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Plathville 2: The Whole Family Needs Therapy


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8 hours ago, fundiefan said:

Of course it's work and I said I was not putting down parenting. But it not a PhD in engineering or a Nursing. It is parenting. And by claiming you're some highly educated person in every field belittles not only the jobs you're claiming, but also parenting itself. 

Oh I agree. 

I think what's going on (maybe) is that as a culture we don't really value caregiving. For anyone who does it--whether paid or not. Think how badly daycare workers are paid.

But it doesn't make sense to fix the undervaluing of caregiving by overvaluing or misvaluing the skillset.

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There has been something of an uproar in Twitter-verse over man with 6 kids giving life advice on how he accomplishes so much professionally. See here

I think that's sort of what we are talking about???

His professional accomplishments are remarkable and should be lauded.

But it rankles because he mentions the 6 kids alongside his professional accomplishments when most of us suspect he is not really raising the kids.

It's kind of the inverse of a SAHM claiming high level faux academic credentials for parenting and homemaking.

Edited by noseybutt
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1 hour ago, noseybutt said:

Oh I agree. 

I think what's going on (maybe) is that as a culture we don't really value caregiving. For anyone who does it--whether paid or not. Think how badly daycare workers are paid.

But it doesn't make sense to fix the undervaluing of caregiving by overvaluing or misvaluing the skillset.

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There has been something of an uproar in Twitter-verse over man with 6 kids giving life advice on how he accomplishes so much professionally. See here

I think that's sort of what we are talking about???

His professional accomplishments are remarkable and should be lauded.

But it rankles because he mentions the 6 kids alongside his professional accomplishments when most of us suspect he is not really raising the kids.

It's kind of the inverse of a SAHM claiming high level faux academic credentials for parenting and homemaking.

Thanks for that link. What a lot of people don’t think about is how a man can do better in his career because he has a SAHwife/mom. If I wasn’t a SAHM, my husband would have to do so much more at home. He would have to take more time off work. He wouldn’t get to relax much outside of his workday. He would have to take kids to school, pick them up, watch them when they are home sick from school, take them to dentist/doctor appointments, do grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, yard work, laundry, taking the kids to activities, birthday parties, to the pool, and a million other things. He knows his life is easier because I stay at home so he has mostly just work to worry about. Then when he gets off work, he can just hang out with the boys. I know so many working women who divorced their husband because he did not pull his weight. They both worked similar hours but he still expected her to do most of the childcare and housework. So she would come home from a long day of work and that’s when she would have to cook, clean, do laundry, make sure kids did their homework and bedtime all while he just lazed around. Fuck that. My husband knows if I worked all day, we would be splitting housework/childcare as close to 50/50 as possible. 

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9 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Thanks for that link. What a lot of people don’t think about is how a man can do better in his career because he has a SAHwife/mom. If I wasn’t a SAHM, my husband would have to do so much more at home. He would have to take more time off work. He wouldn’t get to relax much outside of his workday. He would have to take kids to school, pick them up, watch them when they are home sick from school, take them to dentist/doctor appointments, do grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, yard work, laundry, taking the kids to activities, birthday parties, to the pool, and a million other things. 

Absolutely the case in our family.  Hubby and I met in grad school and thought we'd both have careers.... I wasn't someone who ever wanted to be a homemaker (I wanted kids but thought I'd always work at least part time).  But at some point we both realized that a) I liked staying home, b) part time work in my field paid less than daycare cost, and c) hubby was a lot more flexible with ability to travel for his job if I wasn't working.  Up until covid hit he was taking several 2 week international trips a year plus a couple of shorter domestic ones, so during those times I was totally on the hook if anyone had to stay home from school sick on top of all the other stuff I did regularly (all of the school pickups and drop-offs, all of the doctor/ dentist visits, all of the driving to piano lessons and swim team and voice lessons etc, all of the summer camp planning, etc)  I did consider working again once our youngest was in middle school but I didn't really want to go back to doing what I did before, couldn't decide on another field to go into, and we could afford having me still at home.  Now youngest is about to go to college and I pretty much consider myself semi-retired :-).  Or maybe I'm a consultant now ... have been helping 2 kids find apartments for the fall and getting the 3rd outfitted to move into a dorm for the first time.

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On 6/29/2022 at 7:55 AM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m a SAHM and my own mother just made a pretty big dig at me over it recently. And I was fuming. She’s a work work work mentality of a person. I’ve never given her shit over that fact. She loves to complain about how busy she is. Yet it’s always her choice. I prefer not to work work work and be constantly rushing to the next thing. I don’t overschedule my kids or myself. Yet she thinks that’s something to make digs at. Ugh. I’m still pissed obviously. 

Sorry your mom went after you for doing what’s right for you and your family. You have to do what works for you, not her. Our culture and society is really good at pushing and glamorizing busy-ness to an unhealthy degree. Years ago after living in constant burnout I changed how and when I relax. I do not have children or a significant other so I realize this is way easier for me to accomplish than others. I see over scheduled/overworked  people all the time. 

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1 minute ago, SunnySide said:

Sorry your mom went after you for doing what’s right for you and your family. You have to do what works for you, not her. Our culture and society is really good at pushing and glamorizing busy-ness to an unhealthy degree. Years ago after living in constant burnout I changed how and when I relax. I do not have children or a significant other so I realize this is way easier for me to accomplish than others. I see over scheduled/overworked  people all the time. 

It’s sort of my family culture unfortunately. My sister and mom are just alike in their ridiculous need for constant business. Luckily my husband isn’t a person who has to be constantly busy. So we do our own thing. 

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Isaac is out visiting Micah in LA. They are driving around in a rented Lamborghini, climbing rocks and making muscle poses at the beach.  This is all from Instagram. Isaac has hardly appeared on this season of Plathville.

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8 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Lydia Meggs is spilling the tea on her parents. Oh my. 

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Too bad. Does that mean that Olivia has siblings and siblings-in-law named Lydia and Micah? Imagine if they married each other!

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13 minutes ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Too bad. Does that mean that Olivia has siblings and siblings-in-law named Lydia and Micah? Imagine if they married each other!

Yes. Those are the youngest 3. The other 7 are grown. The Meggs and Plath family did have a lot in common. They each had 10 kids (remember Joshua died), they all were homeschool fundies, and they do have kid names in common since Bible names are the go to in fundieland. It’s almost like it’s a cult or something. 

Here is an old picture of their family. The 3 youngest are in the back. I think Kristen is the youngest and she’s 11 now. While the other two are teens now. So this pic is probably around 10 years old. 

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Olivia is #4 in the yellow and Lydia is #5 in the dark pink. Nathan is #7 and in the blue stripes. 

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This is Sophia. She’s next youngest under Lydia. She recently got married. Lydia also said she only keeps in contact with Nathan and Elise. Interesting she isn’t in contact with Olivia. But both Olivia and Lydia seem to have strong personalities so I guess it’s not that surprising. Elise is #3, married to a cop, and still kind of conservative Christian or maybe fundie lite. I’m not surprised she isn’t in contact with her oldest brothers. They are both still fundie I believe. And I could easily see them testifying for their parents and pretending like they are perfect parents.

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Isn’t it insane that the Plath family is the tamer family between the two? They didn’t have an open CPS neglect case. I mean, both sets of parents seem to really suck. But it’s still crazy to think the Plaths might be slightly preferable parents compared to the Meggs parents. 

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Especially this season! So much of it is just set up for the show. I would hate being on a reality tv show. Especially on TLC. 

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I would say the two oldest brothers, Elise, and Sophia are still in the cult. Although Elise and Sophia are probably breaking a few fundie rules from what I’ve seen. Therefore I would say Olivia, Nathan and Lydia are the ones she’s saying are “out.” And then the 3 youngest are still at home so they are definitely still in. I hope Micah and Charis follow Nathan’s example. They are teens and possibly only a few years away from 18. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last night on Plathville, Kim shared with Micah that she had been sexually abused as a child which influenced her parenting style of being extremely overprotective. I thought that I already knew that Kim had been sexually abused as a child, but somehow her kids had never been told? And I’m really hoping that Kim had this same conversation with all of her kids, but we only saw the conversation with Micah for the show.

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On 7/13/2022 at 10:26 AM, JDuggs said:

Last night on Plathville, Kim shared with Micah that she had been sexually abused as a child which influenced her parenting style of being extremely overprotective. I thought that I already knew that Kim had been sexually abused as a child, but somehow her kids had never been told? And I’m really hoping that Kim had this same conversation with all of her kids, but we only saw the conversation with Micah for the show.

I watched the first episode and it's implied that she was molested as a child. IIRC, she talks about wanting to protect her children from what happened to her when she was a child and it's said in a vague sort of way that I think most people would assume some sort of sexual abuse. 

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I’m back! I’m using my mom’s On Demand to get caught up on the Season 4 recaps. A quick reminder of who the Plaths are:

- Kim and Barry, controlling fundie parents, starting to relax in middle age

- Hosannah, eldest daughter, Nurie’s friend, married and not on the show

-Ethan, oldest son, recently reconciled with wife Olivia, estranged from Kim and Barry

- Moriah, wild child, previously living with brother Micah and dating boyfriend Max. Newly reconciled with parents.

- Micah, so hot that he’s literally an underwear model. Newly reconciled with parents.

- Lydia, beautiful, obedient, devout. Just graduated from homeschool and living at home.

Issac - teen boy, still at home, likes computers

Three little girls - I might learn their names this season.

Episode 1 - “The Universe Had Different Plans.”

TLC starts with a 42-second recap that pretty much covers last season. Ethan and Olivia separate and reconcile. Moriah and Olivia’s band has their first gig, which Kim attends against Olivia’s wishes. Barry disagrees with Kim’s decision. Ethan, Olivia, and Moriah move to Tampa without Micah.

Opening scene: Plath home in Cairo. Lydia sings a Christian song in her bedroom, and goes downstairs to find Kim leading the little girls in a hip-hop dance! Lydia joins in. Kim’s voiceover says that she’s out of the fog of motherhood, going to the gym every day, and opening a dance studio. Kim liked rap music in her youth and she’s enjoying finding new music. Barry’s happy for her, but thinks that she might be having a midlife crisis.

Flashback to the move to Tampa two months previously. Their rental is a standard Tampa one-story tract house (it’s yellow). Olivia complains that Ethan used her nice towels as grease rags while she was gone. Olivia’s brother Nathan lives with them. He’s quiet and clean. Moriah isn’t cleaning up after herself. Max was going to move in, but he put it off and then changed his mind. Moriah’s depressed and locked in her room. Ethan disables her car, so that she can’t go anywhere until she does dishes.

Micah is in LA! It’s big. He was super sheltered, so he’s trying to have new experiences. He’s been smoking weed. Kim doesn’t care, and told him that her mom grew it. He’s still modeling. His dating app went from 200 to 1200 matches. He’s house sitting with his friend Hayden. There are other guys hanging out at the house, including a black guy “from the hood.” They tell him about SNL. He hasn’t seen the Harry Potter movies.

Back to Tampa, where it appears to be fall. Moriah did not do the dishes. She does a TH to explain what happened with Max. He called her and said “he made a mistake.” She’s not going to share details. She sits by Tampa Bay at sunset, playing the guitar and singing a song she wrote. She’s hurting and doesn’t want to tell anyone. 

Ethan and Olivia go roller blading. They are happier and kind of boring. Now it’s Thanksgiving and they’re thankful. Moriah finally left her room, but she’s still not being helpful. Nathan finds it funny and Olivia finds it annoying that Ethan and Moriah aren’t helping. More Plath weirdness: they did not celebrate Thanksgiving. Micah arrives as a surprise. Moriah is very happy. Unlike in Cairo, she’s clean and organized. Olivia is happy that she’s opening up more. Micah asks about Max. Moriah admits that they broke up. She starts sobbing, in close-up with really terrible makeup. Her brothers put their arms around her.

Back in Cairo, Kim is excited about her dance studio and having adult ballet classes, belly dancing, etc. Barry and Issac are helping her set it up. Kim needs something for herself now after years of pregnancy, nursing, and parenting. She’s realizing that she’s not going to have children at home forever. Barry doesn’t quite understand. He’s really condescending about how he was able to put up Kim’s barre after she couldn’t. Kim reads from her journal. She’s lonely and miserable. She needs to make changes.

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For some reason, Kim Plath reminds me of Beall Phillips.

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Episode 2 - “I took things a little too far.”

Short opening scene of Ethan and Nathan riding scooters downtown at night.

Micah and Moriah are talking by the water on a cool fall morning. She says she can’t love anyone else after Max. Micah assumes Max cheated. Moriah still doesn’t want to talk about it. 

Kim’s unhappy with her marriage. Barry and the kids had gone somewhere for a few days, and she actually had time alone to think. She told Barry that he had to step up. He calls her to ask about dinner. She won’t be home, and he complains about too much spaghetti, which she says isn’t true. It’s tense. There are references to a woman named Amber, who appears to work for them. In voiceovers, both Kim and Barry say that he finally gets it that she wants to change, and so he needs to change too.

Back in Tampa, Olivia tells us that Ethan is unemployed and bored. He interrupts her while she’s editing wedding photos. They’re spending a lot of time together. He’s taking a break from working. He misses Cairo and working on his cars. They’re sharing a car now. They’re wearing the same outfits as in last episode’s THs. 

Kim’s spending a lot of time away from home. She goes kayaking alone. She’s fine with the husband being the head of the house. Barry’s not caring for her, but he is supporting her need for change.

Micah is in Georgia. He meets up with Max, who immediately bursts into tears in his TH. Max explains that he went a party and was being a friend’s wingman, and the woman kissed him. He told Moriah and stupidly said that he was proud of himself for not going further. Micah tells him he’s bleeping disappointed in him. Max says that his conversation with Moriah became an argument, and he criticized her clothes again, and she broke up with him. Micah appreciates Max talking to him.

Micah FaceTimes Moriah, who calls it “cheating” and says she would rather be single for the rest of her life. Also, there’s still the clothing thing. Micah wants to be there for his sisters.

Micah and Moriah are going to visit their family together. (She was presumably already in Georgia at the time of the previous scene, but they don’t say so.) Everyone is happy to see each other. Micah signed with Wilhelmina Models and is taking acting lessons. Moriah has to admit that she and Max broke up (“not together right now”). No one in the family has ever had a serious relationship end. Kim tells Moriah how beautiful and talented she is. Kim and Barry talk privately about how sad it is, with an undertone of how sad it is that they’re falling apart.

There’s a closeup of “My Utmost for His Highest” every time we’re in Lydia’s room. She cries with Moriah. Lydia asks who ended the relationship. Moriah said that she did, because she didn’t want to be someone she’s not. It turns out that Lydia was still texting Max, and her reaction is to ask Moriah if she can still hang out with him! Moriah says sure, but she understandably feels surprised and unsupported. Lydia tells Moriah that she got over the guy she liked last year by giving it to God. Moriah says that she doesn’t handle things that way. In her TH, Moriah is a little unhappy with Lydia. 

Previews: Micah and Moriah go skiing. Ethan wants his cars back. Barry’s worried about his marriage.

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Episode 3, “Missed Myself”

Olivia helps Moriah record vocals for her first single.

Micah explains that he and Moriah saw each other while visiting family in Minnesota during the holidays, and then they spontaneously decided that she should ride back to LA with him. (I thought they would go skiing from the preview, but that was probably the Minnesota footage.) Moriah is glad of a change of scene. Micah is basically homeless. He calls Hayden, who says they can crash at his auntie’s place [with the camera crew, I guess]. 

Ethan really really misses his cars, and he bought one Olivia doesn’t know about while they were separated. Olivia brainstorms about it, but Ethan would rather just go back to Cairo, finish fixing up his current group of cars, and sell them. Olivia worries that he will decide to move home. She thinks he’s “not honest about what happens up there” and she’s really suspicious of Kim.

Back to LA. Moriah knows Hayden from when they met him in Georgia. The house has a workout room with a vibrating thing to stand on. Cue vibrator jokes. Other guys come over, including Kapeesh, who grew up sheltered in India. Moriah tells them about her music. The song is “Missed Myself,” and it was originally about her family and now is also about Max. Her lease is up in September, and then she wants to explore other places. Micah is glad about how he grew up. Kapeesh didn’t know what Netflix and chill meant. He says in a TH that Micah probably has the most “Netflix and chill” experience. Micah says in a quick TH that he actually has none - have we confirmed that he’s not a virgin?

Kim invites her Jamaican friend Nigel from the gym over for dinner. Welcome to the marital tension, Nigel! Oh, wait - Amber is the oldest of the three little girls, not an employee. The other two are Cassia and Mercy. Barry thinks Kim is trying to make him jealous. Nigel is making them Jamaican food. He says Cairo is much slower than Jamaica; people don’t go out. Barry says he’s started going to the gym, in the evening, aiming for 30 min/3x per week. In a quick TH, Kim says he stays for about five minutes. In the kitchen, Issac jokes that he only uses the vibrating machine. Did the producers plant these vibrator jokes in the same episode? Kim wants Barry to be a little jealous. Lydia feels like Kim doesn’t talk to her much anymore.

Micah and Moriah go to a scenic overlook in LA. She’s okay until people ask about it. She says that Max called back and admitted that it wasn’t just a kiss. Micah suspected that. She’s very hurt. Clip of Max saying “Does your confidence rely on showing your ass?” He hasn’t gotten past that. Micah’s been helpful.

Olivia is photographing a lesbian wedding. Moriah often helps her, but Olivia’s glad she’s taking some time off. Olivia finds work relives her stress. She gives a pro-gay marriage TH. Now she’s off to LA to help Moriah promote her single. Moriah and Micah go to the beach with his friends to set up for the single release. She’s wearing a little black dress and hose. Olivia arrives. She’s glad that Moriah looks happy. It’s not clear what Olivia does to help, but they don’t show much of Moriah’s social media promotion.

Back to Cairo. Barry’s bitching about having to cook because Kim’s not home. He asks the girls if he’s been trying, and they say yes. He admits that he didn’t prioritize date night. He says that he gave her the dance studio, but instead of her appreciating the gift, she’s using it to escape. Kim’s been sleeping on the couch. He feels left behind. It looks like the marriage could end soon.

Previews: Moriah has a more normal hair color. Kim and Barry separate. Ethan tells Olivia about the car.

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On 7/23/2022 at 10:46 AM, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Micah explains that he and Moriah saw each other while visiting family in Minnesota during the holidays, and then they spontaneously decided that she should ride back to LA with him. (I thought they would go skiing from the preview, but that was probably the Minnesota footage.) Moriah is glad of a change of scene. Micah is basically homeless. He calls Hayden, who says they can crash at his auntie’s place [with the camera crew, I guess]. 

What family lives in Minnesota? Do we know?

Thank you so much for your recaps. I've missed them. Also, thank you for advertising that fact on the Rod thread. It's how I knew to come trailing back here.

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41 minutes ago, waltraute said:

What family lives in Minnesota? Do we know?

Thank you so much for your recaps. I've missed them. Also, thank you for advertising that fact on the Rod thread. It's how I knew to come trailing back here.

Thanks! They said they saw their grandparents, but I didn’t quite catch if they were staying with them, so I just said “family.” Kim’s parents are not together (and her mom seems to be estranged or dead), so I think it was Barry’s parents. Others may know more about it.

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Spoiler
Spoiler

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It is Barry’s parents in Minnesota. They have aunts, uncles and cousins there too.

Edited by JDuggs
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1 hour ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

Was Barry raised quiverful fundie?

I don’t think so. 

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