mynextmistake

If that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

$2000 for a pet-quality golden retriever? Christ on a cracker. For that price it had better clean my house, do my taxes and teach my child long division.

She’s clearly having trouble coping to an extreme degree. I worry that if she doesn’t get some counseling or support to help her process her feelings about the miscarriage it will impair her ability to parent her future children in a healthy way.

For a brief but glorious moment, I thought the top picture was there to accompany an announcement that Timothy was courting.

I definitely understand your position as well. And I don’t actually disagree with much of what you’ve said here — vaguebooking is not an optimal strategy for solving problems, and in an ideal world Amy would have talked to Jill about this. I guess I just empathize with Amy because I think I understand how she feels. I wouldn’t have survived my childhood without my grandfather, who was really the only person in my life who loved me unconditionally and liked me for the person I was instead of the person everyone else wanted me to be. I also have a bunch of cousins and I can easily imagine how I would have felt reading a post like Jill’s right after he died. The pain and anger would have been so visceral that I don’t think I would have had the grace to handle it optimally. Sometimes you’re so hurt that all you can do is chomp. I think that’s probably what it was like for Amy. As to the rest of it, I think we all balance intention and action differently when we assess situations. To you, intentions are foremost. To me, actions are. I can see how that would lead us to have different perspectives on this situation! I do hope the cousins eventually bury the hatchet. Amy’s marriage doesn’t seem that great and she’s going to need support when the baby comes, especially without Grandma Mary around.

Who were you talking about, then? Amy? Is there something suggesting that internet strangers prodded her into hurting family members? Her reaction to Jill’s post seemed genuine enough to me. I don’t think she was goaded into being upset by the internet.

1) Too many people think having the right to do something equates to having the right to do something without consequence. Life doesn’t work that way. Of course Jill has the right to grieve however she decides to, including by putting an appallingly inappropriate post on social media. She just shouldn’t be surprised when it makes others angry or upset, and she doesn’t have the right to expect that they won’t also share those feelings on social media. 2) If Jill is letting the opinions of a bunch of strangers on a message board dictate how she behaves toward her family, she needs to get some professional help.

I disagree. I don’t think Jill’s intentions were malicious, but I don’t think that fact obviates her responsibility to think about others. Intentions matter, but I think too many people get a pass for bad or poorly-thought-out behavior because they claim not to have had bad intentions. If you knock me down and I break my arm, it doesn’t really matter (except possibly in a legal sense) whether you knocked me down out of spite or carelessness. My arm hurts just as much either way. If Grandma Mary’s death had been expected or happened under less awful circumstances, I think Jill’s post would have been defensible. But her grandmother drowned unexpectedly and her body was discovered by a member of the family. It isn’t exactly Advanced Etiquette to realize you shouldn’t be jovial about her death in a social media post you put up *right after she dies* and that others in your family, including the daughter of the woman who found her, are going to see. Jill can feel however she wants, but that doesn’t mean she has to share it with the world. As someone else pointed out above, Jill is 28 years old and a mother of two. She has no excuse to be that clueless about nuances of expression. I can understand why Amy might have been upset.

My feelings are entirely with Amy in this situation. People saying we need to cut Jill some slack for her inappropriate emoji post because she was infantilized by her upbringing need to remember that Amy’s upbringing wasn’t wine and roses either, what with her mother filing for restraining orders against her reportedly violent father and all. Plus Amy had no siblings for support and went largely without the material advantages and fawning attention her cousins got after the show started. I think she was genuinely close to Mary and I believe her when she says Mary was like a second mother to her. If I were her and I had seen posts like Jill’s “gramma died, lol” or Lauren’s “this is all about meeeeeeeee” I would have been infuriated.

They had to specify it was a “vocal, singing” competition? There’s such a thing as a silent singing competition? How do they judge that? Do you have to mime, or do interpretive dance?

I hope she’s all right as well. Her life must be very stressful — three kids under four, a night job cleaning offices, and all the social media stuff she does would really take a toll. I doubt she gets much sleep.

I mean, I don’t know your sister, but it’s possible that her decisions aren’t all made on the basis of how they’ll affect her dating life? It’s kind of off-putting to see an adult woman’s housekeeping standards being criticized because they make it less likely that she’ll land a man. That kind of thinking is really not very different from the sexist attitudes we criticize the Duggars for having.

What is up with those folding chairs? Did all the birthday party guests sit there and watch Derick climb the wall? If they brought a gift, did they get to pelt him with tennis balls as he climbed? If so, why wasn’t I invited? That would have been worth spending a few bucks on a 12-pack of Gatorade. I think it’s incredibly sad that Derick posts a picture of him absorbed in a laptop while Sam is next to him playing with a pencil and hashtags it #fathersontime. Having your child in the same room with you when you are doing your taxes is not father/son time. Take the kid to the park. It’s not like you have anything better to do over summer vacation since you obviously don’t have a job.

It was interesting to read Erin’s post. She said they had #2 (can’t remember her name) because they knew Carson needed a younger sibling and had Everly because they knew #2 needed a younger sibling but that Everly “just got lucky.” This makes it sound like #4 was unexpected. Similarly, I remember someone (her mother in law?) saying something to Alyssa about having three kids in three years and Alyssa replying “that wasn’t the plan” or something like that. I’m at a loss as to how they think they can avoid pregnancy without using some sort of contraception, but it’s possible they did intend to space their pregnancies differently.

Tim probably never saw that chart because he’s not allowed to use the internet. It might turn him gay or make him look at porn. Jill and David certainly should have been able to find it, though.

Well if Jill and her matted hair of doom wear dresses like that very often I guess we can stop speculating about what they use for birth control.

🤢

It looks like she did that thing where she gave the bridesmaids a color and designer and let them choose their own dresses. It’s a smart way to go, especially when you’ve got attendants with different standards of appropriate dress. I thought the wedding dress was tacky. There, I said it.

If she is pregnant, Josiah’s mother’s day post doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Joy? She’s not pictured at the adult table.

I wouldn’t read too much into it. These are the Duggars. At least one of them is pregnant basically all the time.

I think it might be time for Sammy to team up with Jeremy’s lynx.

I hate it when men wear polos with a sport coat or suit jacket. Even my 82-year-old father in law looks like a dork in that ensemble.

Okay, six months and two weeks then. Whatever. Regardless, except Jinger (who probably was using birth control) this is the longest any Duggar or Duggar spouse has gone without conceiving after marriage by several months. Jill, Joy, Kendra and Lauren all conceived within a month, and Jessa and Anna conceived in 3 months. Barring fertility issues, I would have expected Abbie to be pregnant by now if she wasn’t using protection.

We just plunked Mini Mistake on a blanket on the floor. Those loungers don’t look that safe. You aren’t supposed to put babies in soft bedding because they can roll and smother themselves.