Bontragers/Bowers/Helferichs 12

[JermajestyDuggar]

Chelsy says everyone stayed with Allison for the wedding. Why didn’t Allison post about this? I genuinely don’t understand Allison’s posting. She never seems to post about these big fun things. Yes it could be stressful to have everyone at your house. But you would think she would at least post something about family being together. 

[postscript]

Bless Chelsy, she posted a full family photo so we can see confirmation of last year’s mystery babies and the current status of the various family units. Most of the women have babies in front of their stomachs so it’s hard to tell if any new pregnancies. I’m predicting another onslaught of Bont babies next year. 

She also got a nice picture of her and Sarah Maxwell. Sarah is showing shoulders! That wedding looks like a lot of fun.

[MomKB]

8 hours ago, ifosterkittens said:

I’ve come to wonder if Allison was born an introvert who had that “trained” out of her at a young age. Did she have to change herself to be “friendly”? If she wasn’t allowed to be an introvert because her mother deemed it rude when she was a baby I wonder if her whole life she’s been trying to act in a way her parents viewed as acceptable even if it didn’t come naturally to her. 

I don't know if this was about Allison, but Ma Bontrager had a post about how a 2 year old wasn't thinking about others' feelings, by not greeting the person or whatever. IIRC

[JermajestyDuggar]

3 hours ago, MomKB said:

I don't know if this was about Allison, but Ma Bontrager had a post about how a 2 year old wasn't thinking about others' feelings, by not greeting the person or whatever. IIRC

I was thinking it was Rebs. But it could have been any of the kids. I’m sure she forced all of her kids to act the same whether they were having a good day, bad day, were tired, or genuinely shy. Being shy isn’t a bad thing. But it is to the Bontragers. Because daddy is the biggest loud mouth who loves to hear himself talk and all his kids better happily repeat everything he says and does in public. So he can look good. 

[Sops2]

Jeremiah has his hand on Alison's leg in the family room photo.

Perhaps he's getting a bit more relaxed and demonstrative  - could be Alison's massage oil is working.( ! )

[HereticHick]

7 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Chelsy says everyone stayed with Allison for the wedding. Why didn’t Allison post about this? I genuinely don’t understand Allison’s posting. She never seems to post about these big fun things. Yes it could be stressful to have everyone at your house. But you would think she would at least post something about family being together. 

Agreed. I don't understand why she didn't post about hospitality--fundies loved to make any idol of that!

[Brittany15]

9 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Chelsy says everyone stayed with Allison for the wedding. Why didn’t Allison post about this? I genuinely don’t understand Allison’s posting. She never seems to post about these big fun things. Yes it could be stressful to have everyone at your house. But you would think she would at least post something about family being together. 

If I were to give any of the bont ladies credit for anything it would definitely be their cooking, table presentation, and hosting skills. Honestly, they have had some pretty beautiful tables set with delicious food on it. I would like to tell Allison - your marriage is nothing crazy special and most people don’t want to learn about marriage from someone so newly married. On the contrary you can throw a good dinner party- teach me that

[JermajestyDuggar]

44 minutes ago, Brittany15 said:

If I were to give any of the bont ladies credit for anything it would definitely be their cooking, table presentation, and hosting skills. Honestly, they have had some pretty beautiful tables set with delicious food on it. I would like to tell Allison - your marriage is nothing crazy special and most people don’t want to learn about marriage from someone so newly married. On the contrary you can throw a good dinner party- teach me that

It’s definitely their Amish family background. I’m sure Becky learned how to cook from scratch for a large group starting at a very early age. That’s the thing about newly quiverful fundies. They were raised in families with 1-4 kids total. Their parents could buy TV dinners if they didn’t feel like cooking. They didn’t always make everything from scratch. They didn’t make huge meals constantly. They didn’t have giant gardens to use for canning. So you get families like the Bateses, Rods, and the Duggars. They buy very cheap bulk canned foods and frozen foods. And probably don’t make enough food for everyone. They don’t have giant gardens. They don’t know how to make huge cheap meals from scratch from fresh garden veggies. But the Amish have been doing this for well over a century. And they taught all the Bontrager daughters. 

[Caroline]

1 hour ago, Brittany15 said:

I would like to tell Allison - your marriage is nothing crazy special and most people don’t want to learn about marriage from someone so newly married.

It is pretty amazing and arrogant of these young things to be dispensing advice about things they have very little experience with. I thought they were supposed to be modest in all things? I guess other naive young things are the ones hanging on to every word of a Bontrager man or woman. It's just weird.

[Dominionatrix]

Allison has posted multiple times about being friends with Bethany Beal, or Girl Defined. Bethany had a whole kind of scammy business around online courses, and she promoted it relentlessly by encouraging people to find their brand niche. 
 

I think Allison is trying to grow her social media presence for Young Living by doubling down on her niche of being a young married fundie woman with kids, so she focuses her content on that. Meanwhile, Liz is doubling down on her niche of being a fundie single girl, and has recently had tremendous success growing her account this way. 
 

While I agree that Allison has always seemed like an ambitious woman working overtime to reconcile her impulses with fundiedom, I’m not convinced she’s as unhappy in marriage now as we tend to assume here. I think having her own house has been a game changer in that department, and along with kids allows her to have lots of projects that she controls. I’m not saying she’s necessarily fulfilled, but I just don’t think we know enough to confidently say that her marriage with her specific husband is the issue. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

17 minutes ago, Dominionatrix said:

Allison has posted multiple times about being friends with Bethany Beal, or Girl Defined. Bethany had a whole kind of scammy business around online courses, and she promoted it relentlessly by encouraging people to find their brand niche. 
 

I think Allison is trying to grow her social media presence for Young Living by doubling down on her niche of being a young married fundie woman with kids, so she focuses her content on that. Meanwhile, Liz is doubling down on her niche of being a fundie single girl, and has recently had tremendous success growing her account this way. 
 

While I agree that Allison has always seemed like an ambitious woman working overtime to reconcile her impulses with fundiedom, I’m not convinced she’s as unhappy in marriage now as we tend to assume here. I think having her own house has been a game changer in that department, and along with kids allows her to have lots of projects that she controls. I’m not saying she’s necessarily fulfilled, but I just don’t think we know enough to confidently say that her marriage with her specific husband is the issue. 

I think it could be that she’s so far away from family and friends. I think that would bother most people. Chelsy and John are very social and friendly people so I’m sure Chelsy made new friends in Kansas when she moved. But Allison not only moved once but twice since marrying. I bet neither she nor her husband knew anyone in this new city besides the family that moved with them. Her husband doesn’t seem outgoing so I doubt he’s making many friends and Allison is home all day so she probably gets few chances to make new friends. I think she’s probably lonely and that’s her biggest issue with any unhappiness. She used to be around people all the time before she got married. It’s such a huge change. 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:19 AM, MomKB said:

Ma Bontrager had a post about how a 2 year old wasn't thinking about others' feelings, by not greeting the person or whatever

These people are insane. Child shyness is normal, natural, and a protective instinct.

[Giraffe]

5 hours ago, GuineaPigCourtship said:

These people are insane. Child shyness is normal, natural, and a protective instinct.

Yup, gotta beat typical child development out of them as quickly as possible. How else will they get their gut instinct trained out of them? /s

It’s disgusting how fundies preach they’re so much better than The World when it comes to life (well, everything). In reality the way they treat their children sets them up to be victims of whichever predator comes around first! They refuse to accept “appropriate child development” is a valid thing worth supporting and encouraging. It’s infuriating!

[LurkerOverThePond]

Thanks again to Chelsy for providing us glimpses of Sarah&Kory/the Bontrager-Bowers-couples and their growing brood/info about Allison's house.

Chelsy says that Allison has multiple guest rooms. Sounds like a huge house - I hope that she finally has her own home and is not residing again at her mil&fil's attic! Sarah's clothing choices are not to my taste but there can only be one comment said about them: GO SARAH!! Steve must be absolutely livid. Kory looks like a goofy fun man so everything Steve preached against. Suck that, Steve.

It must be difficult for Praise and Denver to pose in family photos with their siblings' ever growing families. Personally, I do feel for them. It has to be incredibly hard to have fertility problems (if they really have those but I doubt they are being childless by choice) in a cult where your worth is measured by the number of kids you have. However, both the Bontragers and Helferiches have such disgusting archaic beliefs that I can only say the less children these people have the better.

The four (?) Helferich daughters are all very beautiful but I get such insular cultish vibes from them. No matter if they are married or not, or have been married for years, they all look exactly similar to each other down to their hairstyles. Talk about Stepford style! I don't know what it exactly is but I find the Helferiches to be such a scary/weird in a bad way/cold family.

[0 kids n not countin]

I find the insular vibe scary/weird too, and hope that the remaining unmarried Bontrager siblings marry outside the Bowers and Helfrich clans!!  

[JermajestyDuggar]

1) that sounds like toxic positivity to me. People are allowed to say something is hard. Not everyone is the same Allison. 
2) Again, not everyone is like you Allison. I never wanted the honeymoon stage to last. Marriages will look different depending on the stage of life. Sorry but your life and marriage will change too allison. I hope you can handle that. Because you seem to have a very difficult time dealing with change. 
3) I’m sorry you can’t dress how you want. But you were raised fundie. So it’s normal for you to be told how to dress by the men in your life. I feel sorry for you. 
4) Fundieland told you it’s for men. You can blame your church and family for pushing the idea that sex is for men. Sorry you had to unlearn those ignorant messages. 

[BigSandy]

I like that some folks have commented that "hard doesn't equal bad" or similarly!

[ifosterkittens]

1 hour ago, BigSandy said:

I like that some folks have commented that "hard doesn't equal bad" or similarly!

I think this is an important distinction. I don't want anyone to be in a marriage that is hard all day every day for the duration of the entire marriage, but don't almost all if not all marriages have hard times? Not everyone broadcast their challenging times, and fundie culture probably emphasizes to keep the tough times quiet, but that doesn't mean they don't happen. 

[Giraffe]

4 minutes ago, ifosterkittens said:

I think this is an important distinction. I don't want anyone to be in a marriage that is hard all day every day for the duration of the entire marriage, but don't almost all if not all marriages have hard times? Not everyone broadcast their challenging times, and fundie culture probably emphasizes to keep the tough times quiet, but that doesn't mean they don't happen. 

“Hard is not the same as bad” is a catchphrase m.is.for.mama uses. She spends 95% of her posts bitching about how awful her children are and how much she hates parenting but then will post obnoxious posts drenched in toxic positivity because #hardisnotthesameasbad. I’m guessing some of Alison’s posters are snarking. 

[ifosterkittens]

2 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

“Hard is not the same as bad” is a catchphrase m.is.for.mama uses. She spends 95% of her posts bitching about how awful her children are and how much she hates parenting but then will post obnoxious posts drenched in toxic positivity because #hardisnotthesameasbad. I’m guessing some of Alison’s posters are snarking. 

Thanks! I don't follow m is for mama, so I'm not in the loop, and missed it was snark. I wonder if Allison is waking up every day drilling this toxic positivity into herself because why harp on it so much otherwise? Her children are far too young to be worried about setting an example for to this extreme. She hasn't been married that long so I can't see anyone looking to Allison to be the voice of authority on marriage. Is Allison unimpressed with her sisters-in-law and how they are treating her brothers, and this is her not so subtle reminder??

[Giraffe]

4 minutes ago, ifosterkittens said:

Thanks! I don't follow m is for mama, so I'm not in the loop, and missed it was snark. I wonder if Allison is waking up every day drilling this toxic positivity into herself because why harp on it so much otherwise? Her children are far too young to be worried about setting an example for to this extreme. She hasn't been married that long so I can't see anyone looking to Allison to be the voice of authority on marriage. Is Allison unimpressed with her sisters-in-law and how they are treating her brothers, and this is her not so subtle reminder??

She’s probably trying to talk herself into believing it. My guess is marriage has not been the be all end all she grew up believing it would be and it’s hitting her like a ton of bricks. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Giraffe

[Smash!]

Life can be hard and that can put a strain on a relationship. I love that I have the choice to live the life that is best for me in the circumstances I‘m in. Whether that means to break up with the guy I‘m with because it‘s too hard or to decide to weather the storm. 

Allison doesn’t have that choice over her life unless she leaves fundamentalism which basically means leaving friends and family.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think Liz would be shocked if I told her about my family. My children go to dirty liberal public school. They are being raised without religion. Their parents vote for democrats in every election these days (there used to be some republicans mixed in about ten or so years ago but not anymore!) They have a feminist for a mother. Yet my boys are very close. They play together every single day of their lives. Do they fight? Of course. All kids do. But do they make up quickly? Yes. There’s nothing wrong with having disagreements with your siblings. As long as you work them out and don’t let it get to physical fighting. Liz seems to think her family is 100% good and all other mainstream families are 100% bad. When I could find many mainstream families that likely function in a healthier manner than hers. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I also need to add something else. I think Marlin and Becky push sibling BFFs and sibling surrogate bf/gf as a control tactic. It’s easier to control children if they always put their siblings ahead of their friends. Because friends might not 100% agree with every single thing your family believes. But your siblings will reinforce the family beliefs. 

[Jasmar]

And as a bonus, siblings will swiftly report any perceived transgression of the Holy Writ (read: rules) to the Headship.