De la Motte family?

[displayname]

I came across this family over stitches on TikTok, they are getting their asses handed to them over there. The fact that parents are sleeping in a king sized bed while two of the kids sleep on the floor without any cushioning whatsoever AND one the chores for the kids is to make said king sized bed. I love it when fundies try to come onto social media and are so confused that a lot of people think they're  child abusers.

[anachronistic]

They try to imply it’s one of the kids choice to sleep on the floor. I know that kids can and do sleep anywhere….one of my siblings sent me an adorable picture a few weeks ago of my nibling who chose to take their nap on the bathroom floor in their sleeping bag that day….but for regular beds most kids are people and people prefer a softer surface than the *floor* squished in like a sardine. 
 

Also I’ll buy one or two kids being genuinely that into music and naturally talented but no way it’s all 12 of them. And if your life is all music, all the time, how the heck does a kid discover that they’re a really good writer, or love anime, or are a great athlete, or love classic cars? One of the best things about school is that it exposes kids to a wide variety of subjects so they can pick and choose what they like and want to spend their time doing. I’m all for reasonable chores but your average school age kid also has passions they want to spend hours on, whether it’s building with legos or drawing or mastering the monkey bars. (Isn’t it amazing how they decide to learn to do something and devote themselves to it and a few months later, wow! They can do it!) And not every kids passion will be music. It’s statistically impossible. The only reason their older kid who got rejected from Juilliard is practicing 4 hours a day is because of parental pressure, most certainly not his own drive.

[FiveAcres]

2 hours ago, anachronistic said:

They try to imply it’s one of the kids choice to sleep on the floor. I know that kids can and do sleep anywhere….one of my siblings sent me an adorable picture a few weeks ago of my nibling who chose to take their nap on the bathroom floor in their sleeping bag that day….but for regular beds most kids are people and people prefer a softer surface than the *floor* squished in like a sardine. 
 

Also I’ll buy one or two kids being genuinely that into music and naturally talented but no way it’s all 12 of them. And if your life is all music, all the time, how the heck does a kid discover that they’re a really good writer, or love anime, or are a great athlete, or love classic cars? One of the best things about school is that it exposes kids to a wide variety of subjects so they can pick and choose what they like and want to spend their time doing. I’m all for reasonable chores but your average school age kid also has passions they want to spend hours on, whether it’s building with legos or drawing or mastering the monkey bars. (Isn’t it amazing how they decide to learn to do something and devote themselves to it and a few months later, wow! They can do it!) And not every kids passion will be music. It’s statistically impossible. The only reason their older kid who got rejected from Juilliard is practicing 4 hours a day is because of parental pressure, most certainly not his own drive.

I did my first two years of college at a community college. As an elective, I decided to take a beginning voice class. The class was graded on whether you improved, and I improved from very bad to mediocre, so I got a decent grade. I learned, that with practice and using proper technique, I could improve my singing voice. I also learned that I was unwilling to do the work to keep the improvement. 

 

[imokit]

It doesn't matter if a kid chooses to sleep on the floor.  All children should have a safe comfortable sleeping space as an option.  If its a young child and that option is in with parents, fine.  If a child chooses to sleep on the floor fine, but they need to be able to choose a mattress/futon with bedding at any point (even 2am).

[PennySycamore]

@imokit,  my youngest would end up under her youth bed, asleep on the carpet.  Nobody made her sleep there. It as her choice.  I can't recall if the cat curled up with her, though.

[MamaJunebug]

On 2/9/2022 at 8:12 PM, NachosFlandersStyle said:

I think you get to be a different kind of sheltered in those situations. I have a cousin who was a legit violin prodigy -- like playing with a major city's orchestra at ten years old kind of thing. He was almost never doing anything except playing violin, and while he traveled a lot he spent all his time surrounded by adults who had strict expectations for him. At family holidays he was usually off by himself in another room practicing while the rest of the cousins played. 

What is your cousin doing now??? I hope he’s happy…

[Black Aliss]

17 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@imokit,  my youngest would end up under her youth bed, asleep on the carpet.  Nobody made her sleep there. It as her choice.  I can't recall if the cat curled up with her, though.

One of mine used to sleep between the mattress and the box spring.

[NQJasmine]

I slept on the floor for nearly a year as a kid. My parents thought I was weird but my older brother told me my bed had bed bugs... Then he told me they were actually in the wall so I slept on the edge of my (double) bed for several years until I realized he was just an asshole. My parents didn't find any of this out until we were adults.

53 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

What is your cousin doing now??? I hope he’s happy…

There are kids out there who just love music. My brother had a friend who would practice piano for 4 or 5 hours a day because she wanted to. But prodigy kids who get pulled out of school? Emilie Autumn (violinist) was one of them and it messed her up. She's still an amazing musician but major TW for her music for 

Spoiler

suicide, self-harm, abuse within the psychiatric system, rape, probably more I can't think of off the top of my head

She really suffered from her childhood.

[MamaJunebug]

55 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

One of mine used to sleep between the mattress and the box spring.

A former co-worker had shared a bed with his older, much bigger brother. In his sleep, the brother would get out of bed and sandwich himself under the mattress, on top of the box springs. 
My co-worker, the littler brother, would wind up clinging to the cantilevered mattress with all his might, trying to get to a sleep-able position.

We asked him if he ever tried to wake his brother - he replied, “He was BIGGER than me! I didn’t wanna die young!” 
 

LOL Don’t know what became of the big guy, but the vo-worker did fine in life.  

[NachosFlandersStyle]

1 hour ago, MamaJunebug said:

What is your cousin doing now??? I hope he’s happy…

He teaches music at the university level and lives very far away from my aunt and uncle!

[Sister_Wife]

Family of 12 (10 children)

Recently relocated to NYC for their homeschooled children to attend college and pre college (Juliard being one). 
 

All the children bar the baby play classical strings and piano.

 

Her video (linked below) is a Fundie Bingo (Gothard, Pearls, Above Rubies, Duggars etc) - she claims they’re  just regular Christian’s though.

 

They have a a successful Insta and tik tok, which she is using to fund their life. 

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Sister_Wife
Adjusting grammatical errors

[Cupcake79]

I follow them on IG. The kids are insanely talented, but they do practice a lot too. I’d think they are forced to live their mother’s dream. The mom annoys me.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I personally think that high performance childhoods aren’t healthy in general. So children who are Olympic athletes come to mind when I see kids like this. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

I thought we had a thread for these people, but I'm probably mixing up them with others. Wasn't there another big musical family who lived in a city in a very cramped apartment?

Nobody ever thinks they're fundie. 

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Previous thread: 

 

[VVV]

Update on this family.

https://www.thecut.com/2023/04/de-la-mottes-family-band-that-busks.html?fbclid=IwAR2oZGXAf32bQdv9rq_olBdIeSPUkpK8vD8llhB3gJF5ZkPbTRy6X4jRok0

Editing to add that this article was posted on Facebook by a friend I trust, who is not religious, and who has four extremely talented children of her own, including a Juilliard trained violist who has met the oldest daughter. I believe the reports that the kids are extremely talented. It’s worth pointing out that Suzuki of the famed violin method always claimed that talent was not inborn but was learned in the proper environment.

I have also seen this family compared to the Kanneh-Masons in the UK. (Sheku Kanneh-Mason played the cello at the royal wedding of Harry and Megan.)

Edited April 18, 2023 by VVV

[neuroticcat]

On 4/8/2023 at 1:54 AM, Sister_Wife said:

Family of 12 (10 children)

Recently relocated to NYC for their homeschooled children to attend college and pre college (Juliard being one). 
 

All the children bar the baby play classical strings and piano.

 

Her video (linked below) is a Fundie Bingo (Gothard, Pearls, Above Rubies, Duggars etc) - she claims they’re  just regular Christian’s though.

 

They have a a successful Insta and tik tok, which she is using to fund their life. 

 

Wow. I skimmed her video. "Michael and Debi Pearl are not pro big family...I don't know what they're pro." Honey, they are pro beat-your-children. UGH. 

I can't tell if she's just pretending not to know who these people are (like pretending not to remember IBLP name or Nancy Campbell's name or the distancing from Quiverfull) or if she's just swallowed all of these ideas without diving deep. She says "I don't know" about a lot of the things even as she explains them. But it sounds like she was drawn to the idea of a big family from a really young age and then it just became her dream to have a lot of babies. At this point, all I can see is narcissistic parenting when the women in these movements talk. It's going to be a rude awakening for all of them when some of their children reach adulthood and they finally have to deal with their separateness and agency.

I think there's a sense that the newer generation of fundamentalists are savvy enough to be aware that there are problems with the teachings they follow (she talks about the "moral failures" and "inappropriate behavior" of her church leader's who got arrested for sexually abusing minors) PLUS the usual white evangelical impulse to try and win ppl over by your niceness...which kind of is just manipulation. 

At the end she talks about how the movements have "crumbled" - QF, Duggars, Vision Forum (cheating on his wife, she says. !!!); some of the guys "we looked up to" are in prison. I really want to sit down to with her and be like: THESE ARE NOT UNRELATED!!! She DOES talk about bitter QF children/wives and her conclusion is that they just were doing it wrong. 

I mean her pinned instagram post is "how mama birthed an orchestra." I just can't with the narcissistic parents in fundamentalism.

[anachronistic]

There is just no way that all of her kids love music. Kids love different things. In a big family you are bound to have some differences. Sure, musicality may run in the family, but there must be someone with a tin ear who is forced to practice much more than their siblings and still can't catch up. I feel sorry for that kid, whoever it is. But now that they are in New York I am not let alarmed at the size of their house. The kids all have a full, real bed to themselves now, they are not sleeping on fold out chairs every night. Seriously… those chairs were not meant to be peoples every day beds, who are meant for sleepovers and big gatherings. (just like the mattresses and beds in an RV aren't meant to be the every day beds for people for a long time.)

[neuroticcat]

I agree. 

My initial thought was that: at least this family seems (?) to enjoy one another. But then I heard her speak respectfully of the Pearls and I was like: welp, no, they've all simply been trained.  The addition of "secular" music simply makes them appear more normal. 

What a nightmare. I watched some of the reels last night & just felt sick thinking of those littlest kids being on the receiving end of those Pearl "training" methods. Only real difference is that being at a school like Julliard or the Manhattan school of music is an out for these kids and has them less isolated than so many homeschooling families. 

[llucie]

The mother has openly admited before that they used to attend a fundie church until a few years ago. She called it a "culty" church,

[JermajestyDuggar]

I almost feel like she’s gone from fundie to fundie lite. Or maybe conservative Christian. Let’s hope the family keeps one going less fundie. 

[llucie]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I almost feel like she’s gone from fundie to fundie lite. Or maybe conservative Christian. Let’s hope the family keeps one going less fundie. 

I think still fundie-lite to me at least. Someone on reddit said their new church is still very conservative and of course anti-lgtb and anti-vax. Besides the religion the parents seem to be very controlling, even of their adult kids.

[llucie]

 

She just uploaded a video about her take on Shiny happy people and why they are not longer IFB.

 

[CTRLZero]

4 hours ago, llucie said:

She just uploaded a video about her take on Shiny happy people and why they are not longer IFB.

I don’t know anything about this family, but this was a very informative video.  She rambles and jumps around a bit, but talks about how some of her values align with IBLP, but others not so much.  What I found of particular interest is how she warns others to not place their children into any so-called “Christian” setting without thoroughly checking the institution (or individual) out.  She says some bad actors scrub their internet records, but thanks to snark forums (!!!), you might be able to find information to keep children safe.  Interesting perspective. 

[llucie]

2 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I don’t know anything about this family, but this was a very informative video.  She rambles and jumps around a bit, but talks about how some of her values align with IBLP, but others not so much.  What I found of particular interest is how she warns others to not place their children into any so-called “Christian” setting without thoroughly checking the institution (or individual) out.  She says some bad actors scrub their internet records, but thanks to snark forums (!!!), you might be able to find information to keep children safe.  Interesting perspective. 

She even said she knows they also talk about her family on the snark forums! I am glad she was able to deconstruct enough to see the alarming signs and protect her children.

The video was very rambly, but she droped a few interesting bits. Like she just casually mentioned she knows someone who got sexually abused at an IBLP camp in there.

Also when she said the guy in question used to rub the boys shoulders it gave me the heebie jeebies and anyone that has been following the Rods will know why.