Joy & Austin 33: Pregnant Again

[Jana814]

12 hours ago, Keys said:

Also, I could be wrong, but I think Kelly Bates’ mother just passed away from RSV?

Yes she did very recently like this past October I think. 

[Smee]

On 1/5/2023 at 12:36 AM, Cam said:

Fundie women are conditioned to feel selfish if they even contemplate needing a break from perpetual motherhood, that it’s not womanly to want any me time.

 

Not just fundie women, sadly. The patriarchy is excellent at making mothers feel like getting equal rest or relaxation to their male partners would be selfish and make them a bad mother. 

[just_ordinary]

7 hours ago, Smee said:

Not just fundie women, sadly. The patriarchy is excellent at making mothers feel like getting equal rest or relaxation to their male partners would be selfish and make them a bad mother. 

It’s really interesting how some things work. When we were a young couple, childless, a flat, both working full time but not crazy hours, having a cleaner every two weeks was a luxury we just enjoyed. Now, with a house, two children and still working full time it felt like a defeat. I mean….. wtf???? Took me a bit to get my head straight and I still feel strangely bad about it sometimes

[Cam]

10 hours ago, Smee said:

Not just fundie women, sadly. The patriarchy is excellent at making mothers feel like getting equal rest or relaxation to their male partners would be selfish and make them a bad mother. 

Perhaps I should have worded it as “perpetual pregnancy”. Yes, the patriarchy does a number on society in general, but the general population apart from fundies are more acceptable for women to go to college, pursue careers, start businesses, take getaways with friends etc. and not have their entire identity wrapped up in producing and raising children, their sole joy is not wrapped up in having baby after baby and not allowing to be anything other than a mother.

[Keys]

9 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

It’s really interesting how some things work. When we were a young couple, childless, a flat, both working full time but not crazy hours, having a cleaner every two weeks was a luxury we just enjoyed. Now, with a house, two children and still working full time it felt like a defeat. I mean….. wtf???? Took me a bit to get my head straight and I still feel strangely bad about it sometimes

I’m 6 months postpartum with our first babe, and we hired a cleaner biweekly a couple months ago too. I feel this SO hard. I haven’t told any family about it because it would be met with literal shock and displeasure 🙄🙄

[Mama Mia]

2 hours ago, Keys said:

I’m 6 months postpartum with our first babe, and we hired a cleaner biweekly a couple months ago too. I feel this SO hard. I haven’t told any family about it because it would be met with literal shock and displeasure 🙄🙄

Good for you. You have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. Your family might be shocked initially but I would bet that on reflection some might follow suit, or suggest it to someone who could use it. I started having a bi-weekly cleaner due to to health issues and I really wish I’d done it years ago when I was raising my kids and working. It would have been a complete sanity and stress saver. Even if we’d had to scrimp and pinch pennies to get by even more than we already did — There is nothing wrong with spending your money in ways that improve your life. And only you and your household get to decide what that is. 

[Cam]

7 hours ago, Keys said:

I’m 6 months postpartum with our first babe, and we hired a cleaner biweekly a couple months ago too. I feel this SO hard. I haven’t told any family about it because it would be met with literal shock and displeasure 🙄🙄

It’s none of their business if you hired a cleaner and you’re smart to keep it to yourself if the extended family is going to get all up in arms about it. 

My family is similar. When I was 50, I had a complete kitchen remodel and had a dishwasher for the first time in my life. Two of my sisters were extremely snotty about it. How often did I run it? they wanted to know. I mean, they weren’t paying the water or electric bill and I WAS an adult! But they tried to make me feel like I was lazy for getting it! And one sister had a dishwasher for years!  Honestly, they at times have behaved like Cinderella’s stepsisters. How dare I not be slaving over dirty dishes with dishpan hands! 

These days I no longer put up with their bullshit and call them out on their allegiance to the patriarchy. Years ago, one of the sisters screamed at me in front of everyone at a family picnic for bringing store bought pies instead of baking them myself. At the time, I was incredibly oppressed and lacked personal boundaries so I didn’t make a scene, just stood there snd allowed her to humiliate me which she got off on doing. My biggest regret is not taking one of those pies and dumping it on her head. Honestly. 

[JDuggs]

I watched Joy’s latest video. Austin mentioned that his grandfather was some sort of physicist that worked for NASA. I wonder if this is his grandfather named James or his other grandfather. Anyway, Austin seemed to admire him, but probably eschews the idea of higher education for his own kids. Another example of the cognitive dissonance of the fundies.

[marmalade]

6 hours ago, JDuggs said:

I watched Joy’s latest video. Austin mentioned that his grandfather was some sort of physicist that worked for NASA. I wonder if this is his grandfather named James or his other grandfather. Anyway, Austin seemed to admire him, but probably eschews the idea of higher education for his own kids. Another example of the cognitive dissonance of the fundies.

Well, Terry is barely literate, so they've been working backwards for a couple of generations. 

[Keys]

23 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

Good for you. You have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. Your family might be shocked initially but I would bet that on reflection some might follow suit, or suggest it to someone who could use it. I started having a bi-weekly cleaner due to to health issues and I really wish I’d done it years ago when I was raising my kids and working. It would have been a complete sanity and stress saver. Even if we’d had to scrimp and pinch pennies to get by even more than we already did — There is nothing wrong with spending your money in ways that improve your life. And only you and your household get to decide what that is. 

 

18 hours ago, Cam said:

It’s none of their business if you hired a cleaner and you’re smart to keep it to yourself if the extended family is going to get all up in arms about it. 

Thank you both! We are so glad to have done it too… it’s taken so much stress away, especially as both of us have had some health challenges over the past few months. Not having to worry about cleaning the house has been so worth the money. 

I love and am very close with my family, but gosh the patriarchy is alive and well. At family dinners, my dad and grandfather are always seated at the heads of the table. My grandfather does not know how to make coffee or any food. After dinner (that is prepared and served solely by the women), the men go sit on the couch while the women clean. At 2 weeks postpartum I was helping to clean out of obligation while the men sat and talked. As kids and teens, my parents would tell me to go help - they’d never say the same to my brothers. My grandmother lectured me to no end about how I was “too serious” with my boyfriend (now husband), even though we’d been together for years. My brother proposed to his girlfriend barely a year after they met and she’s over the moon. I have always resented it. Interestingly, this is only the case on my mother’s side of the family, despite coming from the same cultural background as my father’s side. At family dinners with my father’s side, the men frequently help out with cleaning. I could honestly not be in a marriage where I was expected to do all the cooking and cleaning simply because I am a woman. My husband briefly mentioned hiring a cleaner to my mom before we did, and she looked at me with shock and said “oh my gosh, just clean your house!!!”. So yeah, def not telling them, lol. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Keys

[FeministShrew]

When I was a young stay-at-home mom, after my kids were both in school, my sister told me she’d pay me to clean her house twice a week. My sister-in-law lived near my sister, and she asked if I’d clean hers, too. Then her neighbor hired me, too. I enjoyed it, (much more than cleaning my own house), and I liked having a little extra money of my own. 
I cleaned all three houses twice a week for a few months. Then at a baby shower at church one Sunday afternoon I was chatting with the other women and mentioned my cleaning jobs -something like “oh yeah, I clean three houses twice a week. my sister’s, sil’s, and (her neighbor’s name).” 
When I got home, there was a message to call sil’s neighbor. She angrily told me she wouldn’t be needing me to clean her house anymore, and yelled at me for “telling her business.” 
Turns out her aunt was at the baby shower, and afterward called neighbor’s mom saying “oh (neighbor) and her husband must be doing great to be able to hire a cleaner twice a week,” in a snarky way. The mom called (neighbor) and said she was humiliated because “if you need help around the house you should have asked me instead of hiring some random stranger and wasting money.”

So neighbor’s mom insisted on cleaning her house for free every weekday, and that caused friction between neighbor and her husband, who both ended up blaming me and hating me. But how was I supposed to know that hiring a cleaner was a big secret, and that her aunt was at a random baby shower?

Not long after that, sil’s hours at work were reduced and she couldn’t afford to pay me anymore, then my sister’s circumstances changed and she didn’t need me either. But I had enjoyed earning my own money again and eventually went back to college, got a degree and a good job, and divorced my useless fundie-lite husband. So I guess working outside the home really is a slippery slope, lol!

[viii]

10 hours ago, Keys said:

At family dinners, my dad and grandfather are always seated at the heads of the table. My grandfather does not know how to make coffee or any food. After dinner (that is prepared and served solely by the women), the men go sit on the couch while the women clean. At 2 weeks postpartum I was helping to clean out of obligation while the men sat and talked. As kids and teens, my parents would tell me to go help - they’d never say the same to my brothers. 

Oof, I relate to this so hard. It always made me so angry as a teenager I was expected to help cook and clear the table and my male cousins went downstairs to play. 

My grandpa is still of the mindset to go sit where it’s comfortable while the women clean up. However, my grandma passed away in June so the last 7 months have been a huge culture shock to his system. He’s had to learn a lot of new skills but one thing he refuses to learn is cooking - so he eats at my moms house 5 nights a week. I just shake my head because he should have learned how to cook years ago.

The patriarchy has led to his own detriment, sadly. 

[JDuggs]

I watched the end of Joy’s latest video. She and the Duggar women and children go to the nail salon to celebrate Jana’s birthday. Jill was there with her three boys who Joy shows without blurring out their faces. Is Joy so clueless that she doesn’t realize that Jill doesn’t want her kids faces shown on social media or does she just not care? Is Jill okay with this or not okay with it, but doesn’t want to make it an issue?

[Cam]

It’s just crazy, FeministShrew, how women are so conditioned to reinforce the patriarchy, to aggressively guilt and harass one another, demanding each of us prove our merit as women by doing our own housework regardless of physical, mental or emotional struggles or simply to get out of doing dull, thankless chores. You made a perfectly innocent comment at a shower with no clue it would backfire like it did. Your sil’s neighbor should have mentioned to you when you started cleaning her house to please keep the work you were doing for her confidential if that’s what she wanted. Sadly, she allowed her mother to bully her and made you the scapegoat.

My husband is our main breadwinner yet is also very domestic. He will help out with anything from grocery shopping to doing his own laundry. He does have patriarchal tendencies that I am starting  to call him out on. He will try to pass my ideas off as his own. There are no women on his music playlist. Places highest value on a woman’s looks (won’t admit it tho). He is open to change, so even if it takes awhile, that’s in his favor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Meggo]

On 1/15/2023 at 12:37 AM, Keys said:

 

Thank you both! We are so glad to have done it too… it’s taken so much stress away, especially as both of us have had some health challenges over the past few months. Not having to worry about cleaning the house has been so worth the money. 

I love and am very close with my family, but gosh the patriarchy is alive and well. At family dinners, my dad and grandfather are always seated at the heads of the table. My grandfather does not know how to make coffee or any food. After dinner (that is prepared and served solely by the women), the men go sit on the couch while the women clean. At 2 weeks postpartum I was helping to clean out of obligation while the men sat and talked. As kids and teens, my parents would tell me to go help - they’d never say the same to my brothers. My grandmother lectured me to no end about how I was “too serious” with my boyfriend (now husband), even though we’d been together for years. My brother proposed to his girlfriend barely a year after they met and she’s over the moon. I have always resented it. Interestingly, this is only the case on my mother’s side of the family, despite coming from the same cultural background as my father’s side. At family dinners with my father’s side, the men frequently help out with cleaning. I could honestly not be in a marriage where I was expected to do all the cooking and cleaning simply because I am a woman. My husband briefly mentioned hiring a cleaner to my mom before we did, and she looked at me with shock and said “oh my gosh, just clean your house!!!”. So yeah, def not telling them, lol. 

My Dad (now 85) - does NOT know how to care for himself. The day to day maintenance of his person is completely lost on him. Now he does have dementia - but even before that, he had never ONCE done laundry, had never cooked dinner (opening a can of soup was about the extent of it), never cleaned anything. Mom would be up to all hours scrubbing the kitchen floor before family things and Dad would just shake his head about how much pressure she put on herself. A few times he decided to wash the floor - but he would pick the most critical time in the rest of everything happening in the house - and would basically shut the kitchen down for HOURS because he had to clean the floor. (no one knew why this took hours - it wasn't a big kitchen). So while you're trying to prep for a family dinner - you couldn't use the kitchen for three hours. Which is helpful. 

My husbands family is similar - the women do all the cooking while the men sit around, then everyone in eats in record time, and the women end up doing the cleaning. My husband knows that he'd better take his OWN plate upstairs, he will be expected to manage the kiddo's plate if he's closer and if I'm cleaning up after a holiday dinner at his family's - he's now in charge of all thing Kiddo. 
But watching these two families, and watching how they've coddled their men-folk, really has convinced me that my husband needs to do more around the house (at least so it's muscle memory for him when he's old) and then my son REALLY needs to be more self sufficient than his grandpa's or his dad. Now he's only 9 - so I've got a bit of time - but he will get to high school knowing how to make a few dishes, how to do laundry, how to clean a bathroom, make a bed etc. Basic upkeep of a human. 

[viii]

I mentioned one dinner that I had washed my bedding and my grandpa didn't even realize that's something you had to do. If I ever have a son, he will never grow up like that. 

[OHFL2009]

33 minutes ago, viii said:

I mentioned one dinner that I had washed my bedding and my grandpa didn't even realize that's something you had to do. If I ever have a son, he will never grow up like that. 

When I was a freshman in college, a guy friend of my roommate stopped by as I was pulling the sheets off my bed to take them to the laundry room. He asked me what I was doing, and when I told him I was going to wash my sheets, his response was "You can do that?!" Turns out he just went to Walmart and  got new ones every couple weeks. I didn't even have a response to that. 

[Mama Mia]

On 1/15/2023 at 8:45 AM, JDuggs said:

I watched the end of Joy’s latest video. She and the Duggar women and children go to the nail salon to celebrate Jana’s birthday. Jill was there with her three boys who Joy shows without blurring out their faces. Is Joy so clueless that she doesn’t realize that Jill doesn’t want her kids faces shown on social media or does she just not care? Is Jill okay with this or not okay with it, but doesn’t want to make it an issue?

Jill usually has the kids posed so you don’t see their faces, but not always. They show up on her Instagram occasionally full face.  I think more often in her stories than posts. I would guess that Joy got the ok, just based on her not including the no social media Josiah/ Lauren and Joe/ Kendra in her pregnancy announcement video, when she showed virtually every other family member- and those are brothers she’s said she’s close with. 

Jinger / Jeremy seem to be the most strongly inclined to not have the kids faces shown - which seems both easier and harder for them. Easier because they live across the country so aren’t going to family group events where you would have to very actively try very hard to not get a stray shot in when it’s a group of cousins playing. Harder since they actively live off social media. 
 

On the hired cleaning disapproval issue IMO it is obviously huge amounts of ingrained sexism — but I think classism also comes into play. A big part of my discomfort having someone clean for me — even though I had health issues that mean I just couldn’t do it —- was that I felt it made me look pretentious?  Rich? When I wasn’t. And have always been far more likely to have friends/ family who clean houses than pay to have them cleaned. So it felt weird. And like I need to clean before they come to clean. Does that make sense?  
I’m boomer/x cusp, my daughters are early 30’s to early 40’s. I really admire that their generation mostly seems much more comfortable spending money on themselves and/ or services that make their lives better and less stressful. 
 

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Mama Mia

[OyToTheVey]

On 1/13/2023 at 10:31 PM, Keys said:

I’m 6 months postpartum with our first babe, and we hired a cleaner biweekly a couple months ago too. I feel this SO hard. I haven’t told any family about it because it would be met with literal shock and displeasure 🙄🙄

Can I ask? Is it a cultural thing or a geographic thing? I guess I grew up different. Once people around me have some money, they pay for a house cleaner*. It's literally the best thing to do for mental health. I'm at the end of renovations, I can't wait for her to come and deep clean everything. I work 2 jobs and take care of my parents. I'd much rather pay someone to clean than have a breakdown.

*It's the same with tutors, groomers, etc. Like the hour I spend trying to do my own nails, I'd rather get them done for $30 and relax a little. 

[Meggo]

2 hours ago, viii said:

I mentioned one dinner that I had washed my bedding and my grandpa didn't even realize that's something you had to do. If I ever have a son, he will never grow up like that. 

About 15 years ago or so -maybe closer to 20 - my Mom had to go to FL to take care of her mother who was really sick. So that left Dad at home. Mom was gone for about 5 weeks and Dad said "I really hope Mother comes home soon, I'm running out of beds." 
You're...what now? 

He knew that Mom did the sheets every week - so he knew he had one week on them. So he spent the first week in his usual side, the second week on HER side, then he went to the other two or three twin beds in the house (I guess?) and was running out of beds to sleep in. 
NEVER occurred to him that he could either 
a. Not switch beds every seven days OR
b. strip ONE bed and wash it
He had never used the washing machine before. Ever. 

Fast forward to last year - Mom was sick and got sick in the car on the way to the hospital. He brought home the dirty clothes, put them in the washer - said "It made a weird noise" so he TURNED IT OFF and waited for someone to come help. So - great - gross clothes, sitting in the wash... for a week - yeah - bet that was foul. 

So my kid is only 9, and has developmental delays - but he KNOWS how to strip a bed and wash the sheets. Not sure he knows how to put sheets back ON his bed (like - he probably gets the idea of it anyway) - but again - he's NINE. I have plenty of time to make him a good roommate, spouse, partner, citizen of the world. (he can already mop, and clean a bathroom) 

[AnywhereButHere]

2 hours ago, OHFL2009 said:

When I was a freshman in college, a guy friend of my roommate stopped by as I was pulling the sheets off my bed to take them to the laundry room. He asked me what I was doing, and when I told him I was going to wash my sheets, his response was "You can do that?!" Turns out he just went to Walmart and  got new ones every couple weeks. I didn't even have a response to that. 

I gave the WTF reaction, but honestly, I am not surprised. My nephew went off to college, his mom made his bed on move in day, and that was the ballgame. Same sheets came off the bed in May. 🤢Trouper that she is, she washed them multiple times and sent him back with them in the fall. Rinse repeat for the next three years. I would’ve thrown them out before they even thought about getting loaded in my car. Ick. 

[TeaGrannie]

There was no way on earth my boys were leaving home without all the necessary skills. I learned basic repair skills and not just women’s stuff.  They both do laundry, clean and cook. 

[Meggo]

8 hours ago, TeaGrannie said:

There was no way on earth my boys were leaving home without all the necessary skills. I learned basic repair skills and not just women’s stuff.  They both do laundry, clean and cook. 

Future spouses, partners and/or roommates will thank you!!! 
 

[IrishCarrie]

True story: my brother went off to university a couple of hours away one September, moving in with three male friends. He was home every couple of weeks, bringing his laundry back to Mama to be washed, naturally… 🙄 Mama’s baby boy had never lifted a finger in his life so he clearly couldn’t be expected to throw on a load of laundry.

But even Mama was slightly horrified and questioning her parenting decisions when he came home for Christmas bringing the frying pan to be washed!!!!

😳

[LookieLoo]

On 1/16/2023 at 2:21 PM, Mama Mia said:

Jill usually has the kids posed so you don’t see their faces, but not always. They show up on her Instagram occasionally full face.  I think more often in her stories than posts. I would guess that Joy got the ok, just based on her not including the no social media Josiah/ Lauren and Joe/ Kendra in her pregnancy announcement video, when she showed virtually every other family member- and those are brothers she’s said she’s close with.

 

What?? How did I miss this? I had no idea Jill was actively not showing her kids’ faces anymore until I went back and looked at her Instagram. Sure enough, I can’t find a full face shot of her two oldest boys since her pregnancy photo shoot.