Brandy starts over, all over again.

[oscar]

Gone is the "funky and freespirited family walking with Christ." Instead, we're back to:

"Simplified version? We follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We homechurch and homeschool. We're conservative and don't give a hoot about the politics of this world. We are in this world, but not of this world. And we know not everyone will get that."

pinterest.com/thecormiers/

On pinterest, she's nuked the "Dreadlocks Inspiration" and "Our Style" boards, with all the flowy boho crocheted stuff. She's also stopped following a lot of the hippie pinners. In their place she seems to be following off-grid living, preserving and canning, and "pallet love."

Oh, Brandy. No matter what you do, you'll still be you.

[chiccy]

I don't know Brandy at all but this is so obnoxious...it has the typical confidence-with-an-edge-of-condescension of all fundie writing. "We're conservative and don't give a hoot about the politics of this world. We are in this world, but not of this world. And we know not everyone will get that." Gee, I guess I'm one of the thick ones who just doesn't get it.

I also hate when people say they are "in this world but not of it"...I guess it's more acceptable from people who REALLY are not of the world, like monks. But from fundies it just comes off as another assertion of "we're speshul snowflakes; we're so much better than you and the world; you're so superficial but we're right up here with God."

[Maude]

This woman is obviously bipolar or has some other mental disorder, and the worst part is that all her flip-flopping is likely messing up her kids. :?

[prairiemuffin]

Ohhhhh....I see she's rock-climbing now. :roll:

ETA: DAMMIT!!! she deleted her bordering-on-frightening entries about spanking, weight, etc. I never learn that I have to cache her posts!!!

[Confused_by_religion]

Ohhhhh....I see she's rock-climbing now. :roll:

Okay...rock-climbing seems to go more with free-spirited dreadlock-wearing motherhood than with strictly Christian conservative Mother-Hubbard wearing motherhood. Strange developments.

[asinglevoice]

also hate when people say they are "in this world but not of it"...I guess it's more acceptable from people who REALLY are not of the world, like monks. But from fundies it just comes off as another assertion of "we're speshul snowflakes; we're so much better than you and the world; you're so superficial but we're right up here with God."

It just seems like such a weird, space-culty thing to say, to me! Like, what does that even mean? My brother's girlfriend's ex-best-friend just recently spouted that same line as a reason for ending their friendship; "I am embarking on a journey that is not of this world, and if you are not with me, than I have nothing else to contribute to this friendship."

Frankly, but if you're blogging, using Pinterest or other forms of social media - you're "of this world". Sorry!

[oscar]

She didn't scrub her "about us" yet. Nowhere near as bonkers as those body image and anti-spanking posts, but why not cut and paste for posterity?

Brandy's About Us: The Hippie Interval

About Us

Hi everyone! Welcome to our lil’ space of the internet. If you’re anything like us, you want to know more about the person — or in this case, people — behind the blog. That’s what we’d like to cover here for y’all.

Short version: We’re Jason and Brandy. Met online. Married 9 years. Have two daughters. We unschool. We homechurch. We’re Christian Anarchists. And we’re into natural living {whole foods, homemade cleaners, etc}.

Now, for the fun. Forty bits of randomness.

1. In our 9 years of marriage, we’ve moved 11 times. 7 cities/towns in 5 different states.

2. That will go up to 12 times moved, 8 cities/towns in 6 states soon.

3. We don’t vote. At all.

4. We’re getting dreadlocks {using natural/neglect, so it’ll be awhile}

5. Yes, we wash our hair. With baking soda.

6. We would love to RV full-time.

7. Kinda makes homesteading hard, which is something else we want to do.

8. We’re attachment parents.

9. We all enjoy a family bedroom.

10. We have more than one child, so obviously the sex life doesn’t suffer.

11. Brandy stopped shaving. No, Jason doesn’t mind.

12. We both want tattoos.

13. And a couple piercings.

14. We want our next birthing experience to be a homebirth.

15. We do gentle parenting. No spanking, no time outs.

16. No, our children are not undisciplined heathens.

17. We lean more towards radical unschooling … … but our children have bedtimes.

18. We drink alcohol. Wine, Guinness, Sam Adams, even the occasional mixed drink.

19. We love music. All kinds of music. Christian and non-Christian.

20. Brandy hasn’t met a scary movie that’s scared her yet.

21. We love Harry Potter.

22. Twilight too.

23. We absolutely love books. We have several hundred, easy. And have another several hundred, easy, that we’d love to get.

24. We have 2 indoor cats and 1 dog.

25. We want goats, chickens, turkeys, ducks, a couple outdoor cats, and several more dogs.

26. Jason absolutely loves coffee.

27. Brandy is more into Pepsi Throwback and tea.

28. We don’t vaccinate our children.

29. We’ve ran the gamut of Christian circles {ultra conservative to Torah Observant to whatever you’d call us now}

30. We know Jesus would hang with us, drink our wine, watch our movies, listen to our music, read our books. He’s with us everywhere we go, so why wouldn’t He?

31. Submission isn’t a dirty word. Just sayin’

32. We’re pro-life. ALL life.

33. Which means, yes, we’re against war. All war.

34. If we could, we’d live in Alaska.

35. Jason and Brandy both love writing.

36. We don’t do doctors. Unless they really are needed.

37. We’d love to go to New Zealand. Or Scotland.

38. You can’t choose your family …. …. until you’re out on your own. Amen?

39. We’re gamers. Computer games, board games, Playstation 3. Oh yeah.

40. We constantly look for ways to simplify life. Simpler is better. By far.

I'm oddly eager to see how many of these she flat-out contradicts in the next iteration.

[valsa]

I suck at remembering which fundie is which. Is Brandy the one who occasionally goes lesbo?

[fundiefan]

Trying to keep up with Brandy and her husband is like trying to keep up with politics. You never know what the fuck will be said or done, but you can be damn sure the preaching will exist. It's enough to make your head spin, if you give a shit.

I used to follow her/them but in the last few months I've just given up. No one can sincerely reinvent themselves as often as they do. I believe there are mental/emotional issues involved and I can't watch. When it's the usual crazy, I'm all for being a gawker. When I realize/notice the deep emotional disturbances, I can't even look. I've reached the point where I hope a relative intervenes and takes those kids and gives them a life with some kind of stability.

Can you imagine being their kid? From one day to the next not knowing what is right or wrong, good or bad, punishable or not? The kids are not being educated in any way, shape or form. They use their poverty as an excuse and try to wear it as a badge of honor. They have no ambition. I don't doubt for a second that they'd be happy to be supported in a cave; as long as they don't have to interact with other people or live within society or play by any kind of rules.

They've taken confusion, fear and doubt to extreme levels. I can't watch anymore.

Where did the dreads and tattoos go (on Pintrest)? Oh, the same place their last religion went. I'm all for living as you feel, need, choose, want. I'm all for changing your mind. I am not, however, for playing games with the lives of others, especially the children you choose to bring into the world.

I change my mind weekly about some things. Some big things. I do not, however, change my life entirely every time my mind changes.

Those poor kids. They claim to be quiverfull and ready/trying for more. I hope they never succeed. No person deserves that life.

I've gone from respecting their lack of commitment to questioning it to doubting it to thinking it's crazy...and now, I just can't look or care. They are, simply put, mutually fucked up individuals who are fucking up their kids. Nothing good can ever come of that.

You can be poor and hold to your values without going over every deep end you can find. Well, most can do that. Brandy and Jason, not so much. They're trainwrecks in the making.

eta: Congrats, Brandy. You got us talking about you! You are being persecuted and given attention. You're so lucky. Can't wait to see the blog and Twitter posts about the haters. Because even though you've gone into hiding again, we will see it and you know that as well as we do. You're lucky. You got the attention. Have at it.

[chiccy]

9. We all enjoy a family bedroom.

10. We have more than one child, so obviously the sex life doesn’t suffer.

This is just cruel.

[fundiefan]

This is just cruel.

Not cruel. By the time the second was conceived the first was 6 or 7; old enough that no matter her teaching, she had a will of her own. I am sure, given their blog & Twitter posts at the time, the older one was nowhere to be seen when the younger one was conceived.

They desperately want another kid; they want to be the poor Duggars. There is no doubt that they try every chance they get.

Obviously, their god thinks the same as I do...no child deserves that life.

And, on the nasty note that will get even FJ'ers roaring, weight & size play a large part in fertility. Brandy is too fat to conceive just because she has unprotected sex. It's a known fact that weight affects fertility.

[dairyfreelife]

Not cruel. By the time the second was conceived the first was 6 or 7; old enough that no matter her teaching, she had a will of her own. I am sure, given their blog & Twitter posts at the time, the older one was nowhere to be seen when the younger one was conceived.

They desperately want another kid; they want to be the poor Duggars. There is no doubt that they try every chance they get.

Obviously, their god thinks the same as I do...no child deserves that life.

And, on the nasty note that will get even FJ'ers roaring, weight & size play a large part in fertility. Brandy is too fat to conceive just because she has unprotected sex. It's a known fact that weight affects fertility.

It can. I mean, I do know obese women who got pregnant, but a woman my mother works with weighed over 300lbs and couldn't have children. Lost 100lbs and got pregnant soon after. She gained weight after that and said she won't lose weight again because she doesn't want anymore babies. :lol:

[oscar]

I suck at remembering which fundie is which. Is Brandy the one who occasionally goes lesbo?

No, that's Janis at lilpeasinmypodfromgod.blogspot.com - Brandy used to blog at thecormierfamily.org/ and about a million other places before that. I think she first attracted attention by being frenemies with Candy Brauer, and then by her totally bonkers serial self-reinvention. She deletes her old blog every time she comes up with a new idea for who she wants to be, but she's just a little too boring and predictable to have inspired a brandywithoutpity or Brandy archive.

I wonder if she's washed her hair yet.

[chiccy]

Not cruel. By the time the second was conceived the first was 6 or 7; old enough that no matter her teaching, she had a will of her own. I am sure, given their blog & Twitter posts at the time, the older one was nowhere to be seen when the younger one was conceived.

Sleeping in the same room every night, though? And when the children are older, too? And more of them? To me, this is cruel. They can't sneak around forever; surely they are going to have sex at night in that room at some point. Especially if they are so desperate to conceive.

Is there something about "family bedrooms" that I'm missing, or is it as awful as it sounds?

[fundiefan]

Sleeping in the same room every night, though? And when the children are older, too? And more of them? To me, this is cruel. They can't sneak around forever; surely they are going to have sex at night in that room at some point. Especially if they are so desperate to conceive.

Is there something about "family bedrooms" that I'm missing, or is it as awful as it sounds?

Obviously (at least to me) they do not reserve sex for nights or the bedroom. They've trained their kids to go off to the "play room" whenver...Brandy has a bad day, their tempers get the best of them (they've said as much), so I don't doubt they've trained them to go off and play whenever mom and dad say so. Including when mom & dad want to be intimate. No need for beds, bedrooms, privacy or time of day restrictions. Not that there needs to be ever, but they are so committed to the 'family bed' that there is no doubt that in their world, there is no such thing as night/bed time intimacy.

[meow139]

not again, by the mane not again. :|

[Didi]

when i google the old blog address it comes up "cached" the last entry was about why spanking is bad... isn't that a good post? :-p

[prairiemuffin]

not again, by the mane not again. :|

[CelticGoddess]

This is just cruel.

My husband and I also had a "family bed room". And we have more than one child. We just used different rooms in the house. Made our sex life interesting. Granted, our children are only 2 years apart, and now they have their own rooms (they are 13/11) The family bed room was just something that worked for us.

[Black Aliss]

This point cheers me somewhat:

3. We don’t vote. At all.

Stick to yer guns, Brandy.

[LadyBlue]

Why? My older 2 kids shared a room with us until they were 8 & 4 & we'd moved someplace bigger. My (nearly) 3yr old & the newborn are still with us. I expect the 3yr old will join them in the next year or so. Sharing a room with your kids, at least for the first couple years, is very common in some circles.

[oscar]

I used to follow her/them but in the last few months I've just given up. No one can sincerely reinvent themselves as often as they do. I believe there are mental/emotional issues involved and I can't watch. When it's the usual crazy, I'm all for being a gawker. When I realize/notice the deep emotional disturbances, I can't even look. I've reached the point where I hope a relative intervenes and takes those kids and gives them a life with some kind of stability.

Can you imagine being their kid? From one day to the next not knowing what is right or wrong, good or bad, punishable or not? The kids are not being educated in any way, shape or form. They use their poverty as an excuse and try to wear it as a badge of honor. They have no ambition. I don't doubt for a second that they'd be happy to be supported in a cave; as long as they don't have to interact with other people or live within society or play by any kind of rules.

I can't overstate how much I disagree with the educational neglect Brandy inflicts upon her kids in the guise of "unschooling," but it seems like the family's extreme doctrinal and lifestyle shifts exist more substantially in word than in deed. I mean, how many times has Brandy written manifestos on What They Now Believe and Why, and then a little while later, she writes about how she didn't actually do any of the things she'd talked about, and then she wipes the slate clean with another reinvention?

I doubt the reality of her children's daily lives changes much from incarnation to incarnation. They "unschool" themselves while Brandy dicks around on the computer, alienated from friends, relatives and community. It's sad.

[oscar]

I think it might be a good time to revisit defrauding's brilliant Wheel of Brandy - where oh where will the spinner land next?

[fundiefun]

Don't they live in a very rural town in Wyoming and neither she nor her husband drive so they don't really go too many places that aren't within walking distance IIRC. I know she would post about her husband walking to her work and I can only imagine how living that secluded effects her children.

[ElphabaGalinda]

I'm hoping her beliefs/lifestyle don't change as much as she says they do, or that'd be confusing for the kids. The only consistency they get is no real schooling, and that's really not fair that they're being denied an education. I wish one of her incarnations would involve a belief in public school, for the sake of the kids.