Webster4Eva 10: If Alyssa Doesn't Record It, Then Does It Really Exist?

[Tatar-tot]

We just left Florida.  The only place people are wearing masks are indoors/on rides at Disney.  Otherwise masks are few and far between.

[lizzybee]

Coming here from Alyssa's stories because she's recommending presets from a photographer that are pretty expensive. I just wanted to say that you can buy presets for Lightroom on Etsy for so much cheaper that will achieve whatever effect you're looking for. Don't spent $30-150 on that stuff. I *try* to do professional-looking pictures for my own children with my iphone and LR presets off Etsy to save money, and they're like $1-5 for preset packs. Also LR has a preset app with some free presets and I think if you want the whole app it's $16. 

ETA: I'm no professional photographer, but my friend is, and she's the one who pointed me to LR and etsy for presets. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by lizzybee

[indianabones]

On 1/15/2022 at 12:42 PM, Tatar-tot said:

We just left Florida.  The only place people are wearing masks are indoors/on rides at Disney.  Otherwise masks are few and far between.

I live in one of the more liberal parts of Montana and barely anyone seems to be wearing masks anymore here. There were even airline employees at our airport who were unmasked when I was there a few days ago!

[SassyPants]

Warning BEC ahead…This morning’s IG of Lexi reading to Alyssa, labeled “one of my favorite things,” First of all, when have we ever seen Alyssa reading a book besides the Bible? Have we ever seen or heard her reading aloud to her girls? (NO). And, IMO, very few people enjoy teaching their children to read. This skill is right up there with potty training and shoe tying for many, a difficult process that must, eventually be mastered. As a side note, I noticed in a recent photo that all the girls had Van tennis shoes, and L and Z had there’s tied, but Allie had those special laces with the knots, so they don’t require tying. SO…I’m a big believer that preschool children (L is soon to be 5, so not eligible for Kinder) should be playing and moving and being read to, with questions asked after the story to see what they are retaining and if they can make inferences. Mechanical reading shows nothing about intellect, much like cursive writing shows little about language arts skills. Ugg, why do they want to rush these kids’ education? Why do they post educational stuff on their SM when none of them value education or intellectual curiosity? Oh, and teach Allie to tie her shoes if she doesn’t know how. She’ll use that skill  far more often than cursive handwriting. OK, off my beeotchy  soapbox.

[Melissa1977]

2 hours ago, SassyPants said:

Warning BEC ahead…This morning’s IG of Lexi reading to Alyssa, labeled “one of my favorite things,” First of all, when have we ever seen Alyssa reading a book besides the Bible? Have we ever seen or heard her reading aloud to her girls? (NO). And, IMO, very few people enjoy teaching their children to read. This skill is right up there with potty training and shoe tying for many, a difficult process that must, eventually be mastered. As a side note, I noticed in a recent photo that all the girls had Van tennis shoes, and L and Z had there’s tied, but Allie had those special laces with the knots, so they don’t require tying. SO…I’m a big believer that preschool children (L is soon to be 5, so not eligible for Kinder) should be playing and moving and being read to, with questions asked after the story to see what they are retaining and if they can make inferences. Mechanical reading shows nothing about intellect, much like cursive writing shows little about language arts skills. Ugg, why do they want to rush these kids’ education? Why do they post educational stuff on their SM when none of them value education or intellectual curiosity? Oh, and teach Allie to tie her shoes if she doesn’t know how. She’ll use that skill  far more often than cursive handwriting. OK, off my beeotchy  soapbox.

Probably lazy parenting, but I have a kid one year older than Allie and 95% shoes in stores for that ages have velcro ties. I remember being teached to tie shoes at 4-5 year old at school and at home, but I guess velcro shoes are so popular for a reason. 

[neuroticcat]

I think the shoe tying thing is likely a result of having so many little kids. We did crocs for all for a season. It’s hard enough to get out the door!

I do wish one of the influencer Bates would decide to explore all the home education influencers and learn from them. I think Alyssa’s kids will get a pretty standard check the box education for elementary, because at least she’s following a boxed curriculum (I know, Abeka’s not outstanding or anything but at least it has a scope and sequence) instead of wisdom booklets plus the Bible. But as the kids grow what the parents decide for upper levels will reveal more of whether they really value education. Many of the second gen have gone for trades or home businesses, so perhaps they will focus on that in upper grades. 

[Audrey2]

But to me the fundies that we talk about are very much like the conservative thoughts that schools are about reading writing and arithmetic people. We don't want to teach them to think because then they might start thinking for themselves. But if they can decode words on a page or write in cursive then to our target audience we've done our jobs. 

[FiveAcres]

13 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

But to me the fundies that we talk about are very much like the conservative thoughts that schools are about reading writing and arithmetic people. We don't want to teach them to think because then they might start thinking for themselves. But if they can decode words on a page or write in cursive then to our target audience we've done our jobs. 

To someone who spent a lot of hours learning cursive writing in elementary school, the cursive fetish seems so weird. Of the adults around my age (60+), I know of one who still has "pretty" handwriting, and I occasionally struggle to read hers. With everyone else I know, we struggle to read our own cursive writing, let alone the writing of anyone else. There seem to be so many more useful things to teach children. (Despite the advice given to "intelligent" young women when I was in high school, I found that touch typing was one of the most useful things I ever learned. And yes, there were a few times that being a proficient touch typist got me a job that would pay for rent and groceries. It also was very useful when I went on to become a computer programmer.) 

[Keys]

Re: them eating a lot of fast food… I’m always a bit surprised to see that’s the case with the rest of the family too (it seems like many of them are constantly eating out - burgers, fries, pasta, etc, and getting pizza/fast food takeout). This is heavy speculative pondering, but it has made me wonder and hope that they don’t do anything to “diet quickly/lose calories” in unhealthy ways (i.e. JRod with her special drinks)… especially the girls who seem to be quite preoccupied with their appearances and are all very slim despite eating so much of that not-so-healthy food. 
 

*Also adding a disclaimer here that I know weight is only one part of overall physical health, and often may not be reflective of a person’s true health status and their lifestyles.*

[clueliss]

Well this week’s Webster video involve taking Zoey to the emergency room because she fell out of a child’s chair and hurt her shoulder. Turns out she actually had a fracture so it was wise to take her to the ER. They didn’t fast forward a few days and she is fine now.Well this week’s Webster video involve taking Zoe to the emergency room because she fell out of a child’s chair and hurt her shoulder. Turns out she actually had a fracture so it was wise to take her to the ER. They didn’t fast forward a few days and she is fine now.

[JermajestyDuggar]

56 minutes ago, FiveAcres said:

To someone who spent a lot of hours learning cursive writing in elementary school, the cursive fetish seems so weird. Of the adults around my age (60+), I know of one who still has "pretty" handwriting, and I occasionally struggle to read hers. With everyone else I know, we struggle to read our own cursive writing, let alone the writing of anyone else. There seem to be so many more useful things to teach children. (Despite the advice given to "intelligent" young women when I was in high school, I found that touch typing was one of the most useful things I ever learned. And yes, there were a few times that being a proficient touch typist got me a job that would pay for rent and groceries. It also was very useful when I went on to become a computer programmer.) 

I totally agree. I don’t give a single fuck if my kids learn it in school. If there’s time in the schedule? Fine. But there are other things I would rather they learn. I was slightly disappointed when Spanish was taken out of the curriculum during the worst of the pandemic. But I understood. But if I had a choice of them learning Spanish or cursive, I would pick Spanish all day long. Thankfully my 9 year old is pretty decent at typing. His hand writing isn’t great. I do want him to work on it. But I have a feeling that when he’s an adult, his typing will be used much more than writing by hand. 

[Jackie3]

4 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I totally agree. I don’t give a single fuck if my kids learn it in school. If there’s time in the schedule? Fine. But there are other things I would rather they learn. I was slightly disappointed when Spanish was taken out of the curriculum during the worst of the pandemic. But I understood. But if I had a choice of them learning Spanish or cursive, I would pick Spanish all day long. Thankfully my 9 year old is pretty decent at typing. His hand writing isn’t great. I do want him to work on it. But I have a feeling that when he’s an adult, his typing will be used much more than writing by hand. 

I think this is an example of fundies being stupid. Maybe in 1960 it was important to have good handwriting. Even when I was young, people wrote a lot, and good handwriting came in handy.

But now? It's rare that I write anything. I type.

It's also an example of fundies being narcissitic. Why do they want their kids to write good cursive? So their aunts, grandmas and friends will all admire the kid's handwriting and think the mom is doing a good job.

Small kids have limited attention span. When my kids were in primary school, the teachers did all the hard stuff in the morning (math, phonics, etc). That was when the kids were fresh and better able to pay attention. You dont' get a lot of hours of focus from most six-year olds. They dont' want to sit for very long, either. Use that time wisely to teach them something important.

4 hours ago, clueliss said:

Well this week’s Webster video involve taking Zoey to the emergency room because she fell out of a child’s chair and hurt her shoulder. Turns out she actually had a fracture so it was wise to take her to the ER. 

Wow, Zoey! Thanks for the content. Maybe we'll make $400 this week from our YouTube video instead of the usual $300. Nothing like monetizing your child's pain and fear.

On 1/21/2022 at 10:56 AM, Melissa1977 said:

Probably lazy parenting, but I have a kid one year older than Allie and 95% shoes in stores for that ages have velcro ties. I remember being teached to tie shoes at 4-5 year old at school and at home, but I guess velcro shoes are so popular for a reason. 

They allow kids to be independent. Most 3-year olds can put on their own shoes if they have velcro ties. Less work for the parents, too. Doesn't mean they won't learn to tie shoes eventually, it just means they can put on their shoes and run out into the backyard without needing help.

[just_ordinary]

Cursive is not just that so you write pretty. Even though I must admit that I am very envious of my parents generation. All of them write so neat if they want. Much better than most in mine, even if we try. Funny enough- there seem to be differences between countries. My British in laws all have a similar way and it looks different than the German ones.

Handwriting, painting, playing with play doh, tying shoe laces, or other finger oriented exercises are not useless vanity projects. They do help to develop certain pathways in the brain. I mean, we could all wear Velcro shoes. Why even have shoe laces anymore? People underestimate how much handwriting is still done. And it seems we are actually experiencing a swing back, where the ability for neat handwriting sets you apart and is a sign of “good education (and breeding)”. Which is not great. But so is the idea that you have to have the whitest and straightest teeth. We learn lots of things that might not be useful in our future. But that’s very individual and it’s not the school jobs to prepare everyone for their individual future but to give the abilities and tools to find your way and learn whatever else you need to reach those goals. Learning how to learn, having a fundamental common knowledge so everyone can branch out into their own interests from there, being able to work in a group and alone….. the factual stuff on the curriculum is just 50% of what school actually teaches you. And it’s not a substitute for parenting and learning how to do more practical things (taxes….). If we expect that we need to put children in 24/7 boarding schools.
I do think though, Fundies don’t care about all  this one bit. And I agree they push stuff way to early on their children, while also neglect to provide them with other stimulating/educational more age appropriate experiences/tasks/games. But they also don’t value education as we do. 

[SassyPants]

14 minutes ago, just_ordinary said:

Cursive is not just that so you write pretty. Even though I must admit that I am very envious of my parents generation. All of them write so neat if they want. Much better than most in mine, even if we try. Funny enough- there seem to be differences between countries. My British in laws all have a similar way and it looks different than the German ones.

Handwriting, painting, playing with play doh, tying shoe laces, or other finger oriented exercises are not useless vanity projects. They do help to develop certain pathways in the brain. I mean, we could all wear Velcro shoes. Why even have shoe laces anymore? People underestimate how much handwriting is still done. And it seems we are actually experiencing a swing back, where the ability for neat handwriting sets you apart and is a sign of “good education (and breeding)”. Which is not great. But so is the idea that you have to have the whitest and straightest teeth. We learn lots of things that might not be useful in our future. But that’s very individual and it’s not the school jobs to prepare everyone for their individual future but to give the abilities and tools to find your way and learn whatever else you need to reach those goals. Learning how to learn, having a fundamental common knowledge so everyone can branch out into their own interests from there, being able to work in a group and alone….. the factual stuff on the curriculum is just 50% of what school actually teaches you. And it’s not a substitute for parenting and learning how to do more practical things (taxes….). If we expect that we need to put children in 24/7 boarding schools.
I do think though, Fundies don’t care about all  this one bit. And I agree they push stuff way to early on their children, while also neglect to provide them with other stimulating/educational more age appropriate experiences/tasks/games. But they also don’t value education as we do. 

And that this my biggest beef. Alyssa acts(posts) as if education is forefront in her home. She isn’t educated, and I think she uses schooling as a way to keep the girls busy and for SM content, (cha-Ching). She does not value education at all and her educational priorities miss the mark.

[HeartsAFundie]

On 1/22/2022 at 10:27 AM, FiveAcres said:

(Despite the advice given to "intelligent" young women when I was in high school, I found that touch typing was one of the most useful things I ever learned. And yes, there were a few times that being a proficient touch typist got me a job that would pay for rent and groceries. It also was very useful when I went on to become a computer programmer.) 

I am in my mid 50s and when I was signing up for college prep high school classes in 1978 as an incoming freshman, my mother, who went the business route in high school, said to me:  "I know you are taking college prep classes but all I ask is you find some way to take typing in high school.  It is a skill that you can't go wrong having".  

Fortunately for me, the college prep freshman kids had Introduction To Typing 2 days a week for a full year so it was built into the schedule.  As a senior, I took College Typing for a half-year, 5 days a week as an elective.   

Out of all the classes I took in high school, typing is the one that has had the most relevancy throughout my life, from college to career.  My mother was 100% right about its usefulness. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I look at cursive as an “elective.” If a kid enjoys it and wants to become better at it, then I say go for it. Just like I would say photography is an elective in school. It shouldn’t be necessary for graduation, but something you can learn at school if you’re interested. Art was always very important to me personally. It helped so much with my hand/finger dexterity and expressing myself creatively. But I don’t think all kids need to master drawing and painting in order to pass on to the next grade or graduate. I think kids can find other ways to learn hand eye coordination and dexterity. My kids are in Lego club at school. My son expresses himself creatively through acting. They are not big on drawing and painting like I was. Some kids are in band. Some aren’t. And that’s ok. That’s how I see cursive. 

[SorenaJ]

Learning to read cursive is useful if you are into family history and genealogy, as the old records would be written in cursive, and can be challenging to read. That's about as far as its usefulness goes, imo. 

[Paperplate]

Im my country most kids still learn to write with just cursive (slightly simplified). It’s just the way it’s done and supposedly it has benefits for learning as well, although I don’t think there are any large conclusive studies.
After elementary school you’re mostly allowed to write however you please as long as it’s reasonably neat and legible, so everyone develops their own handwriting. Some people print in middle school because it’s “cooler” but most go back to cursive eventually because joined up letters are much faster to write. (Although I have seen Japanese people write Latin letters in print very quickly and very neatly!)

Personally I think it’s easier to write cursive when you’re still developing you motor skills. And in my own experience it has been beneficial for understanding and retaining information.
I’m glad I learned it as it made me a fast writer which does come in handy even in today’s digital society. Typing on the other unfortunately wasn’t on the curriculum and as a result I never learned to touch type properly!

If you ask me both should be a priority in school. 

[FiveAcres]

5 hours ago, SorenaJ said:

Learning to read cursive is useful if you are into family history and genealogy, as the old records would be written in cursive, and can be challenging to read. That's about as far as its usefulness goes, imo. 

I was listening to a podcast, and learned that evidently Christopher Tolkien was the world expert in reading his father JRR Tolkien's handwriting, and even Christopher struggled with some of it. (JRR Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.) JRR was a calligrapher, but when he was scribbling notes about his invented world for his own use, he didn't worry about writing clearly. 

[Jackie3]

On 1/23/2022 at 7:50 AM, just_ordinary said:

Handwriting, painting, playing with play doh, tying shoe laces, or other finger oriented exercises are not useless vanity projects. They do help to develop certain pathways in the brain. I mean, we could all wear Velcro shoes. Why even have shoe laces anymore?

So should adults write cursive to develop our brains? Or do should you learn it at 8, get your brain all "developed", and then feel free to type for the rest of your life?

The truth is, there are many ways to gain those fine motor skills (and "brain pathways") besides cursive. It's not like cursive provides some special skill that you can't get any other way. Instead of wasting an hour or precious instruction on this each week, kids can get the same skills from many, many other activities.

For example, you'd gain fantastic fine motor skills by learning limning (miniature painting), but they don't teach this in school. There's a reason. You don't need this skill to be a functioning adult in society.

[mango_fandango]

I’ve learnt touch-typing in the past but I never use it, I still just do “hunt-and-peck”. I just can’t do touch-typing very fast. I read somewhere that a lot of people end up using a sort of hybrid of touch-typing and hunt-and-peck, in that they still type with just a couple of fingers but are able to memorise where the keys are. That’s pretty much me. 

[zee_four]

 On the mask front, in Hawai'i they're still required inside everywhere. I live on the lower socio economic, higher concentration of Native/Filipine and other Pacific Islander, part of the island so I haven't seen anyone pitching fits and not wearing them in stores for quite sometime;. Every time I had before, the offender was always a Baby Boom generation haole. Earlier every time the news had a story about someone making a scene at a store it was a haole on the more well off windward side of the island. We do have a lot of tourists in our area ever since the Disney hotel Aulani was built and a couple other hotels on some open land on the ocean. A lot of people who were residents got pushed out of my dad's building when some sleazy mainland owners bought places only for renting and violated all the rules about no short term rentals and things like that. We had a lot of problems throughout the quarantine with tourists being jerks and refusing to wear masks and worse tearing down the signs that say that it's a state law to wear them inside and whenever you'd explain that many of us who live and work here live with extended families including kupuna (elderly) and many are sick in various ways, they'd laugh. Last Spring Break was awful because it's suddenly so cheap to fly here and because international travel was limited, it was like Palm Beach with all the rich college kids partying with no respect to other people. We're not a hotel we're a residential building yet some people have no respect, leaving trash in the hallways, partying on the lanais super loud at midnight. Beh.

Luckily the Christmas/New Years rush has petered out a bit. I still make a big deal about not letting anyone maskless into the elevator with me. I take care of my 75 year old father who was diagnosed with cancer last year. He was cleared on the cancer front this fall after months of radiation but is still weak and I won't risk it. 

However on base like the Commissary and NX/BX you now don't have to wear masks. I used to shop there a lot at Pearl Harbor with my dad  but haven't for at least the last 6 months or more. It's mostly because I've gotten so much busier with FT school and two jobs. We usually shop at Costco and then Wal-Mart or sometimes Foodland since we have SNAP and that helps a lot. At the regular grocery stores here a gallon of milk can be like $8-9 so going to the base would mean a huge difference in price. SNAP in Hawai'i is tax free so that helps extend our food dollars. But yeah it is frustrating that on base they don't require masks but the state of Hawai'i does. To me it's disrespectful to locals to not follow our laws. People don't solely stay on base, most live in regular civilian communities, go to regular public schools and are mostly interacting with locals off base. But I guess the Navy getting really close to poisoning the only available watersource for most of O'ahu because they refuse to move their jet fuel tanks which have gotten into the water supply more than once, and the most recent is right now, there's a lot more coverage because it's mostly effecting base housing instead of local Hawaiians. So we should probably fight that issue first.

I can't tell you how many tourists get shitty about having to follow our mask laws. I have no problems with calling them out. They always pull "Well in ___ Arkansas/Georgia/Indiana/wherever they're from" we don't have to wear them so why should we have to here? I say well if I decided to go visit Texas and walked down the main street in town smoking a massive joint, I doubt the cops would let me go on my way because I whined about  how weed is legal in Colorado, so why should we give them special privileges. Argh. There's a colonialist mentality too which is what makes me extra frustrated, like these tourists think they "own" Hawai'i somehow, that it's their right to come here and do what they want and they don't have to follow our laws because they're above them or they don't apply. Add in a healthy dose of whenever locals complain we get told that the only reason we have jobs and houses and food is because of tourists so we should thank them. It's not as commonly said explicitly these days, but there still is a racial undertone to the whole thing. I guess we're one of the few places in the US that requires them everywhere indoors and technically outdoors in really crowded places but that's usually disregarded because most big crowds are in Waikiki and other touristy areas.

I heard Colorado was going back and forth on the issue and I know where I grew up when I was on the mainland with my mom, in a ski area west of Vail but in the same county, that masks are required indoors now there, so mostly restaurants and the indoor parts of the ski mountains, as well as stores in town because of the skyrocketing rate after the biggest tourist time of the year. 

[HereticHick]

I believe its been almost 2 months since Alyssa stopped posting her girls in matching outfits Sunday photos. Did strange stalker friend Tiki stop mailing her outfits?

[HoneyBunny]

On 1/22/2022 at 8:27 AM, FiveAcres said:

To someone who spent a lot of hours learning cursive writing in elementary school, the cursive fetish seems so weird. Of the adults around my age (60+), I know of one who still has "pretty" handwriting, and I occasionally struggle to read hers. With everyone else I know, we struggle to read our own cursive writing, let alone the writing of anyone else. There seem to be so many more useful things to teach children. (Despite the advice given to "intelligent" young women when I was in high school, I found that touch typing was one of the most useful things I ever learned. And yes, there were a few times that being a proficient touch typist got me a job that would pay for rent and groceries. It also was very useful when I went on to become a computer programmer.) 

Agreed! I’m 62, and took “touch typing” the summer before my freshman year in high school. It’s probably one of my most often used skills. Typing papers in school, obviously, but then with the advent of the PC about the time I graduated university, keyboarding was one thing that just came naturally. Even in my corporate career, when I eventually got a secretary at about age 32, it was just natural and so much easier to compose and type my own letters (yes, we still had them then) and, later, emails. Meanwhile my male counterparts, even those of about my same age, had never mastered speed typing and were either dependent on their secretaries or were bogged down hunting and pecking. 

@zee_four said However on base like the Commissary and NX/BX you now don't have to wear masks.

I am shocked by this. We are still required to wear masks on Buckley AFB and I know it’s the same at USAFA. 

[Expectopatronus]

On 1/23/2022 at 10:07 AM, SassyPants said:

And that this my biggest beef. Alyssa acts(posts) as if education is forefront in her home. She isn’t educated, and I think she uses schooling as a way to keep the girls busy and for SM content, (cha-Ching). She does not value education at all and her educational priorities miss the mark.

I’m not sure that Alyssa knows how to make education a top priority. I give her credit for at least using a boxed curriculum and videos (better than say, J Rod) but it’s gotta be had with four little girls. My daughter’s daycare is shut down for the next 10 days (Covid exposure), and I’m guessing at toddler appropriate curriculum: we sing the colours while pointing to Duplo blocks in English and French, use formula cans as drums to count, today we finger painted and we read books etc. Experienced moms, is that okay for 25 months or should I be doing more?