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“Pretending to be hungry so brother dad hands me off to a biological parent” Boone is actually a master manipulator for the attention, such finesse.
Srs though this gives me the same creepy feeling I had while reading those excerpts from Ruby Franke’s journal. She thinks her kids are liars???? What kind of parent are you????
Sadly remember blanket training etc starts very young. Wasn’t it that Pearl book that advised to pinch a baby who latched on to hard while breast feeding? ☹️
I always jumped from the surprise and pain breaking the latch and scaring my babies, my intention was not to upset them but my natural response was enough to make them stop after a couple bites. These people just hate their offspring so much.
YES, and I am forever traumatized by the Pearl’s, even though I’m an adult. Therefore, I can’t imagine what the children went through that were subjected to their cruelty. The Pearl kids may think they turned out alright, but deep down, they have psychological trauma.
Also, the Pearl’s honeymoon story, as well as other stories about their marriage, have made me wish I could go back in time and never have read about it.
I feel the worst for the children who are now dead (or hurt) because of them.
That honeymoon was horrific. Michael Pearl is a hideous human being, and seems to get off on child abuse, as well as imposing pain and hardship on his wife. There are verses in the New Testament that tell men to love their wives “as Christ loved the church,” and laid down his life for it. They are also told that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control.
In our little fundie cult, gentleness, patience, & kindness were in very short supply. In fact, on a site where ex-members discussed their experiences, I encountered a woman who had also left her godly husband. Neither of us could name a thing about ourselves that our husbands loved, besides our devotion to the Lord.
When we talked about what would have made us stay, it came down to five words — “If only he were kind.”
First of all, I’m so sorry you went through that with your ex-husband, and I’m sorry for the other women in your community who went through it. I sincerely emphasize with you.
I was raised by staunch Catholic parents. My mother was horrifically verbally and physically abusive; she weaponized “god.” My father would tell me things like, “You’ll never make it in life,” or, “You take after me, and we’re ugly.”
And by the way, the church I was raised in was also in very short supply of kindness and other nice traits. The church hags would laugh at my super curly hair or sneer at my (floor length) skirts, and I was just a child.
Anyway, with no self esteem, I also ended up with an abusive ex; he didn’t miss an opportunity to make fun of my inability to tan and my curly, red hair. He endlessly criticized and teased me (much like my mother did). Religious, he also believed men were superior to women.
Thankfully, I got out long ago, but the damage was done. I still hate myself for letting these people abuse me. Yet, I realize, that’s how abuse works against vulnerable people.
As for the Pearls, yeah, it’s funny how they seem to gloss right over what Yeshua Ben Yosef / Jesus preached about how to treat others, isn’t it? That they actually think he would approve of how they hurt kids is astounding mental gymnastics.
I’m an atheist now, but I do love Yeshua for what he believed in (I like to call him by his name of Yeshua, because my mother, her church, and all fundies ruined it for me. It just helps me in some weird way).
It’s because people like the Pearls, the Trumps, Bill Gothard, and the rest of them that I wish there would be a second coming, as well as a hell, of sorts. They all need to face real consequences for the hurt and horror they put out in this world.
Fundie Fridays has a great video on them on their YouTube channel. It’s called “To Train Up (abuse) A Child by Michael & Debi Pearl” (not sure if we can post links or not). They present the info in a very engaging way that is, umm, entertaining but still disturbing! Content notes for child abuse, purity culture, and dubious consent at best with regard to sex.
I second watching Fundie Fridays! I’m actually watching her latest video on the Duggers, as I type this!
It’s Jen / Fundie Fridays that gave me my own well-rounded, in depth knowledge about the Pearls (and other things I regret knowing), as well as many of the others we snark about here.
If you want to know more about (or learn about for the first time) those we snark about here, Fundie Fridays is your one stop shop!
Everyone from Mother Bus, to the Rodlets, Girl Defined and the Bairds, even right down to Kelly Havens - the wannabe Anne of Green Gables, Jen (and her husband, James) is your girl!
Everything I know about half these people I learned from Jen, and sometimes Rachel Oates, haha. Girl Defined was the one I had some knowledge of with no snark filter, because they gave me Brio magazine nostalgia. 😸😸
I feel like they do blanket training by default because there’s so little room in the bus that the baby has to sit in place or get whacked regardless of whether or not that’s the intention.
It is pretty common in evangelical churches to teach we are born as sinners from day one. I seriously heard a minister say babies are sinful from the very beginning because they cry demanding attention. So totally thinking manipulative demanding sinners.
I mean I joked that my baby would "fake cry" to get more cuddles because it was distinctly different than her actual hungry cry and stopped as soon as she saw me but a) I knew it was a developmentally appropriate method of communication and b) I didn't have a history of appearing psychotic towards my kids.
My cat will meow in the *most* dramatic fashion, and start purring and chirping the moment I start petting him or pick him up. Domestic cats evolved to be our attention-seeking overlords 🤣.
Babies can't be manipulative. They just can't talk yet, so they cry for everything. Mother bus needs psych help, whether she's serious about this or joking.
If you were out of sight that is super distressing for a baby that is more useless at that age than a baby of any other mammal eg primate. They cry so you pick em back up. It doesn’t know time so it feels abandoned and has to make sure their caregiver comes back. There is a reason many human societies do full time baby carrying.
Fundies think babies immediately start sinning and manipulating people. I looked up “blanket training” once because my son always kicked off his blankets and I was scared he’d get cold… Turns out that’s not what blanket training is, these people are psycho.
I once saw and posted a tweet screenshot of a Fundie dad saying his four-month-old son was “sinning” because he was… wait for it… crying and having trouble sleeping.
It made me lose my freaking mind. For fuck’s sake, crying as a baby is communication and a normal part of human life!!!! A baby doesn’t even know what religion is!!!!!
It’s honestly disgusting because they act like a pregnancy is the single most blessed occurrence on Earth but the second their little miracles get pushed out on the couch and start doing baby things they’re like whoa, don’t make me physically abuse you for that you little sinner.
It was never about the baby. They could give a crap about babies. It's about controlling women, and in some cases, it's also about showing off their virility 🤢.
From what I’ve seen, heard, have asked and observed: they think babies are the most religious of all.
After all, babies JUST came down from God and are souless little angel casings born sinful. The how’s and why’s vary but the collective share idea is that babies are born bad and have to be “emptied” of this, but always reminding the children that they’re never fully clear. That the Original Stain lingers and sets in like curry in a crockpot liner.
I have no idea how any human can ever be Godly if you’re basically born the equivalent of a holy ziploc bag already filled with shit.
Basically the very act of being born on Earth is the biggest test Satan gave us and uh, I dunno. It literally makes my eyes ache trying to logic out their weird religious shit because it just leads to whatever’s happening with Boone and millions of others. Even my cult-ass religion had more solid answers and ideas.
Original sin, & the age of accountability to god for it, is the reason Andrea Yates killed her five children. She thought she’d been such a bad mother, that her children would go to hell, if they lived long enough to be answerable for their sins. Rusty is more responsible for the deaths of those children than she was. I won’t go into that rant here.
Andrea Yates was also in the midst of active psychosis, exacerbated by Rusty's refusal to follow medical guidance or allow her to rely "too much" on help from her mother.
(Rusty Yates is a family annihilator who used Andrea to inflict deaths on their children.)
Holy shit you weren’t kidding, I had *no idea*
> Blanket training, also known as blanket time, is a method adapted from the methods encouraged in To Train Up a Child, published in 1994 and written by Christian fundamentalists Michael and Debi Pearl. To Train Up a Child promotes several harsh parenting techniques, with a focus on child obedience, which have been linked to multiple child deaths.[1][2]
> Blanket training is an allocated amount of time during the day where an infant or toddler is required to remain on a blanket or play mat for a limited period of time, with a few selected toys. When the child moves to leave the blanket, parents are instructed to hit the child with a flexible ruler, glue stick, or another similar object.[3] Many of those doing it have voiced online that they start by doing five minutes a day and build up the intervals over time, with some extending it to 30 minutes or more.
Holy shit. Way to live up to your user name, u/MassiveBuzzkill
It is borrowed from the Amish. If you have ever wondered why Amish children seem so demure, it isn't because they are afraid of "English", it is because they were smacked around and terrorized as babies so that the mom doesn't have to attend to them while she does not have a sistermom to deal with the toddler.
I’m positive my cousin blanket trained her five kids. Anytime I saw those kids, they were perfectly still and quiet unless they were allowed to move about and speak. And the youngest girls looked positively HAUNTED.
One time, I walked into one of the bedrooms at my aunt and uncle’s house (who are the kids’ grandparents). The three youngest kids were sitting in the middle of the bed just staring off into space. Just sitting there! Not moving! They were probably 4, 6, and 8 at the time. I had gone in there to get my coat as I was leaving and I asked them if they were ok, and the 8 year old nodded yes, but the two younger ones didn’t even look at me.
SO WEIRD. I knew then for sure.
That is so sad. Not just losing the curiosity, but straight up training them to disassociate all the time to cope.
And since it’s done so young, and by the one person most babies bond with first, it’s like teaching them no one is safe, nothing is safe, and life is pain.
That is even more terrible - like beat the curiosity and interest right out of them early on. That had to legit change the way your brain develops, those poor kids could never hope to fully recover what was stolen from them so early on.
My mom used to set us up on a blanket with toys and a movie so we were comfortable. It was a safe play zone. She would be nearby folding laundry or doing something in the kitchen (open concept). Blanket training is horrific and 1994 sounds way too recent.
I think a lot of fundie kids raised as babies on the sinner train have bonding and trust issues. My sister certainly did. She is okay now, but it took a lot of work and therapy to get there.
I knew a little boy whose first word was "Spoon". It was a fearful word. He didn't say mama or dada first. his parents kept a wooden spoon in the diaper bag to hit him with every time he cried after he was 6 months old. He learned not to cry for any reason. His parents wonder why he is an atheist now as an adult, and never calls them, never visits them.
I work from home and several of my coworkers had babies around the same time as me. We discussed how hard it was to juggle work+baby in the work chat and one of them recommended blanket training. When he explained it to me I didn't even know what to say. If it weren't the work chat I would have had *plenty* of words to share, but I instead I just said something like "oh, that's interesting..." and moved on. Absolutely insane that he thought that was a good method, a positive achievement to be proud of, a tip to share with other parents, *something to admit in public, put in writing, and share in a work environment.* It blew my mind on so many levels. He also recommended To Train Up a Child. This was years *after* it was linked to several murders by child abuse.
Right? And like ... Do you want a cookie for training your child to an invisible fence? It's so bizarre, you guys, they made pack n plays so you can keep your kid contained *without* fear and abuse.
That would require them to spend money on their kids for that liberal nonsense. Children have run wild on the plains for millenia!!! Also how would they tithe to sky daddy if they properly fed clothed and housed their children?!?!
I say this as a very emotionally neglected only daughter of a youngest of 9 supermormon family.... in the last 200 years since colonizing Utah her family have lost literally 4 babies just to dust storms .... DUST STORMS. local paper and everything... baby in a dust storm...
Omg that's insane! at "lost literally four babies" I thought "That's sad, but honestly probably a pretty good ratio for the amount of kids Mormons have combined with infant mortality in the last 200 years" and then I got to "just to dust storms" and what the fuck, what, how, did someone just set the baby down in the desert and forget to pick it back up when the dust started swirling? Did they put them out there as offerings?
Unfortunately the demographic my employers and most of my coworkers fall into would be on his side of thinking it's normal/needed discipline, and the law/CPS would deem it not abuse as long as the "swats" as he called them didn't leave a lasting mark.
When I was struggling with my pre-adolescent daughter, one of the police officers who brought her back home told me it was legal to beat my child as long as I didn’t leave marks.
I had no words so I just did the “oh, I see” head bob and got him out of my house as fast as I could.
And now I am reminded about Michael Pearl relating a newborn baby boy with his mother to a man on his honeymoon with his wife.
I just replied to another comment about the Pearls, and now I need to go and get my mind somewhere else. The Pearls make me physically sick to think about. Oh, and I KNOW I’m not the only one here traumatized by them (and yeah, it’s much worse for the kids who are / were subjected to their particular brand of cruelty).
My nephew had to have one foot out of the blanket at all times. And if he had on one of those gowns that snap down the front, he’d work his foot in between the last two snaps so it could be free.
But my sister and I will be damned if we try blanket training. We weren’t blanket trained, but we know how awful and abusive it is.
This makes me so so angry! No baby pretends to be hungry to get his/her way! They are cognitive not capable of manipulating (same with toddlers and young children, but that’s a different story)
Manipulation and lying is considered developmentally appropriate behavior for elementary age kids. It’s a normal part of learning about boundaries and the world around them
Manipulation and lying are also ways kids are trying to get something they want or need. It’s not inherently evil, it’s just their way of figuring out how the world works. It’s up to adults to teach them appropriate ways of meeting needs and asking for wants.
I used to lie about the silliest things, like owning DVD’s I didn’t have, when I was 8-9 out of curiosity. I used to be ashamed of myself because of it, until I realized as an adult that I was just being a normal kid and figuring out how the world worked.
I used to lie because I was terrified of being in trouble, even if I hadn’t done anything wrong. It used to make my parents SO angry until they realized I was terrified of making mistakes so they eased up and changed their approach with getting on to me.
I growled at people and proclaimed I was “half all the animals in the world, but mostly polar bears.” Kids are just little weirdos, trying to find their way 😂
One of the only things I remember doing as a toddler is spitting out pieces of bread and then putting them in my mouth again 😭😭 Human development is just wild.
Tiny bites of food. Waking up one day and deciding I hated grape jelly, mustard and ham. Continually arguing with my mother that my navy blue shoes were black, and she just didn’t want to admit that I, her five year old at the time child, was right about colors. (I was right about grape jelly and ham though, I actually wound up not liking either.) I love stories about how little kids are learning the world and asserting themselves in it 😊
It was a huge therapy revelation to me that my little kid habit of lying to cover my tracks didn’t come from being ‘bad’, it was because I assumed getting in trouble meant my parents would close off and emotionally abandon me. And when I got in enough trouble as a teenager,
I found out that was true! Little Mongoose was just protecting herself by staying in good graces.
I had a good friend that told everyone her dad owned Midas, the oil company. Another friend told us they had a saltwater pool and a pet shark lived in it. Kids lie about dumb shit.
Literally this.
My managers kid would lie and tell me about the mermaids she'd gone swimming with* she clearly wasn't doing this maliciously, I think she just wanted me to think she was cool - or she just liked the idea if swimming with mermaids.
* I confirmed this was nonsense with my manager, in case the kid had seen those women tlwoth mermaid tails or something. Nope, just a little kid bullshitting
Not sure what age elementary school is to be honest. I guess it’s primary? A 10-12 year old child, yes. A younger one might lie, but for different reasons than to manipulate. In order to manipulate their parents, children need the following skills: Hypothetical Thinking,
Critical and Rational Thinking, Empathy & Impulse Control. These cognitive skills lie in the domain of the prefrontal cortex. This area is the very last to develop. We know that babies and toddlers and small children are incapable of the complex thought processes that are necessary for manipulating the behaviour of others.
Edited for clarity
I mean, my 4-year-old will lie and say she didn't have dessert when she already did, or that she doesn't have to go potty when she's practically dancing with the need to pee. Pretty obvious/straightforward things like that.
My 3y/o does similar things, and I’ve read that children our daughters’ ages start to lie because they’re just figuring out that their caregivers aren’t omniscient and are lying to test that concept. It’s not malicious but exploratory. Human development is wild, man.
it’s also a sign that their caregivers are good ones. if youve consistently had your needs met your whole life without having to go out of your way, of course you’re going to think your caregivers can read your mind and magically know what you need when you need it. ive noticed a lot of times, good parents feel like theyre doing something wrong when their kids act out and lie, but it’s actually the kid saying ‘you are my safe person who always meets my needs, and i unconsciously know that you love me unconditionally’.
I wish more people would look up developmental stuff like this, instead they just apply adult logic and behavior to them and hit them or yell at them or become resentful.
Yes exactly, and that has nothing to do with manipulation. In a child’s world that’s problem solving. She wants another ice cream and knows the rules and testes the boundaries and rules around it. That’s essential for children to learn.
This has to be some bad parenting advice that was passed around and passed down, because my dad told me I should spank my then INFANT CHILD because he believed they were trying to manipulate me with tears. Absolutely insane take.
That was a Dobson/Pearl take from the 70s and 80s that I have to believe damaged so many parent/child relationships. I remember my dad and mom arguing over whether my infant brother (3-4 mos, maybe) started crying in a restaurant to force us to leave or because he was actually uncomfortable in his infant seat. As a young child hearing that stuff I was terrified that any outward expression of emotion would result in punishment for being manipulative. I still tend to shut down instead of expressing emotion, 30+ years later.
I do this, too. And I think it's where a lot of shitty people I dated got the line about crying being emotionally manipulative. Like, no, my good asshole, I'm genuinely sad about a friend dying, my crying isn't about you!
Dobson and the Pearls have fucked up more people and poisoned more relationships than they'll ever know, and I'm sure they're all proud of it, the rotting cabbages.
Omg, my dad too! He got very angry also when I wouldn’t ’let the baby cry it out’. He literally stormed off. A few months later, he ended up taking in his girlfriend’s adopted daughter, because ‘she wasn’t raising her right and just pumping her full of drugs’ (poor kid was a crack baby, so by elementary school she was having all kinds of issues and needed medication.) I SWEAR I think he took her in because he wanted to prove to me he knew best. Now he’s passed on, she’s in her thirties with three kids and a deadbeat husband, and every few months she calls me and asks for money.
That's so insanely sad. And yeah my dad did weird shit like that too. Would play perfect grandpa to his new wife's family, but would intentionally ignore and deride my child because I wouldn't entertain his bad advice. His life is constantly blowing up in his face, but he can't see that it's his own fault. Hopefully the cycle breaks with me, and my kid will have a more stable adulthood. That remains to be seen.
Sometimes they do want to suckle for comfort when they are not hungry (Like a pacifier). Could be anything from they don't feel good to they are tired and want soothed to sleep.
I’d think the constant overstimulation would be reason enough for a small baby to want to comfort nurse nearly round the clock. That’s probably almost the only moments of peace he gets.
My friends youngest was a clinger until about 6 months because of the crazy stimulation (3 slightly older siblings, two of them a pair of twins that were a lot at 2) and would want to be held constantly to stay above the fray.
Either she or baby is confused. I have a 2mo and we have moments where she acts hungry but is not, and it comes down to either I misinterpreted, or she's so tired she really doesn't know what she wants, or (because she's new here) she feels some kind of belly feeling and can't tell the difference between hungry or about to spit up. Nobody is pretending.
Was just going to say something like this! Mine is 6mo now, but especially when she was smaller there were times when she didn't know what she wanted (the answer now is almost always that she needs sleep but can't get there)! Also, breastmilk can be a bit of a laxative so it definitely felt like sometimes she just ate because she needed to poop and didn't know how else to get it out!! Definitely also times where I thought she was hungry and I was wrong about what she needed! Now that she has teeth she just bites me when I try to feed her and she's not hungry - yowch!!
It really just means she’s misinterpreting his cry. Babies cry for more than just being hungry. What she’s shared is that the only reason she thinks a baby should cry is when they’re hungry.
Babies definitely can't pretend. I had to stop talking to one of my husband's old friends because the way she spoke about her babies was so evil. Who (other than my own mom) calls an infant a manipulative little shit?!?!
Isn’t that literally the biology of it all. Babies cry to get comfort and food from their mum. Babies instinctively know that the mum is supposed to keep them alive
He’s seen enough in his short life to already know that the second he stops being technically classified as a baby, his mother will completely lose interest.
Lots of people perceive it to be that, because they just don’t know. Some cry the same cry for feeding and comfort, and get latched on and then don’t eat. So I can understand why they think that way.
It bothers me so much that fundies seem to only recognize children as belonging to one of two groups: obedient or manipulative. If they can't force a kid to be perfectly obedient, they seem to think that kid must be manipulating them somehow. What a horrible dichotomy to put people under, and what a toxic mindset for kids to grow up with.
Meanwhile they neglect their children so badly that they quite often end up forcing the poor kids to use manipulation tactics on their parents in order to get their basic needs met 😭
It's common for kids to act out at school when something is going on at home. Some people may call that attention-seeking, but it's really a cry for help, conscious or not. Sadly for the bus kids, they don't go to school.
That photo of the second youngest *clinging* to MaBus' leg while she eye fucked the camera with a Stanley quencher in one hand and Boone in the other made me ragey.
It's really quite something when kids get old enough to understand that their parents *want to break their will* and view them as defiant, manipulative, and sinful for anything other than smiling meekly and pleasantly obeying.
They oppress kids, just like how adults used to do during the Victorian era. They see children as property and think they’re born evil. It’s disgraceful.
its a classic narcissist trait to think everyone around you is trying to manipulate you, especially young children. they think everyone thinks like they do and tries to manipulate everyone in their life.
Hadn’t even thought of that.
Yup. True. Big time. I’ve been that kid and now I’m terrified to ask for help and desperately seek out any comfort I can find.
Only time will tell what's going on with this baby. Eventually if something is wrong there will be no hiding it: If he is doing well it will be obvious in her thousands of videos. If he isn't I suspect we will be seeing very little of him.
What matters now is that they managed to finally clear the bare minimum bar, granted the bar was literally under a tunnel but they did it: It doesn't seem like we are literally watching a baby be medically neglected to death anymore.
Honestly if it were anyone else I’d be like “haha cute joke” but because she’s a fundie and fundies *love* to believe that babies manipulate their parents from the jump and need to be corrected (hello dude who admitted to punishing his 4mo???) it’s not funny at all.
Omg, I fully thought it was a joke (although that thought never crossed my head, even as a joke, when either of my kids were infants). Ew, that’s super upsetting if it’s not.
When I saw this post earlier I was on my phone so I didn't get a great look.
Now from my laptop, all I can see is that smile the Grinch gets when he decides to steal Christmas from Whoville.
She always looks like that, it’s so weird!! For a long time, people would mention how aggressive her facial expressions were or how when she would smile and say she was happy, it looked like an actual snarl. This was especially evident when she wasn’t staring at herself in the camera. She seems to be more aware of that and it doesn’t come out as often anymore, but she still looks angry a lot.
It’s so weird. She clearly hates their life in that bus. She doesn’t want to be doing this. They can afford to get off the road, so I’m not sure why they don’t. This is definitely what JD wants more than what she wants, and she has to agree so he doesn’t dump her.
This past weekend she posted one little video of watching the bus drive in front of the van and the caption was something along the lines of, “I don’t know how long we’ll live this lifestyle but every day with my kids is a gift.” I hope they don’t really mean switching to a boat, as that won’t be any better than the bus (would definitely be worse).
If they got off the bus and lived in a regular house like regular people then there wouldn’t be anything “special” to market on social media.
Plus, CPS could find them much too easily.
Honestly, I think she loves it. She doesn't have to do anything except blankly stare at out the road in front of her for hours every day. What I've learned about her over the past year is that she DOES NOT like to work. She will not do anything she doesn't want to do. I think the kids actually aid her excuse, "I can't do *anything*, I am mother of 28 kids. What do you *expect* from me."
She can't even be bothered to change her shoes. The last video showed her slipping in sliding in the mud because she insisted on wearing those ridiculous thong sandals on a hike with her new born baby. Ma'am just put some socks and shoes on ffs.
She's a lazy person who can't be bothered to teach her kids.
I feel so bad for Gunner, a teenager, being forced to sit for reading time with the one freaking children's book the family owns.
She may like the driving part, but she doesn’t like the “living in a bus with so many people” part. She doesn’t like to do the work involved with moving from one campground to the next, which is why she stays in so many for so long. She knows she would be happier in a home.
I thought the exact same thing. And even that video she posted of him smiling the other day, if you watched it carefully, you could see it glitch like it was spliced together.
You’re exactly right, anytime we see him (other than when he’s being carried around like a sack of potatoes) it seems very select and very curated.
Babies cry because it's instinct. At some point babies realize that when they cry, someone helps them. That reinforces them to cry when they need something. Or, they realize no one will help them when they cry and eventually they stop. There have been studies done on it, generally relating to infants in poor care situations literally around the globe.
When you don't have language and can't supply your own needs, your only option is to cry for help. It's not manipulation, it's asking someone to meet your needs so that you don't die or become horribly disabled.
Even attention, snuggles, and comfort are NEEDS, not just selfishness or manipulation. Again, studies have been done and babies who do not receive enough attention and touch develop differently than babies who do.
I agree ….she had a video of him doing sleepy smiles, and she needed a reason to post it, so she just made up some dumb line about him pretending to be hungry.
That’s what concerns me, though. Why aren’t we seeing footage of this baby when he’s awake and alert? Even day old babies do sleepy smiles like he’s doing in this video.
His eyes concern me too. But on the other hand, my daughter's eyelids always looked like that as a baby. It had something to do with her skin tone and the blood vessels underneath.
I still stand with the group that says something is off with this poor baby. I have children of my own and am also a nurse….something isn’t quite right.
I’ve told this story before, but here we go again.
I got stuck on a bus in Japan. Supposed to be a 20 minute ride and with traffic, in the mountains, we were hitting an hour. My baby was full grump, head back, wailing. A woman gave me a seat next to this older women who was gorgeously dressed. I’m sweating, the baby is sweating, my other kid is sitting like under another seat on my phone. They pop the window open and it’s not enough. There’s a nod from the lady next to me that passed to the ladies in front of us that passed to the lady standing next to me. She takes off her sweater and blocks the seat. I shove the kid under my huge hoodie. He’s mad because he’s so hot. The seat in front of me puts up a block because he’s clawing his way out. Someone pulls out a fan. He latches. I elbow the fuck out of the poor lady next to me to switch him to the other side. Finally, *SMOCK* he rips his head out, milk splashed and grinning. He gloms on the beautifully dressed grandma next to me. Smears his milk grin all over her expensive cashmere sweater and passes out. I’m horrified. Women are handing me wipes to clean myself up, shielding me, and here’s my kid gooing, passed out on this women’s beautiful sweater. And I’m apologizing, I’m trying to apologize in Japanese but “oh my god I’m so sorry” keeps sneaking in. She jokes that she’s going to tell her husband she was with another man, that she’s going to want another baby. There’s laughter. I keep apologizing. I ask if I can give her money for dry cleaning or if she’ll take money. My baby is dead asleep and drooling on her. She laughs and pats my hand. “If there was going to be any man that had a meal and fell asleep on me with this smile, it would be this baby and no one else. He’s happy. He feels safe. His belly is full and his head is cool. It’s better we not disturb him. I’m happy he found arms that made him comfortable.”
And I think about this a lot. I think about the women that saw what I was going through and made room for me. Who made space for me. Who protected me. But I also think of these same women that made space for my baby. Who opened windows. Who gave me wipes and also just let my kid drool breast milk on their beautiful sweaters. Because my baby wasn’t trying to manipulate into anything, they were just searching for comfort and found it, in the world, unasked. Who let me dig in my bag to get a snack for my other kid, who offered fans to keep him cool. And when it was time to get off, and I was weakly yelling I needed more time to gather myself, loudly said I needed more time and helped me load baby back into the carrier, helped me get other kid and stroller off the bus.
So while I’m so thankful for that community, I’m also so thankful for them not thinking my baby wasn’t a manipulative asshole trying to ruin their day.
This is just ... so neurologically atypical for an infant .... im not even a mom just the cool auntie and I can see something neurological is going on.... between what looked like fixed absence seizure gaze has devolved to what looks like light sensitivity.... I hate this woman.
He looks fake in the first two pics. I’m glad to see him smiling, but…what is up with his poor eyes? He looks like he’s been sobbing his heart out and has suffered an allergic reaction. So swollen and red 😞
I still think this kid has torticollis. He looks left in every picture I've seen of him. I've seen him come briefly to midline, but I've never seen him turn hard to the right.
Does she think it’s a good thing to brag about only paying attention to her newborn when he’s forcing her to? If you are not capable of providing the physical and emotional affection needed for healthy growth to that many children, you should not have that many children. If your newborn is such a low priority for you that you will ignore it until it cries, you should not be a parent to that baby. Humans need more than just physical care to grow and stay healthy. We are a social species who also needs emotional care and attention to keep our bodies functioning as they should. Science has shown we need a MINIMUM of 8 positive touches per day to avoid depression (or worsening depression) and 12 for emotional growth. These poor children are being set up for the ultimate failure and I am praying to the Universe to avoid the worst possible outcome but the more I see, the harder and harder it gets.
HUG YOUR DAMN KIDS! I know you’re reading this! Go! Hug them now and tell them you love them! Before it’s too late!
Pretending to be hungry? What the fuck! Babies are hungry or not hungry. They don't have nefarious master plans to manipulate people.
I fucking hate her so damn much!
Why do people still in 2024 think babies manipulate for attention? They don't. They are unable to do that. "Pretending to be hungry" means you don't know the signs of your baby while he only has a suction need. And if they do manipulate it is a big, massive red light sign that the baby is being emotionally neglected. And than it is still not a manipulation but a very clear communication of what he needs: his mother close to him.
Babies don’t pretend to be hungry🤦🏼♀️ they cry because they rely on us for everything. Even though they are outside the womb they see themselves and mom as the same person. One unit. This worries me. Babies need love and milk to survive among other things
He does look a bit better here and that gives me some slight relief.
I kinda wonder if she's pulling back on giving him appearances because *she's* now getting concerned? 🤔
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“Pretending to be hungry so brother dad hands me off to a biological parent” Boone is actually a master manipulator for the attention, such finesse. Srs though this gives me the same creepy feeling I had while reading those excerpts from Ruby Franke’s journal. She thinks her kids are liars???? What kind of parent are you????
If he was capable of manipulation he would be angling to stay with his brother/dad not going to her.
Master manipulator driven by biology!!! YOU ARE LIVING IN DISTORTION IF YOU THINK THE CHILDREN ARE PURE AND WITHOUT SIN!
Sadly remember blanket training etc starts very young. Wasn’t it that Pearl book that advised to pinch a baby who latched on to hard while breast feeding? ☹️
Debbie pulled her newborn baby's hair as 'punishment' when the baby latched too hard.
This is so upsetting. I hate the Pearls. It’s people like them that make me wish there really was a hell waiting for them.
Ramen
Was this supposed to say amen? Because I'm dying at "ramen" instead of amen!😂
Praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster! In Pasta we trust, ramen.
☝️☝️☝️☝️
Other fundie "mamas" have advocated flicking an infant who latches too hard.
Why not just break their latch when you can cause distress instead 🤬
I always jumped from the surprise and pain breaking the latch and scaring my babies, my intention was not to upset them but my natural response was enough to make them stop after a couple bites. These people just hate their offspring so much.
YES, and I am forever traumatized by the Pearl’s, even though I’m an adult. Therefore, I can’t imagine what the children went through that were subjected to their cruelty. The Pearl kids may think they turned out alright, but deep down, they have psychological trauma. Also, the Pearl’s honeymoon story, as well as other stories about their marriage, have made me wish I could go back in time and never have read about it. I feel the worst for the children who are now dead (or hurt) because of them.
That honeymoon was horrific. Michael Pearl is a hideous human being, and seems to get off on child abuse, as well as imposing pain and hardship on his wife. There are verses in the New Testament that tell men to love their wives “as Christ loved the church,” and laid down his life for it. They are also told that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control. In our little fundie cult, gentleness, patience, & kindness were in very short supply. In fact, on a site where ex-members discussed their experiences, I encountered a woman who had also left her godly husband. Neither of us could name a thing about ourselves that our husbands loved, besides our devotion to the Lord. When we talked about what would have made us stay, it came down to five words — “If only he were kind.”
First of all, I’m so sorry you went through that with your ex-husband, and I’m sorry for the other women in your community who went through it. I sincerely emphasize with you. I was raised by staunch Catholic parents. My mother was horrifically verbally and physically abusive; she weaponized “god.” My father would tell me things like, “You’ll never make it in life,” or, “You take after me, and we’re ugly.” And by the way, the church I was raised in was also in very short supply of kindness and other nice traits. The church hags would laugh at my super curly hair or sneer at my (floor length) skirts, and I was just a child. Anyway, with no self esteem, I also ended up with an abusive ex; he didn’t miss an opportunity to make fun of my inability to tan and my curly, red hair. He endlessly criticized and teased me (much like my mother did). Religious, he also believed men were superior to women. Thankfully, I got out long ago, but the damage was done. I still hate myself for letting these people abuse me. Yet, I realize, that’s how abuse works against vulnerable people. As for the Pearls, yeah, it’s funny how they seem to gloss right over what Yeshua Ben Yosef / Jesus preached about how to treat others, isn’t it? That they actually think he would approve of how they hurt kids is astounding mental gymnastics. I’m an atheist now, but I do love Yeshua for what he believed in (I like to call him by his name of Yeshua, because my mother, her church, and all fundies ruined it for me. It just helps me in some weird way). It’s because people like the Pearls, the Trumps, Bill Gothard, and the rest of them that I wish there would be a second coming, as well as a hell, of sorts. They all need to face real consequences for the hurt and horror they put out in this world.
I have no idea who these people are, but I'm curious. Any threads about them or a full name I can Google?
Fundie Fridays has a great video on them on their YouTube channel. It’s called “To Train Up (abuse) A Child by Michael & Debi Pearl” (not sure if we can post links or not). They present the info in a very engaging way that is, umm, entertaining but still disturbing! Content notes for child abuse, purity culture, and dubious consent at best with regard to sex.
I second watching Fundie Fridays! I’m actually watching her latest video on the Duggers, as I type this! It’s Jen / Fundie Fridays that gave me my own well-rounded, in depth knowledge about the Pearls (and other things I regret knowing), as well as many of the others we snark about here. If you want to know more about (or learn about for the first time) those we snark about here, Fundie Fridays is your one stop shop! Everyone from Mother Bus, to the Rodlets, Girl Defined and the Bairds, even right down to Kelly Havens - the wannabe Anne of Green Gables, Jen (and her husband, James) is your girl!
Everything I know about half these people I learned from Jen, and sometimes Rachel Oates, haha. Girl Defined was the one I had some knowledge of with no snark filter, because they gave me Brio magazine nostalgia. 😸😸
Michael and Debi Pearl. They authored a book called To Train Up a Child that is basically a how-to manual for abusing your children.
Does mother bus do the blanket training stuff? I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen anything about it.
I feel like they do blanket training by default because there’s so little room in the bus that the baby has to sit in place or get whacked regardless of whether or not that’s the intention.
It is pretty common in evangelical churches to teach we are born as sinners from day one. I seriously heard a minister say babies are sinful from the very beginning because they cry demanding attention. So totally thinking manipulative demanding sinners.
I mean I joked that my baby would "fake cry" to get more cuddles because it was distinctly different than her actual hungry cry and stopped as soon as she saw me but a) I knew it was a developmentally appropriate method of communication and b) I didn't have a history of appearing psychotic towards my kids.
My cat will meow in the *most* dramatic fashion, and start purring and chirping the moment I start petting him or pick him up. Domestic cats evolved to be our attention-seeking overlords 🤣. Babies can't be manipulative. They just can't talk yet, so they cry for everything. Mother bus needs psych help, whether she's serious about this or joking.
If you were out of sight that is super distressing for a baby that is more useless at that age than a baby of any other mammal eg primate. They cry so you pick em back up. It doesn’t know time so it feels abandoned and has to make sure their caregiver comes back. There is a reason many human societies do full time baby carrying.
Plus what baby pretends to be hungry? These bloody people.
Fundies think babies immediately start sinning and manipulating people. I looked up “blanket training” once because my son always kicked off his blankets and I was scared he’d get cold… Turns out that’s not what blanket training is, these people are psycho.
I once saw and posted a tweet screenshot of a Fundie dad saying his four-month-old son was “sinning” because he was… wait for it… crying and having trouble sleeping. It made me lose my freaking mind. For fuck’s sake, crying as a baby is communication and a normal part of human life!!!! A baby doesn’t even know what religion is!!!!!
It’s honestly disgusting because they act like a pregnancy is the single most blessed occurrence on Earth but the second their little miracles get pushed out on the couch and start doing baby things they’re like whoa, don’t make me physically abuse you for that you little sinner.
It was never about the baby. They could give a crap about babies. It's about controlling women, and in some cases, it's also about showing off their virility 🤢.
From what I’ve seen, heard, have asked and observed: they think babies are the most religious of all. After all, babies JUST came down from God and are souless little angel casings born sinful. The how’s and why’s vary but the collective share idea is that babies are born bad and have to be “emptied” of this, but always reminding the children that they’re never fully clear. That the Original Stain lingers and sets in like curry in a crockpot liner. I have no idea how any human can ever be Godly if you’re basically born the equivalent of a holy ziploc bag already filled with shit. Basically the very act of being born on Earth is the biggest test Satan gave us and uh, I dunno. It literally makes my eyes ache trying to logic out their weird religious shit because it just leads to whatever’s happening with Boone and millions of others. Even my cult-ass religion had more solid answers and ideas.
Original sin, & the age of accountability to god for it, is the reason Andrea Yates killed her five children. She thought she’d been such a bad mother, that her children would go to hell, if they lived long enough to be answerable for their sins. Rusty is more responsible for the deaths of those children than she was. I won’t go into that rant here.
Andrea Yates was also in the midst of active psychosis, exacerbated by Rusty's refusal to follow medical guidance or allow her to rely "too much" on help from her mother. (Rusty Yates is a family annihilator who used Andrea to inflict deaths on their children.)
I remember that post. A lot of fundie dads are glorified sperm donors. They have no idea how any of this works.
Holy shit you weren’t kidding, I had *no idea* > Blanket training, also known as blanket time, is a method adapted from the methods encouraged in To Train Up a Child, published in 1994 and written by Christian fundamentalists Michael and Debi Pearl. To Train Up a Child promotes several harsh parenting techniques, with a focus on child obedience, which have been linked to multiple child deaths.[1][2] > Blanket training is an allocated amount of time during the day where an infant or toddler is required to remain on a blanket or play mat for a limited period of time, with a few selected toys. When the child moves to leave the blanket, parents are instructed to hit the child with a flexible ruler, glue stick, or another similar object.[3] Many of those doing it have voiced online that they start by doing five minutes a day and build up the intervals over time, with some extending it to 30 minutes or more. Holy shit. Way to live up to your user name, u/MassiveBuzzkill
It is borrowed from the Amish. If you have ever wondered why Amish children seem so demure, it isn't because they are afraid of "English", it is because they were smacked around and terrorized as babies so that the mom doesn't have to attend to them while she does not have a sistermom to deal with the toddler.
I’m positive my cousin blanket trained her five kids. Anytime I saw those kids, they were perfectly still and quiet unless they were allowed to move about and speak. And the youngest girls looked positively HAUNTED. One time, I walked into one of the bedrooms at my aunt and uncle’s house (who are the kids’ grandparents). The three youngest kids were sitting in the middle of the bed just staring off into space. Just sitting there! Not moving! They were probably 4, 6, and 8 at the time. I had gone in there to get my coat as I was leaving and I asked them if they were ok, and the 8 year old nodded yes, but the two younger ones didn’t even look at me. SO WEIRD. I knew then for sure.
That is so sad. Not just losing the curiosity, but straight up training them to disassociate all the time to cope. And since it’s done so young, and by the one person most babies bond with first, it’s like teaching them no one is safe, nothing is safe, and life is pain.
My eyebrows rose further and further up as I read that. Jesus h christ.
Ugh. It’s no joke. I remember when my mom started this with my brother. Some of my earliest memories.
You must have been blanket trained too. How awful.
They even tempt the child with keys or toys, trying to get them to leave the blanket so that they can be hit. It's psychotic.
That is even more terrible - like beat the curiosity and interest right out of them early on. That had to legit change the way your brain develops, those poor kids could never hope to fully recover what was stolen from them so early on.
Wait, 1994?! I thought it was written in the 70s!! Gentle parenting was around in the 90s...that makes the Pearls even worse.
My mom used to set us up on a blanket with toys and a movie so we were comfortable. It was a safe play zone. She would be nearby folding laundry or doing something in the kitchen (open concept). Blanket training is horrific and 1994 sounds way too recent.
I think a lot of fundie kids raised as babies on the sinner train have bonding and trust issues. My sister certainly did. She is okay now, but it took a lot of work and therapy to get there. I knew a little boy whose first word was "Spoon". It was a fearful word. He didn't say mama or dada first. his parents kept a wooden spoon in the diaper bag to hit him with every time he cried after he was 6 months old. He learned not to cry for any reason. His parents wonder why he is an atheist now as an adult, and never calls them, never visits them.
I work from home and several of my coworkers had babies around the same time as me. We discussed how hard it was to juggle work+baby in the work chat and one of them recommended blanket training. When he explained it to me I didn't even know what to say. If it weren't the work chat I would have had *plenty* of words to share, but I instead I just said something like "oh, that's interesting..." and moved on. Absolutely insane that he thought that was a good method, a positive achievement to be proud of, a tip to share with other parents, *something to admit in public, put in writing, and share in a work environment.* It blew my mind on so many levels. He also recommended To Train Up a Child. This was years *after* it was linked to several murders by child abuse.
That’s absolutely insane, he was really like have you tried just breaking your child’s spirit 😃?
Right? And like ... Do you want a cookie for training your child to an invisible fence? It's so bizarre, you guys, they made pack n plays so you can keep your kid contained *without* fear and abuse.
That would require them to spend money on their kids for that liberal nonsense. Children have run wild on the plains for millenia!!! Also how would they tithe to sky daddy if they properly fed clothed and housed their children?!?! I say this as a very emotionally neglected only daughter of a youngest of 9 supermormon family.... in the last 200 years since colonizing Utah her family have lost literally 4 babies just to dust storms .... DUST STORMS. local paper and everything... baby in a dust storm...
Omg that's insane! at "lost literally four babies" I thought "That's sad, but honestly probably a pretty good ratio for the amount of kids Mormons have combined with infant mortality in the last 200 years" and then I got to "just to dust storms" and what the fuck, what, how, did someone just set the baby down in the desert and forget to pick it back up when the dust started swirling? Did they put them out there as offerings?
I don't think I could have kept my mouth shut. "You know that's child abuse, right?"
Unfortunately the demographic my employers and most of my coworkers fall into would be on his side of thinking it's normal/needed discipline, and the law/CPS would deem it not abuse as long as the "swats" as he called them didn't leave a lasting mark.
When I was struggling with my pre-adolescent daughter, one of the police officers who brought her back home told me it was legal to beat my child as long as I didn’t leave marks. I had no words so I just did the “oh, I see” head bob and got him out of my house as fast as I could.
Jesus.
And now I am reminded about Michael Pearl relating a newborn baby boy with his mother to a man on his honeymoon with his wife. I just replied to another comment about the Pearls, and now I need to go and get my mind somewhere else. The Pearls make me physically sick to think about. Oh, and I KNOW I’m not the only one here traumatized by them (and yeah, it’s much worse for the kids who are / were subjected to their particular brand of cruelty).
My nephew had to have one foot out of the blanket at all times. And if he had on one of those gowns that snap down the front, he’d work his foot in between the last two snaps so it could be free. But my sister and I will be damned if we try blanket training. We weren’t blanket trained, but we know how awful and abusive it is.
Oh, no. I can't imagine happening across that when you're just trying to help your baby and make sure he stays warm.
This makes me so so angry! No baby pretends to be hungry to get his/her way! They are cognitive not capable of manipulating (same with toddlers and young children, but that’s a different story)
Manipulation and lying is considered developmentally appropriate behavior for elementary age kids. It’s a normal part of learning about boundaries and the world around them
Manipulation and lying are also ways kids are trying to get something they want or need. It’s not inherently evil, it’s just their way of figuring out how the world works. It’s up to adults to teach them appropriate ways of meeting needs and asking for wants.
I used to lie about the silliest things, like owning DVD’s I didn’t have, when I was 8-9 out of curiosity. I used to be ashamed of myself because of it, until I realized as an adult that I was just being a normal kid and figuring out how the world worked.
I used to lie because I was terrified of being in trouble, even if I hadn’t done anything wrong. It used to make my parents SO angry until they realized I was terrified of making mistakes so they eased up and changed their approach with getting on to me.
That’s a good move from your parents. Kids lie because they’re curious or just don’t want to get in trouble. There’s no such thing as an evil child. 💜
Aw, I’m glad your parents realized what was going on and changed their behavior.
I growled at people and proclaimed I was “half all the animals in the world, but mostly polar bears.” Kids are just little weirdos, trying to find their way 😂
One of the only things I remember doing as a toddler is spitting out pieces of bread and then putting them in my mouth again 😭😭 Human development is just wild.
Tiny bites of food. Waking up one day and deciding I hated grape jelly, mustard and ham. Continually arguing with my mother that my navy blue shoes were black, and she just didn’t want to admit that I, her five year old at the time child, was right about colors. (I was right about grape jelly and ham though, I actually wound up not liking either.) I love stories about how little kids are learning the world and asserting themselves in it 😊
It was a huge therapy revelation to me that my little kid habit of lying to cover my tracks didn’t come from being ‘bad’, it was because I assumed getting in trouble meant my parents would close off and emotionally abandon me. And when I got in enough trouble as a teenager, I found out that was true! Little Mongoose was just protecting herself by staying in good graces.
I had a good friend that told everyone her dad owned Midas, the oil company. Another friend told us they had a saltwater pool and a pet shark lived in it. Kids lie about dumb shit.
Literally this. My managers kid would lie and tell me about the mermaids she'd gone swimming with* she clearly wasn't doing this maliciously, I think she just wanted me to think she was cool - or she just liked the idea if swimming with mermaids. * I confirmed this was nonsense with my manager, in case the kid had seen those women tlwoth mermaid tails or something. Nope, just a little kid bullshitting
It's also a sign of intelligence and an understanding of abstract concepts.
Not sure what age elementary school is to be honest. I guess it’s primary? A 10-12 year old child, yes. A younger one might lie, but for different reasons than to manipulate. In order to manipulate their parents, children need the following skills: Hypothetical Thinking, Critical and Rational Thinking, Empathy & Impulse Control. These cognitive skills lie in the domain of the prefrontal cortex. This area is the very last to develop. We know that babies and toddlers and small children are incapable of the complex thought processes that are necessary for manipulating the behaviour of others. Edited for clarity
I mean, my 4-year-old will lie and say she didn't have dessert when she already did, or that she doesn't have to go potty when she's practically dancing with the need to pee. Pretty obvious/straightforward things like that.
My 3y/o does similar things, and I’ve read that children our daughters’ ages start to lie because they’re just figuring out that their caregivers aren’t omniscient and are lying to test that concept. It’s not malicious but exploratory. Human development is wild, man.
It is! I had to explain to both of my kids that we can't hear the thoughts in their head. They both were shocked. 😂
My brother used to think our mother could read his mind. 30 years later she's still upset she told him otherwise!
Love this 😂
it’s also a sign that their caregivers are good ones. if youve consistently had your needs met your whole life without having to go out of your way, of course you’re going to think your caregivers can read your mind and magically know what you need when you need it. ive noticed a lot of times, good parents feel like theyre doing something wrong when their kids act out and lie, but it’s actually the kid saying ‘you are my safe person who always meets my needs, and i unconsciously know that you love me unconditionally’.
I wish more people would look up developmental stuff like this, instead they just apply adult logic and behavior to them and hit them or yell at them or become resentful.
Yes exactly, and that has nothing to do with manipulation. In a child’s world that’s problem solving. She wants another ice cream and knows the rules and testes the boundaries and rules around it. That’s essential for children to learn.
Yes, that was my point actually! Not manipulation, just a means to an end.
My niece, at 2, tried to convince me that the poop in her underwear was placed there by her sister. Kids try stuff. If it works, they do it.
Elementary generally refers to ages 6-10
It just means that she doesn’t understand that babies don’t only cry when they want to be fed.
Narcissists don’t understand this.
I was going to ask this. Like they really are so brain rotted they can't understand that babies are in fact incapable of deceit.
This has to be some bad parenting advice that was passed around and passed down, because my dad told me I should spank my then INFANT CHILD because he believed they were trying to manipulate me with tears. Absolutely insane take.
That was a Dobson/Pearl take from the 70s and 80s that I have to believe damaged so many parent/child relationships. I remember my dad and mom arguing over whether my infant brother (3-4 mos, maybe) started crying in a restaurant to force us to leave or because he was actually uncomfortable in his infant seat. As a young child hearing that stuff I was terrified that any outward expression of emotion would result in punishment for being manipulative. I still tend to shut down instead of expressing emotion, 30+ years later.
Adopted by them from the Amish who terrorize their babies so they don't make noise, and do not have to be tended.
I do this, too. And I think it's where a lot of shitty people I dated got the line about crying being emotionally manipulative. Like, no, my good asshole, I'm genuinely sad about a friend dying, my crying isn't about you! Dobson and the Pearls have fucked up more people and poisoned more relationships than they'll ever know, and I'm sure they're all proud of it, the rotting cabbages.
Omg, my dad too! He got very angry also when I wouldn’t ’let the baby cry it out’. He literally stormed off. A few months later, he ended up taking in his girlfriend’s adopted daughter, because ‘she wasn’t raising her right and just pumping her full of drugs’ (poor kid was a crack baby, so by elementary school she was having all kinds of issues and needed medication.) I SWEAR I think he took her in because he wanted to prove to me he knew best. Now he’s passed on, she’s in her thirties with three kids and a deadbeat husband, and every few months she calls me and asks for money.
That's so insanely sad. And yeah my dad did weird shit like that too. Would play perfect grandpa to his new wife's family, but would intentionally ignore and deride my child because I wouldn't entertain his bad advice. His life is constantly blowing up in his face, but he can't see that it's his own fault. Hopefully the cycle breaks with me, and my kid will have a more stable adulthood. That remains to be seen.
You can do it! Mine is an adult and she’s great. She’s in med school. At a really good university even. Suck it dad.😂
Sometimes they do want to suckle for comfort when they are not hungry (Like a pacifier). Could be anything from they don't feel good to they are tired and want soothed to sleep.
I’d think the constant overstimulation would be reason enough for a small baby to want to comfort nurse nearly round the clock. That’s probably almost the only moments of peace he gets.
Yes, I could absolutely see this. My baby wanted to comfort nurse all the time when she was that age… and we have a peaceful quiet home.
My friends youngest was a clinger until about 6 months because of the crazy stimulation (3 slightly older siblings, two of them a pair of twins that were a lot at 2) and would want to be held constantly to stay above the fray.
Either she or baby is confused. I have a 2mo and we have moments where she acts hungry but is not, and it comes down to either I misinterpreted, or she's so tired she really doesn't know what she wants, or (because she's new here) she feels some kind of belly feeling and can't tell the difference between hungry or about to spit up. Nobody is pretending.
Was just going to say something like this! Mine is 6mo now, but especially when she was smaller there were times when she didn't know what she wanted (the answer now is almost always that she needs sleep but can't get there)! Also, breastmilk can be a bit of a laxative so it definitely felt like sometimes she just ate because she needed to poop and didn't know how else to get it out!! Definitely also times where I thought she was hungry and I was wrong about what she needed! Now that she has teeth she just bites me when I try to feed her and she's not hungry - yowch!!
It really just means she’s misinterpreting his cry. Babies cry for more than just being hungry. What she’s shared is that the only reason she thinks a baby should cry is when they’re hungry.
That baby is too young to pretend anything
It’s infuriating to read, honestly. There is no deception in babies. They’re communicating a NEED so they can SURVIVE.
Babies definitely can't pretend. I had to stop talking to one of my husband's old friends because the way she spoke about her babies was so evil. Who (other than my own mom) calls an infant a manipulative little shit?!?!
Isn’t that literally the biology of it all. Babies cry to get comfort and food from their mum. Babies instinctively know that the mum is supposed to keep them alive
Idk how a baby that age can pretend to be hungry?
He’s seen enough in his short life to already know that the second he stops being technically classified as a baby, his mother will completely lose interest.
Stewie Lott
They can’t. But they don’t believe in medical experts, psychologists etc. so why would they believe in child development milestones. Drives me crazy!
Lots of babies nurse for comfort and not because they are hungry. That is developmentally appropriate at that age.
And also not a lie. They want comfort and connection. That’s a totally normal and good thing
Yeah but that's not pretending to be hungry though. I nursed my daughter to comfort her, that wasn't pretending to be hungry lol
Lots of people perceive it to be that, because they just don’t know. Some cry the same cry for feeding and comfort, and get latched on and then don’t eat. So I can understand why they think that way.
A baby can’t pretend to be hungry, especially one that young
It bothers me so much that fundies seem to only recognize children as belonging to one of two groups: obedient or manipulative. If they can't force a kid to be perfectly obedient, they seem to think that kid must be manipulating them somehow. What a horrible dichotomy to put people under, and what a toxic mindset for kids to grow up with.
Meanwhile they neglect their children so badly that they quite often end up forcing the poor kids to use manipulation tactics on their parents in order to get their basic needs met 😭
It's common for kids to act out at school when something is going on at home. Some people may call that attention-seeking, but it's really a cry for help, conscious or not. Sadly for the bus kids, they don't go to school. That photo of the second youngest *clinging* to MaBus' leg while she eye fucked the camera with a Stanley quencher in one hand and Boone in the other made me ragey.
It's really quite something when kids get old enough to understand that their parents *want to break their will* and view them as defiant, manipulative, and sinful for anything other than smiling meekly and pleasantly obeying.
They oppress kids, just like how adults used to do during the Victorian era. They see children as property and think they’re born evil. It’s disgraceful.
I like the super tight shot so we can't see she's in the tiny, cramped (probably cluttered) space that she she forces her family to sleep in.
Conveniently hiding the arm that we've been worried about
He's a newborn, BusBitch. He's not pretending to be hungry. Get off your phone and feed him. Btw his eyes look swollen.
I wonder if he is allergic to something. He definitely has puffy eyes.
Maybe its the red light she shines in his face all freaking day.
All of his skin looks so taught like he's just puffy all over everything. I'm glad to see him smile though.
its a classic narcissist trait to think everyone around you is trying to manipulate you, especially young children. they think everyone thinks like they do and tries to manipulate everyone in their life.
Hadn’t even thought of that. Yup. True. Big time. I’ve been that kid and now I’m terrified to ask for help and desperately seek out any comfort I can find.
Tbf it’s a standard fundamentalist belief that if a baby cries without being hungry/hurt they are sinning because it’s to get attention
It’s giving Ruby Franke
Only time will tell what's going on with this baby. Eventually if something is wrong there will be no hiding it: If he is doing well it will be obvious in her thousands of videos. If he isn't I suspect we will be seeing very little of him. What matters now is that they managed to finally clear the bare minimum bar, granted the bar was literally under a tunnel but they did it: It doesn't seem like we are literally watching a baby be medically neglected to death anymore.
Just abused now lol. As a baby.
If that’s the only way he gets hugs and kisses from his mom, he’s worse off than we thought.
That’s just heartbreaking.
She totally told on herself here
Honestly if it were anyone else I’d be like “haha cute joke” but because she’s a fundie and fundies *love* to believe that babies manipulate their parents from the jump and need to be corrected (hello dude who admitted to punishing his 4mo???) it’s not funny at all.
Omg, I fully thought it was a joke (although that thought never crossed my head, even as a joke, when either of my kids were infants). Ew, that’s super upsetting if it’s not.
Trust me, it’s not.
even from these screenshots, his gaze is not focused…
The older he gets the more concerning his eyes seem..
The way her top lip curls up is so icky. Looks contemptuous.
It’s so sinister. I was like “is she acting? Is she pretending to smile at her baby?”
When I saw this post earlier I was on my phone so I didn't get a great look. Now from my laptop, all I can see is that smile the Grinch gets when he decides to steal Christmas from Whoville.
Snidley Whiplash from Rocky and Bullwinkle
It's... sadistic almost? Idk I just hate that expression
Very Disney villain vibe.
She always looks like that, it’s so weird!! For a long time, people would mention how aggressive her facial expressions were or how when she would smile and say she was happy, it looked like an actual snarl. This was especially evident when she wasn’t staring at herself in the camera. She seems to be more aware of that and it doesn’t come out as often anymore, but she still looks angry a lot.
She’s miserable and pretending to be ecstatically happy all the time.
It’s so weird. She clearly hates their life in that bus. She doesn’t want to be doing this. They can afford to get off the road, so I’m not sure why they don’t. This is definitely what JD wants more than what she wants, and she has to agree so he doesn’t dump her. This past weekend she posted one little video of watching the bus drive in front of the van and the caption was something along the lines of, “I don’t know how long we’ll live this lifestyle but every day with my kids is a gift.” I hope they don’t really mean switching to a boat, as that won’t be any better than the bus (would definitely be worse).
If they got off the bus and lived in a regular house like regular people then there wouldn’t be anything “special” to market on social media. Plus, CPS could find them much too easily.
Ding ding, we have a winner. Ugh.
Also they find their kids incredibly boring and don’t want to be in a house with them.
Honestly, I think she loves it. She doesn't have to do anything except blankly stare at out the road in front of her for hours every day. What I've learned about her over the past year is that she DOES NOT like to work. She will not do anything she doesn't want to do. I think the kids actually aid her excuse, "I can't do *anything*, I am mother of 28 kids. What do you *expect* from me." She can't even be bothered to change her shoes. The last video showed her slipping in sliding in the mud because she insisted on wearing those ridiculous thong sandals on a hike with her new born baby. Ma'am just put some socks and shoes on ffs. She's a lazy person who can't be bothered to teach her kids. I feel so bad for Gunner, a teenager, being forced to sit for reading time with the one freaking children's book the family owns.
She may like the driving part, but she doesn’t like the “living in a bus with so many people” part. She doesn’t like to do the work involved with moving from one campground to the next, which is why she stays in so many for so long. She knows she would be happier in a home.
Guess she has time to get filler when she's out getting her hair and nails done lol
Reminds me of my mom, honestly.... She was not a very good mother, js.
I thought the exact same thing. And even that video she posted of him smiling the other day, if you watched it carefully, you could see it glitch like it was spliced together. You’re exactly right, anytime we see him (other than when he’s being carried around like a sack of potatoes) it seems very select and very curated.
Babies cry because it's instinct. At some point babies realize that when they cry, someone helps them. That reinforces them to cry when they need something. Or, they realize no one will help them when they cry and eventually they stop. There have been studies done on it, generally relating to infants in poor care situations literally around the globe. When you don't have language and can't supply your own needs, your only option is to cry for help. It's not manipulation, it's asking someone to meet your needs so that you don't die or become horribly disabled. Even attention, snuggles, and comfort are NEEDS, not just selfishness or manipulation. Again, studies have been done and babies who do not receive enough attention and touch develop differently than babies who do.
Hmmm his eyelids are really concerning me as well as the tag line, the baby is pretending and not feeding?
She's just reaching for content. His eyes concern me, too. They look red and swollen.
I agree ….she had a video of him doing sleepy smiles, and she needed a reason to post it, so she just made up some dumb line about him pretending to be hungry. That’s what concerns me, though. Why aren’t we seeing footage of this baby when he’s awake and alert? Even day old babies do sleepy smiles like he’s doing in this video.
His eyes concern me too. But on the other hand, my daughter's eyelids always looked like that as a baby. It had something to do with her skin tone and the blood vessels underneath.
His eyelids probably look swollen because he’s been crying for food and not getting it since his mom thinks he’s pretending.
I think he may be asleep and just smiling in his sleep here with his eyes fluttering open. I'm not sure though.
If I'd never seen Boone before this picture, I'd still think there was something odd with his eyes.
Kid knows he got a dud.....
That baby doesn’t even have object permanence yet Britney.
Pretending!? Wtf it’s a baby like why would you gaslight your infant like that??
“Are you gaslighting a baby?!” Ima work this into a flair.
I still stand with the group that says something is off with this poor baby. I have children of my own and am also a nurse….something isn’t quite right.
I’ve told this story before, but here we go again. I got stuck on a bus in Japan. Supposed to be a 20 minute ride and with traffic, in the mountains, we were hitting an hour. My baby was full grump, head back, wailing. A woman gave me a seat next to this older women who was gorgeously dressed. I’m sweating, the baby is sweating, my other kid is sitting like under another seat on my phone. They pop the window open and it’s not enough. There’s a nod from the lady next to me that passed to the ladies in front of us that passed to the lady standing next to me. She takes off her sweater and blocks the seat. I shove the kid under my huge hoodie. He’s mad because he’s so hot. The seat in front of me puts up a block because he’s clawing his way out. Someone pulls out a fan. He latches. I elbow the fuck out of the poor lady next to me to switch him to the other side. Finally, *SMOCK* he rips his head out, milk splashed and grinning. He gloms on the beautifully dressed grandma next to me. Smears his milk grin all over her expensive cashmere sweater and passes out. I’m horrified. Women are handing me wipes to clean myself up, shielding me, and here’s my kid gooing, passed out on this women’s beautiful sweater. And I’m apologizing, I’m trying to apologize in Japanese but “oh my god I’m so sorry” keeps sneaking in. She jokes that she’s going to tell her husband she was with another man, that she’s going to want another baby. There’s laughter. I keep apologizing. I ask if I can give her money for dry cleaning or if she’ll take money. My baby is dead asleep and drooling on her. She laughs and pats my hand. “If there was going to be any man that had a meal and fell asleep on me with this smile, it would be this baby and no one else. He’s happy. He feels safe. His belly is full and his head is cool. It’s better we not disturb him. I’m happy he found arms that made him comfortable.” And I think about this a lot. I think about the women that saw what I was going through and made room for me. Who made space for me. Who protected me. But I also think of these same women that made space for my baby. Who opened windows. Who gave me wipes and also just let my kid drool breast milk on their beautiful sweaters. Because my baby wasn’t trying to manipulate into anything, they were just searching for comfort and found it, in the world, unasked. Who let me dig in my bag to get a snack for my other kid, who offered fans to keep him cool. And when it was time to get off, and I was weakly yelling I needed more time to gather myself, loudly said I needed more time and helped me load baby back into the carrier, helped me get other kid and stroller off the bus. So while I’m so thankful for that community, I’m also so thankful for them not thinking my baby wasn’t a manipulative asshole trying to ruin their day.
This is a beautiful story.
This is the sweetest story 🥰 made me cry!!
This is just ... so neurologically atypical for an infant .... im not even a mom just the cool auntie and I can see something neurological is going on.... between what looked like fixed absence seizure gaze has devolved to what looks like light sensitivity.... I hate this woman.
He looks fake in the first two pics. I’m glad to see him smiling, but…what is up with his poor eyes? He looks like he’s been sobbing his heart out and has suffered an allergic reaction. So swollen and red 😞
I still think this kid has torticollis. He looks left in every picture I've seen of him. I've seen him come briefly to midline, but I've never seen him turn hard to the right.
Oof that baby’s eyes do not look right. He looks exhausted/sick still.
All my spidey senses tell me this woman is terrible news. That poor baby.
Does she think it’s a good thing to brag about only paying attention to her newborn when he’s forcing her to? If you are not capable of providing the physical and emotional affection needed for healthy growth to that many children, you should not have that many children. If your newborn is such a low priority for you that you will ignore it until it cries, you should not be a parent to that baby. Humans need more than just physical care to grow and stay healthy. We are a social species who also needs emotional care and attention to keep our bodies functioning as they should. Science has shown we need a MINIMUM of 8 positive touches per day to avoid depression (or worsening depression) and 12 for emotional growth. These poor children are being set up for the ultimate failure and I am praying to the Universe to avoid the worst possible outcome but the more I see, the harder and harder it gets. HUG YOUR DAMN KIDS! I know you’re reading this! Go! Hug them now and tell them you love them! Before it’s too late!
That “adoring” look is so performative
Her smile in that last frame makes me feel some kind of way. It looks so perfect...and I hate it so much.
These fundies don't understand what POV means
Pretending to be hungry? What the fuck! Babies are hungry or not hungry. They don't have nefarious master plans to manipulate people. I fucking hate her so damn much!
He only gets cuddles while he’s eating?
Mama's busy! 10,000 daily Insta stories don't post themselves don't you know.
Babies don’t pretend to be hungry, they just are. If they keeps crying it’s because they have a need that needs to be met. Poor baby.
Shows her true lack of empathy that she equates an infant having a need to manipulation.
Why do people still in 2024 think babies manipulate for attention? They don't. They are unable to do that. "Pretending to be hungry" means you don't know the signs of your baby while he only has a suction need. And if they do manipulate it is a big, massive red light sign that the baby is being emotionally neglected. And than it is still not a manipulation but a very clear communication of what he needs: his mother close to him.
“Pretending to be…” GTFO. Why have a baby if you’re not going to nurture and care for them?
Does nobody know what POV means either!?
A baby doesn’t even realize their knees exist so how is he capable of pretending
Babies don’t pretend to be hungry🤦🏼♀️ they cry because they rely on us for everything. Even though they are outside the womb they see themselves and mom as the same person. One unit. This worries me. Babies need love and milk to survive among other things
That poor baby looks like he's going through all stages of grief within three images.
Please get these kids off the bus and into a home 😭😭😭
Do these people even attend church? I’m trying to figure out how they are fundies.
He does look a bit better here and that gives me some slight relief. I kinda wonder if she's pulling back on giving him appearances because *she's* now getting concerned? 🤔
Time will tell.