Churchhoney

That apple, at least, has fallen very near the tree. Greedy. Without feeling. Phony as a three-and-a-half-dollar bill. TeeVee Money. I hear it goes down on you quite effectively.

Yikes.

Maybe they've solved the "Jana won't be exciting tv viewing" problem by casting someone else as Jana. .... Cuz who is that? Ditto for Jinge. And not only is she back, but rival Jill didn't make it back in time for the promo. Jessa: "Score!"

Wonder whether wearing her new, fun-n-bubbly personality every time the cameras roll will start to wear on Jessa?

Who the heck is that touchy-feely, modern-looking, totally phony-baloney sitcom family in that trailer-that-looks-like-an-SNL-parody? Now they're trying to sell them as The Duggar Young Folk Come Through Their Trial By Fire as a Closer and More Loving Family Than Ever and Now These Courageous Young Adults Are Movin' On! What a nauseating piece of propaganda that trailer is. What's with Joy sitting there pensively tearful looking like a well-dressed stray dog in a Humane Society fundraising ad? Since when are they hugging each other and bouncing off each other all the time? And how the heck are they going to work Josh back in -- which they'll have to do if they're featuring Anna? Looks to me as if this series could turn out to be more of a pile of lying shit than 19 Kids.

Woman says that her family participated in ATI at the very fringes, with minimal contact with Gothard and the organization, but that her parents nevertheless heard enough through the rumor mill to begin putting two and two together about BG's particular creepazoidness long before any of the women's stories were made public. .... So if these people knew what he was, there's no way that people like the Bateses and Duggars, who were very plugged in and active, had not heard the same rumors. For decades. http://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2016/02/22/bill-gothards-abuse-is-not-a-surprise/ 'In middle school: 'Me: “Why does this say we have to curl our hair?” 'Dad (beginning to connect the dots): “Gothard is attracted to women with wavy, though not too curly, hair. *He* likes women that way. That’s why he says this.”... 'I can still remember the conversation my parents had about the daughter Hope at the dinner table that day. Hope was “his type.” Hope had “long, thick wavy hair and perfect complexion.” Hope had little education, and would wait on his every beck and call, because she wouldn’t know better. Dad just kept saying, “Gothard is creepy; I know he is. He spent his whole life [indirectly] telling us that our daughters with very straight hair had inferior hair because it isn’t wavy. Too bad the girls didn’t get my hair, haha.” 'I want to be clear; this conversation occurred long before the testimonies of Gothard’s “type” surfaced the internet through the website Recovering Grace. In fact, my family did not have internet at this time that I remember, other than email via dial-up. My parents had this conversations without any personal verification; they obviously had heard gossip about his “pets” and “types,” but they never heard that he was actually touching young girls.'

On the other hand, they're hundreds of miles from JB and M. ..... Don't know about J and D, but that would feel really different to me!

I was going to suggest that she was pulling snotty, used kleenex and bubble gum wrappers out of the kids' pockets before they contaminated the dryer load. But this probably makes more sense. I don't know, but it's lucky she came that early. She obviously was in time to see the piano teacher burying a body in the garden, because that's the only level of blackmail I can imagine that would get somebody to come to your house to do laundry for 12 years.

Yeah, I agree. My "ignorance is kind of an excuse thing" was an attempt to give them M the benefit of the doubt. But I don't really have a doubt. She (as well as JB, in spades) really don't care about their kids, in my opinion. (okay, more doubt benefit -- can't help myself, apparently) They care about being able to control their kids. And ensuring that your kids are incapable of navigating the actual world and are therefore terrified to venture from your apron strings is a handy way to maintain that control.

Exactly. The bad thing is that, in every choice she's made about her homeschooling, Michelle shows she doesn't care about learning, teaching, education. To me, that loudly advertises that, no matter what she believes, she doesn't actually care about her kids. Or, perhaps, she cares about her kids, but she has absolutely no idea how the world works, I suppose. But I think if she truly cared about her kids, she'd find out whether education is important or not before going her own lazy arrogant way -- and if she bothered to look into the matter, she'd find that those kids deserve and need solid education, for their sake and the sake of their children.

Well, the house is basically a very very large steel shed. So, probably, yeah ... I always imagine how it must echo. The stuff of nightmares. Can't imagine that sound isn't driving some kid crazy as we write.

No, it was shown. It was one of the two episodes that I've ever actually tried to watch. Couldn't make it through half of either episode, though. In the honeymoon one, I swear they repeated one of the uber uber boring talking heads at least twice in the first 20 minutes. (That could just be a hallucination brought on by the worst tv-watching boredom I ever experienced, though.) Well, at least you won't see that big-headed photo of JB that keeps popping up on this site. I'm pretty sure that's what I'll see.

Yeah, she has been, apparently. She's there in photos. Right next to Josiah, too, in at least one instance. Unfortunately, that virtually never seems to happen with people like JB and M. Maybe they'll lose what meager faculties they have over the next decade or so, though, and just become incapable of keeping that large number of control-freak plates spinning. That's the only hope I see for it, really. But I can imagine that happening. They haven't got that many faculties to begin with.

Darkening of the left eye. Isn't that the sign of the devil? Especially when it comes in threes?

That's it all right.

I don't think Mechelle could teach a science class at any level, including Pre-K, in a non-Creationism-based or Creationism-based curriculum! Even in the a Creationism-based curriculum you need to cite and articulate reasoning of some kind and show kids certain details and observations and talk about how they might back up or not back up certain ideas. Given the mis-memorized mush I've heard come out of her mouth over the years, I can't picture her doing that, period.

Wonder whether Gothard is so delusional that he truly believes he's done nothing wrong or whether he's intimidated people into silence for so long that he thinks he can continue doing it. If the latter, I believe that ship has sailed.

Sometimes I wonder whether all the to-do doesn't mean that they got married young so that they could legitimately have sex. But then found out that they didn't really enjoy it that much. So ever since they've been "trying" in probably stupid ways to rev up that enjoyment but have never really managed to. .. So all they've got is the endless "trying" and a whole lot of bragging about it and obsessing over it as compensation for giving up their young-adult years for something that turned out not to be that much fun for them after all. As you say, there just seems to be something way off about people their age carrying on about sex so often and so much to the exclusion of everything else. It seems as if it could be a protest-too-much situation. I hope that, whatever this is, it's not a tradition they pass on to the kids. But I guess they have already, with Josh. And while Jill and Derick and Jessa and Ben dont' do this now, I'm not confident that Jessa and Ben, especially, woudln't turn out to be a similarly protesting couple somewhere down the line if they end up feeling disappointed with their romantic life.

Well, Subway's pretty much all over Latin America -- and every place else -- these days. So they could be in either place.

It is too bad for the Duggar kids that they don't get that kind of solid education. But I guess cheapness and a real lack of respect for knowledge wins out there, don't you? I also wonder whether MEchelle and JB might not feel intimidated by any program that contains knowledge that they don't have. It's a matter of values, I would guess, but maybe also a matter -- as are so many things -- of their insecurity, I guess.

Well, if she'd bought fresh she'd have to clean, wash, cut up and cook it. Whereas with a can -- use the electric opener and voila! I can see that consideration weighing heavily with any Duggar.

Just to clarify, I completely agree with what you say about A-Beka's intent and its general high quality and completeness. We do have a deep disagreement about science, however. I consider evolution and its cosmic counterparts to be the central conceptual core of all 21st century science, both biological and physical. So i consider any curriculum that doesn't incorporate evolution in that way to be dead wrong in its essentials and general principles although it can be correct and good in many of its details -- which is how I would describe A-Beka science. Not that A-Beka is alone in this. Studies show that even most American public school textbooks and science teachers don't recognize or stress evolution as a core scientific principle. So. as you say, A-Beka -- which I agree is very well done in many ways-- can provide even a science education that's just as good as you can get in most public schools. (Needless to say, it wouldn't if a Duggar were "teaching" it, but I can't even imagine a Duggar using such an intellectual approach.)

Exactly. And I expect that most of those who refer to him as "Mr. Gothard" -- I'm looking at you, Erin Bates Paine -- will never admit to them either. Some will, certainly, but among people who are so indoctrinated and who have stuck with him this long, after all that's come out over the years -- most are lifers, I expect. That's just the way cults of personality work, always.

And you have to wonder how little or much any of the ATI/IBLP faithful are connected to "Gothard the man," when you see stuff like this Gothard-defense-against-lawsuit-allegations site that's obviously stuff with ATI/IBLP influentials who are concealing their names but are admittedly in close touch with BG and actively defending him. From the sound of this, I doubt that it's an isolated fringey ATI/IBLP group but more likely includes some central figures. They're pretending to be at arms' length from it all, but the amount of true-believerism they exhibit makes it clear that they're anything but. http://www.discoveringgrace.com/about-2/ "Some of us who have followed Bill’s ministry and have been blessed by it have sought to help in resolving issues raised by these accusations. We have spoken to Bill directly and have found an 80 year old man deeply humbled by all that has gone on leading to his separation from IBLP, the ministry he founded, eager to correct whatever he can. He continues to emphatically deny any criminal or moral failures. "Some of us have independently participated in the Recovering Grace blog, gathering facts and seeking to provide balancing information, correcting errors we were aware of. “Discovering Grace” came about after a number of us were separately banned from commenting on the site and subsequently found each other. It is our wish to do our part in providing support to Bill and his ministry, giving honor to whom honor is due. As a group we remain in active communication with Bill as we seek to deal righteously with issues that are presented to us. A number of us have sat with him on a number of occasions and asked questions that needed to be answered. We have seen him assume full responsibility for issues that we knew had substance and troubled us. We have sought to facilitate the reconciliation process between him and others and will continue to do so. "We are theologians, housewives, retired folk, IT and business professionals. We do not report to Bill and it is certain that he will not be happy with all of what we deal with here. We continue to solicit review and comment privately by those who consider themselves adversaries. Ultimately the goal is to glorify the name of Jesus and see His purposes for His Kingdom and church furthered."

A-Beka has chemistry and other sciences. All "taught" so as not to "conflict" with anything biblical, of course. But with that as a caveat, I'd say they pretty much cover the full range of subject matter in all areas.