may know, one of my huge fundy pet peeves are fundy people (I'm talking about you, Beall), especially those who were considered leaders/influencers,  who go from extremely rigid beliefs to a more relaxed approach.

Family integrated church, MODESTY, no-contact/no-kiss father approved courtship, headship!, instant obedience, SAHD!, SAHW, homeschool!    Things change, dress gets MUCH more casual, a daughter works outside the home, somebody gets divorced. Nobody talks about how the changes came about and why, after they'd insisted for years that the rigid belief system was The. Only. Way. and had many followers damaged by their beliefs.  A few people have made radical changes and even left Christianity, and apologized, but most have not. 

Hoo, boy, when Erika Shupe accidentally let slip that most of her kids were in public school, and then posted a normal family picture of herself IN SHORTS! But did she let us know how those changes came about? Heck no!  For those that missed those benchmark moments, Erika blogged with handy tips on how you can read and do other things while hanging out in the car waiting for kids to get out of school -- she didn't realize that every other parent on the planet with school-age children already had this down. 

 

 

[hoipolloi]

14 hours ago, Queen Of Hearts said:

Crystal never seemed totally fundy the way some we snark on here are.

She was in the Biblical Womanhood days.

She was totally a SAHM, SOTDRT, frumper-wearing young fundie woman. TBF, she & Jesse were both raised in the cult so it's not like there were realistic alternatives for them, apart from breaking away completely. But make no mistake, Crystal was ALL IN during the Biblical Womanhood days. She even appeared in a BBC documentary on SAHWs, telling the world how godly & special she was for doing Jesse's bidding, 24/7. 

All of this, of course, makes her transition quite impressive. Again, I give her credit for publicly acknowledging her growth. 

Edited September 4, 2020 by hoipolloi

[starfish]

6 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

She was in the Biblical Womanhood days.

She was totally a SAHM, SOTDRT, frumper-wearing young fundie woman. TBF, she & Jesse were both raised in the cult so it's not like there were realistic alternatives for them, apart from breaking away completely. But make no mistake, Crystal was ALL IN during the Biblical Womanhood days. She even appeared in a BBC documentary on SAHWs, telling the world how godly & special she was for doing Jesse's bidding, 24/7. 

All of this, of course, makes her transition quite impressive. Again, I give her credit for publicly acknowledging her growth. 

She was ALL IN during her BW days. She and Jesse did the weird courtship thing. She and Jesse attended The Tool's film festival once and she apparently knows the Robotkins and once described them as "lovely girls".  She was a Halloween hater who also refused to put up a Christmas tree. She was incredibly into obeying her husband to the extent that some of her older followers told her to stop worshipping/idolizing her husband. I don't think she did home births with the kids, but I think she did some kind of midwife thing. On BW, she used to write about not taking the kids to Sunday school or kids activities because she did not want to have to volunteer to help out (sort of that Family Integrated thing).I have no idea of what happened to lead her to the big change. She experienced some serious post partum depression so perhaps she saw the modern medicine could help with that. I think she realized she was a lot better at making money than her husband. She's said some stuff about him since switching from BW that's pretty far away from idolizing him.  She volunteers with the youth at her new church.  And sending the kids to schools instead of homeschooling--that is huge! There's hope for our fundies yet. Maybe she had to get away from her and Jesse's families or at least put a little distance between them. 

[hoipolloi]

6 hours ago, starfish said:

I think she realized she was a lot better at making money than her husband.

I also think that this was a big part of what led them out of serious fundiedom. She has also explained the move to TN in a couple of blog posts over the years as well as one podcast. It seems that the main driver was her business -- it was big enough to make relocating to Nashville a good decision for many reasons, aside from personal or family considerations.

She's been very open about actually working for pay at her business, to the point that she announced that she'd be taking maternity leave after this last baby arrived.

 

[starfish]

I wanted to add something to this post that I found really funny. She and Jesse did a podcast where they discussed how they decided what names to give their children. She said that, when they first got married, they wanted to name a daughter "Liberty" but decided against it. Then she and Jesse laughed for a long time and said "Liberty is such a typical home-school name" and then they laughed some more. Realizing she was offending some of her viewing audience, she added, "not that there's anything wrong with home school names". It was hilarious. 

 

[Jasmar]

I know a former homeschooler named Liberty…

[Bluebirdbluebell]

Is she related to Chad Paine's family?

[starfish]

On 11/1/2020 at 3:46 PM, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Is she related to Chad Paine's family?

I don't know the answer to that question-she doesn't say much about Jesse's family. They are all from the Topeka, Kansas area if that helps. 

[hoipolloi]

Crystal has been on her IG stories in the last day or so, talking about how they're planning to go to KS for Thanksgiving so elderly grandparents can see the newest grandchild in person. 

Being a grandparent, I can understand this, but now is NOT the time to indulge that natural tendency. What is it about COVID-19 and its ferocious rate of infection that people are not understanding? Is it magical thinking? Arrogance? Stupidity? I don't get this at all. 

[Sister Mozz]

Crystal landed a contract with a major Christian publisher to release a book on parenting. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CJDSY12/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

This was news to me and I couldn't find it anywhere in the FJ search, but forgive me if I missed an earlier discussion. You can read the beginning in the Look Inside feature. I hope whatever child drove Crystal and Jesse to make these changes is doing okay now and has given consent to sharing the story with the world.

I also wonder if she discusses her own upbringing at all in the course of the book.

[Melissa1977]

Is she a Chad Paine's relative?

[hoipolloi]

48 minutes ago, Sister Mozz said:

This was news to me and I couldn't find it anywhere in the FJ search, but forgive me if I missed an earlier discussion.

No worries - I merged it with this earlier discussion from late last year.

If you go back through the posts in this thread, there are links to Crystal's podcast & other sources that provide some first-person info on her gradual changes over the years. She & Jesse (her husband) have been pretty open about how different they've become from the ultra-fundie teenagers they were. I am interested in this latest book of hers because, IIRC, she started out as a traditional fundie parent, having been raised that way.

19 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

Is she a Chad Paine's relative?

Her husband is Jesse Paine but I don't think his family is related to Chad's. Both Jesse & Crystal (and their families) are from Kansas originally. 

[starfish]

On 2/16/2021 at 2:52 PM, Sister Mozz said:

Crystal landed a contract with a major Christian publisher to release a book on parenting. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CJDSY12/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

This was news to me and I couldn't find it anywhere in the FJ search, but forgive me if I missed an earlier discussion. You can read the beginning in the Look Inside feature. I hope whatever child drove Crystal and Jesse to make these changes is doing okay now and has given consent to sharing the story with the world.

I also wonder if she discusses her own upbringing at all in the course of the book.

She discussed her book on her blog this week. This is interesting. They had a lot of changes as a family when they put the kids in school. One of the daughters used to ice skate but apparently does not any more. I wonder what happened, because that child seemed really into that sport, She used to post videos but no more.  The oldest child is learning to drive and plays basketball, which is awesome for a young lady in fundie land. Far cry from the Robotkins. And I too hope Crystal shares more of her upbringing. 

[starfish]

Crystal and Jesse did a podcast episode where they addressed "assumptions" about them. During the podcast she confirmed that she grew up ATI and said Jesse's family was not ATI. She then basically apologized for ATI and said the parents meant well. She also said that the move to Tennessee was not precipitated by anger at a family member but they did not discuss it any further. They sort of moved on abruptly. One of the funniest things to me was something she mentioned about her mom. I've long suspected that her fundie, home-schooling mom is rather controlling.  Crystal said that her mom was intense about the kids' dental health growing up, and that the mom had a chart where they checked off how often they brushed their teeth during the day. She said she was constantly brushing her teeth growing up but that she doesn't do that anymore. I think the mom was probably controlling about food too because Crystal and her sisters seem rather gaunt. Crystal confirms that she basically grazes instead of eating a full meal because she hates being full. I just think her "how we eat on $30 a week" posts are irresponsible. Kids gotta eat. And I suspect a lot of this eating cheap is more about the moms' control of every morsel that goes into the kids' mouths than frugality. 

 

[hoipolloi]

Crystal has said on her public IG that her 15-month-old daughter has contracted COVID. The poor thing had a fever and a major body rash that eventually sent them to the ER after seeing Urgent Care & the pediatrician. They are also doing full-time fostering of a special needs baby (a boy under one year) so the situation is very concerning.

I really hope for everyone's sake that Crystal & her husband and their older kids (who are all over 12, IIRC) have already been vaccinated. She won't ever discuss vaccinations or politics on her social media/website so their status is unknown. I would hope that the state of TN foster parents program requires participating families to have all members up to date on all vaccinations, but who knows given what happened last week.

[starfish]

On 7/20/2021 at 3:29 PM, hoipolloi said:

Crystal has said on her public IG that her 15-month-old daughter has contracted COVID. The poor thing had a fever and a major body rash that eventually sent them to the ER after seeing Urgent Care & the pediatrician. They are also doing full-time fostering of a special needs baby (a boy under one year) so the situation is very concerning.

I really hope for everyone's sake that Crystal & her husband and their older kids (who are all over 12, IIRC) have already been vaccinated. She won't ever discuss vaccinations or politics on her social media/website so their status is unknown. I would hope that the state of TN foster parents program requires participating families to have all members up to date on all vaccinations, but who knows given what happened last week.

I think I saw she took the little girl with her on an airplane trip to Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. The little girl probably caught it at the FOTF cult compound. You know none of those oddball fundies have been vaccinated, probably think Covid is a hoax to hurt Donald Trump, etc  

[hoipolloi]

Credit where it's due to Crystal for speaking out on the Scamaritan type of "health care" although I'm surprised that she didn't know how little these companies actually cover.

From her stories:

[JermajestyDuggar]

21 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Credit where it's due to Crystal for speaking out on the Scamaritan type of "health care" although I'm surprised that she didn't know how little these companies actually cover.

From her stories:

I think if she looked into these “Christian cost share” scams, I bet she would find more things they don’t cover that will piss her off too. Too bad she probably won’t do a deep dive into these scams. 

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Too bad she probably won’t do a deep dive into these scams. 

It is too bad. She could do a lot of good by doing analyzing these rackets & warning her followers.

 

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

12 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

It is too bad. She could do a lot of good by doing analyzing these rackets & warning her followers.

 

 

Exactly. But I bet she would get an insane amount of push back and hate for it since a lot of her followers are probably fundie.

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I bet she would get an insane amount of push back and hate for it since a lot of her followers are probably fundie.

Iʻd guess so. Still, it seems like a natural topic given her raison dʻetre which is being a good steward of one's finances. Can't imagine a much more egregious waste of money than paying Scamaritan, etc. for health care.

I am still surprised that she had no idea how terrible these companies are but perhaps they've always been on standard health insurance and just didn't know. 

[hoipolloi]

To give her some more credit, it looks like sheʻs pursuing the issue with the help of her followers. 

I still can't believe that she didn't know any of this.