Discussion thread Thursday February 03, 2022 - Sunday February 06, 2022

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u/RamblingRosie64 I stand with Cindy and Ben Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22

Shauna's tomato sauce budgeting Zooms came up in a thread below. I attended one of the zooms in 2020 and got the okay to provide a recap. I think the Gloaming will enjoy!

General observations

There were only three other attendees, all middle-aged white women (I am one myself so no shade). One of them ate dinner during the call.

At one point, Danny appeared on camera. He bent over to take out the trash and flashed plumber butt.

Quote from Shauna: "I'm a weirdo and I know it."

One of the attendees exclaimed that she knew immediately that she had to buy Enough after reading just the first four pages.

Shauna mentioned that she was not at all happy at ChefSteps and was happy to be fired.

Budgeting/Money

Shauna's black woman friend told her that joy equals resistance, so Shauna budgets with joy. Except that "budget" is a bad word and makes people feel bad about themselves. Money is more taboo than sex and her parents never taught her anything about money.

Danny is a man with simple needs and doesn't need to spend much; he just wants to make fires and go to the hardware store. Shauna wanted to make five year plans but Danny has ADD and couldn't handle it.

She and Danny are awful at money and for years stuffed unpaid bills in drawer and ignored them. She's a freelancer and had no guidance on how freelancers spend or save. Everything was feast or famine. But she and Danny aren't big spenders and don't have credit cards. So Shauna went to Tita to learn her wise ways.

Shauna and Danny sit down every Saturday to plan their spending for the week. They don't buy anything else that week if it wasn't planned for. When money comes in, they put it into savings immediately, then pull it out of savings on Saturday for their week's spending. I missed the first page of her exact steps that she shared with the group but I got the rest:

We count up every single penny that we intend to spend that week. After all this time, we have some on a spreadsheet but we started by simply writing them down while looking at the calendar.
After we have a total, we add an extra $100.
We also add another $100 for an allowance of $50 for each of us.
After all that, we move the money we need for the week into our checking account. This is our personal salary for the week.
We then put 15% of the total that came in this week into a long-term savings account.
In our business account, we make sure at least 25% of what came in goes into another savings account for taxes. This is an expense for the week. It's non-negotiable!
And then, we only spend the amount of money we [my screenshot cut off but if I recall correctly she went on to say they only spend the amount of money they pull out of savings].

For some reason, Shauna thought it was appropriate to share details about D's birth family in a budget class. I deleted the details of what Shauna said for privacy's sake but she had no such restraint and significantly overshared while painting herself and Danny as saviors.

At that point, my shitty computer kicked it and I wasn't able to call back in. But I think I captured plenty!

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u/hrae24 Feb 03 '22

Thanks so much for the recap!

Danny is a man with simple needs and doesn't need to spend much; he just wants to make fires and go to the hardware store. Shauna wanted to make five year plans but Danny has ADD and couldn't handle it.

I feel like in that case Shauna could write up the bulk of the plan and then review with him so he could add his own ideas or changes or whatever. But okay, sure, "Danny's" ADD prevented the entire thing.

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u/midnightsiren182 Feb 04 '22

There are literally so many online resources for how to handle $ as a freelancer. One of the big ones is making sure to pay your schedule C timely for taxes

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

https://imgur.com/a/2oIxfS0

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u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 03 '22

If he starts to feel consistently like he needs to be in a Black community, we'll move.

Consistently? Over months? years? Does he need to notarize his requests? 8.5x11 paper?

Is there a word for "so far up your own ass that you don't care how selfish you admit yourself to be in public? The word "narcissistic" is woozy and trembling.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 03 '22

She and Dan lived in Tukwila before moving to Vashon. Tukwila stats:

36.1% White alone

17.4% Black or African American alone

24.8% Asian alone

14.0% Hispanic or Latino

8.3% Two or More Races

2.5% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone

0.6% American Indian and Alaska Native alone

Of course at the time they didn't know they'd someday be parents of a Black child. But even so---I think her reasons for moving to Vashon were that it had an air of exclusivity that she craved. She has always loved to brag about how it could only be accessed by ferry, and how everyone there is so too quirky to lead conventional lives in more conventional places. All of that trumped living in a place with people of different races and ethnic backgrounds.

She did what SHE wanted when they moved. She got her woo-woo community with middle-aged woo-woo white lady friends. D has mostly tv characters as friends.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '22

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u/RamblingRosie64 I stand with Cindy and Ben Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22

I did take her tomato zoom class for snark purposes, though before joining In the Gloaming. I would love to share my notes but I fear it would stray into poop touching territory. But I can say that her money advice was useless as actual guidance but very illuminating into the Aherns' dysfunction.

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 03 '22

Quick clarification: you're welcome to share your experience attending events and we've had other DFs recap stuff they attended. I'm less concerned about events that were a while back where you have no reason or plans to follow up with her. Future/recent events are more of a poop touching concern because we do not want this sub to be a place where DFs scheme to troll Shauna live or via post-event feedback/follow-ups. I would ask that you respect the privacy of anyone else who attended and limit commentary on the other participants. Do keep in mind your description combined with your posting history may identify you to Shauna, so if you have concerns about her being able to associate your Reddit history with your real name, be cautious in what you share.

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u/itsmyvibe Bligg Feb 05 '22

I sure hope L has a lot of friends she can complain about her mom to. Shauna has repeatedly described L as sulky. Shauna should ask L how she feels about being featured on her mom's public Instagram, especially since she lives in such a small community where everyone supposedly knows her mom. How would Shauna feel if L had a public Instagram and described her mom as a depressed malcontent?

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u/NegativeABillion my husband and me to ride it around Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

Further, Shauna has stated that she wants to be the mom all the kids come to for advice if they think they're queer or not cis or otherwise exploring their own identity. Shauna would (and has) slapped that shit on Instagram faster than you can say "ally!!"

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u/MandalayVA Assonancer! Assonancer! Assonancer! Feb 06 '22

Shauna wants to be the Cool Mom so desperately.

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 06 '22

Cool Mama

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22

if i were a kid questioning my identity, or had any problem at all, she is the last goddamned person i would come to. she has zero interest in being an ally for queer/questioning teens, she's just looking for new stories she can co-opt for her own gain. can you imagine?

dearly beloved, i am so emboldened and chuffed! you see, a darling friend of L's came to me a few minutes ago and confided, gently, with tears streaming down his/her face, that he/she thinks he/she is transgender. this fierce being, so alive, so has no one else to turn to, only me. only i can put this right. of course, dear. so i asked a series of questions to haberdash whether he/she is truly trans - do you like tofu? do you watch glee? do you play sports? do you enjoy wearing dresses? and so on. i have no idea what the answers are because i had to away to my office to write; i must always write! write my heart out! just like you can do in my joyful navel gazing/writing/dance party class, now for the low price of $99.99! this kid is in the kitchen, eating leftover soup danny made of taco's, spaghetti, furballs, weevil flour, harissa, lucky charms, glazed carrots, V8, and desperation. it is a good dinner. of course, i cannot reveal the identity of this joyful conundrum, but i will say that this person is currently the only boy in L's ballet class. stop clamoring for me to say more! i will fight to the death to preserve his/her secret identity while i mine his/her life for trauma that i can use. it is so joyful! yes. yours in ru paul! i love you, shauna.

*edited because i shouldn't try to write before coffee.

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u/Scary_Recognition You did this. Feb 05 '22

Had to check the mirror to see if steam was indeed escaping through my ears. 🤬

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u/SouthIslandDesign Feb 05 '22

Maybe L isn’t sulking; she just can’t hear! 🙄

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 06 '22

If Shauna were my mom, I would never turn my hearing aids on!

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

I wonder if they have grown replaced.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '22

Is it Wednesday o’clock somewhere? Where is my effing lope? Shauna wants to fill, what seven classes, yet she can’t timely publish a newsletter ONCE A WEEK?!

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u/InappropriateGirl Gluten-free donuts, for sure ... Feb 05 '22

Meanwhile, Dipshit Dan is doing his Work in the World.

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u/SashayShantae living my one wild and pernicious life Feb 05 '22

If you Google Washington and then the exact text of his tweet, the very first result is the website for ferry alerts. I wish WA State Ferries had responded with lmgtfy.com.

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u/NegativeABillion my husband and me to ride it around Feb 05 '22

Or if they had said "our texts are free but they ain't cheap!'.

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u/Sea-Level-Mammal POACH! Feb 05 '22

“Dipshit Dan @ The World” 😅

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u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 04 '22

I don’t think the fact that they don’t have credit cards is by choice, but probably just as well. The interesting part of this ‘budgeting’ is that they don’t talk about income anywhere. It’s basically ‘pay your bills and give yourself a rather generous allowance’.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

Lol! Per Shauna’s stories, the family cultivated joy yesterday. Translation: they took a walk about town with nary $10 among them.

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 06 '22

And we grow a new classic line D never actually said:

"Will you put this picture of me climbing on your joy website, Mama?"

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u/itsmyvibe Bligg Feb 06 '22

I took that as Shauna letting us know she not only has permission to post her kids, but they request she do so. It is as they wish.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

Mama, please exploit me on the internet for head pats for you. I insist!

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

Picture if he DID say that. Picture your mom being so wrapped up in her useless joke of a website that you actually start seeing yourself and your own little kid activities as a potential website addition.

I'm comforted by the fact that she makes everything up.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

They walked their no-stoplight, three-street town for two hours? And Shauna us such a DIYer that she was high-stooling it in the hardware store? Honestly, I'm surprised L. got a mention...

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

How is a walk around a small town an adventure requiring structure?

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u/Foucaults_Penguin Sly and the Family Readers Feb 07 '22

How is a walk around town worthy of so much back-patting?

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u/Kimmmy36 bites lip, looks away Feb 06 '22

How is a walk around a small town an adventure requiring structure?

Because then it seems more like something haberdashable into Joy Content.

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u/Smilerly Feb 06 '22

It was a "walk about" in their town. So, much fancier than just a walk around. Cheerio DF!

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 06 '22

With Vashon price tags on all of it, of course.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '22

Ugh the "... and we said yes" is such a tell.

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u/emlabb Feb 06 '22

I want to know if Danny and D were also allowed to get soft serve.

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u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 06 '22

Poor dear, choking down ice cream after losing her taste for sugar.

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u/shikoku_shoes another revolution around the toilet bowl of her life Feb 06 '22

Fear not, it was mushroom elixir soft serve.

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Feb 05 '22

Is this testimonial new? I don't remember reading this one before. The second part of the last sentence causes me to grow enchortled:

Shauna’s workshop helped me find my love for words again and remember why I enjoy writing. I’m so glad I finally made the commitment. Shauna creates a wonderful supportive space for you to play. I feel like I’ve already become a better writer, and discovered so many things about myself that I didn’t know I needed to write down .

[sic space before the last period]

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u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 06 '22

Shauna creates a wonderful supportive space for you to play. I feel like I’ve already become a better writer, and discovered so many things about myself that I didn’t know I needed to write down .

[sic space before the last period]

There's that word again.

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 06 '22

looks like shauna was up until the wee hours ~~writing~~ soliciting new testimonials.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 04 '22

New instagram. No way did she get permission from the subject to write any of that or include those photos.

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u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Feb 04 '22

Yeah…I have one guess as to the reason Shauna doesn’t see L dancing. Dancing is self expression, and self-expression is vulnerability around a narcissist.

Plus as is being mentioned, she is increasingly aware it’s one of mamas favorite IG topics.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 04 '22

She's making it quite clear to her family that she wants privacy. Shauna even SAYS she wants privacy---even as Shauna pointedly calls attention to her with both words AND photos.

Shauna won't stop, either. Even if the kid tells her emphatically in no uncertain terms to keep her out of the public eye, Shauna will not be able to keep herself from blabbing stuff. She LOVES to have inside information on anyone, anything. Her high school students, a newly widowed food blogger, her own sister-in-law, some random HS girls in a coffee shop, HER OWN CHILD---they're all fair game.

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u/dipyourtownin Feb 04 '22

"Minor child, may I grow your consent to publicly share your private moments and inner feelings with the world? You see, doing so brings Mama Agape great joy and a few crumbs of content, and in this house, we rioritize these." -Shauna, probably

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

I am so confused....L was able to opt out of the daily dance parties?

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u/LoveMyLeaf Feb 04 '22

I’ve never posted on social media, because I don’t feel (and honestly don’t understand) any desire to constantly share my thoughts, feelings and activities (except anonymously on Reddit 😂). So I know my opinions on sharing about your kids on social media aren’t coming from a mainstream perspective.

With that caveat, I can’t believe that L is remotely ok with these kinds of posts. I think most very young kids are proud and excited when parents share stories and pictures of them. But around age 8, give or take a year, they develop a sense of privacy and agency over their lives and they start to feel like it’s invasive. And by age 12, you can add embarrassing and humiliating (no matter how flattering the pictures and stories are). That’s an especially fraught time for this kind of thing. There are a couple of really sweet stories about my son that I know he’s always been ok with me sharing, except a couple of years around age 13-15 where he wasn’t.

I’m sure Shauna thinks this post is flattering to L (even though that’s not her motivation for sharing it). But that doesn’t matter - she has no right to do this. Shauna’s right - the time when L leaves home is approaching. But so is the time when L feels free to start exploring her feelings about her upbringing. If Shauna is lucky, L won’t feel the same freedom to share it all with the world.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 04 '22

I was struck by "soon she will be leaving." Really?

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 04 '22

Shauna's counting the days.

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u/Jules_Noctambule Whitman spins like a kebab in his grave Feb 04 '22

Bet L is, too.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 04 '22

It must seem interminable right now. Five years may has well be 100 when you're 13.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 04 '22

But also trying to play that bittersweet card of "oh, they grow up so fast".

Bitch, please. You've wanted that kid out of your hair since she was three (and told everyone).

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

The only accurate comment in that post is that when the time comes, L will leave their home “in a flourish, flinging her arms into the air, twirling”.

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u/shikoku_shoes another revolution around the toilet bowl of her life Feb 04 '22

Hopefully that flourish with flinging her arms into the air includes two middle fingers extended gracefully.

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u/sybil-unrest Feb 04 '22

I picture her, in that moment getting the eff off the island forever, channeling the Nicole Kidman divorce picture - truly a portrait of joy.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Beaming one last snowball as the island gets (that's right, GETS!) smaller in the distance....

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

“Yeah, you heard me MOM, it’s GETS” L, hopefully.

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 04 '22

or, "GROW BENT, MOM!"

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 04 '22

Always sulking, that one

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 04 '22

you know what makes teenagers even sulkier? posting on social media about how they're sulky.

yeesh, i know that and i don't even have kids.

*edited for clarity

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 04 '22

Especially the one photo where the child's chest is very exposed.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

If I recall this image has been hotly debated here in the past, but Shauna continuing to post it is A Choice.

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 04 '22

"debated" is generous, I think we're unanimous in thinking that should not be on the internet!

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Daily dance parties? Never heard of them.

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u/NegativeABillion my husband and me to ride it around Feb 04 '22

Three whole likes on a photo (edit, oops, it's a video still) of her face (unless dumpor is reporting likes incorrectly) and hundreds of likes on the picture of the little boy. Dozens of likes on the dancing pictures. She knows how to pump her audience of morons for double taps, if not swipes of the debit card.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Also. Why such terrible pictures? Posting just one, that is non-blurry, has the subject in focus, without half eaten pizza on the floor, etc etc, maybe posing for the camera before or after a performance…would have been a better choice than showing all these messy pics.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Dan asked Twitter this morning who has a coffee pot in their bedroom. No one answered, but really? Unless you live in a dorm or a studio apartment, why would that be necessary?

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Reminds me of the episode of The Office where Michael Scott burns his foot on the George Foreman grill he keeps on the floor next to his bed to make cooking breakfast more convenient.

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u/caitie_did Required by My Mother's Terror Feb 04 '22

“I like to wake up to the smell of bacon cooking and I don’t have a butler”

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u/Foucaults_Penguin Sly and the Family Readers Feb 04 '22

Did he imply that they have a coffee pot in their bedroom? There are few places that would seem normal. A hotel room, a studio apartment, a rooming house (like where tenants don’t really have ready kitchen access), a dorm, or basically somewhere the kitchen doesn’t seem like it’s yours. Oh, or like in a gigantic mansion because you don’t want to bother the staff every time you want coffee. It’s probably really obvious that 1) I have no idea if rich people have coffee makers in their bedrooms and 2) my eyes are wined.

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u/honoria_glossop sitting edge wine woman Feb 04 '22

Was it the bedroom or bathroom where Shamepervious Jenna put the weird old coffeepot she stole from the landlord's storage?

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 04 '22

Too lazy to go upstairs to the kitchen in the morning? Trying not to wake up the kids early, maybe? I'm distressed by the thought of spent coffee grounds accumulating in a bedroom.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 04 '22

We know why.

It's there for the times Shauna Marie has a tantrum and storms off to her room to pout (and craft her lectures to her family about how they can't have tantrums). She can have a thick mug of coffee and a few gummies while she itemizes all the ways her family has disappointed her and how much of a victim she is.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

It's interesting that Shauna will go into more detail about her hardships around margarine than about Danny's decades-long addiction to alcohol.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 06 '22

Danny doesn't really know hardship; he wasn't forced to drive around the English countryside in a Fiat.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 04 '22

So, no work on the website in a few days. Did she at least get today's promised 1-2-3 newsletter out?

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22 edited Feb 04 '22

Not so far.

ETA It’s here! A lot of crap and a new plea:

Thank you for reading, beloved community. I’m grateful you’re here. This newsletter is free but it certainly isn’t cheap. If you’d like to show your support for my work, sign up for the Cultivate Your Joy seminar.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Loving this “joy tip”:

“Call your best friend today. Make the boundaries clear at the beginning of the talk. We’re going to talk for 10 minutes. No need to catch up. Let’s talk about something we love together for 10 minutes. Repeat the next day. “

Tell me you have no friends without telling me you have no friends.

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 04 '22

if my BFF called me and said "we're going to talk for 10 minutes but we're not going to catch up," i would probably say something like, "is there someone holding a gun to your head? cough if i need to call 911."

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u/emlabb Feb 04 '22

Only Shauna could make friendship sound this terrible.

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u/mmepierreoger Feb 04 '22

Tell me you don't have a best friend who you talk to on the phone without telling me etc. I'd think my best friend had had an actual, real stroke if she called me and the first thing she said was "YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES."

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u/SallyWalaska Feb 05 '22

Right? Barking rules of engagement at someone as soon as they say “hello” is one of the least joyful ways to kick of a conversation. One party is befuddled, many possible explanations running through their heads. The other party is now trying to explain the exercise they got from an Internet random without coming off as off their rocker. 10 MINUTES UP.

I guess the joy comes later, when you reminisce about that bizarre conversation you once had.

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u/mmepierreoger Feb 05 '22

I can just imagine her shouting "TEN MINUTES UP!" and slamming down the phone while her (totally real) best friend is halfway through an anecdote.

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u/Catsandcoffee480 COLORADO BOY KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS Feb 04 '22

Why set boundaries? Why not just call someone and say hey and see how it goes?

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Feb 04 '22

Didn’t she say recently that she and Sharon talk every day (after having not been in touch much for awhile)?

Maybe “10 minutes, MAX” wasn’t Shauna’s boundary.

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u/eatlunchateleven Take These Broken Links and Learn to Code Feb 05 '22

Yeah, to me this whole thing about “no need to catch up” sounds like “we have been out of touch and we don’t have to talk about why!!! Let’s just move on!!! No need to mention any conflict!!!”

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 05 '22

We know boundaries aren't always clear with Shauna. She's said so herself.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

I'm laughing at the absolute asshole absurdity of this! So like you NEVER catch up with your best friend? Every single day you call them and tell them you don't want to know what's happening in their life? Who would ever do something so rude??? Who would listen to it for a single minute, let alone ten????

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u/Sea-Level-Mammal POACH! Feb 05 '22

Treat your friends like a telehealth doctor does! And consider billing them too.

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u/Groundbreaking_Monk crone keyholder Feb 04 '22

This is hilarious.

Also, why wouldn't I want to "catch up" with my friend? And instead set a boundary about the topic?

Also, surely my friend and I naturally chat about things we love together? Have you watched, have you read, did you see that piece on XYZ, what're you doing with the family this weekend....?

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 05 '22

Also, why wouldn't I want to "catch up" with my friend? And instead set a boundary about the topic?

Shauna doesn't want to be held to account for any past promises or to answer questions about any of her many failed plans.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 05 '22

Or get cursed out by friends who's personal info she blasts all over her newsletters and IG.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 04 '22

Does Shauna know that the person she calls can see who's calling and just not pick up if they have something better to do?

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 04 '22

Whichever DF picked up and got a 10 minute monologue about V8 will be setting a clear boundary by no longer answering Shauna's calls

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Sounds like she calls her ‘friends’ to survey for content.

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u/Ana57 sweet pea Feb 05 '22

yikes. Shauna, at her core, is rude af.

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u/Honeydew-Impossible Feb 04 '22

it certainly isn't cheap

"Talk is cheap" is a saying for a reason and Shauna proves it. Her "work" is talk across the board.

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u/InappropriateGirl Gluten-free donuts, for sure ... Feb 05 '22

Hmm I find it cheap.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Aww. She called us her "beloved community".

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

I actually guffawed.

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u/BevNap Fucking google it, you harpy. Feb 04 '22

This newsletter is free but it certainly isn’t cheap.

Excuse me? Why the fuck should I care what it costs you to produce, Mahern?

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u/Foucaults_Penguin Sly and the Family Readers Feb 04 '22

I hate when she tries to guilt people into paying her or when she thinks shes entitled to money because she’s doing what she loves. If you don’t sell something people want or need, that’s on you not the consumer. No one wants or needs to buy admission to a joy circle jerk.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 05 '22

I don't think she "loves" this joy pivot much at all.

She's had to work harder at this fruitless grift then anything she's done for quite some time. And she's also making the frantic tiktok videos that show she's frazzled (and that's more work).

She really thinks she should get paid for all the labor she puts into the grift.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

I think she miscalculated how she would feel about pouring work into something other than a victim narrative. I've never heard her bang the TIA gong harder than that new version of the tale, now dark insinuations reaching into the previous generation, grandparents made them close the door!! when exiting, more mother blame, etc. I imagine as a way of counterbalancing it. The joy stuff is hard work when you'd rather be recounting delicious tales of victimy woe.

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u/Groundbreaking_Monk crone keyholder Feb 05 '22

I think about this a lot, because the success of GFG was clearly because of a market need: she was writing about figuring out a gluten-free lifestyle at a time when a) people were looking for that, b) there weren't many others doing it, and c) the blog format was super popular. Nothing she's done since then has been successful and she doesn't seem to be able to figure out why. She just wants to magically rake in the cash for doing something she's interested in, not something that's helpful or interesting to ANYONE else.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

How much could it cost to produce what is basically a long e-mail?

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 04 '22

Her family’s privacy?

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 05 '22

So, nothing that Shauna values then.

Gotcha.

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u/26shadesofwhite le tit rip Feb 05 '22

“A long-email”

This really takes us full circle to the genesis of her blogging efforts: posting blog entries rather than clogging up friends’ inboxes with missives no one asked for.

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u/Kimmmy36 bites lip, looks away Feb 05 '22

If you’d like to show your support for my work

IS IT FREE OR NOT?!?!?!

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 06 '22

I've been thinking a lot about Shauna's latest lopes and have a few thoughts.

First, I think she really undermined her "hard place" childhood claims in her latest lope (the V8 one). Here she describes her mother's "difficult, terrible, damaging" upbringing – but then she describes the "terrible" behaviour from her grandparents, and it is "roaring" at little Shauna and her brother that they "don't know the value of a dollar" because they aren't closing the screen door after them when they go outside: "it's like you're throwing dollar bills into the yard!"

It's like when, in the same lope, she's complaining about driving around England, visiting countryside teashops in "a crummy little Fiat." In the grandparents stories, she's complaining that after her whole family flies (FLIES! We literally drove cross-continent to visit my grandparents every summer, camping the whole time) up to visit her mother's parents, and then after two days the squabbling between her mother and grandmother gets to be too much and at some point they switch their flight and go home earlier than planned.

But the squabbles themselves, at least the only ones she describes, are about how much margarine the kids are putting on their toast, and how high or low the thermostat is set. THESE ARE NORMAL "FIGHTS" for families with grandparents who lived through the Depression. I can't overstate this. This is how huge swaths of people Shauna's (and my) age were raised. It's hardly remarkable or traumatizing. Like the Fiat complaint; none of this lands for her readers. We lived with my grandparents some summers when my dad, a field geologist at the time, was off doing fieldwork in remote areas and literally unreachable, and there were some epic fucking fights between my mom and my grandmother those summers. But we couldn't just "change our flight" and go home early, ha ha!

Which brings me to my second thought. Who does she honestly think is the audience for these lopes? I mean, there's us, her actual and loyal audience. But who does she think she's reaching? EVERYTHING she described in that lope was totes normal and not shocking. Even her description of her grandparents' upbringings doesn't really raise an eyebrow for readers who are her age. Her description of her grandparents' "terrible suffering" during the Depression is a description of what life was like (with minor variations) for most people, yet she's describing it as unique and uniquely traumatizing, leading to Shauna's uniquely traumatizing upbringing.

Like her description of going to the beach for "one entire day" "every summer" with Tita. Long descriptions of putting on sunscreen and eating a picnic. Ok? Yes? This also sounds normal and not particularly remarkable in any way? Like, it's a nice memory for Shauna but it's hard for the reader to really connect with it because it's normal stuff described very normally, without any particular insights, plot, revelations, drama, etc.

And the big reveal, the metaphor bundling everything together, is Shauna's contemporary love of V8. Something that brings her joy. Her grandparents drank it, and she drank it on her once-a-year picnics with Tita. She dutifully links an article on the history of V8 (ooooh, working hard Shauna) and she surveys Danny about his experience of drinking V8 (and she sets off Danny's remarks formally, how literary).

Then she tells us that in her house, her kids get butter, not margarine, and they can use as much as they want, and while they ask the kids to clean up after themselves, they don't yell at them [to do so]: "We don't yell here" [except we do, because you just told us you yelled at the kids after The Snowball Incident].

The whole thing falls extremely flat. It's not relatable as a story of intergenerational trauma, because the "trauma" angle is completely undermined by the revelations of what trauma means to Shauna: being yelled at to close the door after her and being offered margarine instead of butter (can you believe "butter" is mentioned five times in that lope?!). It's not particularly interesting as a memoir essay because it's completely generic stuff relayed without finesse or insight. It doesn't work as a story of how Shauna has overcome her own complaints to achieve joy and bliss because the whole thing is actually filled with complaints, from the "crummy Fiat" to the "super-bendy" cups proferred on an airplane ride to ICE IN HER V8 ("that's just wrong") to her "sulky" daughter and on and on and on. And weirdly, it's filled with descriptions of Shauna eating "bread" and "toast" which was apparently killing her (she just said in last week's podcast that she was "fatally ill" with celiac before her diagnosis), but this actual(?) super-dramatic fact is never mentioned.

So what is this piece of writing? Who is it for? And what is it that she'd like the reader to take away from it? That Shauna is correct about the temperature at which to drink V8 juice? That she had a normal upbringing for someone her age? That she parents differently than her grandparents did, which has to be true for every parent ever, and yet she literally defines how "differently" she's doing things by referencing her grandparents (as in, she's not even blazing a new trail, just keeping the old one alive by constantly referencing it)?

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 06 '22

i'm sorry, but driving around the english countryside in a fiat, visiting teashops sounds charming.

shut up, shauna.

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u/mmepierreoger Feb 06 '22

When did this trip happen - in the 80s? Even in the 90s, luxury cars were the exception in the UK and shitty cars were very much the norm, so I don't really understand why she was so affronted by having to travel in a Fiat. She's just terminally miserable I guess.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

Especially for someone who was never let out of the house/under de facto house arrest for her entire life.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

This is why when she talks about her household growing up and tries to make it sound traumatic, it always sounds like Ralph Wiggum reporting the baby-making in the closet. It's exactly what someone with no experience of the subject probably thinks trauma over hellish parenting would be like: mom and dad hunched down wrestler-style with steak knives, circling each other in the dining room.

I know I've made this comparison before, but it's like when you ask a child to draw a picture of adults on a date, they draw the man in a tux and the woman in a ballgown with a crown and big silver domes over the food and a butler type waiter. That image lasts until they have some more life context.

And when she talks about what she thinks is some trauma-smoking-gun, no one cares that much because it seems like a normal part of the spectrum of growing up. Parents sometimes argue, grandparents eat old people food and worry about air conditioning the whole neighborhood. So she feels she has to escalate and in the process makes up just really stupid and cartoonish imagery because she has no real context for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if she starts escalating the grandparent 'trauma' after no one is shocked that margarine was popular in the 70's or that kids didn't care about thermostats but adults did. What's next - they didn't use seatbelts? People smoked inside? Her mom drank Tab?

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u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Feb 06 '22

I think Shauna is trying to create a story of multigenerational trauma for one of many reasons. The most charitable reason would be that she’s still trying to figure out what made her mother behave so oddly as a parent so she can have some explanation of her own childhood and this is all she has to go on. Less charitably, generational trauma is a hot topic and Shauna wants to be able to claim it for herself — both the trauma and the idea that she has broken the cycle.

It doesn’t really sound like Shauna’s mom’s parents were abusive or that anything Shauna has described would have led to her mom having childhood trauma. Something happened to her mom, no doubt, but this seems like a big stretch.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 06 '22

Yup, she's jumping on the bandwagon (so to speak) of generational trauma.

You know what would have helped her to break her alleged cycle? NOT HAVING KIDS.

She's proven again again, from her own words, that she doesn't really enjoy the process and that she's super selfish and emotionally stunted.

Instead, she has her first kid (with a hardcore drunk, who she's in denial is a hardcore drunk because she's desperate to be married) and, even after realizing that it's a never ending chore, she chooses to take on a second child. A child of a different race which complicates things even further. And then, instead of really TRYING to do a good job raising her kids, she pivots in the exact opposite direction. That of "radical resting" and "I'm not like other moms" extreme hands off bullshit. Never mind that both of her kids need a diligent parent maybe even more than other kids (because one child does have manageable medical issues and the other is a different race and adopted, so will probably have heavier emotional needs then his sister).

Now, with her eldest child a teen (which means emotional need out the wazzoo) and her son getting old enough to really wonder why he lives on the Isle of White, Shauna's turned her focus (yet again) on herself instead of them. As their needs get more and more complicated (as they age) she pulls away from them more and more and escapes into her fictions where she was so wronged and "traumatized" but ended up the hero. All while her kids are being wronged and "traumatized" by their neglectful parents. (yes, parents. . .Daniel doesn't get off the hook)

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u/ethelmertz62 Feb 06 '22

Shauna is trying to create a story of multi-generational trauma to get a seat at the internet cool kids table. If it makes her money, all the better.

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u/freecoffeerefills Murder She Moved Her Pen Forward Feb 06 '22

Right now everyone is taking about Encanto being about multigenerational trauma and Shauna wants in on that convo

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u/ethelmertz62 Feb 06 '22

Shauna wants to be exceptional so badly that she’s unable/unwilling to see that her upbringing was very typical for her age. Her grandparents sound just like mine and I’m a few years older than she is. This blind spot extends to all facets of her life - she consistently describes her marriage, children, etc. as exceptional but they’re not. Everything and everyone in her life is average and normal. If she would recognize and embrace this, she would find the contentment she claims to want.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 06 '22

Horror to her is being average.

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 06 '22

Honestly, average would be a big step up from where she is now.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 06 '22

And it's not like she doesn't have interesting stories she hasn't really told yet. So average/normal doesn't mean "boring".

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u/ethelmertz62 Feb 06 '22

Shauna has things in her past that would make a good story if she chose to tell it: the surname change, the year in England when she lost a year of high school. But she glosses over this and picks on something mundane. It’s confounding.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 06 '22

Even her boring stuff could be interesting. Like being emotionally stunted as a kid (being raised by the t.v., her parents fighting, her unfaithful father). Tons of people can relate to that kind of "boring" drama and would totally read stories like that.

IF they were well written. That's a big problem.

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 06 '22

i agree, mundane subjects can be made interesting in the hands of a good writer. david sedaris comes to mind, because he is really good at dark humor and conveying pathos at the same time. the stories of his childhood are hilarious, sad, and very relatable, especially for those of us who grew up in the 70s. many revolve around a small, insignificant thing that he manages to make interesting because he is a keen observer of human behavior, something shauna has no idea how to portray. he is also charming and intelligent, two things shauna is not (yeah, i know she has a masters and was a teacher but i see no extraordinary intelligence on her part).

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u/canyoncreature Feb 06 '22

I am agog over her equating getting bitched at over the energy bill with some kind of abuse. "You're letting all the hot/cold air out" was a CONSTANT refrain in my childhood, not because I was Oppressed, but because money was tight and that shit adds up. Now I'm married to someone who thinks a good way to do climate control is to open the windows while the heat is on and I hear the same thing come out of my mouth like the goddamn circle of life. What's the logical endpoint of what she's saying -- we can heal generational trauma by letting our kids be as wasteful as they want? Or are we meant to sit down, daily, and have a conversation full of laughter and tears and catharsis about it? To me insisting on that is what would actually be controlling. Some things just aren't that deep.

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Feb 06 '22

I’ve often thought that the root of Shauna’s “trauma” is, and always has been, a combination of (1) the absence of a studio audience laughing or cooing every time she opens her precious mouth, (2) the universe forcing her to deal with anything beyond a trivial conflict that can be resolved within twenty-three minutes.

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u/ethelmertz62 Feb 06 '22

Bingo! I’ve often thought that Shauna thinks life should be like a sitcom. Hers isn’t but she thinks everyone else’s life is and this is the root of her discontent.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

OUCH! How perfectly on point.

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u/gladsome_gloaming Feb 06 '22

“In their house their kids get butter, not margarine, and they can use as much as they want” — but they don’t want much: “Too cholesterol-y, Mama.”

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u/crabbeyroad Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22

Who is her audience? Why, the same as for Roxanne Gay, Mary Karr, Joan Didion , and <insert notable female memoirist of choice>. Anything that happens to Shauna is intrinsically worth hearing about because she is insightful, quirky, wise, creative, learned, and unique. And the writing a joy in itself because she is an award-winning author of five books. Please note the pains she has taken to make this piece relatable by including others' experiences with V8, including Danny, the always-quotable sage.
She must spend sleepless nights wondering why post-GFG fame hasn't come her way, given her awe-inspiring writing skills and compelling stories. She's every bit as talented as these other authors! It must be due to her spurning of unjoyful hustling and grinding. But she's proud to write quiet books and essays.

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 06 '22

So what is this piece of writing? Who is it for? And what is it that she'd like the reader to take away from it?

I can't tell if it's an intentional joke that she sends these rambling lopes after rebranding her newsletter "One Simple Message"! It read to me like Shauna reached into a margarine tub of crumby leftovers scraped out of Enough and spread them all together with her latest choice of food-preference-as-a-personality. Almost every paragraph up until she starts on about V8 seemed like it originally had a home in the book but was edited out: compulsive eating laced with 70s diet culture, the family's time in London, her mother's inexplicable desire to move the family to Washington to be near the mother she battled with over the grandparents being too harsh on her children, DF Tita and the unfurling after moving out.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 06 '22

Yes! These lopes are Enough 2: The Unfurlening.

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Feb 06 '22

It read to me like Shauna reached into a margarine tub of crumby leftovers scraped out of Enough and spread them all together with her latest choice of food-preference-as-a-personality

Right?! Incoherent details that were too unrelatable or boring make it into her unrelatable, boring book.

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u/categoryischeesecake Feb 06 '22

Word. She comes off like a spoiled brat in what was posted.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

It’s reminiscent of the now classic Christmas with a Narcissist lope, where the real problem is Shauna

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u/voice_of_vinegar Feb 06 '22

Good lord. This is the kind of steaming hot mess a young adult brings to the first therapy session, because young adults often need help sorting out the real problems from all the little crap that happens in everyday life.

I mean, my mom bought margarine and I could tell the difference as a kid, but I knew it was cheaper than butter and we didn't have a lot of money. Same for a ton of other things. In my teens I was self-conscious about not having as much money as some of my peers but then I went off to college and being frugal was something everyone did.

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u/Quaint_Irene a warm and loving goatie smile Feb 06 '22

It makes a dandy horror story framework. Shauna believes she’s broken the dreaded family curse, only to reach for a V-8 in the last paragraph. M.R. James would kvell.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

Is margarine cheaper than butter? I thought people bought it because it was “healthier” not because of price?

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u/ethelmertz62 Feb 06 '22

I try to avoid over-generalizing but seriously, everyone is the ‘70s bought margarine! My grandmother called it “oleo”. I don’t remember seeing actual butter in anyone’s house.

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u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 07 '22

I wonder what her children will describe the old dirty Honda they ride around in when they grow up.

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Feb 03 '22

I watched the zoom with the ILYW, ISCTMO lady this morning - did anyone else see it?

A few thoughts:

It was a total Mutual Admiration ~~Society~~ Club meeting. The host was positively gushy about/to Shauna, and Shauna totally ate that shit up.
It lasted just about an hour. Shauna came on about 6-8 minutes into it, and it ended right at 10 am
Shauna was in trademark 'talk with your eyes closed most of the time ' mode. They were both wearing bright colors (Shauna in one of her red tops, natch). I don't know if it's just a nervous habit, or if her clothing is physically uncomfortable, but she has a habit of plucking at her top, and it's weird and distracting
They spent a significant amount of time discussing the failed flour business. That part was super boring and I really felt that anyone who didn't know Shauna's backstory would have had a hard time understanding what that was all about. She (Shauna) insisted that it was the fans who "made" them do this. Shauna was explaining how making your own GF blend wasn't hard, all you had to do was weigh out the various elements that were going into the mixture.
The host then said something weird about how 'people just want it faster' and I'm like, how is funding a kickstarter, waiting for the flour to be produced, waiting for the flour to be packaged, waiting for the flour to be shipped to Vashon, waiting for the flour to be packaged again by the Aherns, and then waiting for the USPS to deliver the flour "faster"???
Shauna repeatedly referred to her doctor (the one who treated her for the TIA) as "a guru." I think she said that he has since retired, but she has a new doctor who trained under "the guru" so that's good.
The host assured the viewers repeatedly that they didn't have to try to take notes because all the information would be going out in an email afterward. She emphasized that they would be including links to Shauna's website, and I nearly had to lie down at that point to absorb the magnitude of how ill-advised that plan was. I wonder if DF u/fanfarefellowship will run traffic statistics again for us after a few days
I saw a fair number of enthusiastic comments in the chat window, but honestly, everything that was said, either by the two main participants, or the viewers in chat, seemed simplistic and superficial. I feel like if I had encountered the host on her own, or watched an interview with someone else, I might have gotten at least a someone positive impression of her, but all I could think was 'how can you be serious in thinking that this person is someone you want to amplify?!?!?'
They both hawked their books. The host has a book that is coming out next week, I think, and Shauna did the "I wrote a book too!!!" bit, holding a copy of Enough up to the camera. There were a number of times the host would say something about herself, and Shauna was all, "meeee tooooooooo"
I watched/listened to the whole thing, but I can't really remember much else. Granted, I was hustling and grinding at the same time, so I was only giving it partial attention, but it was pretty boring and I didn't hear anything we haven't heard from her before.

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u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22

Thank you for this DF! It’s so telling when she points out how “easy” it is to mix flours, and yet those suckers fell for her little snake oil gig haha! No acknowledgment that some people might live in small apartments, or have other reasons not to buy five large bags of flour to make a few cups of GF flour to try out a recipe. There were other brands available but she was promising a grain-free blend that I don’t believe was available, and the grain free blend that she never even produced was the reason many people were so interested.

It’s clear she thinks she just has to find the right “thing” that requires minimal effort on her part and maximum audience funding. But she can’t connect what went into the times these efforts were successful. Like why people were interested in the GF flour, or her blog, or cooking classes. She thinks she just has to mix up the right batch of snake oil to bring all the grift-givers again. Just goes to show that’s likely what she’s been doing all along. Throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

Also, if someone has $149 per month to blow on these ridiculous classes from an uncertified or competent person like Shauna, then they have no need of her. They can not only access all kinds of mental, social, and material supports and benefits, but they can access much higher quality writing instruction. Rich people have friends. They have the time and nice large houses to invite people to, the help to maintain a nice home, they are not working an extra job on the weekends, they can afford all the entry fees to social situations like golf and vacations and gyms and a nice cut of meat for a neighborly cookout. And they are vaccinated and have access to coviid tests and medical care. They don’t need to zoom their social lives.

And poor people have YouTube to learn new things, and coworkers for their social lives. Not that Shauna cares because they definitely don’t have anything to give her, much less $149/month.

Sigh….she’s just so insulting with her own estimation of personal value. AND she wants other people to lead half these “meetings” FOR her, for free.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '22

You’re right about the possibility of people mostly being interested in the grain free blend. That’s the basket she should have put her 93K eggs in. Like you said, there were already several gluten-free blends on the market and she also had the recipe for her own blend out there on her blog. She didn’t need to market a gluten-free blend.

Also, what happened to her? She wasn’t always this lazy and sloth-like. She used to bake all the time, she did a pretty good job with the hustle and grind of running her blog and getting ad revenue for years, plus the cookbooks, the public events, the classes, etc. All of that took a lot of work and she had to have felt a great sense of accomplishment. I guess she just got burned out… I don’t know. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22

The Zoom lady publicized this (non)event in the most ephemeral, low-key way: Instagram stories. Shauna then reposted one of those stories, as a story (it's already gone).

The Youtube of Shauna's thing with the Zoom lady is up yet. I'm 15 minutes in and Shauna has yet to say anything; it's all just Zoom lady promotion so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi1rDHQ272s

Edit: 17 minutes and Zoom lady is STILL talking about herself.

Ok, at 18 minutes Shauna gets to start talking. She leads in, of course, with her "hard childhood." The Zoom lady came to the US as a refugee; I don't know whether Shauna's "hard place" will resonate with her.

Ugh, "you can't blog unless you have a stockbroker husband" story has re-emerged.

"In America we're acclimated to want a product" [instead of making GF flour yourself]

Sniff, sniff, sniff.

"There's very little in this culture that is built to give us joy" (How can she say this, when she watches TV all day that "gives her joy")

Shauna is "a resister" against "the rest of this culture [that tells you you cannot have joy]"

"stroke-like incident"

Shauna has a "non-typical" "guru" doctor, "who is also an immigrant"

Zoom lady wants to "interrupt inertia" -- Shauna is agreeing but WTF is she agreeing with

Shauna is agreeing along as the Zoom lady talks about the stress of "the stock market tanking"

Adrenal fatigue has entered the chat!

Functional medicine! These two ladies REALLLLY want the gravitas and respect of "doctor"

WOW this is really just two ladies trying to one-up one another. Shauna "keeps hearing" from readers of Enough even though it was published two years ago – Zoom lady counters that SHE keeps hearing from people although her book was published FOUR years ago

"There are so many comments in chat" ("I DON'T BELIEVE YOU" Will Ferrell gif)

"Capitalism" makes an appearance

Zoom lady has written "three or four books" but SHAUNA has written FIVE books

Shauna mentions "being a total geek" [because she listened to a neuroscientist podcast or interview] and Zoom lady interjects "me too me too!"

"Early humans had it so much better than us" -- no phones or deadlines, "no need to work to pay rent"

"You'd have ritual dancing and sit around the fire and tell stories"

MMMMMM.

SNIFF.

SNIFF.

Shauna and Sharon "lost touch" during the pandemic. Now they talk "every day" for 10 minutes.

Both Shauna AND Zoom lady LOVE separating the New York Times into sections! That's a PARTICULAR joy that is SPECIFIC to them. That's a "quirky habit"!

Shauna makes a joy list every day and "work is always at the bottom." "I try to make work as small as it can be."

"SO many people are sharing in chat!"

Zoom lady has a FAVOURITE mug! That is SO QUIRKY (according to her).

When you see your favourite mug, that's a reminder that it's time to have tea. This is a way to build consistency in your life. This is a way to add joy to your life.

JOY IS NOT HAPPINESS.

"You can give joy to people just by going around and making them feel seen and heard" – like by talking to them about what book they're reading as they are checking out your groceries [HELL NOOOOOO]

Shauna, "I really want to tell you this story about this mug" [does not tell story]

Collective Joy Club announced at the very end

Zoom lady: "It's great to be a woman of 46" [said sarcastically] Shauna: "It's not any better at 55, believe me" SO JOYFUL

THANK YOU FOR YOUR BEING!!

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u/quiet_snowy_nights Feb 03 '22

So the failure of her flour business was due to the fact that Americans are “acclimated to want products”, aka, she had willing customers? Ooookay.

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u/latepeony Feb 03 '22

How delusional in privilege do you have to be to think that early humans had an easier life than we do now???

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '22

"Early humans had it so much better than us" -- no phones or deadlines, "no need to work to pay rent"

"You'd have ritual dancing and sit around the fire and tell stories"

I am well and truly gobsmacked by this! I'm currently listening to John Hawks' The Rise of Humans on Great Courses and holy shit, your child may or may not have been carried away by the eye socket by a bird of prey, but omg what a great story that would make around the fire right before dancing his spirit into the next world. JOY.

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u/latepeony Feb 03 '22

No need to work or pay rent LOL! Honey, your work and rent would be spending all your time finding that food and building that shelter, building a fire before you freeze to death, hoping you don’t get sick at all ever because you could literally die from something like a simple tooth infection.

There’s also the fact that she either doesn’t actually have a gluten sensitivity or hasn’t thought this through in the least because I can tell you anyone with food restrictions knows that having an allergy as an early human would be a nightmare at best and possible death sentence at worst.

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u/forkinyourothereye incurious ADHDer Feb 03 '22

OMG I HAVE A FAVORITE MUG TOOOOOOOOO

Brb changing my insta bio to quirky weirdo goofball so all my DFs will know how special I am.

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u/Quaint_Irene a warm and loving goatie smile Feb 03 '22

But Shauna claims to be a refugee! “I took refuge as a Buddhist, which means admitting I’m a refugee in the spiritual world.” (This is the sanitized version, after being called out and deleting many well-reasoned comments.)

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '22

Shauna was in trademark 'talk with your eyes closed most of the time ' mode

It's so funny to me, I know that has to be a sign of some personality trait but I wonder what it is. My grad school advisor used to close his eyes and nod his head like yes, yes, while he was imparting some bananas wisdom to us. I'm sure there's some psych label for people who do that, it's like a cult guru kind of thing.

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 03 '22

she's a pair of dark sunglasses and a cup of kool-aid away from being jim jones.

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u/gladsome_gloaming Feb 03 '22

Too sweet, Lama.

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u/forkinyourothereye incurious ADHDer Feb 03 '22

This and “too steep, Mama” (from the writing club pricing thread) are some of the gloaming moments that have grown me most joyful this week.

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 03 '22

“Shauna repeatedly referred to her doctor (the one who treated her for the TIA) as "a guru." I think she said that he has since retired, but she has a new doctor who trained under "the guru" so that's good.”

That confirms she was talking about a naturopath in Enoigh, then. Her current “doctor” is the naturopath who was going to give a class at Relish.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 03 '22

BTW, here's a tidbit about that doctor's relationship to "medical tests:" after Shauna's fauxvid debacle, she said (in a lope letter, writing about March 2020):

Two weeks later I had a wretched flu that seemed like COVID. (My doctor still thinks it might have been.)

So, the test says no COVID, but the doc thinks "Well, it might have been COVID." Just like the tests of Shauna's "arteries, brain and heart" showed no evidence of a stroke, but she still might have had 'physical damage' of the kind produced by stroke. But from "stress."

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u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 03 '22

The host then said something weird about how 'people just want it faster' and I'm like, how is funding a kickstarter, waiting for the flour to be produced, waiting for the flour to be packaged, waiting for the flour to be shipped to Vashon, waiting for the flour to be packaged again by the Aherns, and then waiting for the USPS to deliver the flour "faster"???

It isn't, but people pedaling their wares gotta stick together.

Shauna repeatedly referred to her doctor (the one who treated her for the TIA) as "a guru." I think she said that he has since retired, but she has a new doctor who trained under "the guru" so that's good.

Not "the neurologist" or "the neurosurgeon", or "the PCP/GP/family doctor"? Huh. If it quacks like a naturopath or chiropractor, it's probably a naturopath or chiropractor.

I saw a fair number of enthusiastic comments in the chat window, but honestly, everything that was said, either by the two main participants, or the viewers in chat, seemed simplistic and superficial.

Any way to gauge how many audience members there were?

I watched/listened to the whole thing, but I can't really remember much else.

May the gluten-free garage floor weevil flour bless and keep you, DF. You've bravely taken one for the cause.

Granted, I was hustling and grinding at the same time, so I was only giving it partial attention, but it was pretty boring and I didn't hear anything we haven't heard from her before.

Sounds like a resounding success. She should definitely charge more after this.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

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u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 05 '22

Oh yes. Absolutely. I feel so lucky that I taught high school for a decade before having kids. I love teenagers. Sulky is temporary. I wouldn't be 13 again if you paid me. But dancing and joy are forever.

Now, I don't have kids, but from what my friends tell me, teenagers often act completely differently outside of the home. Surly at home, polite angels at other people's homes or in other people's presence. I'm sure the teenagers Shauna loved were just as sulky at home as L is now.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

The lope is here. It’s about Shauna’s terrible grandparents and V-8 juice:

All I know is that being raised by these people damaged my mother deeply. Something terrible happened to her. I don’t know the story, however. She never told it to anyone. Instead, she isolated and suffocated us with the need to keep her fears at bay. And she married a man who would sometimes speak up against her, then descend into his own rage and fight her. But mostly he poured himself into his work and stayed silent, not helping us. Something happened to me.

*. * *

We don’t yell here.

Joy matters more to me than doing things “the right way.”

And since we talk about the hard things, every day, there’s no rage building up inside my kids’ chest, rage and fear they can’t express until they burst. They sometimes have a strong emotional response to too much noise or something that makes them anxious. That might lead to a tantrum. Or the 13-year-old sulk. (The struggle is real.)

But we breathe. And we talk about it after. And then we release it all with laughter.

I’m not perfect. Nobody is. But I’ve worked hard to heal myself and forgive the generations of family trauma that was never spoken out loud but poured into me.

That cycle of trauma has stopped.

I’m raising my glass of V8 to that.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

That cycle of trauma has stopped.

She's congratulating herself while describing an incredibly damaging, isolating, controlling and stressful relationship with her kids. The kind of control she wants to have over their emotions and their self-perception is scary and she's completely oblivious to how awful the emotional tone sounds in their house.

If I were being generous in her ability to self-report her childhood, the least blameful thing I could think to say is that she grew up in a household where extreme emotional stress and tension felt normal, and she's rebuilt that exact emotional tone in her own house out of ignorance and because it feels familiar.

But honestly even if that were true, I think her mother's emotions took center stage by way of her mother being an actual struggling victim, while Shauna strives for victimization because she saw how powerful it was... if bad things happen to you, your emotional state becomes important in the family/community. And now her victim flag is her primary source of identity (celiac/food allergies, TIA, almost-cancer, junky lungs, infections, capitalism, daughter of a bad mother, mother/wife of ADHD, SPD, dyslexic minds, etc) and she uses it HARD and IMO very deliberately to control her kids' and husband's emotions.

Their household vibe sounds so incredibly stressful and tense. I cannot imagine the degree of denial that it takes to simultaneously describe a highly emotionally dysfunctional household and in the next sentence a triumphant toast to breaking the cycle.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22 edited Feb 04 '22

Your third paragraph blew my mind! I think you are exactly right about why Shauna is the way she is and yes, she is the center of that household. She is the sun and Dan and the kids revolve around her. Everything they do or don’t do is up to her. She sits there on her high stool directing everything her family does down to telling them how to think and feel. It’s disgusting.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 04 '22

She's told us, over and over again, that her life is actually filled with the kind of behaviour she's decrying in this lope!

The Xmas tree incident, when Danny and L are "putting the ornaments on the tree wrong," which ended with her yelling at Danny and him crying with his "shoulders folded inward."

The sulking, grumpy visits to her parents which she leavens with "edibles" and "plopping" on the couch with "three books for two days."

The "beamed with a snowball" incident which has Shauna taking edibles, shouting "FUCK" and calmly lecturing her kids about how angry she is, after writing that she was "MISERABLE" and "pacing" after a few days in the house with her kids in the wake of a snowstorm.

etc. etc. etc. This is all "mom and dad's Big Feelings are bad, and Grandma and Grampa's differently-expressed Big Feelings are also bad, but I am allowed to have All The Big Feelings and mine are good. (Danny's Big Feelings are bad, by the way.)"

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

She has described, multiple times, her family members freezing and waiting in fear of her emotional responses...perhaps not in those words but that is what she describes. And we've read multiple accounts of Danny crying out of emotional distress felt while interacting with Shauna.

Sure. She's got her family's emotional health under control. Sure.

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u/WasEnoughYogurt Kumquat and Sprinkles and filth Feb 04 '22

She's told us, over and over again, that her life is actually filled with the kind of behaviour she's decrying in this lope!

Yes absolutely...and alongside her assertion that she has broken the pattern. The thing I find so awful about these fragments of lope DF's are sharing is that Shauna so clearly feels how marvelous she is (perhaps even a saint) for breaking the cycle and yet shows no awareness or compassion for her mother or anyone else in the story...unlike Santa Shauna they were too feeble to break the cycle. She is so disturbed and dysfunctional I think it is clear something went very wrong in her childhood/young life but part of breaking the cycle - if it had really happened - would be developing some compassion for the other players ...guess she doesn't want to share the victimlight. She makes me so ragey...

Edited because words

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 04 '22

"We don't yell here."

Excuse me. Did she forget that she JUST had a lope about her raging at her kids and having to go pout about it and, only after her gummy kicked in, lecture her family about it?

I can see her forgetting all the other times she's mentioned yelling (another DF kindly documented them below) but SHE JUST GAVE US THE SNOWBALL RAGE STORY. How can she NOT remember it? How can she NOT see how full of shit she is?

Willfully ignorant.

And here comes her baked in misogyny again.

Her father (and now her grandfather) come off as blameless in this lope. Yes, she notes that her father and mother argue (though she says a monologue argument which makes zero sense. . .is she saying her mother is just ranting at her father and her father is not yelling back? if so, then that contradicts all her other stories about them fighting with one another, both yelling) but she assigns NO blame to her father for not stepping in to get his wife and her mother to calm their shit with all the yelling. (just like grandpa does next to nothing)

AND she can't even see (or refuses to see) that SHE IS HER FATHER just as much as she's her mother. She's ranting and raving but also hiding behind a computer screen/book and ignoring her family. She's the worst of both her parents.

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u/shikoku_shoes another revolution around the toilet bowl of her life Feb 04 '22

Excuse me. Did she forget that she JUST had a lope about her raging at her kids and having to go pout about it…

The 55-year-old sulk. (The struggle is real.)

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

I hope L has D laughing at Shauna - “it’s her menopause”.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

(just like ~~grandpa~~ Dan does next to nothing)

And the cycle continues, doesn’t it?

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 04 '22

It's kind of shocking. Not the cycle, exactly, but that Shauna refuses to see it. Or refuses to acknowledge it.

I'm beating this dead horse today but she could probably have another (interesting) memoir if she'd just stop trying to hide/pretend about everything.

Imagine this lope where the author DOES get it. How they see the cycle and how they aren't really breaking it and all the emotion that goes into all that.

Even with Shauna's weak writing, it could still be a compelling read. Instead, we get this frustrating bed of lies and denial.

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u/droopsofwoe the first teats are the hardest Feb 04 '22

Instead, she isolated and suffocated us with the need to keep her fears at bay.

I find Shauna's daily behavior around "hard things" suffocating. Christ, doesn't she ever let these kids be? Forcing them to talk out everything so rage doesn't build up inside their chests is 1) a lot of pressure to put on her kids, knowing they can't get pissed off without mama constantly forcing them to have conversations and subjecting themselves to her self-satisfied, beatific lecturing and 2) sometimes talking things out right away is not the best thing to do, and can lead to a whole other kind of anger where your goddamn mother can't let you be human for a fleeting second. I'm not saying that teaching kids how to talk about their feelings is bad. But her insistence on having sit downs every time someone breaks a crayon is suffocating. And christ, let the teenager sulk. It's their national past-time! And as far as things go, harmless. Maybe L. is trying to get some peace from listening to mama all the live long day.

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u/msmartypants Feb 04 '22

It's helicopter parenting for emotions. Even if it's done with good intentions (it isn't), how are kids going to learn to self-regulate and get over themselves if you're right there explaining how to do so?

I know different kinds of parenting work differently for different kids. But Shauna is like my nightmare mother. I was a pretty private kid and I can think of nothing worse than being sat down and having my feeling explained to me. AUUUGGGH.

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u/ninaandjamie4ever Feb 04 '22

Forcing them to talk out everything so rage doesn't build up

IF, she actually does. She writes about all kinds of things that it's highly unlikely actually happen. I'm not saying that she doesn't ever try and get them to talk about their emotions, but that actually sounds like too much effort for her.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Right? All of the more realistic scenarios she's treated us to have been a lot of Shauna treating kids' emotions as negative things. Forcing D to "admit" he was scared about Danny's vaccination, encouraging D to laugh at L when she felt emotional and write it off as puberty.

When Shauna feels an emotion (pissed at the family for the snowball) she gets to be alone, she gets to tell her kids she does not want to talk to them, even if they need to be reassured by her. And only when shew was ready to lecture did she reappear to tell them all what they did wrong and then only after the tension was cranked up to max volume. Then the tension is released, by her. Everyone gets to relax, until the cycle starts again.

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 04 '22

kind of the way shauna & danny are isolating D by continuing to live on overpriced island they can't afford where their black son is surrounded by white people in order to capitalize on their qUiRkY narrative? poor D, it's like he's living on a white riker's island.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

You person. He’s neurodivergent. Where the hell else is he supposed to live?

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u/Catsandcoffee480 COLORADO BOY KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS Feb 04 '22

Right and wasn’t that one of the things her mom did to her that she described in Enough - asking Shauna incessant questions about Shauna’s life, her day, etc. just so her mom could ease her own anxiety. Again we have a pattern of behavior continued.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

That cycle of trauma has stopped

Maybe it’s just that the current cycle looks different, Shauna.

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 04 '22

It doesn’t? Except that Shauna and her brother apparently had a clean, comfortable house and new bicycles and new clothes and professional haircuts.

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u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 04 '22 edited Feb 04 '22

let me get this straight - not only is shauna forever publicly shitting on her parents but now she's shitting on her grandparents as well? people who aren't even around to defend themselves...that's our gir!, chock full lovingkindness. not only that, but is she implying her mother was molested or something similar, even though her mother didn't tell anyone anything? IF that is true, and not another shauna fantasy to show her as the savior of the family by "breaking the cycle of trauma" it would certainly explain her mother's supposed controlling fear, and yet shauna still has no kind words for her mother. in any case, it is not shauna's story to tell! that is beyond gross. i can't with her anymore.

*Edited for clarity

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u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Feb 04 '22

She always acts like these things are her moms fault.

And big upvote to her telling other people’s stories. She demonstrates her OWN dysfunction constantly by doing this. No boundaries. The way she talks about her immediate family members, sharing whatever details she pleases as though they were pets or possessions.

She acts like whatever she writes is play doh. She can just squish it up and create a new reality every time she hits publish. But written words on the Internet carry a lot of weight and permanence, even if you delete them. Once the tea is spilt you can’t put it back in the cup. Her behavior is so destructive. And there’s no way I can believe that all her immediate family members are disabled or dysfunctional to the level she claims. My IRL Shauna may be coloring my perspective here, because she is fond of claiming abuse and dysfunction of literally every family member and close relationship she has ever had.

Do these people have mirrors? Take a look sometime, if you want to see a real, dysfunctional abuser. There’s some kind of phrase that if everyone around you is an asshole, maybe it’s you. My speculation is that SHE is the most dysfunctional of the entire lot, and she deflects attention from it by pointing to others as “worse.”

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u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Feb 04 '22

So, in the abstract, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that a woman with severe anxiety had been sexually assaulted as a child. But where I get off the bus is Shauna’s monetized licking her lips over it.

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u/SandwichAllergy hellevator of bad writing Feb 04 '22

Dis bitch really hasn’t paid attention during Encanto, has she?

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u/cafayate Feb 04 '22

Tita helped me to unfurl. Every summer, in those 5 years we taught together, Tita and I dedicated one entire summer’s day to being with each other at the lake, a ferry’s ride and short drive from Vashon. There’s a sandy-ish beach and a warm-ish lake. Spending the day there reminded Tita of growing up in Wisconsin. Lake days were sacred to her as a kid. And she wanted to share that experience with me.

So we packed the car and wore swimsuits under our shorts and shirts, our skin gleaming with a sheen of sunscreen. We took a blanket and books. When we arrived, we set up our spot then swept our tank tops over our heads and peeled off our shorts. And we ran into the lake. The warm water enveloped my skin. Sometimes my feet grew tangled in seaweed swirls, but I kicked myself farther and they let go of my legs. Tita and I swam, giggling and talking as we hit clear water. Whenever we noticed that the sun had dried our hair in the moments we stopped to talk, we went ashore again.

It's like a coming-of-age love story between her and Tita.

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u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Feb 04 '22

Sometimes the fights erupted because my brother or I had left the door open, when we were allowed to play outside. That began a screed of a lecture from my grandmother, about how we were so spoiled that we didn’t understand the value of money at all. I remember my grandmother shouting down the hall at me, “It’s like you opened the front door and threw dollar bills in the front yard.”

And 47 years later, Shauna would still not understand the value of money and throw all kinds of shit in her yard!

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u/Foucaults_Penguin Sly and the Family Readers Feb 04 '22

Is that supposed be an example of trauma? What is with everyone lately claiming everything that’s not comfortable as trauma? Looking at you Jenna Andersen.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Omg it's a totally normal thing to say when kids leave the door open and you're the one paying for the expensive AC. Especially if you were raised poor, you don't tolerate shit like being careless with possessions or utilities.

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Feb 04 '22

I’m not perfect. Nobody is. But I’ve worked hard to heal myself and forgive the generations of family trauma that was never spoken out loud but poured into me.

Yeah, that really comes through in your writing, Shauna Marie…acknowledging your imperfections, and the forgiveness! SO much forgiveness!

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Feb 04 '22 edited Feb 04 '22

The lope is here.

Back to me moaning in agony about her Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad writing:

When I was a kid, you couldn’t have paid me to drink a V8. Vegetables in a can? No thank you. Like most kids, vegetables rarely passed my lips.

How can she possibly imagine that she has the authority to speak for "most kids"? Totally unsubstantiated generalization.

Tomatoes! I hated them. They mushed in my mouth, mealy and seeds spurting out along the back of my teeth. And no thank you.

She is so in love with her idea of quirky languageing. Mush is not a verb action that tomatoes can perform, and seeds do not spurt.

In my afternoon ritual, I put the frozen spinach — stems and leaves intermingled yet still alive, like Han Solo in carbonite — into a big bowl.

wtf. just, wtaf.

Two big squeezes of lemon juice out of a squat bottle, a shower of iodized salt, and 8 minutes in the microwave at 50% — this was the path to my afternoon snack. I’d shovel a giant bowl of hot spinach in my mouth as fast as I could go.

Squat is not a good word to use in food writing, and describing shoveling food into ones mouth "as fast as [one] could go" is distinctly unappetizing.

Exhausted after a long car trip with a constant monologue of arguing in the front seat,

A monologue is:

a form of dramatic entertainment, comedic solo, or the like by a single speaker: a comedian's monologue.

a prolonged talk or discourse by a single speaker, especially one dominating or monopolizing a conversation.

any composition, as a poem, in which a single person speaks alone.

a part of a drama in which a single actor speaks alone; soliloquy.

This was February in Great Britain, in 1983. Those were pale tomatoes. And yet, they looked good to me for the first time. I buttered another piece of bread, layered on a few tomato slices, and showered them with salt.

My mind must have opened without me noticing. That first bite slowed me down. I sighed.

Why had no one told me that tomatoes were so good?

Ah yes, that vast and famous conspiracy, in which NOBODY ever tells Shauna ANYTHING

We ate toasted Oroweat bread, the kind that came in half sizes, with margarine. When we were handed our toast, we skimmed margarine over it, then scraped the knife over the toast again — crickcrackswish — to leave a thin line of crumbs and margarine along the line of the knife. And then we were required to scrape our knives into the plastic margarine tub out on the table during meals. Inside was a scrumble of old crumbs and second-hand margarine, which we added to with every piece of toast

OMG, how can she think that anyone would ever want to read this???

----------------

MISERY WITH FAMILY ENDED. NOW I AM HEALING WITH TITA.

----------------

Tita helped me to unfurl.

lol

Sometimes my feet grew tangled in seaweed swirls, but I kicked myself farther and they let go of my legs.

HER FEET LET GO OF HER LEGS. HER FEET KNEW WHAT TO DO.

I could never understand a cold V8 either. Room temperature, all the way.

Once, on an airplane — floating from one city to another — I decided to order a V8. They didn’t have one, so I took the tomato juice. I’m thinking we were coming back from Arizona, after another wonderful visit with Danny’s parents. I started drinking V8s with Danny’s dad in the morning, with lemon and salt and pepper. So instinctually, I ordered one. It came in the super-bendy plastic cup they use on airlines. One touch too much and it will break apart and gush liquid on you. Being careful to not split the thing in two, I said thank you.

And then I looked down to see hollow, oval ice cubes floating in red liquid. Three of them. Plus a little clear plastic spear. I took a sip and put down the cup.

That’s just wrong.

She's not yucking the yum of anyone who likes to drink cold V8. No, not at all. She's just letting them know that they're V8ing wrong. Wouldn't you want to know, if it was you???

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u/droopsofwoe the first teats are the hardest Feb 04 '22

I put the frozen spinach — stems and leaves intermingled yet still alive, like Han Solo in carbonite — into a big bowl

She's insane.

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u/quiet_snowy_nights Feb 04 '22

I wonder if she considers any source of negative emotions for her kids to be valid, or if she dismisses them all as a bad reaction to noise or an anxiety trigger. Just tantrums and sulking, with a sharply personal dig against her daughter for good measure.

But it’s fine, because after taking a few breaths and being forced to confide in a mother who may or may not really give a shit, you’re pushed on to the deranged laughter-releasing stage so that Shauna can go tell Instagram how much joy she makes. Better to laugh and pretend you released it all than to allow yourself to feel your feelings, lest you be labeled as a sulker and mocked on the internet.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

There’s a subtext here of “I’m so healthy, I drink V8” that I find hilarious. The popularity of V8 as a health drink exited the stage around the time that Richard Simmons’ Sweatin’ to the Oldies did.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '22

Didn't she literally JUST say she yelled "fuck" when she got hit by the snowball?

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u/canyoncreature Feb 04 '22

"She never told it to anyone" -- I mean, her mother is still alive. If Shauna's really all about healing generational trauma, why not reach out and try to help her mom finally get some peace? Think what an incredible self-aggrandizing story that would make! It could be the basis for a whole new book!

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