The family is a part of the Quiverfull movement and philosophy. Girls in this tradition are often not given much education past the basics, and the core of their upbringing is being trained on how to be a good “helpmeet” to their eventual husbands.
It may be true that some of the daughters will leave the family’s philosophy and the movement, but the ones that stay will be expected to engage in the same behaviors as their parents.
Yeah, at least some of the daughters will leave the movement. But was I was trying to say is that the older girls could end up stuck at home helping to raise their younger siblings instead of finding a husband.
That’s exactly what happened with my great-grandmother, who put her whole life on hold and missed her chance at formal education when her mother became chronically ill and later died of complications from some unspoken uterine issue after 3 midlife miscarriages. But that was far more understandable in 1900, when there were no safe and reliable birth control methods, than it is today. Someday, at least a few of those girls will grow up and resent the hell out of their parents for this injustice. And I too think that this pregnancy is way too risky. What reasonable mother thinks that it’s okay if God smites you and leaves it to Jinger and Jehosephat and Justpickanormalname to raise all those babies? When Mrs. Duggar arrives at the Pearly Gates, trailing her ruptured uterus and her dreadfully premature baby, I suspect that one of the first questions asked will be “Didn’t you notice all those ads for Depo Provera and Nuvaring? Jesus H. Me! It’s a vagina, not a clown car!”
In many Quiverfull families, marriages are “arranged” in the sense that the families hang out with each other at pre-arranged social gatherings created for the purposes of finding mates for the children. There’s very little choice in terms of the girls’ lives, so the girls will be forced to marry at some point if they are to be considered good helpmeets.
If anyone’s interested in reading more about the movement, this website contains stories written by women who were part of it but are no longer involved. The stories are pretty sad.
Although I personally am not at all in sympathy with either the Duggars’ religious beliefs or their reproductive choices, I think it’s early days to be accusing them of ruining their daughters’ adult lives in some kind of spinster-style Kinder-Kueche-Kirche slavery.
The four eldest girls are apparently aged 17 to 21, and they seem to have received the same amount and type of formal education as their brothers (i.e., very little: home schooling to the level of a high school diploma (GED), and optional online post-secondary education in the “CollegePlus!” program).
Neither of the Duggar parents has a college degree and they don’t seem to be especially encouraging either their daughters or their sons to seek one.
Cynically, I tend to think that the publicity and merchandising boost that the Duggars would receive from the weddings of any of their daughters would easily overcome any objections they might have to losing said daughters’ services as unpaid nannies and housekeepers.
Oldest children - complete loss of freedom due to raising younger siblings.
Middle children - barely known to their parents. Completely lost in the pack.
Youngest children - not special at all - been done so many times. Barely known to their parents either, due to being raised by oldest siblings.
My opinions, of course.
Is the dad’s name really Jim Bob?
Are we playing the name game?
Joan for a girl. Jeb for a boy.
Thatsthejoke.jpg
Kimstu, I’m not saying that any of those girls (or boys, for that matter,) are giving up the chance for mom and dad to send them to Harvard or East Bumblef*ck U, nor that it’s a bad thing for elder siblings to change a few diapers or babysit. But the Duggars’ style of parenting seems to me to set so many limits: their children are raised to think that they can’t righteously choose to limit their family size and pursue some other passion. And the older children are assigned to raise the younger. Even in my own poor and backwards family, the oldest girl had aspirations beyond raising children, even when circumstances thrust that upon her. The Duggar kids don’t seem to have any notion of a horizon that extends past “read the Bible and reproduce.”
There were a couple of sets of twins so she hasn’t had 21 pregnancies. 19, I think. Not that that makes it okay or anything - the risk level must be through the roof by now.
The Duggars kind of freak me out - the kids are so clean-cut in a weird 1950s way, with their khakis and polo shirts and flowery dresses. Even in their teenage years, not one of those kids wanted to rebel and dye their hair or wear all black or even wear jeans or a printed T-shirt? It just strikes me as very fakey. And the mother is way, way too calm. It’s creepy.
And there is no way Jinger is a name. And even if it was, it would be pronounced to rhyme with singer, not ginger. That kid got the short end of the stick.
No, it’s a clown semi by now.:smack:
I’m somewhat astonished by all of the hatred directed toward the Duggars in this thread.
It seems like they’re basically good people that value family/children, so naturally they want to have lots of kids.
The outrage expressed here is not only unfounded, it’s absurd.
I don’t see any outrage. I see amusement and disdain, with a healthy dose of :smack:, as well as some factual information about the Quiverfull movement of which they are a part. There’s also some posts containing factual information about the family itself.
I think I read somewhere that one of the girls wanted to be a nurse, but that her family was trying to discourage her. (Sorry, no cite)
I think when you start having kids just to have kids, (which is, in a nutshell, what the whole “quiverfull” thing really is all about), it’s time to start rethinking your priorities. Have kids because you love your children and want to raise them. For her, they’re just means to an end, it seems.
Almost like she’s addicted to it.
I’m not reading much outrage here, just a lot of puzzlement over a family that chooses a lifestyle so alien to many of us, and with so many weird manifestations.
My take, based on what I’ve read about the Quiverful movement in general and the Duggars in particular:
Okay, so they base their reproductive choices on one (maybe two, if you also count “be fruitful and multiply,”) lines in the Old Testament. And historically, high birth rates have been the norm throughout human history. But why cherry-pick the guidelines for righteous living outlined in the Old Testament? If you’re gonna reproduce within an inch of your life, why not also eschew beard trimming, shellfish, and cotton/poly blends? And where’s the scriptural justification for their expectation that each elder child should be assigned a younger sibling to raise? Why does Ma Duggar switch from nursing to formula feeding so early if not to circumvent the biological depression in fertility conferred by lactation - I’ve read in several places that she nurses for just a few weeks before weaning to a bottle. Are Ma and Pa viewed as more righteous because their quiver is fuller than the other members of their movement? And what exactly is so holy and righteous about a mother of 19 with a history of preeclampsia and dangerously premature birth risking her life to add another arrow to the quiver? It’s all so alien to me, and yes, I am being judgmental, but I have serious reservations about the choices they make for their children.
Not to mention that, if you go on national television and expose your lifestyle for public consumption, you’ve pretty much agreed to make yourself a target for disagreement and judgment, for good or for ill. And I think that’s pretty unfair to the kids, whether they’re Duggar offspring or octuplets or competing in beauty pageants. Childhood and adolescence is fraught with enough pitfalls without the constant presence of a camera crew.
Plus: Jinger? Really?!
In the Quiverfull movement, it’s the mother’s Duty To God And Church to have as many children as possible. Whether or not you want them, or love them, is pretty much irrelevant, although I am certainly not saying that Michelle Duggar or any other Quiverfull mother doesn’t love her children. In fact, from the very little I have seen of the Duggars, I do believe that they are caring, loving parents in their own way. The children seem happy, well-adjusted, and functional.
But in the Quiverfull one’s personal opinion about whether or not to breed are not under the woman’s control or decision. It is entirely up to God and one’s husband. The woman is expected to breed early and often.
She may be “addicted” to it in the sense that in that movement, the number of children one has is considered a sign of one’s commitment to the philosophy. Or perhaps addicted to the celebrity it’s brought her, both in the mainstream community and in the Quiverfull community.
Lol!
The show WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? has found the Duggars English grandparents. Clip.
I agree, but that horizon seems to be equally limited for sons and daughters alike. This is equal-opportunity religious puritanism here.
I don’t know anything about it, but the Duggars’ blog says that the two oldest girls are interested in studying midwifery and nursing, and are taking classes and studying under professionals.
She wishes. Can you imagine having to go through labor for the twentieth time? Yikes. If only post-childbirth vaginal looseness really happened to the extent that the jokes pretend it does, at least it would pay off in ease of subsequent childbirths.