Blast from the Past ... Chelsea Pomeroy

[smittykins]

18 hours ago, PopRox said:

Shoot, my 8th grade class trip was just a day trip to Hershey park.

My 12th grade  class trip was to Six Flags Darien Lake(between Rochester and Buffalo).

[Bastet]

16 hours ago, Caroline said:

I wonder if it's just that there aren't enough staff who want to take the trip for other reasons as well.  I traveled abroad with high school kids for 25 years straight, as well as organizing trips to our school for kids from French and Spanish schools.  I gave it up because the more I thought about how lucky I'd been (no hurt or lost kids, some bad behavior, but nothing illegal, etc.) I realized my luck wouldn't last forever.  I just don't want to take chances anymore with other people's kids.  Maybe that's what's behind it, and teachers are worried about being sued for something that's beyond their control.  It could just be the dietary thing, but that sounds a little strange.

This. A lot may be peanut allergies—which are very scary. I also wonder if they asked the school nurse to go and she declined. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

19 minutes ago, Bastet said:

This. A lot may be peanut allergies—which are very scary. I also wonder if they asked the school nurse to go and she declined. 

You would think that by the age of 13. A kid would know to carry around an epi pen if he has a severe peanut allergy. And kids in bigger and poorer districts with allergies are doing the DC trip. Knowing what I know about my school district, I’m guessing the parents were being the biggest pains in the ass about food and stuff and it got to be too much. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by JermajestyDuggar

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

You would think that by the age of 13. A kid would know to carry around an epi pen if he has a severe peanut allergy. And kids in bigger and poorer districts with allergies are doing the DC trip. Knowing what I know about my school district, I’m guessing the parents were being the biggest pains in the ass about food and stuff and it got to be too much. 

But even if those middle school kids had their own pens, the situation might still scare the shit out of the teachers, and sometimes one injection isn’t enough. When I was a teacher, school trips would make me panicky though I’m not generally like that. A trip to a theater would keep me from sleeping the night before even though the kids were dropped off and picked up at the door. (Though at one such trip a student from another school punched one of ours in the face, knocking her into the next row. Cops called and a fine time was had by our students who apparently had been nursing a desire to punch this girl in the face themselves.) 

However, I’ve  got to trust your assessment of those parents. They sound like the kind who might sue, thus really putting school administration over the edge regarding trips. 

[anachronistic]

Mary Grace graduated from 8th grade. She is the perfect child according to all who know her. I hope to heck she gets some therapy when she is older so her perfectionism doesn’t turn into hating herself when she isn’t perfect.

 

Then they went strawberry picking….in pale blue and white dresses and with George in knee socks and patent leather shoes. Somehow only George got the slightest bit dirty, which I think is okay since he’s a boy. It’s really sad that Charlotte, at 4, can already do something like strawberry picking without getting dirty at all. I mean, it looked like a much cleaner strawberry patch than I’ve ever seen - the rows had hay in between them instead of dirt - but still. A kids brain should be focused on exploring, creating, moving - not on whether they’re dirty.

[anachronistic]

Am I the only person still watching these American Girl dolls come to life? I mean, I’d it weren’t for the videos I might honestly think that George was a life-size doll she carts around the country. It must be 100 degrees out yet he never wears a hat and always has on knee socks and leather buckled shoes. No wonder his cheeks look so red, he’s stifling. At least the girls get to dress in slightly cooler outfits with sandals and dresses. Although apparently the older girls can’t wear short sleeves. 
 

Their latest story made me laugh so hard. They went to what looked like a pretty standard wedding and the kids wore basically their every day clothes - actually, the dresses looked a little less fancy than lots of what they wear. Not a single picture of the bride just all her kids! 
 

A nursery school I know of nearby got tired of asking the kids to put their clothes on so just made s rule that ‘underpants stay on’ when they do sand/mud/messy play. I’d love to see George (and his sisters but I think they’re too old) in an environment like that, although I do fear it would break his poor conditioned brain.

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, anachronistic said:

Am I the only person still watching these American Girl dolls come to life? I mean, I’d it weren’t for the videos I might honestly think that George was a life-size doll she carts around the country. It must be 100 degrees out yet he never wears a hat and always has on knee socks and leather buckled shoes. No wonder his cheeks look so red, he’s stifling. At least the girls get to dress in slightly cooler outfits with sandals and dresses. Although apparently the older girls can’t wear short sleeves. 
 

Their latest story made me laugh so hard. They went to what looked like a pretty standard wedding and the kids wore basically their every day clothes - actually, the dresses looked a little less fancy than lots of what they wear. Not a single picture of the bride just all her kids! 
 

A nursery school I know of nearby got tired of asking the kids to put their clothes on so just made s rule that ‘underpants stay on’ when they do sand/mud/messy play. I’d love to see George (and his sisters but I think they’re too old) in an environment like that, although I do fear it would break his poor conditioned brain.

She blocked me years ago so I can’t see. This group must cover their elbows, collar bones, and knees at all times as adults. I think little girls are given more leeway. But once they are close to teens, I think they make them cover it all. 

[fundiewatch]

I cannot look away from Chelsea P’s Instagram. She and I have very little in common, and then we have our tourism preferences which are realllly close. They really celebrate their kids, which I like. The politics and religion we don’t see the same way. I see now she was just in Asheville at the Biltmore which is one of my favorites. Some day I shall spot a Pomeroy Parade in Person and I will do nothing but take a surreptitious selfie with them in the far off background. 

[postscript]

I’m not on Instagram so I can only see the top layer of photos without being prompted to set up an account. I’m fascinated by her aesthetic and also by that of her sister, who occasionally goes public. As a child, I would have loved these outfits until I realized just how impractical they were. My mother, who believed in practicality, would have had none of it. I can’t help wondering at what point George will rebel. If he doesn’t rebel, how will she dress him as he gets older? Knickers? 

The older girls seem to alternate between outfits too young for them and outfits designed for 40-year-olds beamed here from the 80s. I can’t help wondering if they’ll ever rebel, too. It must be embarrassing to be constantly forced to match your much younger siblings. 

I’ve been listening to Alison Arngrim’s Confessions of a Prairie Bitch and her description of her Little House costumes - heavy, frilly, multi-layered - has now got me thinking of this as the Nellie Oleson aesthetic.

[JermajestyDuggar]

23 minutes ago, postscript said:

I’m not on Instagram so I can only see the top layer of photos without being prompted to set up an account. I’m fascinated by her aesthetic and also by that of her sister, who occasionally goes public. As a child, I would have loved these outfits until I realized just how impractical they were. My mother, who believed in practicality, would have had none of it. I can’t help wondering at what point George will rebel. If he doesn’t rebel, how will she dress him as he gets older? Knickers? 

The older girls seem to alternate between outfits too young for them and outfits designed for 40-year-olds beamed here from the 80s. I can’t help wondering if they’ll ever rebel, too. It must be embarrassing to be constantly forced to match your much younger siblings. 

I’ve been listening to Alison Arngrim’s Confessions of a Prairie Bitch and her description of her Little House costumes - heavy, frilly, multi-layered - has now got me thinking of this as the Nellie Oleson aesthetic.

You should look at the Pentecostal fashion sites. There’s a major aesthetic that is immediately recognizable to me. I can spot someone in her group a mile away. 

[noni alabaster]

On 7/31/2022 at 12:44 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

You should look at the Pentecostal fashion sites. There’s a major aesthetic that is immediately recognizable to me. I can spot someone in her group a mile away. 

When I was a child in West Texas, there was a Pentecostal family at the end of our block. We "normal" kids took great pleasure at laughing at the way they dressed to swim in their backyard pool. We'd pop up over their fence and mercilessly mock them, with their tights and long sleeves, swimming in brutal summer temps (I swear it got so hot out there, temps in the 110's.)

Turns out, the dad was the pastor of the largest Pentecostal Church out there. I used to feel bad about it. Still do, sometimes, but we were obnoxious kids in the 1970s, and the mom of the family was a horrible woman, always knocking on our doors, telling our parents to put some clothes on us, if we were going to ride bikes in "Her Neighborhood."

[noseybutt]

33 minutes ago, noni alabaster said:

When I was a child in West Texas, there was a Pentecostal family at the end of our block. We "normal" kids took great pleasure at laughing at the way they dressed to swim in their backyard pool. We'd pop up over their fence and mercilessly mock them, with their tights and long sleeves, swimming in brutal summer temps (I swear it got so hot out there, temps in the 110's.)

Turns out, the dad was the pastor of the largest Pentecostal Church out there. I used to feel bad about it. Still do, sometimes, but we were obnoxious kids in the 1970s, and the mom of the family was a horrible woman, always knocking on our doors, telling our parents to put some clothes on us, if we were going to ride bikes in "Her Neighborhood."

I feel bad laughing but not really. 

My family of origin had some definite quirks and I was teased for it but looking back the teasing was really complicated. Yeah, it could be hurtful. But also the people teasing were not necessarily wrong. In your example, swimming in tights in 110 degree weather is legit dumb and it takes some kids hanging over the fence to say it out loud.

Please don't take this the wrong way that I am justifying bullying. I'm not.  Just saying that teasing also lets the kids know that other people think the parental rules are ridiculous and that's not all bad.

[noni alabaster]

6 minutes ago, noseybutt said:

I feel bad laughing but not really. 

My family of origin had some definite quirks and I was teased for it but looking back the teasing was really complicated. Yeah, it could be hurtful. But also the people teasing were not necessarily wrong. In your example, swimming in tights in 110 degree weather is legit dumb and it takes some kids hanging over the fence to say it out loud.

Please don't take this the wrong way that I am justifying bullying. I'm not.  Just saying that teasing also lets the kids know that other people think the parental rules are ridiculous and that's not all bad.

Oh, we were little assholes (Pardon my French), but I hope they didn't feel bullied. That family still dominates those churches, and they had these brisket-stuffed baked potatoes that were LEGENDARY! They sold them at gatherings, and we'd all go buy them. Pentecostal Potatoes (not to be confused with Mormon Funeral Potatoes, which are awesome, btw) became so famous for a while, that my late husband had heard about them, when he moved to Dallas at age 12.

[danvillebelle]

Chelsea looks sooooo young in her wedding photo it's kinda creeping me out.  Like, FLDS child-bride young.  

[anachronistic]

Maybe it’s just me but I see the styles of the older girls evolving. They both clearly like pink (which may be because they were allowed little else until the birth of Prince George but who knows, pink is a good color) and Abigail seems to favor a cute, unique hairstyle of a high ponytail sectioned into bunches down her back. Jane Claire and Charlotte, despite being I think 3 years apart, are dressed as twins most of the time - maybe because Jane Claire seems a bit small for her age? They could easily pass as twins anyway.

 

Meanwhile Prince George the Bitty Baby is still in clothes that look exactly like what those ‘oh so real’ China /plastic dolls you saw advertised in the 90s in magazines wore. And when Charlotte’s not in school, she matches him, although I think that may change as she’s kindergarten age this year or next.

[Baxter]

I didn't realize there was so much space between Jane Claire and Charlotte. I think Chelsea said in the past that Jane Claire was quite small for her age and Charlotte was big for her age. They are both adorable.

It is encouraging to see the older girls getting to have a bit of their own individual style. There have actually been a couple of times where they didn't even seem to be tied into the colour theme. Their clothes look fairly in keeping with other girls their age at their church. It's not what I would have wanted to wear when I was twelve but I'm not pentecostal. 

[katilac]

On 8/3/2022 at 5:52 PM, noseybutt said:

I feel bad laughing but not really. 

My family of origin had some definite quirks and I was teased for it but looking back the teasing was really complicated. Yeah, it could be hurtful. But also the people teasing were not necessarily wrong. In your example, swimming in tights in 110 degree weather is legit dumb and it takes some kids hanging over the fence to say it out loud.

Please don't take this the wrong way that I am justifying bullying. I'm not.  Just saying that teasing also lets the kids know that other people think the parental rules are ridiculous and that's not all bad.

I mean, you are justifying bullying, there's no way around that. She used the term "mercilessly mocking" and said they literally popped up over their fence, like these poor kids are in their own yard, minding their business, y'know? Yeah, let's not justify bullying just bc we think their religion is stupid. 

On 8/3/2022 at 6:04 PM, noni alabaster said:

Oh, we were little assholes (Pardon my French), but I hope they didn't feel bullied. That family still dominates those churches, and they had these brisket-stuffed baked potatoes that were LEGENDARY! They sold them at gatherings, and we'd all go buy them. Pentecostal Potatoes (not to be confused with Mormon Funeral Potatoes, which are awesome, btw) became so famous for a while, that my late husband had heard about them, when he moved to Dallas at age 12.

Why would they not feel bullied? 

I was also occasionally a little asshole in my youth, but I think it's better to own up to the fact that, yeah,  mercilessly mocking other kids is pretty much the definition of bullying them. 

Most of us were jerks at one time or another when we were kids, but let's regret it, not minimize it. 

[mango_fandango]

They’re back to school. Mary Grace is in high school and Charlotte is in kindergarten. Mary Grace certainly doesn’t dress like any other 14 year old. 

[FluffySnowball]

On 5/18/2022 at 5:09 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

You would think that by the age of 13. A kid would know to carry around an epi pen if he has a severe peanut allergy. And kids in bigger and poorer districts with allergies are doing the DC trip. Knowing what I know about my school district, I’m guessing the parents were being the biggest pains in the ass about food and stuff and it got to be too much. 

My cousin’s daughter has a severe peanut allergy yet doesn’t have an epi pen or anything along those lines. I asked her parents (my cousins) about it and they said you basically can’t get one in Germany unless you have a 100% disability card or so.

So now that she’ll travel to England with her class mates next month for a school trip (delayed cause of Corona, she was supposed to go last year), she doesn’t even bring meds. In case of an allergic reaction, she’d need to be rushed to the nearest hospital asap, that’s the only “emergency plan”. I don’t have allergies but I find the thought scary and would personally want to have an epi pen if I were in her shoes. But she doesn’t seem to mind. My point being that epi pens seem very uncommon in Germany from what I’ve heard. 

[postscript]

7 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

They’re back to school. Mary Grace is in high school and Charlotte is in kindergarten. Mary Grace certainly doesn’t dress like any other 14 year old. 

She really does carry a theme overboard, doesn’t she? The two older girls are carrying apple-shaped purses and the younger girls are wearing dresses with apple appliqués. Their purses are shaped like pencils. 

George, of course, is still wearing bonnets. She is fortunate he isn’t screaming and tearing those off. Or maybe those scenes aren’t part of her carefully curated Instagram image. I’m curious what her fashion plans are for the little prince as he outgrows the endless supply of blue and white rompers.

[mango_fandango]

I scrolled through her instagram and she apparently does the apple theme every year for the first day of school. 

[SolomonFundy]

3 hours ago, postscript said:

She really does carry a theme overboard, doesn’t she? The two older girls are carrying apple-shaped purses and the younger girls are wearing dresses with apple appliqués. Their purses are shaped like pencils. 

George, of course, is still wearing bonnets. She is fortunate he isn’t screaming and tearing those off. Or maybe those scenes aren’t part of her carefully curated Instagram image. I’m curious what her fashion plans are for the little prince as he outgrows the endless supply of blue and white rompers.

She (and other people who share her aesthetic and child-rearing tastes) train the children as infants to tolerate stuff on their heads. If you deep dive in her instagram, there's a series of pics of infant Charlotte undergoing "bow training". This entailed slicking part of her fine hair over, and attaching a huge bow clip to it. When she'd cry and try to pat at the clip, Chelsea would reprimand her and/or swat her hand away. 

These children have zero bodily autonomy.

That said, their ENTIRE social life is almost daily church services and private Pentecostal school. Every single person their age that they know dresses in a similar way. I doubt that they feel conspicuous in a bad way among their peers.

[Melissa1977]

20 hours ago, SolomonFundy said:

She (and other people who share her aesthetic and child-rearing tastes) train the children as infants to tolerate stuff on their heads. If you deep dive in her instagram, there's a series of pics of infant Charlotte undergoing "bow training". This entailed slicking part of her fine hair over, and attaching a huge bow clip to it. When she'd cry and try to pat at the clip, Chelsea would reprimand her and/or swat her hand away. 

These children have zero bodily autonomy.

That said, their ENTIRE social life is almost daily church services and private Pentecostal school. Every single person their age that they know dresses in a similar way. I doubt that they feel conspicuous in a bad way among their peers.

This! People shouldn't get fooled by beautiful pictures of fancy vacations. Chelsea proudly confessed she hits her kids and trains them to force unbeliavable levels of fake contentment. 

Yes they have many toys, but they can't choose to play with a Barbie or a Paw patrol car, just because mama wants to live in 1940. They go to nice coastal towns but, as far as we know, they cannot swim. The girls cannot dream of having a job, stay single or have no children. 

The fact that they wear coats in winter and go to restaurants, while other children are malnourished and barefoot, do not invalidate the beatings, trainings and the lack of opportunities and freedom for the girls.

[anachronistic]

Charlotte and Jane Claire are closer in age than I thought, just 2 years apart. 
Mary Grace honestly doesn’t dress that differently from her peers, if you look at photos of them with their school friends her stuff is maybe a little younger, a little fancier, but they are all dressed much differently than most 13/14 year olds.

George clearly didn’t cooperate at all with the ‘official’ 1st day of school outfits when the girls were in their apple dresses. He had an apple romper on and was off to one side, crying. Chelsea must’ve dressed him up and had him hold his flag (Georgie Porgy stays home with mommy) when they were all at school. And I guess they do 2 first days? Like an orientation day, where they were wearing the fancy apple outfits, and a real first day in their uniforms?

I wonder if the girl with a pink apple dress matching Jane Claire and Charlottes is one of their cousins. I soooo want to know what happened between Chelsea and her sister, Nicole.  Her sister has a big family of girls, too, but since - OMG!!! Nicole’s insta is public! I LOVE her daughters names - Olivia Kate, Caroline, Lucy Bea, Madeleine and Elizabeth. So many thoughts. Must dive deep. There goes my day.

[fundiewatch]

I mean, look at the teachers with their black dresses and dated hairdos. The Pomeroys live in a totally different world than we do.