Erin & Chad 7: Reckless Behavior in a Pandemic Has Consequences

[becky_m2001]

1 minute ago, CaptainFunderpants said:

Apparently she was getting comments from her own family then. And this is the family with a daughter that they arranged to marry a convicted sex offender.

Yet three kids in three years is where they draw the line? WTF.

I just don't get why she wouldn't keep her family as followers.

I'm a little confused about the whole thing. And why say so boldly that she's not accepting followers anymore. What is the point of that? Hmmm...

[Melissa1977]

Isn't it a blessing (for fundies) having 3 kids in 3 years?

[QuiverFullofBooks]

6 hours ago, CaptainFunderpants said:

I'm sorry, I'm not the biggest user of IG, what would the point of this be? Just a scrapbook for yourself?

I could see only allowing approved friends/family followers, but zero followers? Maybe a contest account?

I have an Instagram account so that I can follow others, but I don’t post. She’s keeping the account so that she can see others’ posts, and probably also because she doesn’t want to delete her past posts. I’ve never purged followers, but there may be a “delete all” option that was simpler than picking and choosing. 

[CaptainFunderpants]

3 hours ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

I have an Instagram account so that I can follow others, but I don’t post. She’s keeping the account so that she can see others’ posts, and probably also because she doesn’t want to delete her past posts. I’ve never purged followers, but there may be a “delete all” option that was simpler than picking and choosing. 

Yeah, I get wanting to continue following other people, but leaving all of your posts up would fall into the personal scrapbook category.

With the delete all option, I would think you'd at least post in the family group chat 'hey, I had to delete all of my followers on IG, sorry, send a request and I'll accept you' and most people would do it pretty quickly. Same with close friends. She still has zero followers this morning.

[CanadianMamam]

It says she doesn’t accept followers “on this account”, maybe she started a completely private account and her family has that? And she is keeping this one up for archive purposes? 

[just_ordinary]

I also see a trend of people trying to distance themselves from Social Media through challenges and huge breaks. She could also have decided not to put her family on display anymore, but only keep the account to follow her friends and family. With “prominent” family members you catch some crazy fans and haters. Just look what people find out around here. They call it sleuthing- I would call it stalking. Whoever appears on a picture, tagged or not, gets investigated, right down to school grades, cv, birth horoscope and what not. I mean, if a ton of strangers follow you I would shut that down, no matter if there were mean comments or not. But especially when personal details of my life appear on sites like that. Many people share photos over a cloud or a family chat and who else would need to see those photos? To stop posting about your family on Social Media and making the content unavailable doesn’t seem to strange to me?

Edited March 15, 2021 by just_ordinary

[Knight of Ni]

Why would her family have negative things to say about three kids in three years? I would think it would be viewed as a blessing. Doesn't Kendra have three under three? Or close?

[Bluebirdbluebell]

On 3/18/2021 at 9:12 AM, Knight of Ni said:

Why would her family have negative things to say about three kids in three years? I would think it would be viewed as a blessing. Doesn't Kendra have three under three? Or close?

Kendra has three under three until June. Tori will have 3 under 3 when Charlotte Raine Smith is born. 

[OyToTheVey]

3 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Kendra has three under three until June. Tori will have 3 under 3 when Charlotte Raine Smith is born. 

My lady parts hurt just reading this. Actually I think I'm mentally exhausted reading this lol And I used to teach classrooms of 3 year olds.

[JMO]

They got a bunny. I'm assuming for Easter.  They are amassing quite a menagerie.  I wouldn't be surprised if they keep getting more as the kids get older and they don't have more kids.

[Jackie3]

26 minutes ago, JMO said:

They got a bunny. I'm assuming for Easter.  They are amassing quite a menagerie.  I wouldn't be surprised if they keep getting more as the kids get older and they don't have more kids.

You really think that they'll acquire more animals simply because they are unable to have more children?

[Marly]

I saw the picture of I think Everly holding the bunny, completely unsupported. Poor bunny ? Small animals are very fragile and therefore unsuitable pets for unsupervised children. I feel so, so sorry for this poor bunny.

[QuiverFullofBooks]

12 hours ago, Jackie3 said:

You really think that they'll acquire more animals simply because they are unable to have more children?

Lots of people do. Another way to think about it is that parents of large families usually limit pets because there’s already enough responsibility and chaos. A family with four children who are close in age should be able to care for several pets. 

[Jackie3]

1 hour ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Lots of people do. Another way to think about it is that parents of large families usually limit pets because there’s already enough responsibility and chaos. A family with four children who are close in age should be able to care for several pets. 

On the flip side, all families stop growing at some point. They don't all start adopting animals. There are other things they want to do. Erin has other interests, like music, her store, decorating her house for the 11th time, etc.

[SassyPants]

I think there’s one point on which we can all agree, the families we discuss on FJ are not “like most other families.” Using the behaviors to predict the decisions of these folks is useless.

[EmiSue]

11 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

I think there’s one point on which we can all agree, the families we discuss on FJ are not “like most other families.” Using the behaviors to predict the decisions of these folks is useless.

Also, people do lots of things in response to grief that make little sense outside their own heads, even people who are more well-adjusted than the Bates kids. Becoming animal collectors when your quest to have double-digit kids grinds to a screeching halt after kid #4 is not healthy for the animals, but it's not exactly divorced from reason in light of a grief response. I just hope they come to their senses before anything serious happens to animals or children in their household.

[JMO]

I made my original statement based on her behavior both in the past as well as since her COVID diagnosis.  Going back to when they got their dog a couple of years ago Erin seems like she likes to have a lot of beings to take care of.  Her plan was very clearly to have a full house full of humans and animals.  Since her diagnosis she had gotten a pig (which now has a brood of piglets) and a bunny.  This is in addition to her dog, a cat, and goats.  As @EmiSue pointed out above some people get pets as part of a grief reaction.  I would not be surprised if they continue to get more and more animals.  I bet that if they had their own large piece of property we'd see chickens, a horse and even a cow.  I think that if she continued to pop out a kid every 15-18 months she'd self limit because as Chad pointed out after they got the puppy "There's another butt to wipe" but if that limit is no longer there and the kids are getting old enough to be tasked with chores such as feeding the animals/mucking out pens she'd have little reason to limit the animals.  She grew up with dogs and horses(casting aside their dubious care).  The only thing interesting to me is that aside from Carlin none of her sisters have gotten any pets.  But that may be due to having lots of littles and not being as interested in having more beings to take care of.  

[Johannah]

I’m still curious if she will attempt to adopt. Maybe she and Michael will go through the process together?

[Melissa1977]

49 minutes ago, Johannah said:

I’m still curious if she will attempt to adopt. Maybe she and Michael will go through the process together?

Adoption is usually expensive and Erin seems to have little money (based in the fact that they don't own a house). And as other posters had previously said, she can't adopt because she only has 1 bedroom for the children and she would need at least 1 room for boys and 1 room for girls. 

But not everybody is suited for adoption and many people, fertile or not, with bio kids or not, just don't want to adopt. 

[SassyPants]

On adoption...how does that jibe with “leaving it all up to God”? He give and he takes away, according to their good book. Would they willingly override the will of God? 
So God gave Kelly Jo 19, but has decided that Michaela is not having any and Erin’s number is 4. Isn’t that how their belief system works?

[kmachete14]

I think Erin aspires to have a farm life like Chip & Joanna (albeit an even fundier farm than they have). 

[JMO]

9 minutes ago, kmachete14 said:

I think Erin aspires to have a farm life like Chip & Joanna (albeit an even fundier farm than they have). 

Agreed.  I think she is like Jana in that way.  I would not be surprised if she eventually got a coop and chickens. 

[QuiverFullofBooks]

37 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

On adoption...how does that jibe with “leaving it all up to God”? He give and he takes away, according to their good book. Would they willingly override the will of God? 
So God gave Kelly Jo 19, but has decided that Michaela is not having any and Erin’s number is 4. Isn’t that how their belief system works?

Yeah, but it could be that God’s plan for them is to be adoptive parents. Gotta pray about it!

[SassyPants]

12 minutes ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Yeah, but it could be that God’s plan for them is to be adoptive parents. Gotta pray about it!

It’s this kind of double speak that gives some the label of hypocrite. You do have to give Michaela and Brandon some credit. Some in their situation would already be building an arsenal of kids via adoption.

[Melissa1977]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

On adoption...how does that jibe with “leaving it all up to God”? He give and he takes away, according to their good book. Would they willingly override the will of God? 
So God gave Kelly Jo 19, but has decided that Michaela is not having any and Erin’s number is 4. Isn’t that how their belief system works?

Leaving up to God is just not using birth control and (try to) be content with zero to twenty kids. Adoption is giving a family to a kid without one. These are two differents things IMO.