I agree with what you are saying, but I have an honest question (not just to you, Joanne) that I think of when these type of threads come up: Do all non-Christians view all conservative Christians in this light - as dysfunctional patriarchal cults? I just get the sense on this forum that non-Christians group ALL Christians in this way. When these threads come up I feel as though the OPs are stereotyping or have a narrow minded view of Christians. That's what is insulting to the Christians on this board. I know people who have never used BC and have many children yet have no problems when others use it, their husbands aren't tyrants, the wives and daughters have freedom to pursue educations and careers. I've also heard of tyrant, abusive, controlling patriarchal husbands who aren't Christian. It's important to talk about abuse in all forms and advocate for victims, but I'm not sure why it's acceptable to throw a whole category of people into it. I consider myself a conservative Christian, but I have used bc, have a college education, worked until I had my 4th child, and have a husband who could care less what I do (as long as I'm not running around or spending ourselves into financial ruin!) ;) Maybe I'm not 'conservative' enough to fall into other's perceptions of 'conservative Christian.' Again, I just perceive stereotyping in the form of these posts. It's not the actual article that gets posted, just the feeling of the judgmental mindset behind it. I'm not trying to attack anyone including the OP. Just trying to explain why Christians get upset about posts like this. Hope it makes sense.

Him: workaholism Me: exhausted at the end of the day from dealing with kids and I need alone time to recharge We have a great relationship, but we both just wish we could have the time and resources (farm help and home help!) do things like we use to do.

I've never heard of that! What an awesome idea. I may just do that sometime. Especially for a baby that's being welcomed into a family of many members :)

:lurk5: Interesting. I'm driving a gas guzzling SUV and considering going back to a van but the car seat issue is the killer!! All I can say is mom's need to start designing vans.

I buy cards to mail to people for birthdays and weddings, etc... but 'forget' to mail them until late enough to the point of being... I dunno... stupid? Pathetic? Then I don't mail it at all and look like a jerk. I am a total card giving failure.

Never seen them but I like the sanitary aspect :) Do they make gluten free?

You're scaring me! I never use to be scared of viruses but now I have a 2 year old that gets reactive airway issues with every single respiratory virus she gets. I would like to hide in a cave from now until next May. Hope y'all feel better soon.

That's tough. I would never live in a house near a large power line. They are bad for your health. Maybe rent and see what comes up. Moving twice is easier than buying and regretting and having to resell.

Lily, Lillian, Evangeline (Eva), Adelaide, Adeline, Calista, Autumn, Emily, Emma, Sienna, Sierra, Savannah Are you going to let us know your favorites?? :thumbup:

I have been tempted to buy it, but I thought it was too expensive!

This is from my dh, so I don't know how accurate it is but this may be a cause. There are two types of fats, and sometimes when butcher grinds the meat or cuts a steak, the yellow fat from the back of the animal is included and that is the bad tasting fat. If you are buying and having a local butcher do it, maybe talk to him about this to see if he is aware of it. This fat taste does get worse the longer frozen, or after you cook the meat and it is cooled before eaten, or reheated the next day (especially in the microwave it seems.) Maybe the grain at the end of the animal's life could cause it because grain makes them put on fat (just my own thought/theory.) Corn feed animals have a different taste that is not necessarily better. Most farmer's grain feed to increase their weight = higher selling price. You could try a grass fed only next time to see if it matters. The animal will probably weigh less but be leaner.

My first thought was parasites. My next thought was your water source. Well water can be contaminated. Clean out your fridge, too, incase you are infrequently eating contaminated food (like condiments) then get sick again. Bleach everything. Pools seems to spread stomach bugs a lot incase you've been going to those. We've had two odd stomach bugs or something this summer so maybe it's just some weird stuff going around.

I try not to worry although I can go down those paths if I don't stop myself. DH gets worked up about it. My stockpile is that I live on a farm, so at least I have milk, beef, chickens, and corn and whatever I can grow. After that I guess it's deer and pigeons. Leaves for tp... guess I'll worry about that if it happens. hmm... if there's no electricity that's a lot of cows to milk by hand.

I feel just like you do. There's nothing wrong with me or any of my kids, dh works hard at work and home. I'm living the dream of staying home and homeschooling. Yet I feel that way. I have 5 children 8 and under. I'm maxed out now. I can't do everything, you can't do everything... and it's frustrating to admit that! There isn't enough hours in the day or days in the week. It's especially hard when you can't afford to hire someone to clean the house, fix repairs, or help watch the kids. The biggest priority I try to remember is: "Do my kids feel loved today?" Many days I feel guilty because of my cranky attitude towards them. That's not who I wanted to be as a mother. Why is it so hard? I don't know. I struggle with it as well. I really need time to myself to get perspective and improve my mood. Maybe you need that, too. Yes, even if you should be working on a project or cleaning, maybe take a walk outside instead when your dh is home. That helps me a lot and I'm more productive afterwards. :grouphug:

I don't like skulls. To me, they are like celebrating the dead or death in general. I feel like it's a subtle way of desensitizing youth to death and gore (but not in a good way, like talking about a dying relative would be, if that makes sense.) Obviously there are other opinions. I don't judge other people or kids who like them or wear them because it is a fashion fad and most people don't think into it as much as me. I just don't allow my children to have things with skulls on it. I have purposely not bought things because of skulls (like a bike and clothing.) Maybe I just find it creepy!

I didn't say anyone said it. I said I get the impression that people THINK that by responses about the Duggars. (That is, "do what mommy and daddy do because we can't think for ourselves.")

I always get this impression that everyone thinks the Duggar children are brainless robots. She's a grown-up and she married a grown-up and I bet they know that there are ways to prevent pregnancy, yet they chose not to. That is their CHOICE. They can do what they want. Congrats to them.

You can do it! I feel like if I could, anyone can! It took me 5 months to get up the courage and let go of the gluten. I cried while cleaning out my kitchen. My big 25lbs. bag of bread flour.... I still miss it, but we have some new favorites. I second the TinkaYada pasta! Also, my daughter was 5 and I never cut her hair and it barely wisped across her eyes. She looked like she had baby hair. Within a month her hair got thicker and is growing, and now curls! I think she had nutritional deficiencies that caused the lack of hair growth. Her ped. NP said it's probably a zinc deficiency that causes that. She believes me that she is gluten intolerant thankfully :)

I married a mechanic and handyman. He's a workaholic. I guess there are trade-offs. But I wouldn't trade him for the world. The funny thing is though, when you are married to a mechanic, they know how long your vehicle will go before it really needs to be fixed. In other words, I still drive clunkers. Then when he finally does fix it, we lose our day or evening together because he's busy. But we do save money.

My daughter had/has growth issues (even little hair growth) and other celiac symptoms like enamel defects, pale skin, constant stomach aches (daily) since she could talk, always picky eater but got worse and worse - at the same time she started developing more and more complaints of swallowing, difficulty chewing, stuff getting stuck in her throat, then spitting out foods. This went on for about 2 years (from once a month up to daily in the ages of 4-6) Finally she was scared to even eat her favorite foods. Behavior wise - she always seemed spaced out and wouldn't talk to anyone but me. But her intellectual developments seemed quite high, at the same time her maturity level seemed stunted. She would scream and cry over nothing. Like throw her plate off the table because I put the wrong kind of cheese on it. Just completely irrational moods and anger. I could reason with my 2 year old better. I didn't know what to do, dh just said she was 'mental'. He would ask her "how was Sunday school" and she would just stare at him, like right through him and not talk. One day she complained of her fingertips itching and I googled it out of desperation and Celiac disease came up. Lightbulb moment. She fit it to a T except the diarrhea. Months of messing with the doctors because her celiac panel was negative was exhausting. Her GI only did one biopsy of the intestine which showed digestive enzyme deficiency and no other damage so the GI said she doesn't have Celiac's despite only taking one biopsy (I'm still mad about that.) I doubted myself. Maybe I was wrong. I put off the trial diet because it was going to be very hard. I made my own bread and it was great! I didn't want to give it up! When I switched her to the gf diet I let her eat yogurt, Lay's plain chips, cheese, and gf pancakes (that's all her diet consisted of.) After a week her choking/swallowing episodes stopped. After two weeks I had a new child. She was running around, talking everyone's ears off and singing and giggling. Dh kept saying "it's a miracle!" I couldn't believe it. This 'stupid fad diet' annoyed me. But it saved my little girl. When she get's glutened now it usually shows up the next day as irrational behavior, especially the anger. Then after the anger she cries. She's 6 and knows not to take food from anyone but me because she knows it'll "get stuck in her throat." She is unaware of how her behavior changes though. Her appetite for other foods has grown so that's a help! Do a trial diet and set a date. That way you have a goal, and if you need to keep him on the diet it'll hopefully seem more doable by then! It doesn't work for everyone but it's sure worth a try. It's extremely hard at first (at least if you have picky eaters or a budget!) so I feel your pain. :grouphug: :grouphug:

(I didn't read all the responses.) I was just going to post something about this... except we are the ones getting random people always stopping at our house. Either last minute phone calls or no phone call at all! But we farm, and just because we are here all the time people think we are available for their entertainment needs I guess. A couple weeks ago DH said we were going to have a family day by doing fun things at home and he wasn't going to do any farm work. Then family stopped. For five hours. Family day ruined. I was always taught that it was rude to invite yourself over. Discussing plans is different. Very close family can be different. I think you are doing the right thing. If there are neighborhood friends they like to play together with a lot, you could always talk to their parents and see what is appropriate to them.

Taking a bag and walking through rooms just to throw stuff out :) I also like to organize things like my desk but I don't have time to keep up on it as much as I would like. You can come do my laundry. I keep waiting for the perfect laundry loving fairy to drop out of the sky and do all my laundry the way I want it done!!

I am so with you on this one. I think schooling is easier than summer's busy hectic summer pace. I want to be alone - but in my own house ALL ALONE!

I'm an RN and worked in long term care. Cleanliness is necessary no matter what the parts are, I've seen UTI's in the intact, circ'd, and female - none stand out as worse or more common than the other. One of the worst foley catheter tears I saw was on a circ'd elderly male. It'd been bad regardless of that status.

Would you cut the genitals of a daughter so they looked like her sister's or yours? To me, that just seems sick. Why is it so difficult to decide when it comes to boys then? I don't know! Why is it genital mutilation to girls, but not boys? This is a fantastic article (against circumcision) with a lot of research in it and the history of why it was even started in the US, which is not the current reasons it is still being done (cleanliness, social, less STDs.) It also includes functions of the foreskin and risks of the procedure. http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/fleiss.html Is your dh open to discussing it? You both should list the main reasons for your stance and openly discuss it. DH and I were always on the same page, so I didn't have to go through it like you. I think a part of dad that struggles is maybe they were 'wronged' and don't want to admit it/grieve it (although many do not feel that way either.) I also would not do something unnecessary to my child, and I view it as unnecessary (of course some DO think it's necessary!) Good luck :)