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Jessa, Ben and Their Brood: Making a (Diaper) Mountain out of a Mold House

Chris Knight

By Chris Knight
in Counting On

Scarlett45
Message added by Scarlett45

The Duggars post about politics on social media frequently, but these social media posts are not an invitation to discuss politics here in this forum. This rule extends to Duggar adjacent families, friends, associates etc. Such discussions are a violation of the Politics Policy. 

I understand with recent current events there may be a desire to discuss certain social media postings of those in the Duggar realm as they relate to politics- this is not the place for those discussions. If you believe someone has violated forum rules, report them, do not respond or engage.

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graefin

graefin

(edited)
On 9/26/2021 at 1:39 PM, emmawoodhouse said:

I remember when they were courting that Ben bought her some flowers. Her response? "What am I going to do with flowers?" 

Hey Ben, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Jessa has always been a cold fish. Ben was so blinded by having snagged the "hot" Duggar sister that he missed all the signs 

 

OK, to be fair, this was the episode where Jessa was having some (staged) mother/daughter bonding time with Michelle in a coffee shop and they were discussing her and Ben's courtship and the different ways individuals give and receive love. Jessa mentioned how Ben told her that if he could, he would give her 100 flowers (or something like that), and her response was, "Well, what would I do with all of those flowers?" to which Michelle laughed and said (paraphrased), "Oh, Jessa! I would have said, 'Awww, Ben, that's so sweet!'"

Also to be fair, at least in this episode, Jessa herself admitted to having a "cut and dried" personality and there are numerous talking heads of different family members describing her as not an effusive, warm type of person. So certainly based on what we were shown here, I would think Ben should have known what he was walking into.

Edited by graefin
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Churchhoney

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(edited)
2 hours ago, graefin said:

So certainly based on what we were shown here, I would think Ben should have known what he was walking into.

Maybe his big head did know....but his little head -- which belonged to a somewhat dim teenage boy who wasn't allowed to date or masturbate or etc etc but now was getting the chance to have 24-hour-a-day married access to the TeeVee Star Hot Girl -- flooded the entire Bin apparatus with so many befuddling hormones that the fair-to-middling washed brain in his big head was unable to function. 😁

Edited by Churchhoney
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BigBingerBro

BigBingerBro

I've often felt that the Jessa/Bin courtship/wedding was so much a TLC ratings thing than anything natural.  I don't remember the whole story on how Bin wound up falling for Jessa, but based on the extremely cring-worthy "asking for permission to court" scene in the cramped office, to Bin living in the Warehouse Annex in order to be closer to Jessa, just reeks of TV production manipulation.  It's actually rather creepy and sick when you think about it.  Bin may have fell head over heals for Jessa, but I often wonder if she truely fell in love with him but instead just followed what her parents wanted in order to keep ratings fresh and toe the line.  Jill & Deertick's story seemed similar.

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lascuba

lascuba

On 9/27/2021 at 9:54 AM, graefin said:

OK, to be fair, this was the episode where Jessa was having some (staged) mother/daughter bonding time with Michelle in a coffee shop and they were discussing her and Ben's courtship and the different ways individuals give and receive love. Jessa mentioned how Ben told her that if he could, he would give her 100 flowers (or something like that), and her response was, "Well, what would I do with all of those flowers?" to which Michelle laughed and said (paraphrased), "Oh, Jessa! I would have said, 'Awww, Ben, that's so sweet!'"

Also to be fair, at least in this episode, Jessa herself admitted to having a "cut and dried" personality and there are numerous talking heads of different family members describing her as not an effusive, warm type of person. So certainly based on what we were shown here, I would think Ben should have known what he was walking into.

I will always defend Jessa on this. She's not a hearts a flowers person and was honest about that. Ben's corny ass didn't care and just thought, "Girl=flowers" and persisted with that nonsense when it was clear that Jessa wasn't into it. That was one of the red flags that should have sent Jessa running.

That episode still makes me so angry--at Ben and at Michelle, because we saw Michelle outright telling her daughter to completely ignore everything she wants to make some cheesy buffoon feel like a man.

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Churchhoney

Churchhoney

(edited)
1 hour ago, lascuba said:

I will always defend Jessa on this. She's not a hearts a flowers person and was honest about that. Ben's corny ass didn't care and just thought, "Girl=flowers" and persisted with that nonsense when it was clear that Jessa wasn't into it. That was one of the red flags that should have sent Jessa running.

That episode still makes me so angry--at Ben and at Michelle, because we saw Michelle outright telling her daughter to completely ignore everything she wants to make some cheesy buffoon feel like a man.

I agree that Jessa should have gone running. But I think Bin should have gone running, too!

They weren't a suitable couple at all. But Bin was utterly ruled by teen lust, and both of them were ruled by their parents' stupid idea that they should get married as fast as possible to the first conservative Christian who appeared. 

It's interesting to me that Jessa seems to swallow or at least give a whole lot of lip service to a lot of the Gothard stuff. But temperamentally she's quite unsuited to swallowing Gothard's Rule Number One: All females exist to make all men feel like giants; and that's all females exist for.       Yet they really did dupe her into betraying that aspect of herself by convincing her into the marriage. It was a bad time for her to put aside her strong will. 

Annoying as I find both Bin and Jessa I also do feel kind of bad for both of them as they look toward their likely long so-very-sick-of-each-other future. They didn't live in a situation where good guidance (needed by Bin) or permission and space to make your own choices (needed by Jessa) was available.  Although I'd feel sorrier for them if they didn't insist on continually touting the glories of their upbringings.

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GeeGolly

GeeGolly

(edited)

Jessa could have walked out of that courtship with ease. Neither Michelle or JB wanted it. This is why the courtship was so long.

In two different episodes Jessa showed just how far her heels were dug in. One was when she was sitting with JB in the RV. She basically told him she was going to elope.

The second time, on a different episode, Jessa and Ben were in the car, going on a date and a young sibling chaperone was in the back seat. I don't remember the entire conversation, but she basically said the same thing. Something like, "Oh we will be getting married, no matter what anyone says".

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Cinnabon

Cinnabon

2 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Jessa could have walked out of that courtship with ease. Neither Michelle or JB wanted it. This is why the courtship was so long.

In two different episodes Jessa showed just how far her heels were dug in. One was when she was sitting with JB in the RV. She basically told him she was going to elope.

The second time, on a different episode, Jessa and Ben were in the car, going on a date and a young sibling chaperone was in the back seat. I don't remember the entire conversation, but she basically said the same thing. Something like, "Oh we will be getting married, no matter what anyone says".

She would never have eloped though, especially if that meant being cut off from JB’s money. She was all talk.

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Future Cat Lady

Future Cat Lady

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I think Jessa wanted to move out of her parents house and have her own life. Getting married was the only way to do it. Ben was was her way out. I don’t think she was in love with him. And Ben was not in love either, he was in lust and missed all the red flags. Now they are stuck. 

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JoanArc

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4 minutes ago, Future Cat Lady said:

I think Jessa wanted to move out of her parents house and have her own life. Getting married was the only way to do it. Ben was was her way out. I don’t think she was in love with him. And Ben was not in love either, he was in lust and missed all the red flags. Now they are stuck. 

If they had dated like normal people, they would’ve slept together a few times to get the sexual tension out of their systems, then realized they were incompatible emotionally, and broken up.
 

Or stay together for 50 years and have a whole passel of children, whatever.

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lascuba

lascuba

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13 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Jessa could have walked out of that courtship with ease. Neither Michelle or JB wanted it. This is why the courtship was so long.

In two different episodes Jessa showed just how far her heels were dug in. One was when she was sitting with JB in the RV. She basically told him she was going to elope.

The second time, on a different episode, Jessa and Ben were in the car, going on a date and a young sibling chaperone was in the back seat. I don't remember the entire conversation, but she basically said the same thing. Something like, "Oh we will be getting married, no matter what anyone says".

Considering her upbringing and the deep misogyny of her culture, I give Jessa a lot more grace than Ben in this. She spent her childhood raising her siblings and being constantly reprimanded for her "unsweet" personality. Her only out was marriage. She gets pursued by a guy who she finds attractive and (unfathomably, to me) doesn't trip her creep radar. This guy is really nice to her and doesn't run when she's blunt and tells him flat out that she's a horrible cook. In her extremely limited experience, he seemed like a great catch, someone who'll love her despite her flaws and not demand that she change everything about herself, which is a lot more than she got from her parents, most of her siblings, and her entire community. Sure, he does stuff she doesn't like, but it's the kind of stuff that other girls like, so that's clearly not a real problem and just the personality defect she's been told all her life to suppress. Much more experienced, educated women than she fall for the "nice guy" shtick.

Ben's only excuse was that he was horny.

 

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Churchhoney

Churchhoney

(edited)

So I guess the moral of the story is: If your religious culture makes marriage the only way to get the things people naturally want (respect, freedom, your own apartment, kisses, movie dates), you're in even more danger than other people of getting married when you're quite young to somebody who'll soon sicken you on sight....and be stuck with them for the next 60-or-70-plus years. Is that about right? 

Jessa and Bin apparently don't get this because most of what they do today is praise their ridiculous religious culture to the skies and preach about it to a bunch of kids who are way too young to even know what they're talking about.  

I wonder what they blame their plight on. Or whether they even see it as a plight. I can kind of imagine Bin halfway realizing that his teenage horniness is what got him into this. But I wonder how Jessa accounts for being married to somebody she doesn't like and never did like and who now doesn't seem to like her much either.....or whether she just thinks that's normal and to be expected. 

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BitterApple

BitterApple

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From the waist up, Spurgeon looks like a kid who attends a preppy boarding school and eats crustless cucumber sandwiches. From the waist down, he looks like a kid wearing his sister's hand-me-downs. What is Jessa doing to that poor boy? 

 

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lascuba

lascuba

4 hours ago, Churchhoney said:

So I guess the moral of the story is: If your religious culture makes marriage the only way to get the things people naturally want (respect, freedom, your own apartment, kisses, movie dates), you're in even more danger than other people of getting married when you're quite young to somebody who'll soon sicken you on sight....and be stuck with them for the next 60-or-70-plus years. Is that about right? 

Jessa and Bin apparently don't get this because most of what they do today is praise their ridiculous religious culture to the skies and preach about it to a bunch of kids who are way too young to even know what they're talking about.  

I wonder what they blame their plight on. Or whether they even see it as a plight. I can kind of imagine Bin halfway realizing that his teenage horniness is what got him into this. But I wonder how Jessa accounts for being married to somebody she doesn't like and never did like and who now doesn't seem to like her much either.....or whether she just thinks that's normal and to be expected. 

Praising one's culture and unhappy marriage is the thing to do on social media. I know so many people going on and on about their wedded bliss that I know for a fact are miserable. Hell, Will Smith just did an interview where he talks about how hard his marriage has been, and I immediately remembered all the times over the years that his wife would randomly pop up somewhere to talk about how perfect her marriage was. People lie to the world about their marriages all the time. Even for the non-religious, the social conditioning regarding marriage runs deep.

As for who blames what? I might imagine Ben were capable of self-reflection if he weren't on the fundie-preacher tracker. My guess is that he primarily blames Jessa for not being the sweetly submissive sexbot he had assumed she would be. Any blame he places on himself is of the "I should have noticed this before but I was but an innocent boy lured by a manipulative temptress" variety. I could see Jessa being angry at Ben for being a passive aggressive manchild but being resigned to that because he's the husband. She's likely given up making any effort to change for him at this point. She let him name her firstborn Spurgeon and look at the thanks she got.

I know everyone here hates curly hair, but I really hate Spurgeon's hair combed like that. It takes a lot of product and brushing to get it to lay flat like that, and for him to look like something out of a 1950s sitcom.

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StaceyNotStacie

StaceyNotStacie

51 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

Those are the clothes Jessa was shilling. Jessa is twinning with Spurge, because she too has on ripped jeans. I noticed Spurge is wearing his hair a bit like Ben's.

I didn’t even notice the jeans on Jessa. I agree with the pants on Spurgeon; they look horrible on him. He should wear cargo pants/shorts. 

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Jeeves

Jeeves

9 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

@lascuba, I LOVE curly hair. I just don't like messy wavy hair that falls in the eyes.

Same here. Jessa all too often posted pics of Spurgeon with his hair looking like a tangled mess. Before that, he had looked so cute with his curly hair, but it seemed that she had no clue how to care for his hair. Or maybe she's still clueless. The rigid part and plastered down look isn't so good. His hair needs a good cut that lets his curls shine. 

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xwordfanatik

xwordfanatik

13 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

@lascuba, I LOVE curly hair. I just don't like messy wavy hair that falls in the eyes.

Me too.  I'm happy I have it now.  I think pregnancy made it curlier.

I really hate to see those tight pants on a child.  They're cute kids, and I love Ivy's expression.  She probably senses that her future will be sister-momming.

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cmr2014

cmr2014

32 minutes ago, Stacey1014 said:

I’m honestly surprised that there isn’t a picture of them standing so that there is a clear view of Jessa in her pants. I’m sure there would be some sort of celebrity article about her wearing pants. 

I don't think she's wearing pants. I think she's wearing leggings under a jean skirt. I could be wrong, but I think I see the hem of the skirt at knee level under the table. I don't think that there have been any photos of Jessa in pants . . .

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SMama

SMama

7 minutes ago, cmr2014 said:

I don't think she's wearing pants. I think she's wearing leggings under a jean skirt. I could be wrong, but I think I see the hem of the skirt at knee level under the table. I don't think that there have been any photos of Jessa in pants . . .

Do sweats count as pants?

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ozziemom

ozziemom

Jessa seems to be wearing pants more especially when it is more appropriate to whatever she’s doing. Maybe Ivy and Fern will be seen more in pants soon too. Bin’s mom and sisters have all been pictured in pants. I think Meechelle was the one obsessed with skirt wearing and knees covered.

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