John and Alyssa Webster 14: Is It Time to Say the Family Is Complete?

[0 kids n not countin]

Alyssa will be 30 in November.

[GreenBeans]

19 hours ago, CaptainFunderpants said:

And honestly, I bet Allie and Lexi'll leave the coop ASAP and unlike her they'll use a reliable form of birth control from the get-go.

I’m not so sure. At least until now there are only 5 children. Yes, they get their share of sister momming, but unless Alyssa and John keep having kids every other year (and I dont think they will), Allie and Lexi are still going to have a fairly normal large family experience.

[Johannah]

On 7/20/2024 at 9:58 PM, GreenBeans said:

For the parents I guess spaces closer together is better, because they’ll be done with child care and have their kids out the house while they are still young-ish. How old is Alyssa? She got married super young, right? If you start having kids at 19, even if you have 5, if they are spaced close together, you’ll have them out the house by the time you’re 40/45.

Yes but then she has decades upon decades of relative youth left to spend alone with John the smarmy patriarchal every-state-is-a-country asshole. Poor Alyssa. Maybe she’ll wake up and divorce him and live out her best sex and the city life with ladies’ lunches and cosmos, and be able to wear her hot pink stilettos without a wedding dress…

[Giraffe]

15 hours ago, GreenBeans said:

I’m not so sure. At least until now there are only 5 children. Yes, they get their share of sister momming, but unless Alyssa and John keep having kids every other year (and I dont think they will), Allie and Lexi are still going to have a fairly normal large family experience.

It depends. If Alyssa's already checked out they may be raising themselves at this point. 
 

I wonder if Alyssa will ever decide to be done with the sahm "lifestyle" and put the kids in school so she can have a part time job. (It would probably require a divorce because of her fil but I can hope for her)

[postscript]

1 hour ago, Giraffe said:

It depends. If Alyssa's already checked out they may be raising themselves at this point. 
 

I wonder if Alyssa will ever decide to be done with the sahm "lifestyle" and put the kids in school so she can have a part time job. (It would probably require a divorce because of her fil but I can hope for her)

Alyssa seems to have little interest in any of the kids other than Rhett, I think she loses interest once they hit the age of 2 or 3.

She is someone I can see being much happier with a part time job. I could see her being a realtor, coffee shop manager, party planner, working some sort of retail. Something with flexible part-time hours so she can still drive her kids to activities. I think the social interaction would be good for her. Given how hands-off she is with homeschool, I sometimes wonder what she does all day. 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

19 hours ago, postscript said:

I sometimes wonder what she does all day. 

Cleans, given her absolute insistance on a spotless house.

 

If Rhett is their last, I bet she will take up the cleaning business again once the older girls are old enough to watch everyone.  She seemed to enjoy that.  I don't see her doing anything other than something self-employed.

[rebeccawriter01]

On 7/21/2024 at 12:58 AM, CaptainFunderpants said:

If they do things Bates-style, the girls'll be out right at 18 while Rhett'll be at home several more years.

And honestly, I bet Allie and Lexi'll leave the coop ASAP and unlike her they'll use a reliable form of birth control from the get-go.

I'd like to think that about Allie and Lexi, but it will depend on their own social circle too. Right now they seem quite isolated and around others who are similarly minded. Unless their future husbands are more main stream, they may not even know their options for birth control (if we even have rights to those in the future). I had an OB/GYN appointment recently and was in the waiting room with a 15 year old who was pregnant. I was pretending to read so I could listen in on the conversation between her, her mother, the father's mother, and a random aunt who I couldn't figure out who she belonged to in this. The father (also around 15) was sitting there on his phone the whole time. 

The aunt asked the girl what kind of birth control had she used and the girl said, "mom told me it was wrong to use birth control and the pastor at the church said using birth control was not just sinning but preparing to sin." Further pushing from the aunt revealed that the girl had no clue what birth control even was and thought it was akin to pain relief during labor. 

It made me think about the Bates who are woefully undereducated. Somehow I don't think Kelly Jo is giving lessons on sex education that includes lessons on contraception. 

[GreenBeans]

3 hours ago, rebeccawriter01 said:

The aunt asked the girl what kind of birth control had she used and the girl said, "mom told me it was wrong to use birth control and the pastor at the church said using birth control was not just sinning but preparing to sin." Further pushing from the aunt revealed that the girl had no clue what birth control even was and thought it was akin to pain relief during labor. 

It made me think about the Bates who are woefully undereducated. Somehow I don't think Kelly Jo is giving lessons on sex education that includes lessons on contraception. 

These parents absolutely fail their kids.

[nelliebelle1197]

On 7/22/2024 at 12:00 AM, GreenBeans said:

I’m not so sure. At least until now there are only 5 children. Yes, they get their share of sister momming, but unless Alyssa and John keep having kids every other year (and I dont think they will), Allie and Lexi are still going to have a fairly normal large family experience.

I see no evidence Alyssa is doing things all that differently from Kelly. The girls will be out to work at home as soon as possible.

[Coconut Flan]

Isn't Allie already in charge of "lunch" at least part of the time?

[JermajestyDuggar]

I definitely think Alyssa makes her oldest girls into sister moms. But the only positive is that if she stops at 5 or 6 total, the girls won’t have 17 younger siblings to care for unlike Michael. But they will still be cooking, cleaning, homeschooling, babysitting. Just for less people. 

[GreenBeans]

16 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

I see no evidence Alyssa is doing things all that differently from Kelly. The girls will be out to work at home as soon as possible.

That’s true, but I just meant it will be a more “normal” experience due to the sheer numbers. Being a sister mom is different with 4 siblings (with most fairly close in age) to having 10 or 15 siblings (with a new baby every year). And with 5 children, chances are they’ll be seen as individuals at least to some extent by their parents and will have more of a one-on-one relationship with their parents than in a family 10 or 15 kids.

Is it still an awful fundies upbringing? Yes. But at least it doesn’t have the added craziness of eleventy siblings.

Edited July 25 by GreenBeans
Riffles

[Coconut Flan]

Making meals for seven has to be less work than meals for eighteen.  Cleaning and laundry have to be less work and with the daughters all somewhat close in age, hopefully they'll help each other out and with fewer of them be able to form real relationships.  Alyssa doesn't seem completely allergic to work like Michelle and Kelly Jo.  

[Kiki03910]

6 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

Making meals for seven has to be less work than meals for eighteen.  Cleaning and laundry have to be less work and with the daughters all somewhat close in age, hopefully they'll help each other out and with fewer of them be able to form real relationships.  Alyssa doesn't seem completely allergic to work like Michelle and Kelly Jo.  

The only work Kelly Jo and Michelle ever seemed interested in was shooting babies out of their hoohas like a machine gun. I guess Michelle also spent a lot of hours gazing dementedly at Boob's unctuous face. At least Kelly Jo did a whole lot less of that.

[rebeccawriter01]

On 7/25/2024 at 2:54 PM, Kiki03910 said:

The only work Kelly Jo and Michelle ever seemed interested in was shooting babies out of their hoohas like a machine gun. I guess Michelle also spent a lot of hours gazing dementedly at Boob's unctuous face. At least Kelly Jo did a whole lot less of that.

Kelly Jo preferred holding onto Gil's arm like she was going to fly away in a breeze if she didn't. It was funny to watch them try to talk with their hands when there arms were all twisted up like a pretzel.

[Kiki03910]

On 7/26/2024 at 8:32 PM, rebeccawriter01 said:

Kelly Jo preferred holding onto Gil's arm like she was going to fly away in a breeze if she didn't. It was funny to watch them try to talk with their hands when there arms were all twisted up like a pretzel.

That and the hand on his upper thigh like she was always 2 seconds away from giving him a handie.

[Kiki03910]

 I'm not sure Alyssa is stupid so much as her upbringing just totally fucked her over. I agree with you guys who hope she's done with kids and ends up working again and not just parking those poor kids in front of video "school" while cleaning the house obsessively and gnawing on turkey jerky to keep her weight down.

[clueliss]

Well, her dilemma right now is that the oldest two Allie in particular is requiring more homeschooling attention than just parking in front of a video. This was outline in the latest video about homeschool curriculum so she switching away from abeka for the oldest two. Apparently, Allie was struggling with things like some math concepts and what have you last year and it caused Alyssa to reevaluate what the curriculum use was.

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, clueliss said:

Well, her dilemma right now is that the oldest two Allie in particular is requiring more homeschooling attention than just parking in front of a video. This was outline in the latest video about homeschool curriculum so she switching away from abeka for the oldest two. Apparently, Allie was struggling with things like some math concepts and what have you last year and it caused Alyssa to reevaluate what the curriculum use was.

I'm slightly encouraged by this. So she's not quite as checked out as I thought. The bar is low but I'm impressed. 

[JDuggs]

I was sucked in by another Bates YouTube. Could someone confirm for me how Alyssa pronounces the word “ancient”? She says it about four times around 17:45. It sounds to me like she’s saying “ank shent.”

I still think that just watching videos and doing workbooks is such an incomplete way to “do school.” Do the kids ever get to ask questions, answer questions, give an opinion, make a presentation, listen to a peer, problem solve with a peer? Pretty much all of the interesting and engaging ways to learn have been eliminated in this version of homeschooling. Hopefully their homeschool co-op fills some of these gaps.

[Gobsmacked]

On 7/7/2024 at 1:56 AM, rebeccawriter01 said:

She had two heart ablation procedures. They are not surgeries by definition. I had one done too. They are quite scary, but heart surgery is 10 times worse. Afterward, you have to be careful about activity so the incision in your groin can heal but you don't even spend the night in the hospital. 

A cardiac ablation procedure can even be done with someone being sedated but awake. My main memory from it was that the bed they put you on was very narrow. I was worried I would fall off of it. They put all the monitor stickies from an EKG on you and they insert a device through a cut in your groin. Then they look for where the faulty electrical signals are shooting from in your heart. Once they find them the doctor burns or freezes them to create a scar. If done properly the heart goes back to beating the correct rhythm. 

 

My peculiar niece has had three of these procedures, for some reason the first two didn’t work properly. She was advised against a third pregnancy so went ahead and had another two. The cardiologist just about kept her alive through the fourth pregnancy.  Chances  were taken. She wanted a girl so carried on. Her boys are beautiful. No girl though. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think Alyssa may eventually come to the conclusion that her kid need to go to Christian school once they start the really hard stuff. Or a homeschool co op that meets so often that it may as well be a Christian school. 

[JDuggs]

18 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I think Alyssa may eventually come to the conclusion that her kid need to go to Christian school once they start the really hard stuff. Or a homeschool co op that meets so often that it may as well be a Christian school. 

I don’t think they’ll send the kids to school. I don’t think that Alyssa and John see the value in learning any of the difficult subjects taught in high school: math, science, foreign language, real history/civics. Language Arts to them is just knowing how to read and write, and that’s accomplished before high school. The girls aren’t preparing for careers and Rhett just needs to know enough to work in the family business. They are purposely stunting these kids. For them, the lack of advanced knowledge isn’t a bug of homeschooling; it’s a feature.

[HereticHick]

26 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I think Alyssa may eventually come to the conclusion that her kid need to go to Christian school once they start the really hard stuff. Or a homeschool co op that meets so often that it may as well be a Christian school. 

I wonder if the pressure to homeschool will ease up a little once her FIL, a huge champion of homeschooling--and Bill Gothard, retires from Congress. He's 75, so who knows when that will be, but probably before the youngest hit high school.

[JermajestyDuggar]

8 minutes ago, HereticHick said:

I wonder if the pressure to homeschool will ease up a little once her FIL, a huge champion of homeschooling--and Bill Gothard, retires from Congress. He's 75, so who knows when that will be, but probably before the youngest hit high school.

I could see Alyssa trying to get around it by putting them in a co op that meets multiple times a week. That way she can still claim to homeschool.