M is for Mama 15

[JermajestyDuggar]

23 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Most of the people I know who are always “so busy” are either remarkably inefficient or have massive FOMO. My mother, not once in her late 80 years on this planet, has ever cooked an entire family dinner. And I’m not talking about Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’m talking, a random week night dinner. When my dad worked 24 hours (firefighter) she took us to the grandparents for dinner. My GM worked. My mom did not. And, yes, she is sooooooo busy, and always has been. Yep, remarkably inefficient and never, ever on time for anything. 

My mom comes from a long line of Protestant work ethic. So being busy = a good person. My mom is always busy. But she’s literally got too much on her plate. She does it to herself. She takes on all kinds of things and then constantly talks about how busy she is. It’s her choice though. And I refuse to live a life like that. It’s partly why I’m a stay at home mom while my kids go to elementary school. It gives me time to volunteer. If I worked, I would not have time for that. I would also be doing house chores all weekend long since I would work through the week. And I don’t want that. Yes, I am very privileged that I don’t have to work. I fully recognize that. But of course the drawback is less family money. But I’m ok with that. I’m fine with cheap clothes and old cars if it means I’m not busy busy busy while stress takes over my life. 

[SuperNova]

So much to unpack here. Abbie gives a blow by blow of another woman's body that she saw at the gym while changing. Fucking creepy and gross. She waxes on and on about how gosh darn happy she is that other women have better skills than she does. Abbie is a lying liar who lies. She has made too many posts about how jealous she is of others for me to believe that she's suddenly done a 180 and now feels happy for other people. If you have to make a whole ass post talking about it and say, IM FINE WITH THAT!, you're not. 

She also admits to once again neglecting the twins long enough that they were able to make a huge mess in Abbie's closet. Go twins!

Lastly, she was on the girl defined podcast with Kristen. I can't bring myself to listen.

Spoiler

It might be time for me to tune Abbie out again for awhile. Her absolute belief in her own superiority gets under my skin like no other fundie. She's the most curated train wreck that I've ever seen. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by SuperNova

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, SuperNova said:

So much to unpack here. Abbie gives a blow by blow of another woman's body that she saw at the gym while changing. Fucking creepy and gross. She waxes on and on about how gosh darn happy she is that other women have better skills than she does. Abbie is a lying liar who lies. She has made too many posts about how jealous she is of others for me to believe that she's suddenly done a 180 and now feels happy for other people. If you have to make a whole ass post talking about it and say, IM FINE WITH THAT!, you're not. 

She also admits to once again neglecting the twins long enough that they were able to make a huge mess in Abbie's closet. Go twins!

Lastly, she was on the girl defined podcast with Kristen. I can't bring myself to listen.

  Hide contents

It might be time for me to tune Abbie out again for awhile. Her absolute belief in her own superiority gets under my skin like no other fundie. She's the most curated train wreck that I've ever seen. 

She’s lying through her teeth. We know how jealous and bitter she is. I’m guessing Braggie doesn’t have a baby monitor? Is she doing this dumb shit on purpose? I doubt any mom of twins would ever live without a baby monitor. But Braggie doesn’t need one since she seems to enjoy neglecting her children. I guess it makes for fun Instagram content 🙄

Edited March 14, 2023 by JermajestyDuggar

[SassyPants]

If she wasn’t looking for an atta girl, you’re so much better than those other women, we wouldn’t know about the lean woman or the sour dough baking homemaker. Why wouldn’t we know about them? Abbie wouldn’t have mentioned them. Hope she’s not home flogging herself or her children.

[NotQuiteMotY]

3 hours ago, Alisamer said:

OT, but next time start with one pair of straight needles (Size 7 is good) and a >$2 skein of cotton peaches and cream yarn. I always suggest people start with dishcloths, not scarves. Scarves are repetitive and boring and long. With a dishcloth you can try out various skills and patterns and even if it's awful it'll be functional!

Agree. Scarves take SO LONG. (You can also swap wool for the cotton, like the Fishermen's Wool yarn at Amazon, and get a flame-resistant pot holder if that's more your thing. More expensive, but still pretty cheap for the amount of yarn.)

I'm stuck on her watching someone scroll through her IG for half an hour. Either you're busy and need to take that time to work or you're busy and choose to decompress instead, both fine, but busy and spending half an hour obsessing over someone disliking your social media? Really? You couldn't just block her after the first comment?

[danvillebelle]

Great googly-moogly, that closet. She doesn't ever wear 90% of those clothes and shoes.  Hoard much? 

Yeah, not buying the "I've been a fitness instructor for over a decade and that woman is more ripped than I ever have been or will be, but I'M SO HAPPY FOR HER!"  🙄

[Giraffe]

Nothing screams contentment like yelling on instagram “I’M FINE WITH THAT!”

Yeah, sure Jan. 

[Smee]

I am “so busy”. But I hate it. I’m a single mum of 3 in primary (elementary) school, working 1 part time job, 2 casual jobs, trying to finish my PhD, STILL playing lawyer ping pong to try to get a financial settlement with my ex almost 2 years on, investigating my youngest daughter’s health issues, taking all the kids to extra curricular activities, feeding them home cooked meals and attempting to keep the house in a reasonable state. This does not make me “better” than people who do less, it makes me EXHAUSTED and constantly teetering on the edge of burn out. Anything new on my plate, even if it’s just a one-off event, makes me want to cry with stress. I cannot wait to finish my degree and get this bloody finance stuff sorted so I can breathe and maybe even quit a job. “Busy” is not something to aspire to.

And no, fuck you Abbie, I do not need to “find contentment” in this “season” the Lord has given me. I need to DO something to change my situation to be more sustainable.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

On 3/14/2023 at 4:38 PM, SuperNova said:

So much to unpack here. Abbie gives a blow by blow of another woman's body that she saw at the gym while changing. Fucking creepy and gross. She waxes on and on about how gosh darn happy she is that other women have better skills than she does. Abbie is a lying liar who lies. She has made too many posts about how jealous she is of others for me to believe that she's suddenly done a 180 and now feels happy for other people. If you have to make a whole ass post talking about it and say, IM FINE WITH THAT!, you're not. 

She also admits to once again neglecting the twins long enough that they were able to make a huge mess in Abbie's closet. Go twins!

Lastly, she was on the girl defined podcast with Kristen. I can't bring myself to listen.

  Reveal hidden contents

It might be time for me to tune Abbie out again for awhile. Her absolute belief in her own superiority gets under my skin like no other fundie. She's the most curated train wreck that I've ever seen. 

Is the woman with the toned arms a Christian? How does Abbie know? This is Lori Alexander level of skulking out other women. 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Bluebirdbluebell

[theotherelise]

Shocking absolutely no one, Abbie's next book will be called "Hard Is Not the Same Thing as Bad: The Perspective Shift That Could Completely Change the Way You Mother"

She hasn't announced it yet, but it's already on some book websites and her publisher's.

Quote

Bestselling author Abbie Halberstadt helps parents see how God can use the everyday trials of child raising to radically transform how they view hardship and grow them to become more like Jesus.

"Why me, Lord?"
 
Amid the toddler tantrums, the mealtime melees, and the backseat blowups, have you found yourself asking God that same question? Maybe even screaming it into a couch pillow? You’re not alone.
 
Your most trying moments as a parent can quickly spiral into discouragement, hopelessness, and sometimes even resentment toward God or your family—partly because our culture has conditioned us to believe that anything this hard can’t possibly be good for us.
 
Abbie Halberstadt, author of the bestselling M is for Mama, shares scriptural wisdom and lessons learned from her own challenges as a mama of ten to help shift your perspective on the hardships of parenting and of life, in general.
 
When you begin to see struggles as a necessary part of God’s plan for your spiritual growth, you can discover supernatural peace and purpose, even when you’re down in the deepest trenches of parenthood.

I've literally never thought "why me, Lord" because of my toddler. 

[SuperNova]

1 hour ago, theotherelise said:

She hasn't announced it yet, but it's already on some book websites and her publisher's

It didn't take her long to make a post about it. There's a short video with it of her wearing a hardisnotthesamethingasbad hat while she hold the twins. One of them is screaming. Abbie's ego will know no bounds now that she's a x2 author. What more could she possibly have to say that would fill a second book on the exact same topic?  

[Giraffe]

Each time I think she can’t get any more insufferable she posts some new thing showing what a miserable life she makes for her children. 

[Alisamer]

11 minutes ago, SuperNova said:

 

I love her acronym there.

HINT: STAB!

Since she often makes people feel stabby, it seems appropriate. Probably that's not the hint she wants to be giving frustrated moms, however. 

[SassyPants]

Better Another Book Than Another Baby- that would have been a better title!

[Nancy-Druesel]

The fact that she went with that clunky monstrosity of a title, which she could have had "Hard is Not the Same as Bad" (which is better, though not good), or even a striking book cover with bold text reading:

Hard

≠

Good

confirms to me that she doesn't have an editor, or at least doesn't have an editor that gives a shit. My copyeditor fingers are itching to strike "Thing" through with a red pen and scribble "awkward wording, redundant" in the margin

 

[theotherelise]

It’s always been clunky. she usually does the “not equal to” sign when using this slogan, but I imagine that symbol isn’t conducive to book selling systems. 

I would prefer something like, “Finding Good in the Hard.”

one of the many things about Abbie that grates on me is that the truly hardest time of my life was when I couldn’t become a mom due to infertility. Im fine with mom venting and don’t need people to pretend parenting is 100% amazing times, but as always, Abbie has the narrowest and most self-absorbed perspective on the world and faith. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

It is her hashtag. She's been using #Hardisnotthesamethingasbad for as long as I've heard of her. You can go back to the past 10 threads or so and see her using it. It's her brand at this point and something she's been using it forever. At this point, it wouldn't make sense to change it as typing that exact hashtag will bring up hundreds of her old posts. It makes more sense to keep using the original. 

As long as I've been on Free Jinger, I've been using #fameisnotthesamethingasgood. I think fame can be good, but only to some extent. I think if Abbie keep pursuing fame, she may end up being famous for something she doesn't want to be famous for.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I never ever want to be famous. Not even for really good reasons. Fame is so different today compared to 30 years ago. I don’t know how some people can stand being so famous. I would hate my Life if people wanted to talk to me anytime I left to my house. I’m too private, anxiety ridden, and introverted to be famous. 

[Xan]

I'm just waiting for the day when one of Abbie's grown children writes a book.  Sometimes Hard Is Bad:  How to Deal With an Aging Narcissist Mother

[Bluebirdbluebell]

1 minute ago, Xan said:

I'm just waiting for the day when one of Abbie's grown children writes a book.  Sometimes Hard Is Bad:  How to Deal With an Aging Narcissist Mother

I would rather they write about their childhoods and the way she is now.

[neuroticcat]

I'm so sad to read the book description. Especially since her first book did seemingly well, so many mothers will sign up for round two where they are told: 

1. The set-up, first of all, that everything about parenting is really hard and awful. It's such a straw man and ironic given the shade Abbie et al throw wine-mom culture. I think it's the only fundie-approved way to be "authentic" - to essentially complain but then use that to show how you can overcome it. 

I do believe Abbie that her parenting years were really hard and maybe she was crying "Why me?" Because that is a lot of children and multiple sets of twins is a lot. I imagine it was very hard even with all the extra help she had. Kind of like Michelle's laundry room meltdown - that is just unsustainable mothering, especially without a village and in a subculture that puts it primarily on the women. 

 

2. The "Why me?" is such an odd prayer, b/c the obvious answer is: well, b/c you didn't want to do family planning. I don't even mean that in a snarky way, but the entire "waiting on God" mindset is to welcome the blessings. So to be like: why so many blessings for me - is wild! I think it makes me more bonkers than the Nancy Campbell kind of spiritualizing of it. 

 

3. It's such a distorted theology to say that the "hard" things in your life (which, admittedly, as hard as parenting can be, having many children to care for in America in Abbie's readership group is objectively not bad at all. Is anyone saying it's bad?) and especially the actually bad things are intended by God for you to grow. Very fine line b/w that and things like Gothard's horrible advice to sexual abuse survivors: spiritual victory through suffering. 

Christian publishing has a lot to answer for when they basically publish books by anyone who has a platform. Same with TLC platforming the Duggars.

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

11 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

I'm so sad to read the book description. Especially since her first book did seemingly well, so many mothers will sign up for round two where they are told: 

1. The set-up, first of all, that everything about parenting is really hard and awful. It's such a straw man and ironic given the shade Abbie et al throw wine-mom culture. I think it's the only fundie-approved way to be "authentic" - to essentially complain but then use that to show how you can overcome it. 

I do believe Abbie that her parenting years were really hard and maybe she was crying "Why me?" Because that is a lot of children and multiple sets of twins is a lot. I imagine it was very hard even with all the extra help she had. Kind of like Michelle's laundry room meltdown - that is just unsustainable mothering, especially without a village and in a subculture that puts it primarily on the women. 

 

2. The "Why me?" is such an odd prayer, b/c the obvious answer is: well, b/c you didn't want to do family planning. I don't even mean that in a snarky way, but the entire "waiting on God" mindset is to welcome the blessings. So to be like: why so many blessings for me - is wild! I think it makes me more bonkers than the Nancy Campbell kind of spiritualizing of it. 

 

3. It's such a distorted theology to say that the "hard" things in your life (which, admittedly, as hard as parenting can be, having many children to care for in America in Abbie's readership group is objectively not bad at all. Is anyone saying it's bad?) and especially the actually bad things are intended by God for you to grow. Very fine line b/w that and things like Gothard's horrible advice to sexual abuse survivors: spiritual victory through suffering. 

Christian publishing has a lot to answer for when they basically publish books by anyone who has a platform. Same with TLC platforming the Duggars.

I agree that Abby is illogical and ridiculous. But I think she's telling Christian Evangelical moms that they are getting judged by strangers, which she presumes are evil secularists. Which probably jives with the audience's experience. They're more likely to see judgement in public than from their church group.

[SassyPants]

22 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

I'm so sad to read the book description. Especially since her first book did seemingly well, so many mothers will sign up for round two where they are told: 

1. The set-up, first of all, that everything about parenting is really hard and awful. It's such a straw man and ironic given the shade Abbie et al throw wine-mom culture. I think it's the only fundie-approved way to be "authentic" - to essentially complain but then use that to show how you can overcome it. 

I do believe Abbie that her parenting years were really hard and maybe she was crying "Why me?" Because that is a lot of children and multiple sets of twins is a lot. I imagine it was very hard even with all the extra help she had. Kind of like Michelle's laundry room meltdown - that is just unsustainable mothering, especially without a village and in a subculture that puts it primarily on the women. 

 

2. The "Why me?" is such an odd prayer, b/c the obvious answer is: well, b/c you didn't want to do family planning. I don't even mean that in a snarky way, but the entire "waiting on God" mindset is to welcome the blessings. So to be like: why so many blessings for me - is wild! I think it makes me more bonkers than the Nancy Campbell kind of spiritualizing of it. 

 

3. It's such a distorted theology to say that the "hard" things in your life (which, admittedly, as hard as parenting can be, having many children to care for in America in Abbie's readership group is objectively not bad at all. Is anyone saying it's bad?) and especially the actually bad things are intended by God for you to grow. Very fine line b/w that and things like Gothard's horrible advice to sexual abuse survivors: spiritual victory through suffering. 

Christian publishing has a lot to answer for when they basically publish books by anyone who has a platform. Same with TLC platforming the Duggars.

See the “why me” doesn’t jive with me as a plausible excuse/default for Abbie and her situation. AH presents as a self-centered biotch, plain and simple. I believe she sees herself as first and foremost an intellect who is smarter than the average bear. She admits that she is neither emotional nor overly aware of others and their needs. I think AH’s default would more likely be to use her free will and intellect to problem solve and decision make. If she is/was as  overwhelmed as she says (and frankly has shown), why not just use more reliable BC? She admits to “spacing” her kids, and gets pissed off at Shaun when she gets PG before her predetermined time-

She is lazy at her core. She doesn’t use BC because that takes effort and maybe self control. It’s less of a problem now because she has older kids to help parent/run the house…her family size now garners attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if AH has a laundry fairy too. This is a game to her. 

[zeebaneighba]

17 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

It is her hashtag. She's been using #Hardisnotthesamethingasbad for as long as I've heard of her. You can go back to the past 10 threads or so and see her using it. It's her brand at this point and something she's been using it forever. At this point, it wouldn't make sense to change it as typing that exact hashtag will bring up hundreds of her old posts. It makes more sense to keep using the original. 

As long as I've been on Free Jinger, I've been using #fameisnotthesamethingasgood. I think fame can be good, but only to some extent. I think if Abbie keep pursuing fame, she may end up being famous for something she doesn't want to be famous for.

I think my inner editor must agree with @Nancy-Druesel because I have always read that as #Hardisnotthesameasbad.  My brain apparently refused to see the "thing."

[Nancy-Druesel]

5 hours ago, zeebaneighba said:

I think my inner editor must agree with @Nancy-Druesel because I have always read that as #Hardisnotthesameasbad.  My brain apparently refused to see the "thing."

I don't know why that particular word in the hashtag drives me so crazy, probably my own personal neuroses talking lol. But it just comes across as clunky and amateurish. I know it's part of her brand now, but it just paints her branding as amateurish as well.