M is for Mama 16

[JermajestyDuggar]

It’s so obvious she lets the toddlers run wild at home and they’ve been taught nothing about being quiet for even a few minutes. That’s why they are like this in public. Plus Braggie wants the attention. 

[anachronistic]

EW shoes on train *windows*? Where people put their hands all the time? Granted I do wear shoes inside my house but I don’t kick the walls or windows EW EW EW. 

[Zebedee]

It takes extremely bad behaviour to piss off the average Italian when it comes to children. As a society, Italians love children, and a lot of the kids' behaviour I see there would be frowned upon in Germany, and openly tutted at in England. Maybe because there are just not so many children, I don't know.I have vivid memories of a camping trip in Italy - the tent near our had both sets of grandparents, parents, an aunt, and one little kid, about six years old. Alessandro was the apple of everyone's eye! This was replicated across the site - meanwhile the Dutch, German, French and British parents were all rolling their eyes...

I can't wait to see how she and her gaggle go down in England. People won't look at her and think how godly she is. They'll think she's a chav from a council estate, Anthropologie notwithstanding. Not a fair stereotype, and not one I like, but I'm willing to let it pass in this particular case. It's not so likely that people will outright complain to her, since we Brits don't like confrontation. But what I'd give for her to "hear" the thoughts people have...

[SassyPants]

12 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

It’s so obvious she lets the toddlers run wild at home and they’ve been taught nothing about being quiet for even a few minutes. That’s why they are like this in public. Plus Braggie wants the attention. 

Because she has too many kids to properly parent. There are TOO MANY kids. Not that I think A or Shaun are actually interested in children, child rearing or instilling values beyond screeching about Jesus. The day is NEVER longer than 24 hours, not even in Abbie’s fantasyland world.

Her older kids must be scratching their heads when they realize Abbie and Shaun are nothing like the Jesus they constantly talk about.

[JermajestyDuggar]

54 minutes ago, Zebedee said:

It takes extremely bad behaviour to piss off the average Italian when it comes to children. As a society, Italians love children, and a lot of the kids' behaviour I see there would be frowned upon in Germany, and openly tutted at in England. Maybe because there are just not so many children, I don't know.I have vivid memories of a camping trip in Italy - the tent near our had both sets of grandparents, parents, an aunt, and one little kid, about six years old. Alessandro was the apple of everyone's eye! This was replicated across the site - meanwhile the Dutch, German, French and British parents were all rolling their eyes...

I can't wait to see how she and her gaggle go down in England. People won't look at her and think how godly she is. They'll think she's a chav from a council estate, Anthropologie notwithstanding. Not a fair stereotype, and not one I like, but I'm willing to let it pass in this particular case. It's not so likely that people will outright complain to her, since we Brits don't like confrontation. But what I'd give for her to "hear" the thoughts people have...

Oh yes, I imagine so many dirty looks in England. I have never been to England. But from what I’ve heard from people who live in the UK, they won’t just ignore screaming children running wild. 

[Zebedee]

4 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

they won’t just ignore screaming children running wild. 

Haha, no. It would have to be really bad for more than one person to complain to her, but oh, to be a fly on the wall and see the withering looks thrown her way, and hear the comments! The little kids likely won't notice, fortunately, but I feel sad for the older ones who probably will. Abbie has it coming, though.

 

 

17 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

It’s so obvious she lets the toddlers run wild at home and they’ve been taught nothing about being quiet for even a few minutes. That’s why they are like this in public

You're right. I'm a grumpy childfree person, so I'm not used to kids making noise and mess, and have a fairly low tolerance of it - I just go by what I and my friends were allowed to do as kids, or what (most of) my friends with kids allow. Which certainly didn't/doesn't involve running barefoot through museums, standing on seats, etc. I know kids do make noise and mess, and it can't be helped, but you can often tell whose kids are just acting up, or whose kids are allowed to run riot at home all. the. time. Of course, it doesn't help when she's dragging them around on a trip for older kids and up. And going to a playground once or twice over the course of a few weeks is not even the bare minimum for such little kids.

I absolutely hate people who put their shoes on seats, or let their kids do it. It's a pet hate, and so gross, only marginally better than the revolting people who stick wadded up chewing gum in places.

[Caroline]

I've taken at least 25 trips to France and Spain with high school students. I did a lot of prep ahead of time which included lots of instruction about what an ugly American looks like. I told them many things and wanted them to be excellent ambassadors for their school, community, and country. We always stayed with host families and I was their major tour guide wherever we went. I avoided tour companies because I learned the hard way that not all teachers are there for the sake of their students and often didn't supervise their students. I loved all that traveling, and always received compliments from the host families and other adults we encountered along the way. It takes work, planning and above all respect for the people who live in the country you are visiting to organize a trip for children of any age. I usually traveled with between 10 and 15 teenagers, and often I was the only adult. This Braggie woman could have learned a few things from those teens.

Also: My husband and I first took our daughter to France when she was 2.5 years old. She wore shoes in the Louvre and sat like a normal person on the train. Why are these crazy Christians with all the kids such attention-seekers?

[FundianaJones]

One of her last stories shows the elder boys eating their evening meal, at their rental, wearing their baseball caps. I'm interested to know, do you in the US not remove baseball caps or hats when you sit down to eat? (Not if it's al fresco in the midday sun, obviously). Here in Europe, that's a BIG no-no. You remove hats when at someone's home (this is their own rental, so debatable, yes), and you definitely take off your hat when you sit down to eat, no exceptions.

I understand that her older boys may be entirely oblivious to European hat etiquette if it's not the same in the US, but really, wearing a baseball cap at dinner? Do Abbie and Shaun think this is normal?

[Hane]

@FundianaJones, in the US, males wearing hats while eating used to be a huge breach of etiquette. It used to be de rigueur for them to remove their hats when indoors. (I’m 70, so I remember this from the days when men commonly wore more “formal” hats like fedoras.) With the prevalence of baseball caps, and more informal dress in general, this stricture has lessened in many parts of the country. 

[Coconut Flan]

My daughter still makes the males remove baseball caps when walking in the door.  She tells them to take them off in the car, too.  I think most people around here still find it sloppy.  When I visited my parents, though it was a more common sight  There were a lot of rural redneck types there.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

No one would flinch at teen boys eating dinner in a baseball hat in my circles. Teen boys are usually only told to take off their hats in school and church. And maybe for pictures. But that’s about it. 

[SassyPants]

Spoiler

 

Kids, boats, lake, no life jackets. IDIOTS!

 

Edited June 1 by SassyPants

[JermajestyDuggar]

16 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

  Hide contents

 

Kids, boats, lake, no life jackets. IDIOTS!

 

Why bother? Braggie seems to think god is her personal servant. He will protect them if she asks him to. 

[0 kids n not countin]

Another big 🙄, just a rhetorical statement, but she really is a narcissist and thinks her family is super special solely because of its size.🙄 I think people have better things to do than take photos of her family when walking about.

If I somehow randomly showed up in her Instagram stories in a photo she took I'd be pissed....

 

 

Edited June 2 by 0 kids n not countin

[JermajestyDuggar]

17 minutes ago, 0 kids n not countin said:

Another big 🙄, just a rhetorical statement, but she really is a narcissist and thinks her family is super special solely because of its size.🙄 I think people have better things to do than take photos of her family when walking about.

If I somehow randomly showed up in her Instagram stories in a photo she took I'd be pissed....

 

 

To be honest, if I saw her family and didn’t know she was Braggie from social media, I would assume they were just a group sightseeing. I honestly wouldn’t think all the kids were hers. There were plenty of times in my life when my siblings and I all packed in a van with our many similar age cousins and just one or two adults. No one assumed we were all siblings. And no one assumed we all belonged to one mom. I bet Braggie goes around telling people they are all her kids over and over again. Just so she can get the attention she thinks she deserves. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

We almost always wear hats in the car.  At an informal meal, hats are fine. If it's a more formal meal, then no.

[JermajestyDuggar]

Now that I’m 40, I’m finally appreciating hats much more. If I’m out in the sun for even a very short time, I want a hat. I just don’t want any sun on my face or in my eyes. I should have worn hats more in my younger years. Maybe I would have less melasma and rosacea 😬

[Bluebirdbluebell]

44 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

To be honest, if I saw her family and didn’t know she was Braggie from social media, I would assume they were just a group sightseeing. I honestly wouldn’t think all the kids were hers. There were plenty of times in my life when my siblings and I all packed in a van with our many similar age cousins and just one or two adults. No one assumed we were all siblings. And no one assumed we all belonged to one mom. I bet Braggie goes around telling people they are all her kids over and over again. Just so she can get the attention she thinks she deserves. 

That is consistent with my experience of big families. They always want to tell people how big the family is.

[theotherelise]

I’m disappointed braggie missed this beautiful art in Paris by just a couple weeks.

[Zebedee]

Braggie is at the Zugspitze? That is where Zsu Anderson is right now. I do not like all these Fundies being so close. I also wish I had known in advance. My partner lives right by there, his mother gives English language tours in the region (probably not the one Zsu did yesterday, unfortunately) and had I known, I'm afraid I would have been overcome with a desire to share a cable car, or something, and talk loudly about Pride month and the holocaust, and badly behaved children... (It's for the best that I am sitting at home now, a mere hour's drive away...)

[Gobsmacked]

On 6/1/2023 at 2:47 AM, Caroline said:

I've taken at least 25 trips to France and Spain with high school students. I did a lot of prep ahead of time which included lots of instruction about what an ugly American looks like. I told them many things and wanted them to be excellent ambassadors for their school, community, and country. We always stayed with host families and I was their major tour guide wherever we went. I avoided tour companies because I learned the hard way that not all teachers are there for the sake of their students and often didn't supervise their students. I loved all that traveling, and always received compliments from the host families and other adults we encountered along the way. It takes work, planning and above all respect for the people who live in the country you are visiting to organize a trip for children of any age. I usually traveled with between 10 and 15 teenagers, and often I was the only adult. This Braggie woman could have learned a few things from those teens.

Also: My husband and I first took our daughter to France when she was 2.5 years old. She wore shoes in the Louvre and sat like a normal person on the train. Why are these crazy Christians with all the kids such attention-seekers?

We took our 2 to Poland aged 6 and 7.  They were told what to expect, where we going and why etc. Poland has playgrounds, also we hired a car so no public transport to deal with thankfully. We took horse and cart trips in a few places. They behaved, were respectful and did t scare the horses thankfully. We let the them  run off steam in the various parks where they knew NOT to scream and shout. They didn’t when out at home and knew being in another country was no different.  Braggies young kids must be bored stiff poor souls.  Breast feeding in the UK is fine. Lots of establishments have a sticker to show BF friendly.  If she must in a cathedral or museum etc why not just take herself off to the side somewhere? Complete twit. 

[Zebedee]

12 hours ago, 0 kids n not countin said:

If I somehow randomly showed up in her Instagram stories in a photo she took I'd be pissed...

Yeah, I was just thinking about how incredibly rude that is. She probably thinks that, because she's sooo insta famous, that anyone would be flattered. Sadly, she's a nobody, albeit a very irritating one, so the man is unlikely to see it and blast her for it.
And I can guarantee that no one is taking stealth photos of her and her brood. Bitching about her, complaining about the kids's behaviour yes, secretly snapping her - no. Really, no. She is such an embarrassment, a walking 90%-stereotype of "Americans in Europe", and yet she thinks she is so #aspirational#quirky#classy#unique. Luckily, she is in touristy places, so most people will know that she is an outlier, and it's #notallamericans. Urgh. I swear we don't think you are all like her! (Not that my countryfolk have a better image - it's all drunk, overweight, sunburned Brits in union jack apparel. ) Abbie is like the version of a US tourist from a 1970s sitcom, and just totally oblivious to everyone. It's like she is "doing Europe" so we can a chance to see her, rather than she and her kids gets a chance to see us, god she's insufferable.

On a happier note, re Americans in Europe, I was in Munich last night, and we went out to a neighbourhood Vietnamese place. We shared a table with two young Americans (is University term over? Munich was full of groups of 2-3 college aged American kids?) who tried to speak German (it's pretty hard at that place, the staff speak very little German, more English - but they couldn't have known, lol). They watched what the locals at the other tables did, and copied; same in the beer hall I went to in the afternoon. Pretty standard for US tourists - I haven't actually seen an "ugly American" tourist more than once or twice in my life, and I have always lived in tourist magnets. (And even the "stereotypical American" tourists I have seen weren't so bad. Just the shorts, socks and white trainers made them stand out; they were usually quite sweet, and very earnest.)

[Hane]

Re foreigners taking pictures of “ugly Americans”: My sister and I took my niece to the show at the American Girl store in NYC. My four-year-old nephew wasn’t able to attend (at the time, children under six weren’t allowed in the theater, and we’d prepared him for this in advance), and suffered a monumental meltdown on the sidewalk outside as his dad tried to take him to Build-a-Bear instead. An Asian tourist conspicuously took pictures of the whole thing.

[Xan]

Well, I suppose they're in Switzerland now.  She posted a bunch of pics of their travels through Germany.  There's lots of walking, pics of castles, and children playing on steps.  This trip looks exhausting.

The late Mr. Xan and I didn't vacation well together.  I have always been fine just going somewhere and enjoying the local culture.  Let me wander and eat and people watch and I'm happy.  Mr. Xan, on the other hand, had to collect sights.  If there was anything noteworthy or touristy in the general area, he wanted to see it.  It didn't matter if it was crowded or there were lines.  It was like he had some internal list of places to be checked off.  Abbie strikes me the same way.  I think she and Shaun are dragging the children to see everything.  I wonder if the younger ones will even be able to remember what they saw?

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

I don't think the youngest will actually remember anything, but they will be reminded by Braggie over and over and over and over and over ... as the years go on how badly they behaved and what a trial they were to Braggie and how many times they had to be spanked, etc. etc etc.

Oh yes I do believe Braggie is spanking on this trip as she always does. She just isn't posting about it.