Parsnips and Parsimony

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Does anyone watch these guys? A lot of the stuff they say seems very humble-braggy to me.

[DoodleBop]

I used to watch them for nearly a year. Then the mom who's an EMT started posting stuff on FB about evil "chemicals" etc stuff that could be easily explained but crunchy people and the internet. I'm like dude you're an EMT[she worked on an ambulance maybe she wasn't actually an EMT] I expect you to be more science minded. So after that I just started finding more and more of the beliefs they hold\held annoying [that humble brag aspect to it too] and I ended up not watching anymore so I unsubscribed\unfollowed\unliked.

[onbreak]

Ive watched a few of her videos
she's been featured on the frugal family food Fridays Tangi, cavers wife and Amanda, fundemental home have.


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[HubertCumberdale]

i watch them, they’re interesting to say the least. they’re not afraid to show the embarrassing parts of their life, for sure.


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[weed]

I am SO SO glad that someone has started a thread on this family. Thank you! I would have started one ages ago, but I didn't know if anyone else was interested in them.

I've been watching them for several years now and they both fascinate and frustrate me. At first I was very impressed with their frugal lifestyle (still am in many ways), but then I started to see so many things that worried me.

Art (the father) is a strange man, but I really like him. He openly states that he is different to most people and he is. He is such a laid-back easy-going husband and does whatever Janelle (the mother) tells him to. He obviously has no idea about real life though as he works across the road from his house for his own business repairing musical instruments and doesn't seem to be at work that often. When he is at work his wife is always sining him up telling him to come up to help her with something. She doesn't seem to be able to cope with those kids at all by herself. I think he just puts in an appearance at work when they need a bit of cash to do something. Most of his days seem to be spent running after Janelle and doing whatever she tells him she wants to do.

Janelle is one of the most passive aggressive people I've ever witnessed. I find her really hard to take. She was herself homeschooled and is now homeschooling their children ... for what that is worth. Most days they don't seem to do much at all except traipse around after her. The two older kids seem quite bright, but he idea of homeschooling os them sitting at a computer of with a textbook just working their way through it. Janelle's world has extremely narrow parameters and she has no idea how to expose her kids to anything other than what she herself in interested in.

I've never seen such sad kids in all my life (and I work with kids so I've observed thousands of them over the years). The oldest girl Charity is 14 and is a clone of her mother (not in a good way). It is so sad to see those kids with no life experience at all and with such limited social interaction. They only associate with each other and never ever do anything outside the home ... apart what Janelle dictates they will do.

Such a sad family! I really worry for those kids. They seem so socially inept and wonder how they will ever cope in the real world. There is absolutely no routine to their days and no stimulation for them. The parents constantly talk about their "crazy days" meaning how busy they all are. They have absolutely NO IDEA what real life is about!!

I could go on and on ... but I will wait and see if anyone else is interested in a conversation about them. I wold love to hear other people's opinions.

[HubertCumberdale]

I think I like Art the most, I think he has an interesting sense of humor and I think he really enjoys being a father. I think the guy needs a break - aside from work at the shop because he gets interrupted even when he's there.

I feel like this family is constantly cleaning and cleaning, but they seem like they just hoard random shit they don't need. Like those cardboard boxes...omg... They seem to be getting better but they'll just hoard more stuff and clean it all out again later.

I don't feel like these children are getting the education they need, at least in my opinion. I definitely don't think they're getting a social life, I know they go to church and random other stuff but they just seem to stick together and do everything together. All of them just seem incredibly bored. Jamerill's Large Family Table is similar but her children actually look happy and spend a decent amount of time playing together, being outdoors, they go on "field trips" and they go to homeschool group or whatever.

(It also bothers me that they film in the nursing home, I'm a nurse aide so I just feel like some of the residents who in the background of her vlogs may not want to be put on the internet. But they may have permission, who knows.)

[DoodleBop]

I liked Art and I liked the kids. I felt they were keeping it real about the clutter. I just couldn't deal with Janelle promoting stupid at ever turn with "OMG guyz dangerous things in cereal" while still continuing to feed her family lots of heavily processed stuff because she got it on sale really cheap. I had to wonder if she was doing that to fan service to her base because as they got more viewers there was a shift. She also started wearing skirts more and more because people in the comments were bugging her about modesty.

I always worry about kids who are Christian homeschooled. If they are using christian home school science books they might learn dinosaurs actually lived at the same time as humans...or the world is actually 6000 years old and carbon dating is all a lie etc. If any of these kids want to go into STEM at university they will probably have to take a lot of catch up classes but Janelle has said many times or she used to I haven't watched in several months that they are teaching their kids they don't have to go to college...which is great because some times trades and different career paths work out better but what if the kid wants to and doesn't have the math\science because they didn't get to learn it.

It does seem like the oldest girl has fallen very much into the oldest daughter demi-mother role which Jamerill avoided mostly by having two boys first and she seems to be more laid back and her kids seem to get to do more normal kid things.

[HubertCumberdale]

i thought recently charity was starting to prepare for college, nursing school maybe? but i could be completely wrong

are they going to have more kids? have they mentioned that? i’ve only been watching for a few months now.


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[DoodleBop]

I don't know I haven't watched in several months. When I last watched and someone brought up the homeschool limitations they mentioned that the kids don't have to go to university\college to have a good career find a good job. Which sounds great but if they do they won't have the basics in place already if they don't do them. We'll see as the kids get bigger.

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I really like Art. I think he has a quirky sense of humour and is a really good father. I just wish that he would stand up for himself a bit and grow a backbone when it comes to having his own space and a bit of time off from Janelle's constant demands on him. She doesn't seem to be able to cope without him at all. I thought the worst thing I ever witnessed was when his grandmother died and he couldn't go to the funeral because it would have been to expensive to fly them all there. Why did they ALL have to go? Surely the poor guy could have taken off for a couple of days without the constant entourage that he has with him all .. the.. time! I thought that brought out just how self-centred Janelle is really. There was absolutely no question of him going by himself and I thought that was so sad.

Charity also really worries me. I remember one vlog when the older children were being interviewed by their aunt Laura. Charity had absolutely no response when asked what her favourite memory or day was. After a lot of prompting she finally she answered that the best time of her life was the day that someone came over and helped her to clean the house. For a 14 year old I find that absolutely heart-breaking. Her response to her ambition in life was also that she was looking forward to the time the she could have her own family and "keep house" for them. Beyond sad! Although now there is talk of her at least reading up about nursing (personally I'll believe that when I see it actually happening) and she is involved with the EMT (once again though she is just mirroring whether mother does). When she is on duty there, she spends the many hours she isn't out on call sitting there doing her knitting or cooking things for the family. Sad!

I have never (and I have been watching them for years) seen one single time when those kids have gone to a movie or even been on an outing without the parents or grandparents, apart from Charity at the EMT and now John at his cadets. Both are good things to get them involved in, but where is the socialising aspect of their lives with their peers? Their outings primarily consist of going shopping, to the library, an occasional marathon run and camping. All good family-based activities, but they need so much more! Some YouTube commenters have questioned why they have no friends and Janelle is always quick to say that they do, but as they blog just about every single day I would have thought that somewhere along the way they would have mentioned that one child or another is not there because they are with their friend, but there has never .. not .. once ... been any mention of it. They are always there lurking in the background looking so sad.

The poster above who said that they are bored is spot on! The older kids look totally bored out of their brains all the time. I think they are bright kids, but they are just not being given any chance in life. the older two in particular need a lot more than they are getting from their parents. Janelle is homeschooled herself and doesn't seem to have the first clue about how to homeschool her kids.

And if they say one more time that they have had a "CRAZY day I think I will scream at the computer screen. Their days are quite normal and really boring for the kids. What is so crazy about them? They don't fit a lot into them. I'd live to see those parents having to cope with normal family life where they have to actually work, get kids to school and have a decent schedule. They wouldn't have a clue what to do. They believe that they are shielding their kids from the harsh world that could possibly harm them in some way. What they are doing in fact is isolating them from reality.

[DoodleBop]

I think by friends they mean the kids the kids gets to hang out with on a very limited bases at church.

I think Art and Janelle are not very social people so they don't seem to think their kids need a whole lots of socializing and it comes off in how awkward and out of place the kids seem. They don't seem to quite get social situations but Art has said he has ADD but I wonder if he's autistic.

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I have wondered the same thing because he definitely is odd. I didn't think of church friends, but now that you nation it, that makes sense. It is still a very limited group they are dealing with though. Strange how the parents never talk about any friends of their own. I think you are right and they just don't have any. That would make sense as Janelle grew up in an isolated environment by the sound of it and Art is just very strange. They probably don't feel that they need friends. They have said before that their children's best friends are each other.

I think it is really strange how Charity shares a bedroom with her four younger sisters in that tiny room, all of whom are way younger than her. Several people have commented on Youtube that they should give her a bedroom of her own on the top floor as they have the space for it, but they don't. Why does a 14 year old share with 6,4,2 year olds and a baby in rush a cramped space? She could have a lovely spot on top floor with room for all her craft things and some quiet reading and studying space all to herself. I think they want her to stay with the little girls to keep an eye on them during the night and that is so unfair.

[DoodleBop]

It reminds me of the oldest Dugger girl all her close in age sisters have married so she's 27 sharing a bedroom with a bunch of little girls. The whole boys room girls room concept is odd to me. I do think a lot of the night time parenting falls on Charity. Those kids lived for years in a hoarded house they should get to use the space now that there is room.

I think Art's personality comes out more when Janelle isn't around. He seems to bend to her will very easily. One time Art told a story about visiting Janelle when they were dating and it was very sweet.

[HubertCumberdale]

you’d think Charity is a 50 yo woman by the way she cooks , bakes, and crochets all day long. i wonder if she enjoys doing those things or if it’s the only thing she has to do.

i really don’t this family is home schooling properly, i feel like their vlogs are similar each time.
cooking/baking, shopping, cleaning, the shop, but i feel like school is very rarely mentioned.


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I think that if she was asked, Charity would honestly say that she enjoys doing those things. Nothing wrong with any of them of course, but the problem is that she doesn't know any better and doesn't know what she is missing out on. She has never really been exposed to how things are for the majority of 14 year old girls. She even looks SO much older than she is because of the way she dresses and styles herself. There was one vlog when Art had all the kids out at the shops by himself and someone assumed that Charity was the mother. They all laughed, but I thought it was really sad. I think she looks and acts like their 30-something mother.

I'm an ex school principal, so I'm really interested in homeschooling and watch carefully every time any YouTubers are engaged in it. Those kids are really not receiving a proper education because Janelle doesn't know what she is doing. They hardly seem to spend any time on their lessons either.

I also used to teach piano and in one vlog when Janelle mentioned how her ambition before she married was to be a concert pianist, I laughed out loud. I have heard snippets of how she plays and never in her wildest dreams would she be considered even good, let alone concert pianist level. She really has a very inflated opinion of herself. I do find it strange that none of the kids (except for Charity who apparently plays a tiny bit of piano) is exposed to any musical instruments. Given the fact that Art works in that field, I would have thought that at least a couple of them would be encouraged to play an instrument. Once they were given a violin by someone, but it ended up at Art's shop because none of the kids was ear-marked to have lessons for it or encouraged by the parent to play it. He has so many instruments in his shop that they could at least be fiddling with them, but I never see any of them even attempting to play with them at all. I don't think they are encouraged to.

They have a lot of patience with those kids and do a great job of encouraging them to cook and clean, so why not do that with other more educational things as well?

[DoodleBop]

I also assumed Dad would be teaching each of the kids to play at least 1 instrument. I get that usually home schooling families don't spend as much time on school as when kids go to school but it seems odd they aren't taking even 15-20 minutes a day to practice music. Janelle has a garden that can very easily become science lessons. They are setting the kids up to be like them.

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I was really pleased to see that in today's vlog they actually bought each child an ice-cream cone. Usually they make two or three of them share one between them which I think is gross.

[DoodleBop]

Wow. That's great.

One vlog I watched Janelle said it takes them 2 months to go through 1 12 pack of toilet paper because they've taught their kids how to not be wasteful. So the fact that each child got an ice cream is a step up.

[HubertCumberdale]

have they been reading here? interesting how things we’ve talked about are suddenly brought up in vlogs lol


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[weed]

I thought the very same thing!

Strange how all of sudden they are addressing things that we've been mentioning. Good to see them taking Charity to that nursing college to check it out, but why oh why did ALL the family have to go? Couldn't they for once have just taken her as a special outing to focus on her needs? It was really nothing to do with all the other kids and I'm sure that the college didn't really appreciate all those tiny little ones there when the open day was for prospective students. It was interesting how they also thought the college might be good for Charity because it was so small. She couldn't cope with anything bigger because she has no idea how to deal with people. I noticed when they asked her opinion about it she just shrugged and had nothing to say. I have the very strong opinion that they will decide for her, not the poor girl decide for herself. They spent a lot of time justifying why their kids didn't have to go to college too. It was as if they really didn't want them to, but would agree if the child stood up and strongly argued for it. I have a feeling that poor down-trodden girl will do whatever they want her to.