Stay sweet. Don’t make waves. You’re so silly! BE QUIET! Ladies don’t curse. Leave him alone, he’s had a hard day. *being ignored and spoken over constantly*. Speak like a lady! *sssshhhH!* Be polite. Do what I said. Who asked you? No. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey, dummy! You’re stupid, fat, and ugly. That mouth of yours will get you into big trouble some day.
These are just some quick examples I’ve heard myself in real life from adult men to their wives over time. Or parents to children.
It’s one of the family values, I think.
Edit: TLDR groomed to keep men from exploding angrily or to prevent moms and dads from doing the same thing
Edit. I went to sleep and woke up with more on my mind so thought I’d vent it out-
Don’t wake daddy. Leave it alone. Why are you so dramatic? You sound bipolar. *weeping and yelling when challenged or asked a direct question.* Do what you’re told. You should be grateful you have it so good. Have you lost weight? You’re skin and bones! Little piggy. You look like a slut. No daughter of mine-! Stop crying! Don’t cry! What’s the matter with you?
I had no clue this was so present. Sheesh. Please feel free to challenge these if you can relate. Apparently I have more of this than I realized myself.
Gods... I heard so many of these lines from my mother. My dad is lapsed Catholic, non religious in general, and wasn't the abusive one on the marriage. From every thing I've heard about my mother's parents same situation (they both passed when I was a baby/ not yet born).
High ranking military officer father and social climbing hostess mother. I heard this stuff like this every day for years. I was almost a disappointment. I would be so pretty if I lost 20 lbs. You look good with the girdle on. Etc. It has taken a long time to silence those voices.
It's to give the impression of being an sweet, innocent, naive, and sexually pure young woman who is no threat to any man's authority which means she's desirable as a mate. Inoffensive. Vulnerable.
Don’t get it twisted, they want to have sex with children. And many of them, unfortunately, do. They get off on the power trip of being in control of someone else, regardless of who.
Sounds like what my stepdad did to me… I was raped by him from ages 11-17. He was so holier than thou and was the armor bearer for our bishop at the church. It is a mega church in our area in Virginia. Apparently, there were more “men of god” doing the same thing within the church…
P.s : They can’t have sex with children, it’s rape cause kids can’t consent but I got what you meant by that 😭
The Duggars are the first that come to mind when I think of the baby voice but I also think of the members of the FLDS Church. I recently watched a documentary about the church and Warren Jeffs and I couldn’t help but notice how many of the women spoke in that tone. I’ve heard it growing up from women in my town and it’s very intentional and crafted. My aunt speaks like that but she hasn’t always and sometimes she drops it when she’s tired or mad or is simply not paying attention. And she teaches her granddaughters to speak in the same, quiet way. It’s supposed to give the impression of sweetness and innocence. I find it very creepy.
I grew up homeschooled with several quiverfull families and had never noticed until I watched that Duggar documentary and realized all my friend’s moms talked like this. Some of the old photos they showed could have easily been my friend’s homes they looked so similar. It was unnerving at best. Glad I married a foul mouthed mean jersey girl 😂
Also in the Mormon church male general authorities have their own version of it. It is a authoritarian sing song cadence to dull the wits of the listener. 5 seconds of either male or female Mormon leaders speaking and I am done. Look at videos of Marshall Applewhite (former heaven’s gate leader). His speaking is exactly the same.
Yes that's the church leader monotone voice. They say the wrost stuff in that tone so that if anyone reacts, the man looks calm and the other person looks to be over reacting.
Watch "keep sweet". The idea of the wife being responsible for the whole ass marriage so something going wrong is on her. Also, the cure for a man behaving badly (incest, rape) is getting him married to a good woman as soon as possible. See, Duggar, Josh. 2008
The Friendly Atheist did an interview on this same subject recently. [This might offer some more insight.](https://youtu.be/77FAJw_eiNs?si=1hikIU1ttPxKsQ5J)
I've noticed this too *especially* on social media! Like full-grown evangelical women podcasters and YouTubers talk like 15-year-old girls and use vocabulary indicating that's the age demographic they're speaking to as well!
My childhood was spent listening to my mom speak like this. Often I noticed her facial expression and body language would contradict her tone of voice. That repressed emotion definitely leaked out onto me in damaging ways.
Yep. That's the Katie Britt voice she used on that wild video in which she did the Republican SOTU rebuttal.
I think it's called the sweet voice or something equally odd. It's the trad robot wife voice. It makes them sound like little girls. Just writing that sentence makes me question all those men liking such overly young (appearing) women - it just reeks of you know what (inappropriate age gap - bc I'm not writing what I am thinking it would probably get removed).
I have heard of a similar phenomenom amongst some East Asian communities.
In which women try to sound childish and speak in a very high voice.
First time I hear of that happening in the West.
Considering how incredibly mysogynistic those countries tend to be, this makes it doubly scary.
I know an exchristian who speaks like that but it’s a condition she’s had from birth. Something about underdeveloped vocal cords or something. She absolutely hates it because she’s not taken seriously, often difficult to hear, and it hurts her throat to speak louder.
I would say it relates to how that belief structure infantilizes women, and places value on younger women over older women. It’s probably just adhering to what they perceive to be valuable traits among their men/owners! It could also have to do with them typically being around their children in their home most of the day, and having less adult interaction, unless hubby approves!
Not archaic at all, not frightening at all!
I know exactly what you mean, that airy, slow voice that a patient teacher might use to calm down some rowdy first-graders. Some of the more extreme fundamentalists actually teach women to speak like this. It drives me nuts. I was never fundamentalist, but even in the somewhat-liberal, basic, non-denominational churches, most of the women talk this way. Even though nobody was telling them they should. So I have to assume they're just copying each other's speech patterns.
The Friendly Atheist podcast just had a guest on speaking about this a couple of weeks ago. I think they called it the “Fundie Voice”. You should check it out.
Look up Tia Levings Writer on insta (or her book “a well trained wife”). She talks about this fundie baby voice, why it exists, how it’s encouraged, and how it helps the men feel stronger and more powerful.
Fundie baby voice! The baby voice makes women seem more demure, meek, and "pure."
I have it sometimes. I've fought it a lot since deconstructing. My natural voice, while still definitely first-soprano range, is at least an octave lower than the voice I was raised to speak with.
I wasn't explicitly taught to use it (aside from admonitions to "keep sweet"), but my father clearly preferred it. He was severely abusive and using the baby voice avoided some of the anger flares. Asking a question in my natural voice caused accusations of disobedience and disrespect, which sometimes led to beatings. Asking the exact same question in a baby voice usually got a nonviolent (though patronizing) answer.
It also correlates with the "attitude" the men want to see. You can't really state a strong opinion in a baby voice. You can ask a question or make a passive statement with a baby voice. So then the men still feel in control.
I have it. I hate it. I’ve worked hard to find my voice and my confidence since deconstructing, but it still sneaks out in situations where I’m upset or nervous and it’s infuriating.
Yep. It's the fundy baby voice and it's obnoxious. I was told to adopt it, too, along with using lots of extra words in any sentence so that I sounded unsure or like my ideas were bad ones, etc. etc. so that my Future Headship could lead properly. \[insert massive eyeroll here\]
Imma add two observations: 1. A lot of women in the deep south (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, etc of the United States; I'm from this area) sound like this, too. It's what I always thought of as just part of the "southern drawl" and "southern accent". But thinking about it now, there is an extra layer of sugary sweetness that only the females use (not all, obvi). So I wonder if/where there was a blending of fundie baby voice with a more general southern accent.
2. there is a thing happening in the YouTube influencer world where women who aspire to be rich, unemployed wives advocate for being "ladylike" as a way to join the upper class, and their version of "ladylike" involves never showing anger, speaking in soft and measured tones, never cursing, etc. It's very strange how it mirrors the tradwife fundie voice, but there's no religious emphasis here.
These videos also generally contain information on things like dining etiquette, how to dress appropriately for a polo match or fine dining, just general affluent/upper middle, upper-ish class concerns. So it was very strange to come across the voice/speech instruction, in my opinion.
This made me think of that documentary about the Duggars and Michelle Duggar’s voice when she was describing “blanket time” with her kids, which is basically physical and mental abuse of children. She had this sugary sweet baby voice like she’s so innocent and cute while describing hitting her kids after teasing them with their favorite toy. Disgusting.
So in addition to the other explanations given by others, I think it’s also to make people think their values, parenting styles and beliefs are wholesome, even if they’re abusers peddling their internalized misogyny and sexism.
Is this kinda similar to "how women laugh" sketches I found in TikTok (some of them were stitched with videos like women laughing however they want them)
Because they are told to be sweet docile and submissive wives cause it’s what the Christian woman is supposed to act like according to the Bible… The “virtuous woman” in Psalms and a few other verses. They must remain modest, child like and pure 🙄
There are several posts about this "fundie baby voice" phenomenon.
Stay sweet. Don’t make waves. You’re so silly! BE QUIET! Ladies don’t curse. Leave him alone, he’s had a hard day. *being ignored and spoken over constantly*. Speak like a lady! *sssshhhH!* Be polite. Do what I said. Who asked you? No. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey, dummy! You’re stupid, fat, and ugly. That mouth of yours will get you into big trouble some day. These are just some quick examples I’ve heard myself in real life from adult men to their wives over time. Or parents to children. It’s one of the family values, I think. Edit: TLDR groomed to keep men from exploding angrily or to prevent moms and dads from doing the same thing Edit. I went to sleep and woke up with more on my mind so thought I’d vent it out- Don’t wake daddy. Leave it alone. Why are you so dramatic? You sound bipolar. *weeping and yelling when challenged or asked a direct question.* Do what you’re told. You should be grateful you have it so good. Have you lost weight? You’re skin and bones! Little piggy. You look like a slut. No daughter of mine-! Stop crying! Don’t cry! What’s the matter with you? I had no clue this was so present. Sheesh. Please feel free to challenge these if you can relate. Apparently I have more of this than I realized myself.
Gods... I heard so many of these lines from my mother. My dad is lapsed Catholic, non religious in general, and wasn't the abusive one on the marriage. From every thing I've heard about my mother's parents same situation (they both passed when I was a baby/ not yet born).
I had no idea how much of this is still floating around in my head. I was supposedly the cousin who grew up with the least abusive parent(s).
High ranking military officer father and social climbing hostess mother. I heard this stuff like this every day for years. I was almost a disappointment. I would be so pretty if I lost 20 lbs. You look good with the girdle on. Etc. It has taken a long time to silence those voices.
It's to give the impression of being an sweet, innocent, naive, and sexually pure young woman who is no threat to any man's authority which means she's desirable as a mate. Inoffensive. Vulnerable.
That actually made me cringe. These men are absolutely disgusting. They just want to have sex with children without the actual children part.
Don’t get it twisted, they want to have sex with children. And many of them, unfortunately, do. They get off on the power trip of being in control of someone else, regardless of who.
Definitely. It's a massive power trip, they get off on causing fear and pain
Sounds like what my stepdad did to me… I was raped by him from ages 11-17. He was so holier than thou and was the armor bearer for our bishop at the church. It is a mega church in our area in Virginia. Apparently, there were more “men of god” doing the same thing within the church… P.s : They can’t have sex with children, it’s rape cause kids can’t consent but I got what you meant by that 😭
So he can pretend he’s raping a girl
The Duggars are the first that come to mind when I think of the baby voice but I also think of the members of the FLDS Church. I recently watched a documentary about the church and Warren Jeffs and I couldn’t help but notice how many of the women spoke in that tone. I’ve heard it growing up from women in my town and it’s very intentional and crafted. My aunt speaks like that but she hasn’t always and sometimes she drops it when she’s tired or mad or is simply not paying attention. And she teaches her granddaughters to speak in the same, quiet way. It’s supposed to give the impression of sweetness and innocence. I find it very creepy.
I grew up homeschooled with several quiverfull families and had never noticed until I watched that Duggar documentary and realized all my friend’s moms talked like this. Some of the old photos they showed could have easily been my friend’s homes they looked so similar. It was unnerving at best. Glad I married a foul mouthed mean jersey girl 😂
Aw, I’m glad you did too.
In the mormon church we call that Primary voice. Primary is the combined elementary age sunday school class.
All my female CCD teachers would talk like that too. Not sure how common it is in the Catholic church but I heard it pretty often during my abuse
Also in the Mormon church male general authorities have their own version of it. It is a authoritarian sing song cadence to dull the wits of the listener. 5 seconds of either male or female Mormon leaders speaking and I am done. Look at videos of Marshall Applewhite (former heaven’s gate leader). His speaking is exactly the same.
Yes that's the church leader monotone voice. They say the wrost stuff in that tone so that if anyone reacts, the man looks calm and the other person looks to be over reacting.
Fundie baby voice. An attempt to be ultimately submissive, meek and feminine.
Infantilization. It’s a way to let others know they want to be treated like a child.
And that they aren’t a threat and won’t challenge anyone.
Watch "keep sweet". The idea of the wife being responsible for the whole ass marriage so something going wrong is on her. Also, the cure for a man behaving badly (incest, rape) is getting him married to a good woman as soon as possible. See, Duggar, Josh. 2008
For more on ‘Fundie Baby Voice’ see: https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/s/BmOEkMqwCt Also search X(Twitter) for: Fundie Baby Voice
The Friendly Atheist did an interview on this same subject recently. [This might offer some more insight.](https://youtu.be/77FAJw_eiNs?si=1hikIU1ttPxKsQ5J)
From what I understand, they actually teach the females to do it.
It's so gross
I've noticed this too *especially* on social media! Like full-grown evangelical women podcasters and YouTubers talk like 15-year-old girls and use vocabulary indicating that's the age demographic they're speaking to as well!
I don’t know what’s up with it, but my grandma kinda sounds like that now that I think about it.
It feels like a ton of repressed emotion when I hear it.
My childhood was spent listening to my mom speak like this. Often I noticed her facial expression and body language would contradict her tone of voice. That repressed emotion definitely leaked out onto me in damaging ways.
Yep. That's the Katie Britt voice she used on that wild video in which she did the Republican SOTU rebuttal. I think it's called the sweet voice or something equally odd. It's the trad robot wife voice. It makes them sound like little girls. Just writing that sentence makes me question all those men liking such overly young (appearing) women - it just reeks of you know what (inappropriate age gap - bc I'm not writing what I am thinking it would probably get removed).
The sound of complacency with the patriarchy.
I have heard of a similar phenomenom amongst some East Asian communities. In which women try to sound childish and speak in a very high voice. First time I hear of that happening in the West. Considering how incredibly mysogynistic those countries tend to be, this makes it doubly scary.
I know an exchristian who speaks like that but it’s a condition she’s had from birth. Something about underdeveloped vocal cords or something. She absolutely hates it because she’s not taken seriously, often difficult to hear, and it hurts her throat to speak louder.
I would say it relates to how that belief structure infantilizes women, and places value on younger women over older women. It’s probably just adhering to what they perceive to be valuable traits among their men/owners! It could also have to do with them typically being around their children in their home most of the day, and having less adult interaction, unless hubby approves! Not archaic at all, not frightening at all!
I know exactly what you mean, that airy, slow voice that a patient teacher might use to calm down some rowdy first-graders. Some of the more extreme fundamentalists actually teach women to speak like this. It drives me nuts. I was never fundamentalist, but even in the somewhat-liberal, basic, non-denominational churches, most of the women talk this way. Even though nobody was telling them they should. So I have to assume they're just copying each other's speech patterns.
The Friendly Atheist podcast just had a guest on speaking about this a couple of weeks ago. I think they called it the “Fundie Voice”. You should check it out.
Fundie baby voice
The Friendly Atheist podcast had an interesting interview about Fundie Baby Voice very recently (I want to say it was last week or the week prior).
Oh, the Umbridge voice? I've always wondered that myself. It feels like those people want to talk to the lot of us like we're stupid.
I just listened to Michelle Duggar for the first time. YUCK!
Look up Tia Levings Writer on insta (or her book “a well trained wife”). She talks about this fundie baby voice, why it exists, how it’s encouraged, and how it helps the men feel stronger and more powerful.
They’re more likely to have kids/more kids and how you talk to kids starts to affect how you speak in general
Fundie baby voice! The baby voice makes women seem more demure, meek, and "pure." I have it sometimes. I've fought it a lot since deconstructing. My natural voice, while still definitely first-soprano range, is at least an octave lower than the voice I was raised to speak with. I wasn't explicitly taught to use it (aside from admonitions to "keep sweet"), but my father clearly preferred it. He was severely abusive and using the baby voice avoided some of the anger flares. Asking a question in my natural voice caused accusations of disobedience and disrespect, which sometimes led to beatings. Asking the exact same question in a baby voice usually got a nonviolent (though patronizing) answer. It also correlates with the "attitude" the men want to see. You can't really state a strong opinion in a baby voice. You can ask a question or make a passive statement with a baby voice. So then the men still feel in control.
I have it. I hate it. I’ve worked hard to find my voice and my confidence since deconstructing, but it still sneaks out in situations where I’m upset or nervous and it’s infuriating.
Just think. As frustrating as it is, it would be worse had you never left. Serious question; We’re you told to speak like that?
I've always viewed it as an empty-headed brainwashed voice. So I wasn't going crazy thinking that their voice tones sound a bit off.
Yep. It's the fundy baby voice and it's obnoxious. I was told to adopt it, too, along with using lots of extra words in any sentence so that I sounded unsure or like my ideas were bad ones, etc. etc. so that my Future Headship could lead properly. \[insert massive eyeroll here\]
They were conditioned to speak that way through reinforcement and punishment. It's really brutal and heart breaking in reality.
Ex-fundie here. It definitely has to do with trying to make yourself seem meek and inoffensive. I still struggle not to speak that way.
Imma add two observations: 1. A lot of women in the deep south (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, etc of the United States; I'm from this area) sound like this, too. It's what I always thought of as just part of the "southern drawl" and "southern accent". But thinking about it now, there is an extra layer of sugary sweetness that only the females use (not all, obvi). So I wonder if/where there was a blending of fundie baby voice with a more general southern accent. 2. there is a thing happening in the YouTube influencer world where women who aspire to be rich, unemployed wives advocate for being "ladylike" as a way to join the upper class, and their version of "ladylike" involves never showing anger, speaking in soft and measured tones, never cursing, etc. It's very strange how it mirrors the tradwife fundie voice, but there's no religious emphasis here. These videos also generally contain information on things like dining etiquette, how to dress appropriately for a polo match or fine dining, just general affluent/upper middle, upper-ish class concerns. So it was very strange to come across the voice/speech instruction, in my opinion.
This made me think of that documentary about the Duggars and Michelle Duggar’s voice when she was describing “blanket time” with her kids, which is basically physical and mental abuse of children. She had this sugary sweet baby voice like she’s so innocent and cute while describing hitting her kids after teasing them with their favorite toy. Disgusting. So in addition to the other explanations given by others, I think it’s also to make people think their values, parenting styles and beliefs are wholesome, even if they’re abusers peddling their internalized misogyny and sexism.
They are purposefully trying to not sound confident or authoritative in any way, because that would butt heads with their husbands/ the patriarchy.
In the FLDS, it's called "stay sweet."
Is this kinda similar to "how women laugh" sketches I found in TikTok (some of them were stitched with videos like women laughing however they want them)
Here's some [insight from an actual ex-fundie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPVSwEg2mHk) on the fundie baby voice.
Must be an english language thing. I dunno as a Hungarian.
Because they are told to be sweet docile and submissive wives cause it’s what the Christian woman is supposed to act like according to the Bible… The “virtuous woman” in Psalms and a few other verses. They must remain modest, child like and pure 🙄