M Is for Mama 13: Taking Selfies to Glorify the Lord

[JermajestyDuggar]

28 minutes ago, danvillebelle said:

I'm sure the other kids wouldn't mind it either, particularly the girls.  And I wouldn't be surprised if Ezra is secretly counting the days until he's 18 and can take off.  If he goes away to college, he won't know what to do with himself with all the free time on his hands that was previously spent raising his siblings.

I think Ezra might have some guilt leaving. I’m betting he will go to college nearby. I doubt he will be ok leaving those kids to fend for themselves. I bet he will commute. 

[theotherelise]

It was definitely brought up on their first date that she wanted to leave it up to God. But of course we know that they don't completely leave it up to God and actually do some NFP. I don't think she's ever explicitly said what happened with the prior engagement, but I always get the impression from her words that she broke it off.

The problem is that people like Abbie have especially warped and biased memories which always make them look better. So Abbie might have simply said she wanted lots of kids and he said he wanted a big family too, but in looking back the story is that as a teen she did intense scripture study and discovered that God tells all people to trust him with all things and that includes fertility because the bible says children are a blessing.

Abbie's issues with the negative review made me laugh. Her version of grace is incredibly works based. I spent a decade in that persuasion of christianity. It's never going to feel like grace or rest or encouragement when the message is "try harder but do it better with the holy spirit this time." God she annoys me.

Edited May 18, 2022 by theotherelise

[SassyPants]

Unless someone else is paying for those kids to “go away” to college, I would put money on them being commuter students. 

32 minutes ago, theotherelise said:

It was definitely brought up on their first date that she wanted to leave it up to God. But of course we know that they don't completely leave it up to God and actually do some NFP. I don't think she's ever explicitly said what happened with the prior engagement, but I always get the impression from her words that she broke it off.

The problem is that people like Abbie have especially warped and biased memories which always make them look better. So Abbie might have simply said she wanted lots of kids and he said he wanted a big family too, but in looking back the story is that as a teen she did intense scripture study and discovered that God tells all people to trust him with all things and that includes infertility because the bible says children are a blessing.

Abbie's issues with the negative review made me laugh. Her version of grace is incredibly works based. I spent a decade in that persuasion of christianity. It's never going to feel like grace or rest or encouragement when the message is "try harder but do it better with the holy spirit this time." God she annoys me.

Works based…hardly, unless pestering and belittling others about their faith is considered “works.” This woman only does what could be construed as “works” that directly benefit her or buoy her self esteem. She misses the mark on Christianity in her every thought, word and action.

 

ETA; ANYONE WHO INCLUDES NURSING TWINBIES ON HER WEEKLY CHORE LOG, WEEK AFTER WEEK, AFTER WEEK, NEEDS TO GET A FREAKING CLUE AND A TUBAL LIGATION.

Edited May 18, 2022 by SassyPants

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

43 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I think Ezra might have some guilt leaving. I’m betting he will go to college nearby. I doubt he will be ok leaving those kids to fend for themselves. I bet he will commute. 

I don't think Ezra would have guilt, but I definitely believe Braggie would guilt him.  He'll either commute to college or Braggie will force him to do college online.  How can he be BroDad if he's away from home several hours a day?

I think Braggie will have 2 more children, either twins or Irish twins. What a special mom-martyr for Jesus she'll be with 12. I also think the last 1 or 2 will be the very last ones.

Based on nothing but a feeling I'm not sure her body (we've all seen her varicose vein leg) can handle more pregnancies.   If a doctor tells her no more because it's super dangerous  -- she'll do it anyway because martyr for Jesus.  If the birth were to necessitate a hysterectomy to save her life. she'd be an even bigger martyr, Telling us deadisnotthesameasbad and that she would rather have died (martyr for Jesus) than not be able to bring more souls into the world.

I've often wondered what Braggie will do when menopause hits and she can't reproduce.  Popping them out defines who she is. Who is she if she's not fertile Braggie, mother of 10/11/12? Does she push the oldest girls into early marriage/ uber fertility and live vicariously through them?

[danvillebelle]

19 minutes ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

I think Braggie will have 2 more children, either twins or Irish twins.

I think she'll have at least one more because she wants another girl so badly.  And then when it's another boy, she can martyr herself on that and tell the world how she cried about it and hard is not the same thing as bad. 

[neuroticcat]

My guess as to her motivation is a kind of OCD religious scrupulosity and boundary-less childhood (this doesn't have to come only from fundamentalist families). If you never learn that there is a boundary where *you* end and *others* begin, that you have the right to say "no" - even for the simple reason that you prefer to, or that it's not selfish to have a self, then you are so so susceptible to any kind of fundamentalist extremism. You need to do the "right" thing (however that's defined - in this case: for married women, the right thing is to be open to children when you have sex)  no matter what. 

It doesn't have to be consistent - like with many narcissists, she may be oblivious to how vain or entitled she is while at the same time making a martyr of herself with her fertility. If she weighs in the scales of black-and-white thinking: the discomfort/unpleasantness of another pregnancy with the eternal significance of a human life, which is she going to pick? Then it really is a matter of taking up one's cross, denying one's self, and doing the hard thing. I think she is being as honest as she knows how to be in her book - that really is how she makes choices and decisions. I grew up with a narcissistic mother (not fundie) and she could likely honestly tell you how she gave everything for us, etc., etc. and be totally oblivious to how injurious, engulfing, and destructive her parenting was. I think it will be the same for Abbie - like with many fundie moms, it's going to be a rude awakening when some of her kids (the more there are, the more likely a few will break free) come back and say: no thanks, you were/are an unhealthy person and I'm out. The question, then, will be can she receive that and own it or not. Most fundie parents can't and then proceed to be "grieved" or whatever. 

I think it also gives an illusion of control. She is giving "control" to God, but, really, it limits her choices to narrow controlled motherhood and domestic life, which she can conduct according to her own set of rules and power. 

I remember reading "Under the Banner of Heaven" as a young evangelical Christian and being astonished. The (to my mind, crazy) fundamentalist Mormons were living by the exact same worldview/concepts taught in evangelical Christianity. It's just that many people's personalities are able to let them live with the hypocrisy. A narcissist or achiever or rigid OCD-type thinker is going to live in the extremes. I think she will keep having babies until menopause because otherwise she is denying a potential life...only because of her own wants.

[Hane]

Back in the Pleistocene (‘70s) when I was first dating, my mom warned me against gushing about babies on my first few dates because it would be a turnoff that would send boys running for the hills!

[neuroticcat]

So reading Abbie's Ask-a-question Wednesday posts and feeling so much cringe. She has thoughts and the best ways for every topic, and her struggles aren't really struggles, and men even randomly give her brownies in the coffeeshop. So we all know that her instapersonality is narcissistic and arrogant.

But today I'm squirming a bit. I am an opinionated person and freely offer my thoughts, especially when asked. FJ, what do you see as the elements that push that kind of personality from strong opinions over into the realms of Abbie's feed? Lack of self-awareness? Rigidity? ???

[Alisamer]

41 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

But today I'm squirming a bit. I am an opinionated person and freely offer my thoughts, especially when asked. FJ, what do you see as the elements that push that kind of personality from strong opinions over into the realms of Abbie's feed? Lack of self-awareness? Rigidity? ???

I think both of those, plus a superiority complex. She's convinced that what she does is right, so nobody else could possibly be doing things right. 

That's something that defines most of the people we talk about here. Like having opinions and sharing them when appropriate is great. Making your whole presence be about pushing your opinions on others (see also: Zsu, Lori Alexander, JillRod, the Duggars with their TV show...) and showing off how "Godly" you are is not great.

That's why these people get talked about here. There are plenty of people out there who are evangelical fundamentalists who we don't discuss, because they don't stroke their own egos under the mask of "ministry" by putting all their business out in public. Braggie, Jillrod, Zsu, Lori, the Maxwells... all these people make a point of putting themselves out there to show off how much better they and their ways are than all those "worldly" people out there. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

47 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

So reading Abbie's Ask-a-question Wednesday posts and feeling so much cringe. She has thoughts and the best ways for every topic, and her struggles aren't really struggles, and men even randomly give her brownies in the coffeeshop. So we all know that her instapersonality is narcissistic and arrogant.

But today I'm squirming a bit. I am an opinionated person and freely offer my thoughts, especially when asked. FJ, what do you see as the elements that push that kind of personality from strong opinions over into the realms of Abbie's feed? Lack of self-awareness? Rigidity? ???

I don’t think Braggie has any self awareness. Just like Jill Rod. Both women have no clue how cringe they are online. And it’s not just once or twice. It’s constant. I suppose that’s partly due to living A sheltered childhood where you get very few outside opinions and outside critiques. 

[bea]

FJ, what do you see as the elements that push that kind of personality from strong opinions over into the realms of Abbie's feed? Lack of self-awareness? Rigidity? ???

I think self-awareness. If asked, I will give people my opinions. But, I am aware that what works for me may not be what works for somebody else.
For example. I am a stay at home mom. Prior to that, I was a stay at home wife.
Do I enjoy it? Absolutely. I love it.
Would I recommend it to everybody? Absolutely not. If someone were to ask me if they should be a stay at home parent, I would tell them that they would have to decide for themselves, but that most people do not enjoy it past two or three years. In fact, I think that being a long-term stay at home parent and enjoying it is very much the exception rather than the rule. I also think that one of the best things you can do, as a parent, is model for your children what being a happy adult looks like - however that looks for you. For my parents, happy adults were two parents with full-time jobs. For my kids, happy adults look like one full-time stay at home parent, and one parent who works a lot and loves his job.
Now, let’s ask Abbie. She will tell us that all women should be stay at home mothers, that all women should have multiple children, and that no couples should use birth control. That’s because Abby thinks that her opinions should run other peoples lives. She is unable to understand that her life is not the life that every woman wants for themselves. She believes that women everywhere are exactly the same as her, and she absolutely cannot wrap her mind around the fact that every family is unique. She also can’t really seem to grasp the idea that childcare is expensive, children are expensive, housing is expensive, and most families don’t have a stay at home parent because they can’t afford it.
TL;DR Abbie is too narcissistic to wrap her mind around the fact that she is one person with one person’s life experience and opinions.

[danvillebelle]

Further evidence for my theory that for all her bragging about her superior, early education, Braggie is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  She (and Shaun, to be fair) JUST NOW figured out that a good way to keep the twins from destroying things in the pantry would be to PUT A FUCKING KNOB ON THE DOOR.  Honestly...that is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.  It also makes me believe that NOTHING in their entire craptastic barn is babyproofed or ever has been. 

[Botkinetti]

I guess a knob didn’t go with her aesthetic. What an idiot.

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, danvillebelle said:

Further evidence for my theory that for all her bragging about her superior, early education, Braggie is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  She (and Shaun, to be fair) JUST NOW figured out that a good way to keep the twins from destroying things in the pantry would be to PUT A FUCKING KNOB ON THE DOOR.  Honestly...that is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.  It also makes me believe that NOTHING in their entire craptastic barn is babyproofed or ever has been. 

I could make a list of all the things I did to make my life easier when I had a toddler in the house. My house looks very different now that my kids are 7 and 9. Braggie could make her life so much easier in so many ways. But nope. She’s an idiot and a martyr. And Shaun is never around enough to keep doing these little projects. 

[danvillebelle]

1 minute ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I could make a list of all the things I did to make my life easier when I had a toddler in the house.

Same.  Same for my grandson.  Because he loves to try to climb everything, son and DIL covered the entire floor of his room with those foam tiles that fit together like a puzzle, and a wooden arched climbing frame for babies and toddlers.  Now he can climb and scoot and roll and fall off to his hearts' content, with no bumps or bruises.  It would never occur to Braggie to do such a thing; not IG worthy enough and not her aesthetic. 

[Hane]

*What* “grimy handprint,” Braggie? All I can see is that fugly “distressed” door.

[mhainlen]

That distressed door is really something.  Although not my aesthetic, there are some distressed decorations that I appreciate.   But I feel that anyone who had a door that looked like that 100 or 200 years ago had it because they couldn't afford to update it and repaint it and probably would have appreciated a non distressed door.   And now Abbie, the height of privilege, is imitating what used to be a sign of poverty.  

[neuroticcat]

I would be more concerned about kids getting splinters than jammy handprints. 
 

Also 😂 about publicly admitting this and turning it into a teachable moment for your fans. 
 

It has got to be exhausting to take everything so seriously.  

In her Q and a she had a question about when other people have not done things to make their lives easier and said it was for her work on her next book. So…topic of the book is…??? Any guesses?

[noseybutt]

Surely I am not the only person who cannot see her t-shirt without thinking impure thoughts.

Because duh.

Hard is 100% how some of us like it.

[feministxtian]

That door is FUGLY! I swear she makes her life harder than it needs to be. Her martyr complex is quite tiresome. 

[danvillebelle]

7 hours ago, Botkinetti said:

I guess a knob didn’t go with her aesthetic.

Except for the one she married.  (ba-dum-bum) 

[Alisamer]

2 hours ago, noseybutt said:

Surely I am not the only person who cannot see her t-shirt without thinking impure thoughts.

Because duh.

Hard is 100% how some of us like it.

I won't be surprised if her T-shirts become some sort of viral sensation. With no one knowing WTF she actually meant by them.

Looking at that door, do we know if she's discovered Magnolia Pearl? It seems like it might be right up her alley.

[JermajestyDuggar]

25 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

I won't be surprised if her T-shirts become some sort of viral sensation. With no one knowing WTF she actually meant by them.

Looking at that door, do we know if she's discovered Magnolia Pearl? It seems like it might be right up her alley.

I think she’s too obsessed with Anthropologie to branch out much. 

[QuiverFullOfGoats]

4 hours ago, neuroticcat said:

I would be more concerned about kids getting splinters than jammy handprints. 
 

Also 😂 about publicly admitting this and turning it into a teachable moment for your fans. 
 

It has got to be exhausting to take everything so seriously.  

In her Q and a she had a question about when other people have not done things to make their lives easier and said it was for her work on her next book. So…topic of the book is…??? Any guesses?

I’m pretty sure her new book is gonna be about #hardisnotthesameasbad 

[neuroticcat]

I laugh every time I see her logo on merch, because it's so supremely perfect to have a fundie create their entire brand around something that is full of innuendo.