I don’t know. It might work, if Earthworm Jim’s children serendipitously happen to be creepy-as-hell little Midwich Cuckoos, or able to pass.
I don’t know enough about them to really judge if they’re good parents or not, but it does kind of worry me that they seem so…compulsive about having kids. It does remind me of the same kind of mental illness that drives people to hoard animals or let garbage pile up in their house. They get a kick out of the excitement of a new baby arriving, but then it wears off and they need to have yet another kid just to get the same high apparently.
Surely she must be getting to the age where fertility should be on teh decline. I wonder what will happen once God or Mother Nature finally say, “okay, enough!”. I also wonder what will happen if they have a child with serious genetic health problems due to her advancing age and the “buddy system” isn’t adequate for caring for the kid.
This sums up all the Fundies and Evangelicals I’ve ever met.
I just wish the mom would get a new hair cut.
Quivering, ho!
Are these the same people harping on single mothers? I hope not.
And how do they make it work? Aside from buying second hand clothing…
From a commenter on Jezebel
How are loans a burden on society?
I’m not at all offended that way others seem to be. I thought it was cool that the kids all helped build the new house. I don’t see “selfish” at all.
Kids shouldn’t be building a new house nor should they be paired with a younger sibling that they’re supposed to parent. They’re supposed to be kids.
I suppose the Duggar family is an anomaly in white America, but I have lots of Hispanic friends that have families where there are 10-15 kids. Well, my friend’s generally have 2-5 siblings, but they quite regularly have 15 aunts and uncles. Heck, one friend’s grandma gave birth to 20 children, 18 of which survived to adulthood (in CA, not some random village in the Mexican hills).
So while I suppose things are changing- especially when most of my friends have more “normal” amounts of siblings, I’m always amazed when I hear that Abuela gave birth 19 times.
Now that I think about it, I have 3 friends that have 10 siblings each (those three friends aren’t related, obviously 
and we’re 21).
There’s nothing wrong with having the kids help build the new house, nor with helping take care of the younger kids. When either one of those things becomes a fulltime occupation for a kid, then there’s a problem.
It wasn’t even amusing, it was crap, just another judgmental liberal screed aimed at someone who has a different set of values and priorities than the author. I’ll bet you $100, cash, that Mark Morford fervently supports the right of a woman to have an abortion (as do I, BTW), but here he is condemning a woman who choses to have children and raise them. Anyone who doesn’t think that that’s all kind of fucked up has tapioca for brains. The whole Op-ed is nothing more than an attention whore shouting “Hey, look at me, look how cleverly I can write, yet manage to keep from saying anything of substance!” (Hmmm, I wonder if we’ve discovered 'Luci’s real name? 
)
What exactly is the “recommended” amount of attention that each child needs, oh sage of parenting? My two kids each need differing amounts, because they are individuals. Doing things together as a family counts too, in case you haven’t figured that out. Every thing I’ve seen the once or twice that I’ve caught shows on the Duggers show that the kids are a normal, healthy, reasonably happy bunch who have a strong sense of family and responsibility. Dear God, we can’t have that, can we? Boil the Duggers in oil! Seventeen kids may not be a choice that you would make (I sure as hell wouldn’t), but as long as the kids aren’t being abused ((I’ve seen no evidence that they are, have you?) and the family isn’t sucking off the public tit to support their brood, I really don’t see what business it is of anyone not named Dugger, nor why anyone should care.
(Not pickin’ on ya Wee, but you happened to make the 2 comments in the thread that I wanted to respond to)
There was an “or” in that sentence. What I’m saying is I withold judement on how sucessful they are until I see if their kids turn out to be beacons of society or headfucked leeches.
As a Hispanic, that was usually the case because the women’s movement took a much longer time to flourish. Modern hispanics don’t have anywhere near the kinds of large families they used to, and when they do, socioeconomically it has to do more with their educational level and the wife’s inability to make decisions about her reproductive state.
No worries. This article praising them would be more to your liking then 
Assuming the chosen ones sleep, 17 kids divided by whatever hours remain in a day is less than one hour per child, tops, even if they had no chores, constant cleaning, feeding, cooking, etc. I would say a three year old could use more attention from a parent than that. My guess is Jim Bob is too worn out from all that sex to help much.
I’d love to see a follw up detailing what medications each one is on, etc.
Good grief, I have a young co-worker whose IM handle is something to do with a “full quiver”. I knew he was religious, and he told me the handle was from a bible verse, but I didn’t know it was a movement. He’s in his mid-20’s, he’s been married three years and has three children.
I think I just threw up a little bit on the floor.
When I saw that TLC special I thought they were just odd. When I heard that Jim Bob wanted to be a senator, I realized that he’s literally manufacturing voters. :eek:
That sent a chill up my spine, because they can’t be the only ones doing so. Larry’s link makes that all the more clear.
While I agree with the general point you are making, in the case of one of my three friends with 10 siblings, their mother has a PhD, so I’m fairly certain she’s informed about her body and how it works (she’s actually not Hispanic, but married to a Mexican-American man).
Granted, anecdote isn’t the plural of data and all of that, I’m just saying that large families aren’t just found in fundie Christian families in backwards Arkansas. Sometimes there are intelligent, informed folks that want to have a boatload of kids.
I was under the impression (from the one “special” I’ve seen) that the girls are offered no chance of a higher education or a career outside of the home, and that they are the only ones who have to do “house” chores (cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc.).
Also note, the TLC special was not a Capturing the Friedman’s type expose- do you think it would have been aired if they didn’t approve of their depiction? They allowed the show into their home. Not saying they aren’t like that all the time, I’m just saying you can’t automatically assume things are like that all the time becasue the special says so.
And also, living debt-free doesn’t automatically mean that dad’s income alone supports the family. Maybe it does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they get big time donations from supporters, as someone upthread mentioned. I would say many really poor people are debt free, but only because they can’t get the credit to be in debt.
Sin of Onanism: no he doesn’t.
Yeah, but I predict that at least half of those kids will end up radical liberals. Does introducing them into the world balance out the few that will share their parents’ fervency (as opposed to the ones who’ll inevitably be more like “Yeah, I go to church and believe in God and all, but not this ‘Full Quiver’ stuff”)?
Give him time, he’ll get to 17 
God, that link to the family photo literally creepd me out- Like Village of the Damned times four. I see they have a family website (with a page for each, supposedly) but am too freaked out now to look it at.
If the photo freaks you out, be sure to avoid actually listening to the Mom speak or watching her on TV. She’s incredibly creepy - very Children of the Corn.