M is for Mama 16

[JermajestyDuggar]

I personally think Braggie’s mother wanted more kids and regretted only having two. I think she pushed the idea of a big family on Braggie. She probably made it sound grand. Braggie has admitted to issuing some form of birth control. So no, she didn’t leave it up to god. She just pretends she does for attention and back pats. 

[0 kids n not countin]

2 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

She never really thought about it. One of the things I find least comprehensible about Abbie is why she decided to leave her family size up to God if she wasn't raised to do that. Or since she didn't join a new church which pushed this. I guess she had naïve beliefs about family size and "how God wouldn't give you more than you can handle".  She also probably didn't expect to have even one set of twins let alone two sets of twins.

IIRC, didn't one of the other younger brothers have a twin who died inutero?  God must really think Abbie is special to bless her with so many sets of twins!!!🙄

[danvillebelle]

13 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I personally think Braggie’s mother wanted more kids and regretted only having two. I think she pushed the idea of a big family on Braggie.

Yes, she's said that multiple times; her mom wanted a big family and had several miscarriages.  In the podcast she was on, her mom came across to me as very grim, a militant Christian who sees things in terms of her beliefs vs. the rest of the world.  She probably feels like she failed in some way by not having more little soldiers to fight the battle, and helping Braggie raise her bunch soothes it a bit. 

[TuringMachine]

On 5/24/2023 at 1:03 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I personally think Braggie’s mother wanted more kids and regretted only having two. I think she pushed the idea of a big family on Braggie. She probably made it sound grand. Braggie has admitted to issuing some form of birth control. So no, she didn’t leave it up to god. She just pretends she does for attention and back pats. 

Her blog post announcing her pregnancy with Toby and Titus included an extensive complaint that the pregnancy happened ahead of schedule and ruined their first attempt at a Europe trip. So yeah, she's definitely not a leave it up to god person.

[Ozlsn]

Ezra's turned 17. His brother looks ambivalent about holding one of his younger siblings in that photo. It's a nice photo of the kids as a group. I still hope he is able to move away from being an "intern" with Shaun and get some actual externally recognised qualifications and experience.

[anachronistic]

Do the younger twins not have shoes that fit or did they just take them off all the time and they don't bother to put them back on? Because I was fairly certain that Europe was not a place where kids routinely ran barefoot in a city. Going to stop on Glass or email or something one of these days, and I feel really sorry for when they do and Abby treats him with whatever colloidal silver is instead of good old reliable neospoein or it's generic European equivalent. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

12 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Ezra's turned 17. His brother looks ambivalent about holding one of his younger siblings in that photo. It's a nice photo of the kids as a group. I still hope he is able to move away from being an "intern" with Shaun and get some actual externally recognised qualifications and experience.

She has 7 boys. Not all of them can be interns for Shaun. I hope some of the boys decide to leave home at 18 and forge their own path.

[SassyPants]

Per IG stories, they were kicked out of the basilica at the Vatican. She said that she’d tell the whole story at a later time. Not surprised. I was there on a very hot September day wearing a dress with no sleeves. I was asked to put on my sweater. If those kids were barefooted and screeching, they would likely have been asked to leave. They are lazy parents and think the world needs to bend to their ways because they have many children.

[JermajestyDuggar]

9 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Per IG stories, they were kicked out of the basilica at the Vatican. She said that she’d tell the whole story at a later time. Not surprised. I was there on a very hot September day wearing a dress with no sleeves. I was asked to put on my sweater. If those kids were barefooted and screeching, they would likely have been asked to leave. They are lazy parents and think the world needs to bend to their ways because they have many children.

I’m sure she will paint herself as the victim and the evil Catholics as the villains. 

[neuroticcat]

7 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

She has 7 boys. Not all of them can be interns for Shaun. I hope some of the boys decide to leave home at 18 and forge their own path.

Yes. The oldest ones have it hardest, because the control isn't sustainable. You can't keep all the kids home on the farm so eventually some of them will get freedom. 

 

Somebody put some shoes on those babies! I am happy for bare feet in the yard or grass or inside, but toddlers running around indoors in museums or on city streets barefoot is just bananas to me.

As a high schooler I remember being not allowed to go inside a cathedral in Florence because I was wearing shorts. I was really surprised they weren't asked to leave the Louvre honestly, so it doesn't surprise me that they were asked to leave the Vatican. Even if it wasn't just kind of a faux pas, what institution wants a liability risk of a kid stepping on something? 

 

[FiveAcres]

23 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

Yes. The oldest ones have it hardest, because the control isn't sustainable. You can't keep all the kids home on the farm so eventually some of them will get freedom. 

Somebody put some shoes on those babies! I am happy for bare feet in the yard or grass or inside, but toddlers running around indoors in museums or on city streets barefoot is just bananas to me.

As a high schooler I remember being not allowed to go inside a cathedral in Florence because I was wearing shorts. I was really surprised they weren't asked to leave the Louvre honestly, so it doesn't surprise me that they were asked to leave the Vatican. Even if it wasn't just kind of a faux pas, what institution wants a liability risk of a kid stepping on something? 

You know, even in the US, there is a concept known as "no shoes or shirt, no service." 

[tankgirl]

Yes, Italian churches are strict on dress code. We went during a very hot summer and I kept a large scarf in my bag ready to cover my shoulders for any churches we wanted to see, it was a good middle ground and was within the rules. Also I had packed mistakenly one dress too short above the knees so wore that on days we were planning other museums and sites, it was a pain at first, but there were plenty of churches to see, so we made it work. 

As to the Vatican Basilica the noise rules, especially during services were strict, they requested no photography if I remember correctly and non- Catholics were not allowed past a barrier to see the services. I can see her making a mess out of any or all of these rules and throwing a fit about it, though they are clearly stated to you along the way. I cannot see that group being behaved enough to visit a place like that with out being asked to leave. 

 

Fun fact you can breast feed in the Basilica they are fine with that and I know because I asked because of my babies age and in fact did feed there. 

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by tankgirl

[Nancy-Druesel]

I am very curious to hear her version of why they were kicked out of St. Peter's. I've been there and it's very low-key once you're through security. It would be very hard to get kicked out unless you were actively making a disturbance. My bet is on the little kids tearing around and climbing on things while neither of their parents stopped them. 

[JDuggs]

My guess would be that one of the twins was having a tantrum and they were asked that the child be taken outside. Abbie was probably ready to go anyway, so made a big deal about the whole group being kicked out even though they weren’t.

[danvillebelle]

I am surprised they even went to The Vatican.  And I am downright happy they got kicked out.  But of course, she'll wear it as some sort of twisted badge of honor.  I wish they'd been asked to leave the Louvre for letting the twins run through barefoot. 

I wish one of her leghumpers would grow a spine and let her know that Europe is not her kids' personal playground and call her on the carpet for not having basic manners and decorum.  But they won't. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I personally would never take very little kids into St. Peter’s. There are some places I never took my toddlers. Nowadays they could behave appropriately. Their brains have formed enough to understand you behave in a church. But at 2? No way. She sets her children up to fail. It’s sad. 

[SassyPants]

She only considers herself when making decisions like this. What does Abbie want? What will make Abbie content for 3 minutes?  What will wipe that smug look off her face for 2 seconds and finally, what will provide good $ocial media content? 

[danvillebelle]

BTW, Abbie's "overzealous employee" was probably some poor person just trying to do their job (i.e. protect St. Peter's).  And the irony of HER calling someone overzealous is rich. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

The Vatican is the last place that should whining and harassing a woman with many children! Their doctrine is against birth control! The Catholic Church believes in big families. I agree the kids should behave, but the Vatican is also a fundie organization trying to influence public policy around the world against reproductive rights, the LGBTQ+ community, etc. If the Vatican "has to suffer the little children" of Abbie, well that seems fair to me. The church leadership pushes people to have more kids and they can't even handle a large family of children showing up for a few hours! Just shows if the priests were married, they'd be more supportive of reproductive rights.

[JDuggs]

Abbie just posted a long explanation of “getting kicked out” which was actually don’t nurse your child sitting on the floor. It’s too long for me to summarize, but I’m sure someone else can capture the main points. I’ve never been there, so I can’t really picture the scene. However, Abbie did say at one point, seemingly single-handedly, she was wrangling one of the twins and Shiloh. What’s the use of having her three teenagers and a babysitter along when Abbie is trying to deal with two of the littles at the same time? 

Edited May 28, 2023 by JDuggs
Typo

[Cults-r-us]

On 5/14/2023 at 2:31 PM, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

Self-imposed martyrdom is not the same thing as hard

But she imposes martyrdom and misery on everyone around her - her enabling mother, her dis-engaged husband, her poor, poor kids and every single person who has to deal with them (waiters, tour guides, stewardesses, etc ).

[Ozlsn]

50 minutes ago, JDuggs said:

Abbie just posted a long explanation of “getting kicked out” which was actually don’t nurse your child sitting on the floor. It’s too long for me to summarize, but I’m sure someone else can capture the main points. I’ve never been there, so I can’t really picture the scene. However, Abbie did say at one point, seemingly single-handedly, she was wrangling one of the twins and Shiloh. What’s the use of having her three teenagers and a babysitter along when Abbie is trying to deal with two of the littles at the same time? 

I'm kind of glad she was having to wrangle at least two of them. Don't they have pews in there she could sit on? Also don't they plan anything around food and naps and basically the requirements of the toddlers? Thinking back to those days and even getting to the supermarket was a struggle some days. Great if you know they'll sleep in a stroller, but not great if they're likely to have a 20 minute meltdown period before they finally sleep.

[tankgirl]

OK, her explanation is so telling!

She is being vague enough to have her followers think this is about breastfeeding in the Basilica, but also moans that the security who most likely speaks Italian not English was rude to her, but she never says he tells her to stop feeding, she says he told her to move. I have been to the Vatican with a young child, who was breastfed while in the Basilica and no one had issues with that, the difference was I did not sit on the floor. The building is huge but with traffic flow, even if it was just her and one of the twins she still would have been in the way just sitting on the floor of this big open building with loads of tourists. But she also let's us know she is wrangling at least one other small child on her own, which makes me suspect she was not quietly nestled out of the way feeding, but on the floor with at least one kid acting up and being noisy on top of it all. Then to sit on steps that might have had traffic too seems odd too. I suspect her kids were acting up and loud, but she wants to spin this and the leasing it to sound like the breastfeeding was the issue will score her a whole lot of points with her followers. 

 

 

 

[Xan]

I have mixed feeling about this.  I agree with @Bluebirdbluebell that the Catholic church is all about appreciating big families and they probably ought to make accommodations for big families of tourists.

On the other hand, we know how Braggie likes to spin things.   So far, a good third of her videos have background music because one of the toddlers was screaming so she couldn't just post the noise.  For the life of me, I'm not sure why she took two breast-feeding 2 1/2 year olds to Europe.  I'm a huge believer in breast feeding (if it works for both mother and child) but I would have weaned the boys back in the winter.  That way the trip would have been easier if you could just hand each one a bottle or sippy cup.  I have no desire to get into some battle about length of breast feeding here.  I just think, for this trip, it made it harder and, in this case, hard does mean bad.

They haven't seemed to plan around naps.  They haven't packed comfortable shoes or the boys wouldn't be spotted barefooted so often.  If Braggie had two screaming boys to take care of, that's on her.  She brought along a husband, a nanny, and older children who are accustomed to babysitting for Mama.  I think she probably plopped herself down in the floor and waited for someone to confront her so she could use it for Instagram material.

(I may be a little bitter because I'd love to visit Italy but, alas, my budget hasn't allowed it and I'm here reading about Abbie gloating about all the sights...)

[SassyPants]

She was thrown out because one kid was out of control, and she chose to sit her carcass on the floor. The Vatican is a very dignified place. It is not a spot to lounge on the floor or to have children run around in (or to be barefooted).  Was there no pew available? Was a pew too Catholic for her? Again, Abbie thinks exceptions need to be made for her because she has lots of children. This is the holiest of places for Catholics, a Christian group that I’m sure  Abbie barely recognizes as a legitimate religious denomination. How could she be so clueless?

She actually took 2, 2 YOs and a 4 YO to see the Sistine Chapel? That is the last stop on the long tour. Seriously, she is a poor decision maker.