Facebook update thread

[snowkitten91]

What if they start cuddling like in the McDonald's?

 

[MysticMisty]

Then the field agents will reveal to us disturbing footage of this so we can all be horrified and disgusted.

He might not even want to go if he remembers being spotted by field agents last time. Also he wouldn't get to use the attraction sign, or the attraction bra because Mommy is there to stop him.

 

[GFYS]

Has it started yet? But yeah, she might go with him there, if he really pushes for it.
Fatty's a pussy and he's got a bunch of things on his mind he wants to do, but I don't know how many of them he'll really push for.
Really, now that I think about it, someone (Barb or trolls or someone else) could push Chris to do things to better his life, but otherwise, he's just going to spend the rest of Barb's days playing PS3 in 14BC.

So, how long of a shot is it to reason with Barb?

I suspect reasoning is not her strong suit, but wonder if tales of Barb completely retreating from society are exaggerated. Perhaps, does Barb have any social points of contact - say, folks at the church, a knitting club, Goodwill, etc. - that could possibly lead to a voice of reason reaching her? Or, even some peers to negatively judge her shitty behavior?

Rocky's reaction to the possibility of a social worker meeting at Chris' house, suggests to me that Rocky has met with resistance regarding Barb's hoard in the past. Is Snorlax just as incapable of introspective reasoning, as we often assume Chris is?

 

[Marvin]

Has it started yet? But yeah, she might go with him there, if he really pushes for it.
Fatty's a pussy and he's got a bunch of things on his mind he wants to do, but I don't know how many of them he'll really push for.
Really, now that I think about it, someone (Barb or trolls or someone else) could push Chris to do things to better his life, but otherwise, he's just going to spend the rest of Barb's days playing PS3 in 14BC.

So, how long of a shot is it to reason with Barb?

I suspect reasoning is not her strong suit, but wonder if tales of Barb completely retreating from society are exaggerated. Perhaps, does Barb have any social points of contact - say, folks at the church,

I don't think she went to church with Bob and Chris.

a knitting club, Goodwill, etc.

I don't think she really involved herself with any of these.

- that could possibly lead to a voice of reason reaching her? Or, even some peers to negatively judge her shitty behavior?

Rocky's reaction to the possibility of a social worker meeting at Chris' house, suggests to me that Rocky has met with resistance regarding Barb's hoard in the past. Is Snorlax just as incapable of introspective reasoning, as we often assume Chris is?

Eh, I don't know what is Snorlax' justification, but Fatty can occasionally be coerced into doing various things. You have the best chance of success if it's close to home and has few requirements.

 

[ChurchOfGodBear]

Has it started yet? But yeah, she might go with him there, if he really pushes for it.
Fatty's a pussy and he's got a bunch of things on his mind he wants to do, but I don't know how many of them he'll really push for.
Really, now that I think about it, someone (Barb or trolls or someone else) could push Chris to do things to better his life, but otherwise, he's just going to spend the rest of Barb's days playing PS3 in 14BC.

So, how long of a shot is it to reason with Barb?

I suspect reasoning is not her strong suit, but wonder if tales of Barb completely retreating from society are exaggerated. Perhaps, does Barb have any social points of contact - say, folks at the church,

I don't think she went to church with Bob and Chris.

a knitting club, Goodwill, etc.

I don't think she really involved herself with any of these.

- that could possibly lead to a voice of reason reaching her? Or, even some peers to negatively judge her shitty behavior?

Rocky's reaction to the possibility of a social worker meeting at Chris' house, suggests to me that Rocky has met with resistance regarding Barb's hoard in the past. Is Snorlax just as incapable of introspective reasoning, as we often assume Chris is?

Eh, I don't know what is Snorlax' justification, but Fatty can occasionally be coerced into doing various things. You have the best chance of success if it's close to home and has few requirements.

Marvin would know better than I anyway, but I've been under the distinct impression that Barb hadn't had any meaningful adult friendships for at least the past 10 years. She keeps to herself, the neighbors don't like her, she's estranged from her family, and doesn't use the internet. There's nothing to suggest she's sought out the company of anyone but Bob or Chris since they returned to Ruckersville.

Going totally into the realm of speculation... I'd say it looks like Barb had a pretty solid social life when she first met Bob and in the early years of their marriage. When the autism bomb dropped, that had to slow down considerably, and by the time Chris was about 9 her life was pretty much all Chris all the time. It was around then that the strain on their marriage began to become very evident. The move to 14BC severed the remainder of whatever social life Barb had, and by the time Chris graduated HS, she was just a tick away from full Snorlax mode.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

Eh, I don't know what is Snorlax' justification, but Fatty can occasionally be coerced into doing various things. You have the best chance of success if it's close to home and has few requirements.

It is almost as if Chris was lazy, brother!

 

[Henry Bemis]

Marvin would know better than I anyway, but I've been under the distinct impression that Barb hadn't had any meaningful adult friendships for at least the past 10 years. She keeps to herself, the neighbors don't like her, she's estranged from her family, and doesn't use the internet. There's nothing to suggest she's sought out the company of anyone but Bob or Chris since they returned to Ruckersville.

On the contrary, the Weston side of the family is a lot more (comparably) closer together than the Chandler half. Granted, they may have to stretch a little, like with Aunt Corrina or Jonathan Carey, who are not the most closely-related.

Any source, re: neighbors?

Going totally into the realm of speculation... I'd say it looks like Barb had a pretty solid social life when she first met Bob and in the early years of their marriage. When the autism bomb dropped, that had to slow down considerably, and by the time Chris was about 9 her life was pretty much all Chris all the time. It was around then that the strain on their marriage began to become very evident. The move to 14BC severed the remainder of whatever social life Barb had, and by the time Chris graduated HS, she was just a tick away from full Snorlax mode.

The time before Chris was both Bob and Barb's final push of fun and excitement, on account of their ages. Things were gonna slow down, autism or not.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Marvin would know better than I anyway, but I've been under the distinct impression that Barb hadn't had any meaningful adult friendships for at least the past 10 years. She keeps to herself, the neighbors don't like her, she's estranged from her family, and doesn't use the internet. There's nothing to suggest she's sought out the company of anyone but Bob or Chris since they returned to Ruckersville.

I have to wonder about this. How does a human being just have no friends/peers to interact with on an equal footing?

Maybe that's what drove her insane.

I mean, she must have long been a horrible person anyway, because it's really not that difficult to get people to like you and talk to you if you're decent to them. But... damn.

 

[shutupman]

^ Barb most likely has some form of anxiety or agoraphobia.
It would explain a LOT about her paranoias and how she acts.

 

[Tubular Monkey]

Tendencies can crystallize into certainties when people become elderly. This is a rare occasion where I feel pretty bad for Chris, because I imagine his mother is embarrassed by him and has isolated herself because she is ashamed of what he is. She was a nasty person and a bad mother, going by what her sniveling older son has said. She was negligent, ignorant, abrasive, and probably never all that bright. That she outmaneuvers Chris is not a compliment. Unlike her son, she probably can see herself as others would see her (at least as she would perceive others seeing her.) She is probably very insecure and thinks most people would look down on her. And as is so often the case, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her anxiety manifests itself in antisocial behavior, which when seen by an outsider, would likely cause them to look down on her. There's something about Chandlers finding themselves in Catch-22's of their own making.

It was the three of them in what could pass for a family unit. There was father, mother and child. The burden that is Chris could be shouldered by two people. Even if it wasn't shouldered well, there was a sense of, "he's not my burden alone." He's a drain. It's by Bob and Barb's own doing, but Chris is a drain. And now he's entirely her responsibility. Anecdotal evidence suggests that she is terrified that left to his own devices, he will get himself thrown in jail or killed, and could get her dragged in front of a judge and held accountable for any number of things. It's enough to make a normal person a hermit. God knows what it's doing to someone who was already a recluse.

There are definite parallels between someone with autism and someone who becomes more isolated as they become elderly. They become fixed in routines that may well be harmful, and when all they have is each other, it's the blind leading the blind. I don't give either one of them much of a chance. Chris is Barb's albatross, and Barb is Chris's.

 

[Anchuent Christory]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that she is terrified that left to his own devices, he will get himself thrown in jail or killed, and could get her dragged in front of a judge and held accountable for any number of things.

There's a fair amount of justification for this if we're being honest. Chris has proven time and again that he'll get himself into trouble when left to his own devices.
Of course that doesn't mean it's ok to turn her son into a recluse against his will. It also has to be pointed out that Chris' misadventures could have been preemptively avoided a couple of decades ago if Barb had engaged in some actual parenting.

 

[He Sets Me On Fire]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that she is terrified that left to his own devices, he will get himself thrown in jail or killed, and could get her dragged in front of a judge and held accountable for any number of things.

There's a fair amount of justification for this if we're being honest. Chris has proven time and again that he'll get himself into trouble when left to his own devices.
Of course that doesn't mean it's ok to turn her son into a recluse against his will. It also has to be pointed out that Chris' misadventures could have been preemptively avoided a couple of decades ago if Barb had engaged in some actual parenting.

Barb wrote herself a chubby, incontinent, self-fulfilling prophecy in Chris. By not addressing his serious social and perceptual problems, she assured that he would get himself into trouble. Of course, part of her motivation for not handling things the right way - other than what looks to be sheer laziness and fingers-in-her-ears denial of reality - seems to have been that she wanted to protect him from the shattering nature of the truth.

Bob may have invented plastic, but Barb created a perpetual motion machine fueled by denial and high-octane stupid.

 

[Venusaur]

Bob may have invented plastic, but Barb created a perpetual motion machine fueled by denial and high-octane stupid.

"This sentence. I like it. More!"

But, back to the topic. It would be nice to see Barbara accompany Chris to Fridays After Five just so that he could have some fresh air and maybe dance a little (I know people make fun of his very awkward dancing, but it's good for him to be out in public having some new stimuli), but this will probably never happen due to her fears for Chris' public behavior coupled with whatever issues she has. Let's not forget that she was present during the Game Place debacle, and her presence didn't really help in the least.

There's also the fact that if by pure change, Chris genuinely found somebody willing to engage with him, Barb would probably distrust that person and treat them horridly. I can only think of the time were she told Chris to "hang up on the bitch" when he was talking to Kacey, but I'm sure there's other examples of it happening. Essentially, Barb being there in person would instantly be detrimental to Chris and would probably nullify whatever benefits he would be getting from the outing.

 

[sparklemilhouse]

ecause I imagine his mother is embarrassed by him and has isolated herself because she is ashamed of what he is.

Ugh. I have this problem at my house right now. Both my parents are embarrassed by me. I don't like having that in common with Chris.

 

[Henry Bemis]

There's also the fact that if by pure change, Chris genuinely found somebody willing to engage with him, Barb would probably distrust that person and treat them horridly. I can only think of the time were she told Chris to "hang up on the bitch" when he was talking to Kacey, but I'm sure there's other examples of it happening. Essentially, Barb being there in person would instantly be detrimental to Chris and would probably nullify whatever benefits he would be getting from the outing.

Just so long as she has her pad o' paper, she'll be fine.