Churchhoney

ATI is leaving Illinois to consolidate operations in Big Sandy. Looks like shrinkage to me. "The decision has been made. Last week it was officially announced that IBLP will be relocating its headquarters from Chicago to Big Sandy, Texas. The trends over the last 15 years have shown that the ministry has more properties than it currently needs, and after much prayer and consideration it was decided that it would be a financially strategic move to consolidate with the ALERT campus down in Texas. While not unexpected, the move will still be quite a change for all of us." http://staddonfamily.com/2015/09/14/texas-ho/ Gee, I wonder what God is trying to tell them? Cause I'd call this a darned good sign.

I hope he has to support all 20 of Benessa's children. Keep him too busy to make any more trouble. I'm sure that they did it so that they wouldn't end up devoting an entire bathroom to a child-sized toilet. With a limited number of bathrooms, you wouldn't want to have one that could only be used by a small child. This way, anybody who needs to use the bathroom can use this one. It doesn't just sit there frustrating people until a six-year-old needs to go. I don't see that it's any different from having a separate tub and separate shower in the same bathroom. You're not expecting two people to use these simultaneously. You're just making the room multifunctional. By building one of your bathrooms with only a child-sized toilet, you're effectively making it completely nonfunctional much of the time. With a lot of people in the house, why would you want to do that? Oh, I imagine Little Benny pretty effectively blindfolded Ben Proper. This was a teenage boy with hormones we're talking about here. .... Plus, a teenage boy with hormones looking at a future with the hot girl from television. Wild horses probably couldn't have dragged him away.

Of course, based on how they present themselves, that could be last week. Seriously. We often remark on how young the Duggar kids come off. Typical, of course, for the isolated and sheltered. But Ben is almost worse. Much of the time he seems like a particularly socially inept 6th or 7th grader. And he'll soon be a father. And, heaven help us, he has hopes of imminent multiple fatherhood. That just seems like a child with the dreams of a child. I can't imagine what that family's going to be like as the years unfold.

Well, you guys have a much higher opinion of Jill's practical midwifing experience than I do, then. Before you can even sign up for the written exam, you have to have completed a fairly long list of clinical stuff, including this: "Phase 3: Clinicals as Primary Under Supervision 20 births, 75 prenatals (including 20 initial prenatals), 20 newborn exams, and 40 postpartum exams as a primary midwife under supervision. Continuity of Care births are required in this phase." http://narm.org/entr...vel-applicants/ I'd be stunned if she even completed that part during this U.S. stay, let alone completing it previously....Must say I'm also surprised that we haven't heard it bragged about on social media, if she's in fact accomplished it. But if she has, and if she has even kept quiet about it, then good for her, I say

Good question. Dunno. Wouldn't surprise me, though.

Well, this is why you're going to hell with all the other non fundies. Sorry. When God created people, his plan was for them all to be helpless ninnies who can't even choose a frigging toothbrush without begging him to choose for them. You see, God has an ego problem. Kinda like his very favorite son, Jim Bob. Remember that famous verse: "Woe to all ye who take seriously the reason, the imagination and the muscles, seeing them even as faculties meant to be used to conduct your lives. Yea, I say verily the Lord our God the Egomaniac created them as eye-traps, to confound the unrighteous and tempt them into consulting these puny fabrications created by Egomaniac as tests for the unrighteous and unwary who would be led astray by these false idols. Rather, I say unto you brethren, thou must kneel down in the aisle of the CVS and call upon the Lord your God for full guidance in the making of all pharmacy and non-pharmacy drugstore purchases."

Actually there are 20. There are really no coincidences. (Maybe you missed the little guy in the back right corner of the couch -- the one in the green shirt with another kid's foot on his head?)

Particularly when JIm Bob is involved. Oughta be one of the top new words of the year, actually. Once again God moves in mysterious ways. ....

Maybe she's depressed and spends her days in that horrible suspended-animation/fog that depression can cause? In between bouts of gearing up the energy to put on the happy face?

This post cries out to be repeated.

Read about this in an email today -- a study on how long the bad influence lasts when your parents are overly controlling and don't form warm individual bonds with their kids. Couldn't help but think of the poor Duggarlings: -- The study tracked 5,362 people born in 1946 for over 60 years. The damaging effects of having overly controlling parents and no strong warm relationships with parents was as negative and serious as experiencing the death of a close family member at an early age and was still felt by people over age 60, according to the researchers. (Controlling parents did not allow their children to make their own decisions and fostered too much dependence on them.Controlling parents also invaded their children’s privacy and didn’t allow them to have their own opinions.The other problematic factor — lack of parental warmth — makes it difficult to have a strong bond with parents. A strong emotional attachment to parents provides a better base from which children can explore the world.) Gee. Who does this remind us of? The Journal of Positive Psychology (Stafford et al., 2015). http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/parentchild-relationships-and-offsprings-positive-mental-wellbeing-from-adolescence-to-early-older-age%285f5cdffa-b169-4350-a471-2128eaad405e%29.html

In order to take the exam, she would need to have been the primary midwife, with supervision, in a bunch of visits and births, not just observe and not just assist. This is the third set of clinical stuff that has to be completed before you're allowed to take the written exam: "Phase 3: Clinicals as Primary Under Supervision 20 births, 75 prenatals (including 20 initial prenatals), 20 newborn exams, and 40 postpartum exams as a primary midwife under supervision. Continuity of Care births are required in this phase." http://narm.org/entry-level-applicants/

Well, that, and because she was suddenly "in a courtship," right? And we know that in the Duggar household, once you have a man on the string, it's impossible to work, study or even do household chores. You're way too busy pursuing your intense relationship in which you can't either touch the guy, send him private emails or be alone in a room with him for 30 seconds.

Yeah, that's exactly what I keep wondering about the Duggar kids generally. As I've mentioned before, I truly think that they're mostly just dumb, dull, incurious people, by birth and not just by nurture. I don't see any other way to explain why virtually none of them seem to have learned anything or really pursued interests in anything. Jinger's famous photography, for example -- in my experience, people who really love photography are absolutely obsessive about it. You can't pry the camera out of their hands and they're always learning things and experimenting. But you don't see that at all with the Duggar person I've always heard should "start her own photography studio." As far as I can tell, she doesn't give a crap about photography, just as Jill clearly doesn't give a crap about fractions. And ditto for the rest. Yeah, there's Duggar studios. But even there, if somebody was truly interested and not an idiot, a lot more would be being done and it'd be a lot better. The only visible exception seems to be John David getting his instrument rating as a pilot, and that I truly am impressed with. (And who'd'a thunk I'd find John David the most impressive in any way.) Maybe there's someone hidden down in the lower reaches who spends time studying or reading or pursuing some hobby. But you sure don't see it. And since I came from a very very squelching environment myself, I know for a fact that, if you really want to do those things, you find a way to do them secretly and on the sly, no matter how much people try to deter you. I can't escape the conclusion that the Duggar kids are dumb and boring by nature, the lot of them. Not that many couldn't blossom to some degree if they were in a nurturing and creative environment. I think that everyone can. But I just don't see evidence that any of them have enough natural talent and drive to pursue anything seriously if their environment doesn't actively call for it. Maybe it's just as well. Could be we're more frustrated for the kids than they are for themselves -- when it comes to schooling and hobbies, at least.

To be fair, Jana probably has extra helper-mom duties right now -- for the four Mkids and Izzy (while Jill's busy trying to become a midwife).

Yeah, but they're still hopin'. Especially Jim Bob.

My bet is she'll be studying forever, probably. In any case, though, I don't actually think she's taken the test before, because I don't think there's any way she could have completed all the observational and practical stuff you have to have completed before you take the test -- at that point four years ago or even now, since she stopped doing the practical stuff a couple of years ago already. Four years ago she was probably thinking that she'd get through the practical and observational parts a lot faster -- since there was no man on the horizon and the woman she was working with still had her own certifications and licensure intact so Jill could work with her frequently -- so she was gearing up to take the written test fairly soon. It's really pretty comprehensive, and that would have meant a long period of study for someone who probably never had to apply herself to studying anything before, given the whiffs we get of what the SOTDRT is like and Jill's grasp of fractions.

That's it all right. Worse, I'd say that every single child, grandchild and spouse-of-a-child they have is about keeping the brand going. Marjorie and Josiah, for example, were entirely about keeping the brand going -- as they were trotted out as an obvious teaser for the (now thankfully nonexistent) next season. Those young kids being set up for this whole premarriage thing as a way to keep up interest in a tv show. Hideous. It's horrifying to think about how they are willing to manipulate and even create human beings as nothing but ego projects. First, in the olden days, to boost JB as a political figure and then later to create and sustain the tv show. They oughta be locked up. And instead they've manipulated the kids so much that we see them thanking them for being so wonderful at parenting. Hopefully, that particular horror will end as the money runs out. (I can dream, can't I?)

Wouldn't surprise me either. I'm sure the Duggar kids have been carefully and constantly taught to ignore all their own feelings, perceptions and thoughts in favor of the prescribed "family values" that come down from on high. "Resisting a quarter century of continual childbearing because 'duh'" isn't on the list of approved Duggar facts but "having committed an unknown sin that bars me from receiving the multitude of blessings God bestowed on sainted Michelle's vagina" definitely would be.

Put in immediate calls to People and TLC? Because there's your spinoff -- Breaking Duggar with the Kings. And Jim Bob couldn't really block it.

Good grief. So Anna's losing her house, too, and she's still all thumbs up in the wedding picture? I'd be chewing someone's face off by now if I were in her position. Wonder what in the world that means?

Oh, forgot about that. Since she already has so much experience with rebelling against JB and M's rules. They can rejoice together in not having to wear the long skirts, or, in case it's a male breakaway, in not having to wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt in the swimming pool.

That's about the size of it, certainly. And I do think that the boringness and the fear-based nature of fundieness go hand in hand. I guess I find it especially odd because I came from an extremely boring, highly controlling family like that, and yet there were a couple of people who were quite different and revealed that difference very early on. I suppose a different one is probably lurking down in the lower reaches of the 19. But it still does strike me as a bit strange that the boringness has apparently gone so far down the line of kids without being relieved by any questioners of or rebels against the grayness. I'm not familiar with a lot of other families like my own, though, so my thoughts about this may be based on way too small a sample. I'm not convinced there's anyone they could go to. I had no one to go to when I walked away. That's part of the price of being isolated. People walk anyway, though, and it'll be interesting to see which Duggar finally does.

Here's an eye-opener on home schooling from a terrific group of young homeschool grads who've formed an organization to push for more accountability in more places. http://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/our-concerns/ I think they might see the Duggar situation as being among the disastrous, or at least near-disastrous, ones. "Quality education is critical to children’s future wellbeing. Responsible parents understand this and work to ensure that their kids receive the best possible education, whether in public or private schools or through homeschooling. But some parents are not responsible, and when these parents homeschool the results can be disastrous.... "Lack of Oversight Current oversight of homeschooling is patchy at best. In many states, homeschooling parents need not have any contact with state or local officials whatsoever. The result is a staggering lack of accountability for homeschooling parents. 11 states do not require parents to provide notice of homeschooling 14 states do not require parents to provide instruction in any specific subject 25 states do not require any form of academic assessments 39 states do not require parents to have a high school diploma, GED, or other qualifications 48 states have no protections for at-risk homeschooled children"

The problem is that, thanks to very hard work on the part of HSLDA over the years, there basically are no state guidelines in Arkansas (and quite a lot of other states). All you have to do is notify the school district in advance of your decision to homeschool. And then each year you have each kid take a state-provided achievement test for his or her grade level using some procedure established by your school district (or some test that you'd prefer, if you go through an opt-out procedure) and agree to send in the tests or have them sent to the state. The department of ed scores the tests, sends the scores back to you, removes all identifying information from your kids' scores and uses those de-identified scores to produce a general analysis of how well Arkansas homeschooled kids are doing, which they then stick in a file drawer and generally avoid looking at. Neither the state nor your local school district looks at homeschooled kids' individual scores or at anything else that's going on in your homeschooling, except for some kind of abuse that would trigger a CPS investigation. You choose your own materials, you alone see your kids' actual scores, and the state basically washes its hands of the whole thing, as home-school advocates have demanded through legislation over the past few decades. So no such luck about having their schooling scrutinized in any way.