missnoa

I don't think that the quints would qualify as "medically challenged" anymore though - they seem to be free of any serious health issues. So now they are basically just paying for 6 kids. The daycare costs alone, even now that they are in real school, would be enough to bankrupt most couples in one way or the other - either trying to pay the costs for all those kids or the loss of income in one of them having to stay home. Unless you are rich, supporting 6 kids even if they are totally healthy is just not feasible for most people. Which is why most don't do anything that would result in 5 babies at once. I don't imagine that many marriages survive the addition of 5 new babies and the strain of raising said babies either. Also, can you imagine the property tax on that house in addition to the utilities, food and clothing bills?

Did they ever explain why they took a long break? Cause it couldn't have just been COVID, they were filming a bit during COVID and you can see in like the "beach vacation" special that aired at the start of the season that they were filming a bit during COVID too (everyone in masks). To see them going from like trying to figure out if Riley would be fine starting real school while the others were in pre-k and Danielle having a mystery health issue to all of a sudden all of the kids are established in school and there's a brick and mortar store and "well Danielle has a health issue but we haven't figured it out so oh well" was kinda wild.

Seriously, I find this new angle so confusing because I distinctly remember, especially around the time the first grandkids were getting born, that Matt was going on and on about how great having the farm was because it was truly part of a legacy for the grandkids and for the family. None of that was anything about "well of course they'll have to pay me for it". Surely if he couldn't afford to take care of the place, he could have gone to the kids and asked them to buy in and then when he passed, leave his part to them. It's just so odd to see him act like he never acted like the farm was inheritance. In fact I would bet money that all the way back when he was buying all that land and building all those "attractions" on there, his justification for all of it was "this is going to be a legacy to leave our kids, Amy, and it will just go up in value." But honestly I find the whole thing puzzling because at this point in his life, unless he's somehow totally broke, why does Matt need to worry about money to the point where he decided to sell the farm? Hire someone to do upkeep, it can't be that hard. Being broke is the only reason I could think of why he would decide to sell it and not to his kids (who he could have let only buy parts, or work on paying him for it over the course of a few years, etc). He's an older guy with specific health issues, he doesn't have to worry about 20 years from now what money he'll survive on. He's got another house in another state, he's got a partner, what in the world would make him suddenly decide "I need to sell this farm and cut the kids out and damage my relationship with them and jeopardize my relationship with my grandkids, all the while acting like they're the bad guys." And then after all that, they couldn't sell it. How pointless.

There is not a single thing she can do where she can resist whining about it. She doesn't seem to enjoy a single thing unless it involves making her sister uncomfortable.

I still don't really like her but I have to say the family dynamics are interesting - both parents are obviously extremely overprotective and don't seem to mind that neither Shauna or the younger sister can drive despite their ages. I'm guessing there is not much push to get "out of the nest" so to speak. The youngest sister seems to be pretty anxious about pretty much everything. And Shauna and the oldest have a bad relationship because Shauna is jealous that her sister got to have a "normal" life. I expected the bridesmaids dress shopping to go more badly than it did but then they can't even have a conversation about college without it being weirdly aggressive.

I am so tired of how much Sander I'm forced to deal with, I feel like we get less and less Jazz as time goes on, probably because "will Jazz go back to college and lose weight" isn't something that they can stretch out for an entire season unless they stretch so hard it's super thin and boring. I don't watch "I am Sander", it's supposed to be "I am Jazz."

They are really padding this stuff out, there is only MAYBE 5 minutes of anything actually interesting in the episodes these days, the rest is all complete and utter nonsense. I think I'm seeing this season out and then I'm done. There's literally nothing here anymore. I didn't sign up to this show to watch the rest of the family make morons of themselves. Maybe they saw how positively people reacted to the brother coming onto the 1000-lb sisters show and thought that meant people watching this show would like to see more of Jazz's family but they lack anything engaging and get more annoying every episode.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of people get high grades and are identified as "gifted" through their regular school years but then find when they transition from the K-12 school environment and into college/more of the "real world" they kind of flounder a bit. The transition can be really hard and for kids used to be "gifted" and excelling all the time, when they start to falter or outright fail it can wreak havoc on your self esteem. A lot of people kind of stop trying because if you don't even start, then you don't have to deal with "failing." I wonder if maybe that has happened to Jazz, who already has a ton of pressure outside of transitioning into adulthood to deal with. If Jazz was lying about getting into Harvard, I seriously doubt Harvard wouldn't speak up about it, especially since if it seems to the public that they are not "accommodating" a trans kid's mental health needs. They had her decide between Harvard and another college as a whole storyline too, they likely would have spoken up then that she hadn't applied or gotten in if that was the case. It makes zero sense for them (or TLC) to risk lying about it.

I feel bad saying this but there were a few scenes where she came across as very unlikable, especially when she was talking to that sister of hers. I know that some families talk to each other like that and that's fine cause they're close and they "get" it and don't get offended with each other but it's not super pleasant to watch. I'm not really sure why they thought they could get an entire series out of this - seems more like it should have been one of their "specials" like they did on that Indian girl Jyoti who was super small too.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found the Jazz face blanket extremely odd. And not the only who could do without all the weird "'old' women do things involving sex, isn't this somehow weird/funny??" parts of the show. I feel like everyone is floundering this season...except Greg who is barely around compared to the last seasons for whatever reason.

Jazz specifically goes to Sander and demands that he help her, whether it's with her weight loss journey or organizing her many little events that she really can't handle putting together without having a mental breakdown. And everything he said to her was the truth. The only part of this I agree with is that they do need to let her fail because they've coddled her for too long and now she's literally incapable of even grocery shopping for herself. But I think the family has gotten used to having to "manage" her and especially Jeanette will never really "let go." Many of them are likely related to her surgeries and her transition - lots of hormone replacements and stuff like that. Just because she had bottom surgery doesn't mean her endocrine system isn't still producing "male" hormones that she doesn't want and isn't producing female ones that she does. I said something similar after one of the last episodes, the surgery was her "holy grail" but now that she's gotten it and her emotional issues haven't magically been all healed, she is floundering without a goal that's supposed to "fix" her issues and turned to binge eating to fill the hole. I think she probably expected that once she got her surgery she would feel a ton better but she still has anxiety issues and suffers from depression and her family has settled into unhealthy patterns over the years and those issues don't just go away with surgery. I know she's supposedly in therapy but I think maybe she needs to switch to a new one because her current one doesn't seem to be helping her emotional issues much. And my biggest issue is that I think Jazz feels pressure to be this "beacon" for other trans kids like her and be completely open but also not put out anything too negative because it can come back not only on her but on trans kids everywhere and I think that's far too much pressure for anyone of any age, but especially a very young girl with mental health issues. She shouldn't be "required" to throw herself on the cross for the sake of trans kids everywhere but she seems to feel like she has to and I think she hasn't had a chance to really process everything she's been through and it's causing a lot of issues for her emotionally. I truly hope that she is able to work through her issues and become the happy woman she wants to be but I don't think her job as a "spokeswoman for trans kids everywhere" is helping her at this point in her life.

Jazz just refuses to accept responsibility for anything in her life. Saying Sander is only focusing on the "negative" - what POSITIVE is there to focus on? She had to call her mom to help her grocery shop and her mom is still doing her meds, all while insisting that "it will be different this time" and "I can do it on my own." It's obvious at this point that she has asked for help in doing better and then consistently flaked out and the family is sick of spending time and energy when she has no intention of making effort. When you've developed a reputation for flaking you can't get mad that people want to see proof that you've changed before they invest in helping you again. And in the end, she gave up on her weight loss totally, which just highlights everyone's point. Any bit of stress and she completely falls apart, she's not in a good place at all right now, especially to be going off to Harvard and being an "independent adult."

Was Peppermint trying to say that Sander should date trans women who haven't had bottom surgery just because the "frat bros" won't do that? That just seems weird. I'm sorry, most people can't help what they are attracted to, and if the downstairs doesn't get Sander going, he can't really change it. And I think it's unfair to say people should just basically suck it up and pretend the physical attraction is there when it isn't. Sander could meet an absolutely gorgeous cis woman and then find out they don't have physical chemistry, should he just suck it up then? Of course not. Relationships end because of problems in the bedroom all the time, going into one with intimacy issues right at the start is begging for it to fail.

I think that things happened that we didn't get to see in the episode, possibly during that "break" from filming that happened. Things don't go from mostly fine to "dump you at a gas station and talk about killing you in your sleep" in one second like that. Listening to all the screaming, it sounds like Sharon and/or Ricky felt like Lacey was lying to them about things (and it probably wasn't the first time) and it also seems like there were issues with money, or perceived issues anyway. Sharon seemed to think that Lacey was lying about not being able to afford plane tickets because she was going out shopping, but who knows if that's true. Lacey telling Ricky "I told you I would screw up" says to me that they'd had issues before, maybe this was the final straw. Hell maybe things have BEEN happening that Ricky didn't quite grasp but Sharon did and something about Lacey basically admitting she missed an appointment and lied to Ricky about it made it sink in. Or Sharon is just literally insane and went off for no reason and Ricky went along with it cause that's his sister and he trusts his sister more than someone he hasn't even known that long. I just really feel like there were underlying issues that the camera didn't catch (some of which might have happened before filming even started) that would explain how things blew up that fast. Maybe the Supersized episode will fill in some blanks. But I have to say, when Ricky got back into the car after the hotel and was just looking at his sister and crying, it really convinced me that he probably is not mentally there enough to be involved in any romantic relationships at all, let alone one where he's the primary caretaker for someone else. He just seemed to me like a 3 year old having "big feelings" that he didn't know how to express.

Honestly this has been an issue the whole show - Jazz and co address the symptoms of her issues (like not being able to control her eating, not being able to finish school, having a mental breakdown when minor things go wrong like at the drag show) without actually addressing and getting at the root cause that causes all of it. I truly believe that she needs to be seeing a different psychologist because she has been visibly struggling with many aspects of her mental health and just like keeping the mini crock pot full of cheese out of her room doesn't get at what makes her eat a whole batch of crock pot cheese at once. I am not saying it would be easy - anyone involved in any kind of therapy knows it can be really freaking difficult - but until Jazz does that, her issues are not going to magically go away. There's no external magic finish line where if she was just able cross it - like say getting her vagina or graduating Harvard - her inner issues will just vanish. I really feel like after her vaginoplasty she started to spiral because she finally had the female body she wanted and the whole family considered that kind of the "final boss" and once she got that a lot of her emotional issues would vanish but that didn't happen, so she was left with the feeling of "where do I go from here? What else can I do to get rid of these awful feelings?" and it just caused her to spiral and comfort eat. The scary thing is too that sometimes all the therapy in the world doesn't help and you need to adjust your meds and just soldier one and pray they start working again. I hope that's not the case for her and she's able to navigate her mental health struggles and just be happy. And I hope her mom discovers a life and identity outside of being her trans daughter's mother.

The Harvard student handbook seems to back up that if you take a leave of absence, before they allow you to come back you have to prove to them that you resolved the issues that led to your LOA: Makes sense, they want to make sure that whatever caused someone to drop out has been dealt with so the student doesn't just end up having to take another LOA anyway because the issue isn't resolved or maybe the issue was resolved but they still can't handle a full course load and need to work up to it.

I have to say, I know the show has expanded to be like more about the whole family but that scene where all these women went and drew a male model was a complete waste of my life I'll never get back. It wasn't funny or charming or anything else, it was just dumb and pointless. Also not a fan of Jeanette going after another trans woman for daring to question things, like Jeanette just because you have a trans daughter doesn't mean you actually know how trans people feel and the way Jazz was raised isn't the only one way to do it and other trans people have the right to question that. (Especially since even Dr Bowers has raised questions about whether it's the best thing for kids to be suppressed like Jazz was). Also I do not care about Sander's dating life and what sounds like it could be a fetish.

I understand that she wanted to kind of be a symbol of hope for other people her age going through this stuff, but I kind of believe now that it was not the best thing for her in terms of her mental health. I don't think becoming a "symbol" and putting herself SO out there was really the best thing for a trans teenager going through transition surgery, her mental health was already likely to be fragile going through that and then add on filming very personal stuff and all the "activism" and her even literally arguing with "haters" on radio shows...I just don't see how any of that was the best thing for a trans teenager with diagnosed anxiety issues. I kind of question her parents letting her do all of that because it's obvious now that her anxiety has never truly been under control and being in the public eye is the last thing that's going to help that. She could have done all of that and gone through it and then talked about it on the other end and had privacy and been able to focus on getting her mental health in order.

Amy didn't really post much to youtube after the surgery and the end of the first season and when she did, it was makeup videos. No food challenges or anything with her eating. Most likely she wasn't allowed to post too much because typically TLC doesn't want people they film showing off how much weight they did or didn't lose, they want to save that for possible filming. Amy was using "the baby wants this" as a way of circumventing her restrictions and even she isn't stupid enough to believe that the BABY wanted all that crap. "The baby" doesn't truly know what you're eating, it's not having a party because you're eating BBQ chips and mints. That has to go down as one of the dumbest ways I've seen a person try and justify the crap they're shoving in their mouth and I've seen every 600 Lb Life episode. She was crying about wanting to "enjoy her pregnancy" but she's not going to enjoy it if she has a miscarriage because she's screwing around with her and the baby's health so she can get her gummi fix. Also, she thinks 150 lbs is "anorexic skinny", so her mentality is still completely unhealthy. Tammy is in deep, deep trouble. She can barely walk anymore and even worse, she struggles to breath just sitting on the couch sometimes. She's not that far off being completely bedridden and once that happens, the only thing she has left is dying. And she's in even more trouble once Amy reaches the last stages of pregnancy and then once the baby actually comes. She's not going to have the energy to be doing everything for Tammy at 9 months pregnant and she's not going to have the energy or time after that baby is born, and there's nobody else who is going to take care of her since she burned her bridges with the rest of the family, so she's screwed.

I watched this very late obviously, but this one of the most cringe worthy episodes of anything I have watched in a long time. Buddy and Lennie fakely sniping over Whitney while Whitney sat at a table stuffing her mouth and hooting like some kind of extremely stupid fat monkey was so embarrassing. The whole thing was just so pathetic, honestly. Why does she think it makes her look good to even tease that she might or might not have slept with her ex the first night he popped back up into her house? Also, hilarious to have the whole episode where she was pretending to be paranoid about the pandemic and then they show her letting this guy into her house not knowing where he's been and then sharing a bed with him. I cannot believe this person is real.

Who asks their ex who supposedly got another girl pregnant when the pair of you were together for a hug after the big confrontation? And that weird car hand holding thing? Even if you buy that this was a legit relationship, that is just bizarre.

I know I am way late, but my god Buddy looks ROUGH. What even happened dude? Anyway, everyone else said what I wanted to say, but it's so crazy to me that Whitney was immediately "I need to find another man." Like at least try to remember you're pretending you were in love with him and you probably need to wait longer than ten minutes to try and start looking for another dude to pester into knocking you up. I also could have done without her whole "nobody treats fat people well, everyone judges me and the person who chooses to be with you" pity party, it just exposes how fake her "I'm fat and empowered" spiel is. Deep down she knows that her weight negatively affects her life. But if she admitted that, then she'd have to actually work to change herself, and we all know she won't. It's too much work and it's also too scary to do try and then maybe still not end up happy because the weight isn't her only issue, it's jus the one that's immediately obvious. It takes a pretty brave person to look at the ways in which you're making your own life worse and really change and not many truly ever do it.

I know it's relatively minor in the grand scheme of her disastrous personality, but did anyone else find that scene where Whitney desperately wanted someone to notice her ring super embarrassing? Like, she brought her phone up and held it in a super obvious way you don't normally hold a phone if you're actually using it, said pretty loudly "WELL WE'RE START NAVIGATING..." and just the whole thing made me physically cringe. Either don't act weird and let people notice it naturally, or just show it off from the start. Don't do this weird fake casual thing that makes you look dumb. She's just such a sad person.

All you need to know about the parents is that they left their "little piece of heaven" so they could stalk both their older son and his wife who told said parents that they don't want any contact with them at all AND the two younger kids who they straight up kicked out of the house. Deep down the mother especially still wants control, and I'm sure she's deeply angry that she can't use the young children to manipulate the older ones into toeing the line and behaving anymore. I find it very interesting that pretty much all of their older kids have heavily deviated from their "lifestyle", but someone else pointed out that the brainwashing was probably less effective because religion doesn't factor into it nearly as heavily as it does in other Fundie families. I imagine that only the 15-year-old is even contemplating sticking with this way of life once they reach 18.

Frankly, I think both Matt and Amy are hung up on each other in certain ways, and the fact that they lived together so closely and still have a business together post divorce has kept them from really cutting ties as much as they could. Add on that they also have to film a TV show and the only draw besides new babies for the past seasons has been "how Matt and Amy handle the divorce"...I think it's created a very unhealthy dynamic. They've both supposedly found someone else and yet they have to go on camera and hash out every discussion and decision they've made since the divorce. Maybe they'd be in a better place if they weren't still so tied together...but then again maybe they'll always be the kind of exes who are still kind of hung up on proving that they're totally better off apart from each other, totally, how dare you imply otherwise!!