s/o Gomi - that wife

[patbutcher]

I searched the wiki of That Wife and was led to this post. Is she for real?

julia-transition.blogspot.ca/2014/08/moms-make-it-work-jenna-part-time.html?m=1

I mean, I guess I admire her honesty but did she really think that would go over well? She is really that obtuse?

[ssmjlm]

I remember when that post made the rounds.

Bitch is crazy.

[ilikedonuts]

This is all new to me.

SHE PAYS SOMEONE TO COME DRESS HER KIDS EVERY DAY??

[meij]

Yes that's for real. That really blew up in her face. I think she expected to be this brave pioneer of mothers speaking up that they don't have to do it all. But she doesn't do ANYTHING.

[patbutcher]

Jun 24, 2015 19:46:18 GMT -5 meij said:

Yes that's for real. That really blew up in her face. I think she expected to be this brave pioneer of mothers speaking up that they don't have to do it all. But she doesn't do ANYTHING.

She basically does everything she can to avoid being with her kids and still moans about being a mom.

Lol at feeding them in the car to keep the kitchen clean. Her car must be a pigsty. I give dd a mum mum in the car and regret it.

[Deleted]

OMG that she wants a random Russian relative her sister to move in so that she's not lonely at night. And I love some PB&J but eating it every night in the car so that the kitchen doesn't get dirty? Holy lazy balls.

[thecatinthehat]

Jun 24, 2015 19:43:42 GMT -5 ilikedonuts said:

This is all new to me.

SHE PAYS SOMEONE TO COME DRESS HER KIDS EVERY DAY??

i know right? How much do you hate parenting that you cant even manage to do that?!

[Deleted]

I wish that she was an incredible social media hoax. Sadly, she's not.

[Deleted]

So, in context of That Wife, remember the Mormon Mommybloggig phenomenon? She was one of many, albeit an unusually self righteous one. A few years ago I stumbled across this hoax of a Mormon mommy blog and it still cracks me up! seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com/?m=1

[sent]

Jun 24, 2015 22:44:53 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

So, in context of That Wife, remember the Mormon Mommybloggig phenomenon? She was one of many, albeit an unusually self righteous one. A few years ago I stumbled across this hoax of a Mormon mommy blog and it still cracks me up! seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com/?m=1

OMG LOL at "we just finished law/dental/business/medical school!" and the rest of that.  Every single Mormon wife I met while in grad school was like this.  The "we" seriously bugged me.

[lillaguma]

I just want to chime in that I met Jenna once, she photographed a friend of mine's wedding like 6 years ago. She was not very pleasant and I remember my friend had a horrible time with her - the morning of she suddenly told her that she wouldn't be getting a disc of the images like she had originally been told but would have to pay for each individual one - it was something crazy. I think eventually they got them all because of the contract, but I just remember there being drama.

And yeah...feeding kids pb&j in the car every night for dinner?

This all just sounds sad to me. I don't think being a stay at home parent is for everyone. I do hope that everyone can find some happiness in their children and meld their lives with them though - she seems to keep her life separate from the kids - eating her dinner over the kitchen sink and feeding them theirs in the car, that sort of thing. But then I also find it weird that she is happy to not have a spouse around wanting to cuddle and talk in the evenings, too.

[m1and1m]

I've only read most of the linked article, but I can see familiarity in a lot of what she says. It sounds like maybe she and her spouse have high expectations that aren't realistic (makes him being gone easier than him being home), that she has some stuff going on with depression and anxiety. Realizing her only goal was to find a husband, then realizing that's not enough. Being lonely, ugh.

[Deleted]

See if she just did what lots of other affluent women do & hire a full time nanny so she can go about her day unbothered by her kids ( and do stuff like workout & go to lunch & work on her blog) NBD. It's really not that uncommon. What is unsettling is how she claims she is a solo parent & yet doesn't do anything herself. She just thinks she does. She's actually a solo parent with daycare providers & nannies who help her out almost full time. The whole loving to cook but not finding time to sounds like depression too. She has nothing but time. She has a blog. She could cook elaborate meals while her kids are at daycare & post them on her blog. She could invite girlfriends over for dinner after the kids are in bed for drinks & desserts. She sounds very sad & isolated & lonely but byher own creation. Maybe she should just bite the bullet. & put both kids in dc full time. & get a job outside the home. She might be happier

[pinkpinot]

She also posted a picture of her kiddos playing with her vibrator on IG. It just screamed staged photo.

[Deleted]

She traded all her toys for more screen time? WTF.

Along with the rest of it...those poor kids. And I don't mean because of DC. Sounds like the best place for them actually.

[nessness]

Jun 25, 2015 7:01:19 GMT -5 @justdairy said:

She traded all her toys for more screen time? WTF.

Along with the rest of it...those poor kids. And I don't mean because of DC. Sounds like the best place for them actually.

I only read a few pages of the GOMI thread but apparently she took away all but 5 of her toddler's toys because he wasn't playing with them "correctly."

[jeaniebueller]

I feel really sad for her, honestly.

[Deleted]

haha, yes! She has had numerous front page stories just like that on her childcare outsourcing. That one might have been the most explicit though. Has it been mentioned in this thread yet that the reason they moved this summer was to be in district for some charter school that goes until 5 pm every night? lol. That was like her one criterion for choosing a kindergarten for T1. How long can I get rid of him for?? 

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2015 22:29:04 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

I wish that she was an incredible social media hoax. Sadly, she's not.

I would be surprised by this but also not, you know? It would explain a LOT of things. Unfortunately for her kids, I don't think she is.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2015 7:30:31 GMT -5 nessness said:

Jun 25, 2015 7:01:19 GMT -5 @justdairy said:

She traded all her toys for more screen time? WTF.

Along with the rest of it...those poor kids. And I don't mean because of DC. Sounds like the best place for them actually.

I only read a few pages of the GOMI thread but apparently she took away all but 5 of her toddler's toys because he wasn't playing with them "correctly."

And she also refused to get speech therapy for her son back when he was experiencing a speech delay (probably because she never talked to him, poor kid) because the one time they tried it, it looked too much like "playing" to her and it seemed like a waste of money to pay someone to come over to play with her son 

[scribellesam]

I call people who prefer to spend as little time with their children as possible "Dowager Countess moms." There's an episode in Downton Abbey where the Dowager insists she is an excellent mother for spending "a whole hour" with her children every day.

I bet there are more than a few moms who would prefer to see their clean, well-behaved child for one hour per day before dinner, and spend the rest of their lives doing as they please. She was just born in the wrong era.

[jeaniebueller]

I am /dead at this after her previous answers that her kids eat peanut butter sandwiches in the car every night and her freezer is filled with Trader Joe's microwavable meals. She sounds really depressed.

I'm passionate about sustainable food and healthy eating, but one day I decided that I wanted those things to go on the back burner for a little bit

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2015 7:31:14 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

I feel really sad for her, honestly.

I used to too and I stopped reading her thread for a while because it depressed me so much. Especially the contempt she and her husband show her son. It was pretty awful. I started reading it again after vibrator gate. Now I think she is just a crazy narcissist. For example. Her son is 4 or 5 and just had a birthday. The poor kid told Jenna how happy he was that it was his birthday and rather than say the normal mom thing like "Oh I'm so glad you had a good day, I love you" she said instead "SEE? This is how I feel on MY birthday." She reported this on her IG like she had just made some impressive headway in teaching him empathy and how to understand other people's feelings   This by the way is the same woman who skipped her daughter's birthday this year to go on a girl's trip to Vegas because "she wouldn't remember it" (she's such an AW that I find it hard to believe that she might have had a party later and just kept it under wraps) and then threw herself a wedding like birthday party for her 30th. Her self absorption is INSANE.

[pugz]

Uggh reading about her gives me a pit in my stomach. Those poor kids

[donthasslethehoff]

So, what I am gathering from that article, all other things aside, her husband needs to get a job where she doesn't feel like she's doing 100% of the parenting...except she's actually not. She's paying people to do it, but still acting like she does everything.

I give so much credit to SAHMs, but this woman just seems miserable and is blaming her children for it.

[Deleted]

^ Applying logic to her situation gives her too much credit imo. There was a long time after T2 was born that Jenna did seem genuinely depressed and well meaning people wrote into her blog telling her to apply for jobs outside the home and put the kids into daycare and how there is no shame in that, etc. etc. Her response? That won't work because she wants to be able to work from home and prepare her lunches in her own kitchen and "chase the light" whenever the impulse strikes her (she is obsessed with making lunches for some reason, how much time it takes to unload a dishwasher, and "chasing the light" lol). So her solution was to send the kids to daycare and work from home on her various blog projects. But she still seemed extremely unhappy. Time passed and then a few months ago she suddenly did a total 180 and announced that after careful consideration, she and her husband decided together that she would become a "software developer" in Silicon Valley and that she would be applying to Hack Bright to make this happen. Hack Bright is a coding boot camp that is apparently very well connected and extremely hard to get into. The women who do get in have phds and are already engineers etc. Jenna barely graduated from BYU with a degree in English. GOMI speculated that TH handed over this ultimatum after realizing how much she spends on outsourcing childcare with no income in sight and *also* that she chose Hack Bright as her vehicle to reenter the workforce because she knows she'll never get in so it'll give her longer to fart around chasing the light. She was rejected from the program once before and has said she's working on her application for another round. Does she do the smart thing and take coding classes at a local CC? No because that is not high profile enough for her. It's Hack Bright or nothing.

^I'm embarrassed that I know all this. But she is a train wreck that is strangely hard to look away from.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2015 8:15:33 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

I am /dead at this after her previous answers that her kids eat peanut butter sandwiches in the car every night and her freezer is filled with Trader Joe's microwavable meals. She sounds really depressed.

I'm passionate about sustainable food and healthy eating, but one day I decided that I wanted those things to go on the back burner for a little bit

There's backburner and there's complete lack of trying. 

I mean I love food and healthy eating too. By putting it on a backburner I mean I cooked the kids a frozen pizza a few times in a couple weeks. 

It's like blogger has no concept of middle ground. It seems all all or nothing to her.

[jeaniebueller]

Part of me is wondering if this is a misguided attempt at coming off as breezy? I mean, you pick up your kids from the sitter/school, throw PB sandwiches at them in the car (every day, so she says), bring them to gym daycare and specifically get them home just so you have enough time to put them in bed. That routine periodically is not a problem for most parents and I don't think any of us would necessarily say there is anything wrong with it. I mean, when my kid has activities, our days are crazy like that too. But I think its the tone that is falling flat. She sounds just joyless.

[catsarecute]

I remember reading that for the first time and thinking she had really lost it. She exposed her crazy to a whole new audience. Bitch is INSANE.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2015 9:30:50 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Jun 25, 2015 9:03:15 GMT -5 @barefootbarista said:

Little_moxie, I definitely think she would benefit from full time work and a helpful spouse, but she has neither and it makes her seem depressed. The first part of the interview was what spoke out to me-that she pretty much did what was expected of her, and even pressured her H to get on board, but that she hates it.

I know, KNOW!, that if I were a SAHM that I'd have either full time or close to full time childcare so that I could get errands done, cook, hang with friends, etc. I think it'd be more beneficial to my kids to either go somewhere daily that provided socialization and fun activities or pay someone to do it. Hell, I took my kids to the sitter so I could pack.

Her tone just seems unhappy. And I don't know if she needed/got therapy pre-kids but it reads like she Got depressed/overhwlemed and is just coping-and her family is supportive because that is what seems best for her mental health.

I'd be depressed without a job or a husband to help (and an extra kid to worry about)!

I get a lot of my self identity from my job.

She said she went to therapy.  She seems relatively confident with her current choices.  As long as her kids aren't too fucked up from this (which is of course the open million dollar question), I don't really have a problem with this set up.

It's open to dispute whether therapy really worked for her though. I remember one time she let it slip that she and her therapist were discussing Jenna's work situation (her "career" as a despised blogger which leads her to put the kids in daycare all day every day) and the therapist put work in quotes and she was all offended, lol. But that is how a normal person would view her life! Posting a few times on a defunct blog, posting pics on her IG account, trolling the Internet, is not "work." It's not a "job." It's ok if you can afford that and both partners are on board, I guess, but that is clearly not the case here. Her husband would prefer for her to bring in an income or to save money by watching the kids herself. Anyway, she switched therapists after that and then she stopped talking about it altogether shortly thereafter. Which means, in Jenna's AW world, that she stopped going because she didn't like that her therapists were trying to make her face up to reality.