Seewalds 48: Homophobia Now Mixed With Hypocrisy

[arareyeah]

10 minutes ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

So it turns out this is Jessa’s thread! She had already announced her very obvious pregnancy, correct? She just posted on Facebook that it’s a rainbow baby - had she previously mentioned a miscarriage since her last baby?

IIRC Jessa terminated her pregnancy rather recently because something bad happened to the fetus? Being a hypocrite as per usual, considering she's very pro overturning Roe vs Wade. 

[Coconut Flan]

Jessa announced a miscarriage several months back.  Jessa would likely never mention a termination even if she possibly ever had one.  

[xenobia]

She posted a youtube video called "Heartbreak over the holidays" before she went quiet on social media. So the miscarriage was probably around Christmas. 

I'm surprised that she posted the photos from the ultrasound on her public FB/IG. I don't have kids and don't have a clue how to interpret them, but people with skills can probably tell how many weeks along she is and if it's a boy or girl. She usually doesn't announce those things in advance. 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by xenobia
crappy spelling

[marmalade]

5 hours ago, arareyeah said:

IIRC Jessa terminated her pregnancy rather recently because something bad happened to the fetus? Being a hypocrite as per usual, considering she's very pro overturning Roe vs Wade. 

It was several months ago. She had to have a D&C. So did I after a miscarriage, so I get it. 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

This is where all the abortion talk was really misleading for people. Technically, a miscarriage or a d&c are abortions but she did not terminate the life of the fetus.  It died on its own and needed to be removed based on the information we were given.

[raayx01]

5 hours ago, xenobia said:

She posted a youtube video called "Heartbreak over the holidays" before she went quiet on social media. So the miscarriage was probably around Christmas. 

I'm surprised that she posted the photos from the ultrasound on her public FB/IG. I don't have kids and don't have a clue how to interpret them, but people with skills can probably tell how many weeks along she is and if it's a boy or girl. She usually doesn't announce those things in advance. 

 

she blacked out her week and day date, but if you look at the length, 14 cm that would put her at about 15 weeks, but based off the leaked photos and her saying in her video they found out in April she was pregnant again, she's much farther than 15 weeks. this is an old ultrasound.

[SorenaJ]

I think the 14 cm has to do with the ultrasound itself, it’s not the length of the fetus. It has to do with the settings.

[mango_fandango]

I remember Erika Shupe had a miscarriage several years back and was upset/annoyed that it was referred to as a “spontaneous abortion” in her notes. Spontaneous abortion is the medical term, though. Spontaneous just means that it happened without outside intervention.

[Nothing if not critical]

I had what’s commonly called a “missed abortion” many years ago, and I remember being upset about the term as well. I do realize those are the medically correct terms but since they are also genuinely upsetting for women who are in a very vulnerable situation, why not come up with less loaded terms - surely that would not be too much to ask. Words matter and there’s no reason to make things harder than they need to be, IMHO.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Nothing if not critical

[Hasunah2]

8 hours ago, GuineaPigCourtship said:

This is where all the abortion talk was really misleading for people. Technically, a miscarriage or a d&c are abortions but she did not terminate the life of the fetus.  It died on its own and needed to be removed based on the information we were given.

I found all of that abortion talk coming from pro choice progressives tasteless to be honest. It was clearly based on a dislike for Jessa, not reality because you can't tell me that anyone who just had a miscarriage is going around telling people that they  aborted their baby . They'll say something like "I lost my baby". Not "I had an abortion last week".

 

Edit: And I also fear that next time (if there is a next time) Jessa won't have the procedure because people telling her that this was an abortion. 

Edited October 3, 2023 by Hasunah2

[Giraffe]

38 minutes ago, Hasunah2 said:

Edit: And I also fear that next time (if there is a next time) Jessa won't have the procedure because people telling her that this was an abortion. 

It was a necessary medical procedure and the fetus had already died. She just wouldn’t make it public (or if she did she’d leave it at “I lost my baby.”)

Michelle’s lack of both miscarriages and pregnancy complications created the perfect environment for all the children to assume that was the way it would be for all of them as long as they were simply obedient to their god.

It must have been such a shocking education to them when they realized how unusual Michelle’s body was when it came to pregnancy. She had one baby, one early miscarriage, and then what, 18 16 more successful pregnancies before Josie & Jubilee? That’s a set up for anyone to expect their own pregnancies will be a cakewalk! When the oldest girls started having complications, miscarriages and a stillbirth that must have been such a mindf* added onto the sadness of losing a pregnancy!

Edited October 3, 2023 by Giraffe
Forgot twin pregnancies

[AprilQuilt]

On 9/16/2023 at 5:40 PM, SassyPants said:

I would call both Ben and Jessa low energy. They seem to like the quiet, country life and prefer just letting life happen vs seeking out bigger and better adventures. It does seem a bit of a change from sharp mouthed, skydiving, teenage Jessa. A couple of comments from Jessa that I will never forget:

1) One time in a TH with her parents the producer asked Jessa if she had any gentleman callers and Jessa replied, “Yes, but they’re all weirdos or creeps.” Michelle looked horrified and made some comment about how that “wasn’t a nice thing to say.”

2) “If God had wanted us to see sunrise, he would have made it later in the day.”

Lastly, the piling up of dirty diapers on the dresser…you are part of a fertility cult and had 2 babies in 2 years, did you not think to buy (or get from the TTH shed) a diaper pail?

 

Also when Ben said he wanted to give her a thousand flowers or something she said, "what would I do with them??"

Sassy teen Jessa was pretty fun tbh.

I do think that both things are true - that the Jessa of counting on was intelligent, sharp, funny, conventionally good-looking, and generally had a huge amount of potential. I think she really could have succeeded in many areas with a different upbringing - not even that different an upbringing. Marjorie Jackson's doing perfectly well for herself. Jessa still has a lot of those qualities, but she's definitely burning out her potential. I wonder if she's just at her core lazy, or whether she at some point gave up/burned out. She doesn't seem to have a whole lot of drive.

I wonder if life has generally been kinder to her, and so she's never been forced - as Jill and to some extent Jinger was - to actually confront how toxic JB is and how screwed up their upbringing was, or whether she chooses to ignore that because it's easier. It seems to me that she knows which side her bread is buttered and so she's happy to keep JB onside, which actually will include retaining a relationship with Jill, because that makes him looks gracious and the family as a whole less dysfunctional.

Funny to watch her, though, and watch her teenage insouciance drift into general complacency.

[backyard sylph]

On 10/2/2023 at 10:43 PM, GuineaPigCourtship said:

This is where all the abortion talk was really misleading for people. Technically, a miscarriage or a d&c are abortions but she did not terminate the life of the fetus.  It died on its own and needed to be removed based on the information we were given.

They probably should have been more careful in wording, but people were understandably upset because there have already been numerous cases in which a woman had to continue carrying a nonviable fetus because doctors were either afraid to remove it because of vague and specious legislation, or because their hospital was unwilling to accept the necessary nuance. So Jessa had a good medically sound privilege that has been denied others over the past year and more.

Hey, if any of you are interested, Jessica Valenti wrote a good essay about this, published a couple days ago in the NYT, which you can read with this link. 

[SassyPants]

And how about the fact that Jessa and Ben were pissed because people were talking publicly about a very private issue. Do others not see the hypocrisy in folks who very publicly support (& privately via the ballot box) the GOVERNMENT having a voice in the private medical care of women in the US? They want people to allow them privacy in personal, medical,matters, but their actions confirm that they do not support all other women of childbearing years having that same right. Their actions (the vote) deny others the right to full body and medical autonomy. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by SassyPants

[Cam]

54 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

And how about the fact that Jessa and Ben were pissed because people were talking publicly about a very private issue. Do others not see the hypocrisy in folks who very publicly support (& privately via the ballot box) the GOVERNMENT having a voice in the private medical care of women in the US? They want people to allow them privacy in personal, medical,matters, but their actions confirm that they do not support all other women of childbearing years having that same right. Their actions (the vote) deny others the right to full body and medical autonomy. 

She put the information out there then was upset because people talked about it? Whaaa?

I’m starting to think Jessa having (just about) five kids so far is her way of showing that she’s different from Jill or Jinger. Her aim is to have the most kids among the top four daughters. I think she’ll have at least eight kids if she can.

It was recently mentioned somewhere that Jessa has a couple million followers on social media and Jill and Jinger have considerably less. I think it’s Jessa’s attempt to define herself as more successful than her sisters in this one way, and I think Jill and Jinger are good with that. They’ve got the more intelligent husbands, they broke free a bit more from JB, are best selling authors and spoke out about IBLP, so they‘ll let Jessa have the best social media following among them. 
 

[SassyPants]

41 minutes ago, Cam said:

She put the information out there then was upset because people talked about it? Whaaa?

I’m starting to think Jessa having (just about) five kids so far is her way of showing that she’s different from Jill or Jinger. Her aim is to have the most kids among the top four daughters. I think she’ll have at least eight kids if she can.

It was recently mentioned somewhere that Jessa has a couple million followers on social media and Jill and Jinger have considerably less. I think it’s Jessa’s attempt to define herself as more successful than her sisters in this one way, and I think Jill and Jinger are good with that. They’ve got the more intelligent husbands, they broke free a bit more from JB, are best selling authors and spoke out about IBLP, so they‘ll let Jessa have the best social media following among them. 
 

I think JB is the force behind Jessa. If not for that force, Jessa would likely be doing the bare minimum and would not have that SM following. She knows where her bread is buttered, and it’s not by preaching, rapping and teaching Ben.

[Hasunah2]

8 hours ago, AprilQuilt said:

Also when Ben said he wanted to give her a thousand flowers or something she said, "what would I do with them??"

Sassy teen Jessa was pretty fun tbh.

I do think that both things are true - that the Jessa of counting on was intelligent, sharp, funny, conventionally good-looking, and generally had a huge amount of potential. I think she really could have succeeded in many areas with a different upbringing - not even that different an upbringing. Marjorie Jackson's doing perfectly well for herself. Jessa still has a lot of those qualities, but she's definitely burning out her potential. I wonder if she's just at her core lazy, or whether she at some point gave up/burned out. She doesn't seem to have a whole lot of drive.

I wonder if life has generally been kinder to her, and so she's never been forced - as Jill and to some extent Jinger was - to actually confront how toxic JB is and how screwed up their upbringing was, or whether she chooses to ignore that because it's easier. It seems to me that she knows which side her bread is buttered and so she's happy to keep JB onside, which actually will include retaining a relationship with Jill, because that makes him looks gracious and the family as a whole less dysfunctional.

Funny to watch her, though, and watch her teenage insouciance drift into general complacency.

I really feel sorry for Jessa because she makes for a bad fundie wife. She has a hard time being sweet , isn't overly maternal ... you name it . She's been told all her life how much she lacks in that regard and probably had Jill being held up as the perfect example by her parents . And after a lifetime of being forced to raise kids and doing the work for Michelle she can't be arsed to do it anymore. Without the fear of whatever punishment she would get for not doing her chores she can't motivate herself. But that only results in people pointing out all the thinks she's bad at and she already knows that. 

And Ben isn't helping either and I don't mean financially . If you switched around Ben's and Derick's earnings  but not their personalities the situation wouldn't change. Jessa needs structure and Ben is as aimless as she is . I wonder if a Maxwell style schedule could be a start . Not everything in 15 minute intervals but something like on mondays at 3 pm vacuuming living room ,tuesdays 3 pm bathroom . Or a fixed meal schedule . Anything so she doesn't end up standing in front of a gigantic looking mountain of home making tasks and throwing in the towel without even trying. 

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, Hasunah2 said:

I really feel sorry for Jessa because she makes for a bad fundie wife. She has a hard time being sweet , isn't overly maternal ... you name it . She's been told all her life how much she lacks in that regard and probably had Jill being held up as the perfect example by her parents . And after a lifetime of being forced to raise kids and doing the work for Michelle she can't be arsed to do it anymore. Without the fear of whatever punishment she would get for not doing her chores she can't motivate herself. But that only results in people pointing out all the thinks she's bad at and she already knows that. 

And Ben isn't helping either and I don't mean financially . If you switched around Ben's and Derick's earnings  but not their personalities the situation wouldn't change. Jessa needs structure and Ben is as aimless as she is . I wonder if a Maxwell style schedule could be a start . Not everything in 15 minute intervals but something like on mondays at 3 pm vacuuming living room ,tuesdays 3 pm bathroom . Or a fixed meal schedule . Anything so she doesn't end up standing in front of a gigantic looking mountain of home making tasks and throwing in the towel without even trying. 

Isn’t it so sad that in her world this is all she has to look forward to? I would not be surprised to see her burn it all down somewhere down the road. JB is going to have his hands full maintaining full control over that one.

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, Hasunah2 said:

I really feel sorry for Jessa because she makes for a bad fundie wife. She has a hard time being sweet , isn't overly maternal ... you name it . She's been told all her life how much she lacks in that regard and probably had Jill being held up as the perfect example by her parents . And after a lifetime of being forced to raise kids and doing the work for Michelle she can't be arsed to do it anymore. Without the fear of whatever punishment she would get for not doing her chores she can't motivate herself. But that only results in people pointing out all the thinks she's bad at and she already knows that. 

And Ben isn't helping either and I don't mean financially . If you switched around Ben's and Derick's earnings  but not their personalities the situation wouldn't change. Jessa needs structure and Ben is as aimless as she is . I wonder if a Maxwell style schedule could be a start . Not everything in 15 minute intervals but something like on mondays at 3 pm vacuuming living room ,tuesdays 3 pm bathroom . Or a fixed meal schedule . Anything so she doesn't end up standing in front of a gigantic looking mountain of home making tasks and throwing in the towel without even trying. 

This is yet another way JB & M failed them. If she’d had a few years after high school to figure out who she was and what she wanted her life to look like her life would probably be drastically different than it is now. I think Jill would relish being a SAHM whether she were secular or fundy. Jessa though? Maybe she’d have had a couple kids in her mid 30’s but maybe not. 

[postscript]

19 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

This is yet another way JB & M failed them. If she’d had a few years after high school to figure out who she was and what she wanted her life to look like her life would probably be drastically different than it is now. I think Jill would relish being a SAHM whether she were secular or fundy. Jessa though? Maybe she’d have had a couple kids in her mid 30’s but maybe not. 

Jessa reminds me a bit of my grandmother, who was married during the Depression. Like all middle-class women of the era, she was expected to stay home and take care of the house and family. She did those things, but she never seemed very content doing them. She would have been so much happier if she’d had even a part-time job. However, she didn’t understand why none of her granddaughters wanted to be stay at home wives or mothers. No matter what we achieved in school or work, all she wanted to know was if we had marriage prospects. 

Jessa seems similar. She embraces being a stay at home mother because that’s what her society tells her she’s supposed to do. But that role isn’t what she’s most suited for. And yeah, I don’t see Ben giving her any support in any sense. 

[mango_fandango]

On 10/3/2023 at 12:40 PM, Giraffe said:

It was a necessary medical procedure and the fetus had already died. She just wouldn’t make it public (or if she did she’d leave it at “I lost my baby.”)

Michelle’s lack of both miscarriages and pregnancy complications created the perfect environment for all the children to assume that was the way it would be for all of them as long as they were simply obedient to their god.

It must have been such a shocking education to them when they realized how unusual Michelle’s body was when it came to pregnancy. She had one baby, one early miscarriage, and then what, 18 16 more successful pregnancies before Josie & Jubilee? That’s a set up for anyone to expect their own pregnancies will be a cakewalk! When the oldest girls started having complications, miscarriages and a stillbirth that must have been such a mindf* added onto the sadness of losing a pregnancy!

I kind of feel, and have done for a while, that Michelle could well have had more miscarriages than just Caleb, but never mentioned them. Caleb was mentioned because he was the first one, after they'd had Josh, and it made them abandon birth control and go full-on Quiverfull. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

20 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

I kind of feel, and have done for a while, that Michelle could well have had more miscarriages than just Caleb, but never mentioned them. Caleb was mentioned because he was the first one, after they'd had Josh, and it made them abandon birth control and go full-on Quiverfull. 

I would say that in the last 15-20 years, at home pregnancy tests have gotten much better. So very early positive pregnancy tests could make it seem like there are more miscarriages these days. I tested positive at 3.5 weeks pregnant both times. Back in the 90s, it’s possible Michelle had chemical pregnancies and never knew it. Those are pregnancies where you may not test positive with those old pregnancy tests that weren’t as sensitive. And you end up getting what seems like a heavy period at 5 weeks. I’m guessing many women for hundreds of years just assumed they were having a bad period and that was all. And never realized it was a chemical pregnancy. And you can get pregnant that next month no problem. So I do think it’s possible Michelle could have had very early miscarriages and didn’t realize it. But I also think there are fundies out there that test every month with very sensitive pregnancy tests and those are the women who realize they’ve had a chemical pregnancy. And probably wouldn’t have known otherwise. 

[Giraffe]

It’s probably a combination of what Jermajesty said plus Michelle having stickier pregnancies in general. Realistically though they only needed one J’caleb to put them on the quiverfull path so “I’ve had 5 severe miscarriages” also wouldn’t have fit their narrative. 

[JDuggs]

Jessa is pushing M is for Mama’s new book in her IG stories. I know Jessa hasn’t done that for Jill’s book and I don’t remember her doing anything for Jinger’s book. I don’t care how supportive Jessa is privately; she should have the courage to acknowledge her sisters’ accomplishments and not just kowtow to JB.

[Smoochie]

It's called distraction. Jessa is trying to distract from Jill's book. She didn't post for months and now a flurry of posts before and during the book's release and publicity. LOL I see you JB!