Is anyone watching Shiny Happy People on Prime? It’s a documentary that exposes what has really been going on in families like the Duggars, with the focus on them, of course. They speak to some of the family members–kids, cousins, others. The show also goes into depth regarding Bill Gothard and IBLP–they provided the “teachings” that the parents follow.
I can only watch about 20 minutes at a time–it is that disturbing. Because it involves real kids, it is much more upsetting than any random horror movie. They barely received an education to speak of, everything is authoritarian, the wife/mother is infantilized, the older kids are made into surrogate parents due to the sheer number of siblings, they grew up in a constant state of fear and anxiety and “don’t do this or that,” there was physical and sexual abuse, and more.
I always figured this would happen someday. I just didn’t realize it would be this bad.
I think it also bugs me because my older niece, “Dina,” is not nearly as extreme as these folks are, but is homeschooling to make sure the kids “learn” that the Earth is only 6K years old, among other things. She has four young ones and another due soon. She has also been sharing online about how people should have ten kids if they want to because they can handle it if they just have enough faith.
I guess I should be glad that her girls can wear pants and leggings as well as attend dance and ballet classes, which the Duggar girls never could. Still, it is troubling to think that these kids are being raised in what might become similar to a Quiver full.
I have not/will not be watching the show, but I doubt there is any basic information about quiverfull families in it that hasn’t been publicly known for many years. Try a few links from this search, for example.
I just completed the dccumentary, I had not watched the show about the family on the Learning Channel, so I was only vaguely aware of them. Their father was a real piece of crap and the whole thing is a cult and he was clearly hoping to be the new leader.
One thing that women who escaped both Quiverfull and FLDS communities said that they never saw a marriage that could have been described as happy, although Quiverfull was not quite as cruel as FLDS, especially to “extra” boys.
Many years ago, my sister said of the Duggars, “You just know that at least one of those kids is going to be gay” and there have been persistent rumors about Jana, the oldest daughter, and also one of the boys. We already know now that one of them is a child molester, sadly.
The R.E.M. camp has not been happy about them co-opting a title of one of their hits, FWIW.
I had a friend who escaped from Corpus Christi TX and her conservative upbringing to become quite liberal. She would not, however, hear any criticism of the Duggars. She began suffering from dementia in the last few years, so I’m hoping that she’s not had to hear all this come out about the family.
I tried broaching the subject with her a couple of times, but gave up. Some people just have their special blind spots.
Ohh, I relate hardcore to this. I was raised in a pretty I-don’t-know-the-best-word-to-use household: anti-vax, abstinence only education, homeschooling, women should not dress in a way tempting to men, pray for healing when you’re sick, etc. Even though I left that lifestyle, it’s still hard to hear people criticize it, because they’re basically calling your parents, your upbringing, and all the values you were raised in idiotic. People who have been raised in the religion can talk about it afterwards with proper sensitivity and nuance, but people who were never raised in it are criticizing something that they were never close to and never saw as anything but absurd.
I will read criticism of this lifestyle, or watch it on YouTube or something, because I know that I can just walk away if it gets to be too much. But I absolutely don’t like to be part of conversations where people criticize it in person.
And that’s why I gave up. I didn’t harass her when I knew it pushed her buttons. Her politics were even more radical than mine, so that made up for it!
I’ve made it through three episodes so far. It’s horrifying, what I’ve seen so far. I feel sickened after each episode. My wife and mother-in-law were semi-obsessed with the “X And Counting” shows when they were on. My wife now feels a bit of shame for contributing to Jim Bob’s success.
They never appealed to me, but I was on the Free Jinger and Television Without Pity sites early on and knew a lot of the backstory that never made it to the unsuspecting and incurious public.
I completely understand- I was raised in a (thankfully) more liberal version of the evangelical church but still some of the things , especially concerning the authority of the father and expected modesty of girls/women, are very familiar.
My parents had all of James Dobson’s books and, being a reader myself, I probably had read them all by the time I was twelve and I don’t remember anything that extreme about them- mostly promoting family structure and responsibility. My parents certainly didn’t beat us though my dad could get quite angry- I think that was a product of his childhood and not related to the religion. We were spanked but I think I can only remember myself having one notable one that was more scary that painful.
The main thing I do directly fault my parents and the religion for is the 3 years I spent in a substandard Christian school in junior high. Not only was I protected from learning about evolution, I also went in as an advanced math student and left it having made zero progress and being behind as soon as I got to high school. All to avoid learning something that is 100%, obviously, true.
My experience may not totally align but there were good (and not so good) people in that church and some were very successful, intelligent and/or kind people. I also noticed as I grew up that 40 years later, some of the most diehard church folks …went another way… .
None of it was surprising to me. Fundamentalist religious cults are known for financial corruption, sexual abuse, promoting ignorance, emotional repression, authoritarian hierarchies, etc. I never bought into the whole super happy mythology that groups like this promote. The only thing that I didn’t expect was that TLC didn’t pay the kids anything, even when they had their own show as adults. They gave all the money to the parents.