Turpin horror house keeping me awake at night

[LivelyMummy]

I should have listened to my mum - apparently when pregnant you should keep away from bad news, scary movies, sad people etc

Since the story broke out, it is on my mind all the time. 13 beautiful children - how lucky are these parents! Just why treat them like this? I'm heart broken for these children.

There is nothing I can do. I am so angry, so sad, so helpless...

Does anyone understand why the parents did this?

Not what I read. It's far too early for proper assessments to be complete.

I’m guessing their annual showers were prior to their visits to Disneyland and Vegas. I wonder that the eldest son who attended college didn’t raise the alarm sooner. He would have had some exposure to what “normal” life was like and noticed that his peers didn’t smell of faeces and ate more than once a day. I guess that shows how deeply conditioned he was. Maybe he was threatened with his siblings being harmed if he spoke to anyone.

The mother definitely has something going on. Maybe she is heavily medicated but she looks high as a fucking kite. There is an image of her grinning in court like she is at a BBQ.

Their situation is awful and I hope they get the help they need. I completely get not wanting to be unnecessarily stressed while pregnant.
But I find it hard to agree with the points re: sadness/ staying away from sad people. It really isn't catching. That would suggest not taking the time to sympathise/ empathise with people whether you are pregnant or not - or expect understanding in return re: pre natural depression or similar.

Seriously though, dressing kids in matching clothes saying Thing 1 through to Thing 13 is really awful. No one does this.

Surely if the older children are so under-developed as to look many years younger than their actual ages, this can't just be a recent thing - must surely have been throughout their childhoods?

Mind boggling and horrific.

Seriously though, dressing kids in matching clothes saying Thing 1 through to Thing 13 is really awful. No one does this.

That's the least weird thing about this whole case! It's a Dr Seuss reference, really common for Book Day, commercial costumes etc sold - the most normal thing they seem to have done!

"Thing 1/2/3" is a reference to Dr Seuss and a very popular choice for dress up and Halloween costumes in the US.

Only for toddlers though - once a child got to 7 or 8 it would be very odd as it's a story for little children. It's bizarre and infantilising on adults.

no evidence of mental illness

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-42730460

Holdme er yes I get the reference thank you. Suitable for book parade or Halloween. A family outing across a wide range of kids? Never. Same with the matching frocks. Shrieks narcissistic supply. Awful awful awful

I’ve seen large family outings in the states where they wear the same personalised-shirt.

Makes me think of hen nights or The Inbetweeners.

Patricia Bateman, you are a brave woman. I wish you all the best.

I feel especially sorry for their older children as they have effectively been institutionalised for the whole of their adult lives. I hope they get good help and treatment and care.

Even a little more State involvement in home education and post-natal childcare might have been able to prevent at least some of these abuses happening. Clearly there was not a strong enough local community around, in place of state involvement, to help these children.

I think this was probably the case in pioneering days as well, plenty of families were left to themselves without interference, with neighbours turning a blind eye.

Did all the children have names beginning with P? I wonder why?

I think what’s important to remember is that horrific as this case is, the reason why it’s in the news is because it’s so far from the norm. Also re the neighbours not having said anything, I imagine that if they actually believed there was serious abuse going on they may have reported but did they? If you just thought a family was odd and didn’t even know they had thirteen children you might not think anything of it other than that they seemed bloody odd. And with toddlers in the mix you might expect to hear children screaming and assume it was tantruming if it didn’t happen all that often for instance?

And I can’t imagine that anyone would have imagined what was actually going on in that house.

Re the poster who was being told she was selfish for being upset at having been reported to SS by a stranger, I think that it’s easy to say that we’d all rather be reported than think that abuse was being ignored. But in reality I don’t think that’s the case at all. Many people are reported and investigated and turns out have done nothing wrong. And if you’ve done nothing wrong then there are ime very few people who would welcome the intrusion of the authorities into theirs and their children’s lives.

Did all the children have names beginning with P? I wonder why?

Not as far as I am aware. I'm sure I heard one being called James in the video and on another thread someone said eldest girl is Jennifer.

Oh I saw a photo with about half a dozen of the children named - all P names.

It was J. The older kids anyway. Only their names are available as public record.

I imagine the one who went to college didn't raise the alarm as he had been threatened in some way, tell anyone and we'll hurt or worse your siblings kinda thing.

Also agree dr zeuss or not, that whole 'thing' matching shirts is creepy, you would have to be pretty unaware not to realise how dehumanising that looks and how inappropriate it is to have grown adults walking around in something like that. Maybe if the case hadn't come to light it wouldn't seem so bad but in the context of them being treated like animals or inanimate objects it sure is horrifying.

Oh I got mixed up with the P and the J.

Does anyone understand why the parents did this?

How can anyone normal understand such a level of madness?

But if the parents really thought that being chained up and only having a shower once a year was the best way to live, why on earth didn't they apply the same rules to themselves? Bastards.

Sadness is catching apparently.

I think your mum is talking bollocks, lively.

Does she mean that high levels of hormones in pregnant women may mean they are more emotional than usual?? That is accurate. Or if you spend all your life with people who are negative and depressed it can make you depressed too - but that applies whether or not you're pg.

You know, this doesn’t sit right in my mind, I don’t know why... I’m just perplexed.
There’s a daily mail article from one of the kids friends, she says that they were always a bit odd, the children were stopped from playing out when her mom asked the kids names.
They moved into a trailer in front of the house because the house was such a state. They got a skip which smelt like death. When they lost that house they left animals.

When the kids were found- so were two beautifully kept dogs. So even the treatment of animals isn’t the same.

The youngest baby wasn’t malnourished, all others were.

One of the earliest reports from neighbours stated she saw one of the older kids driving one of their cars- perfect escape opportunity, but made me wonder how she would have learnt to drive.. It just doesn’t seem to be in line with other things they’ve done.

The thing I find really quite harrowing is that some of these photos are years apart and the kids are wearing the same clothes, if I was to put DDs clothes up to her, that she had 2 years ago, she went from about 4”6 to 5”3, from a shoe size 2 or 3 to a six, how these children didn’t grow is beyond me.
Another thing I find quite harrowing, the elder “kids” are older than I am. If the photos are two years old, the eldest would have been my age, and wearing matching clothes with their siblings. That seems so sad that they are without any semblance of being able to have been an adult.

I also think that sexual abuse will come out, more than just the one, there was a bit in one of the articles about him watching the wife’s sister in the shower.

The moms eyes- please someone else tell me I’m not imagining it’ doesnt She look crazy? I wonder if she has some sort of learning difficulty to be honest- and I feel awful saying that because my sister has learning difficulties and that wouldn’t make her a terrible mum- in fact she would be great, except for that she would be easily lead to follow anyone else’s ideas which could well be dangerous.

Just considering how young the mum must have been when the oldest was born, let alone when the couple met, she was barely out of childhood herself. And knowing nothing of her upbringing, she may have gone from a controlling father to this man, and just not known any different. She may have mental health or impaired capacity issues herself, hence the slightly manic looking smiles, as if she doesn't really understand why she is in trouble.

I may be completely wrong, but I get the sense of there being a complete indoctrination here. A loss of a sense of 'normal', which I can't phrase properly.

I read something or watched a video somewhere earlier which suggested that some of the neuropathic damage and mental scars will never be undone for the oldest ones

The mother was 16 when she married him (he was 23 ) and 20 when they had their first child.

It must be mental illness
Why? Some people are just cruel and sadistic and make shitty parents.
Some people have suggested that the older girls might have been impregnated and given birth to some of the younger children. I would say this is unlikely, because they probably didn't weigh enough to start their periods. Though it's not unlikely for sexual abuse to have occurred, sadly.

So yes, you're right, she was barely an adult herself, 20 isn't horrendously young for a first child but 16 to be a wife is awful, especially to a man who was already 23 and had chance to grow up a little and go to university and get a job. He married a child.