The Duggers are at it again! [Family preparing for 18th child]

Great Debates
61

Think for a moment about all of the women around the country who, everyday, are giving birth to yet another out-of-wedlock child. I was on an installation for work in California 2 weeks ago, and my contact at the hospital was explaining how great their birthing centers were- the largest in the country with 600 births per month- and how you could have your baby in comfort without being able to pay. In fact, there were women who had come to the facility for all of their pregnancies without paying a dime!

During the course of my work, I had time to speak with a few nurses, and overhear several conversations; particularly related to how many children were being born in the facility per month. Several nurses indicated that many mothers had in excess of 10 children- One woman had 21!

Why are they not news? Why are we not reading articles about these women, and educating them that having that many children without a way to support them is a bad thing?
Could it be that the only reason these people are in the news is because they are a white, conservative, Christian family from Arkansas? You don’t suppose we could be attempting to point out how religion brainwashes people, could we? How any “sane” woman couldn’t possibly want to have that many children?

If you go to their website; you will find that the Duggars are quite possibly role models for American families. I give you (from their “Fun Facts” page) this:

· The Duggars do approximately 200 loads of laundry each month.
· The Duggars feed their entire brood for less than $2,000 per month.
· Every Duggar child learns to play both violin and piano.
· The family organizes their household chores by assigning “jurisdictions,” so everyone knows exactly what their daily responsibilities are.
· The Duggars estimate all the family members combined have worked approximately 39,000 total hours building their new house.
· The Duggars are debt free.

Wow! 200 loads of laundry, 39,000 family man hours to build a house, and chores given out by “jurisdiction”. That, my friends, cannot be accomplished by a man and woman alone- Obviously they have reared their children to be respectful, obedient, look out for each other, and to be responsible. That’s refreshing!

Each child learns the violin and piano. This indicates a good education; something has enabled their brains to be able to absorb both instruments. (Not to mention the time needed for someone to teach them)

Look at the family photos. All of them are well dressed, clean, combed, and well-behaved. I’m sure many a school teacher wished their classrooms boasted similar results.

Finally, this family is debt free….no, no wait:

This family is debt free!

Is that not the definition of “role model”? I don’t hear them crying over getting in to a mortgage they couldn’t afford. I don’t hear them bemoaning the poor economy, and how the government isn’t doing anything to help. The only reason these people should be in the news is to show how things should be done; something to aspire to no matter the number of children.

Yet I feel, somehow, that this is only being talked about because they are a Southern, Christian (gasp- “Cultish Christians! Those Quiverfulls…They are worse than Mormons!”), family from Arkansas (“At least they have enough boys to impregnate the sisters! Har! Har! Har!”).

62

So I guess you’re NOT in favor of reproductive freedom for women after all?

63

The family is debt free, again, because they take handouts, not loans. How can you tell a child is well behaved from a snapshot? You can look in their eyes and tell they’re all dead inside.

64

Maybe, but I’m not going to condemn anyone for being religious. Just because that’s the reason you choose to livd a certain lifestyle, it doesn’t mean that lifestyle is bad, damaging, fraught with unhappiness and discontent or anything else.

65

I think my biggest problem with it is that is doesn’t seem to me that she wants more kids, just that she feels that she shouldn’t try to stop herself from conceiving. If she said, “I love kids and I want to try and have at least 25!” I could say that, though I think she is nuts, she is doing what she wants to do. Her theory of, “Well, God will stop me from having more if I shouldn’t have them.” sounds to me like a very irresponsible way to live your life. In fact there is a pit thread about that kind of thinking open right now.

I knew a woman who was very overweight who kept telling me that she prayed and that if God wanted her to lose the weight she would, but instead of using the logic and power of choice that her deity gave her she kept buying Little Debbies and Tombstone pizzas. Rather than take responsibility for her choices she blamed it on God. I never said anything to her about it because it was her life and her body to do with what she pleased, but the Duggars aren’t just screwing with their own lives. There are now 18 kids that are forced into this lifestyle whether or not it is healthy or wise. What will happen if Mom and Dad are in a car accident one day or Mom gets cancer or Dad is disabled and can’t work? They would be beyond fucked. They would be, in fact, super-fucked with a glow in the dark dildo.

66

I’ve heard this argument before, but I’ve never really “gotten” it. I mean, does nature really intend for us to do anything? Women had lots of babies in the old days and probably fewer periods, but does that mean that that was what we were designed for, instead of something that happened as a result of human females being fertile year round? Could you not just as easily say that having lots of children took a toll on a woman’s body and that maybe only now we’re doing as nature “intended”?

67

Sure, I do.

And it’s obvious that the more children a woman has, the more risks she’s taking, especially as she gets older.

Balanced against that risk, of course, is the positive value in bringing another life into the world, one that will be cared for by a family that’s managed so far to care for their children quite well, not needing aid from the government to do so, and is debt-free to boot.

Of course, this is a balancing that defies any rigorous process. If we could say that the risk of medical problems is 12, and the value of bringing a new child into the world is 4, and not needing welfare to raise that child is 2, then we’d see that she should stop: 12 on one side and 6 on the other.

But these factors can only be weighed subjectively, by you. You’re the only person here who can weigh all the risks and decide what should be done by this family. I’m sure they’d appreciate your call as soon as you’ve reached a decision.

Oh, wait.

Maybe it’s the Duggers who are the only ones that can weigh those factors. Silly me. My mistake.

68

It’s not my problem if you can’t understand basic probability and statistics. This is simple enough for an average fourth-grader to grasp.

69

Doesn’t that risk apply to a family of five kids? Of two kids?

70

You’ll be kind enough to point out for me exactly where I said otherwise? But, since you brought it up, no, I don’t think think they’re rationally capable of weighing those risks. People who live their lives by the dictum that “God will provide” rarely are.

71

Please stop posting. I’ve looked into your words, and you’re dead inside, too. This forum is for living participants only.

72

I, too, have a list of behaviors that indicate lack of rational choice on the part of the actors involved. But I recognize that my list reflects my own prejudices, and thus (usually) keep it to myself.

I find it more problematic, for example, when a person requires tax dollars in order to feed their family. Rely on voluntary handouts all you wish; the key word there is voluntary. When you require tax dollars, you are requiring that I pay for your inability to manage your life.

I’m much more interested in results than motivations. You may sneer at their confidence that “God will provide;” in fact, they are provided for without reaching into my pocket once. I prefer this to someone who says “God won’t provide, but welfare will.”

73

It does, but the risk is much more managable with 2 or 5 kids. Finding someone to care for your children when you die is much easier when your sister can adopt your 2 kids or your mother can raise your brood of 5. When you have 18 you now have a group of kids so large that the odds of finding enough care takers for them drops sharply. Even if you only have 13 or 14 who are young enough to need that care it is still a tremendous task to undertake.

On top of that you should have enough life insurance to cover living expenses and college educations for each of your children. If you have two kids having 5 or 10 times your income in life insurance is doable and not too incredibly expensive. When you have 18 kids having 50 to100 times your income is something that you will not ever find a company to cover, and even if you did that cost will be more than any of their other expenses. It is a ridiculously dangerous game they are playing, and one accident could leave them fuxxored. They are already living off the charity of others just to keep up with their day to day lives. What will they do in the event of a catastrophic accident? Hell, even a minor problem looks like it could be a major tipping point for them. If this next child is born handicapped the money they will have to spend to care for their new baby and the inability to just foist it off on the next oldest child might very well be the nudge over the line into welfare and food stamps.

What was it Jeff Goldblum’s character said in Jurrasic Park? “You were so focused on whether or not you could that you didn’t stop to think about whether or not you should!”

74

I have never seen that they take “handouts”. They’re not on the governemnt dole. Their “church” from what I’ve seen, consists of a few families meeting in living rooms, so they aren’t receiving handouts there. They do have yearly specials on the Discovery channel, for which I assume they’ve been paid, but that’s about it.

I don’t see them proselytizing their religions beliefs on TV, besides saying they feel this is God’s plan for them. Yes, they’re raising their children with their religious beliefs, but so did my Catholic parents.

Saying that they should be adopting all these children is difficult, because it’s very hard to adopt infants in this country. Yes, there’s a risk with each pregnancy. There’s also a risk every time they get in a car.

Why does it bother people so much how these folks chose to live their lives?

StG

75

Q.E.D., it appears that you are assuming that the risks associated with each pregnancy are uncorrelated. That assumption is not bad for coin flips, but for pregnancy, it seems quite unlikely to me. Many pregnancy complications that cause risks to mother and child tend to recur from pregnancy to pregnancy. It seems more likely that once a woman has had three or four uncomplicated pregnancies, we know that her body is “good at” pregnancy and they will continue to be uncomplicated. (Says the woman sitting in the hospital for seven weeks now for placenta previa, probably caused by my prior C-section which was in turn caused by preeclampsia. Even if I weren’t too old for it now, I doubt my body has ever been capable of producing 18+ living children.)

If you’re going to castigate people for not knowing fourth-grade math, maybe you should think about whether the assumptions they teach you in fourth grade actually apply. The general statement is P(AB)=P(A)*P(B|A), not P(A)*P(B).

76

Where are they getting handouts?

And they look a lot more alive inside than some emo kids I’ve seen.

77

Not at all. Regardless of what the actual risk is for a given individual, it is certainly nonzero and is not likely to decrease with subsequent births. The argument is simply that the risk for this individual having 18 or 20 offspring is greater than for her having only 1 or 2. The risk relative to other individuals is irrelevant. But, thanks for the unnecessary math lesson.

78

Whatever. These people put themselves in the public eye. Each one of us has every right to give them adoration, indifference, or contempt.

And I alluded to me knowing my cites sucked. I was at work, Googled for two minutes. If you believe pregnancy, especially 18, carries no risk, then find your own cite.

Can these parents pay for 18 kids to go to college? Pay for weddings?
If not, are they allowed to find jobs like many other teenagers to save for themselves?
What if one of them gets sick? Hurt? Still gonna be debt-free?

These problems are possible for ALL families. But it has the potential to be much worse where there are 18 possible offspring to be stricken with these problems.

79

This risk is mitigated by the fact that their older children can – and have already shown that they can – help care for the younger ones.

Well, this is worth discussing, I suppose. How much life insurance do the Dugger parents carry? Is it term, which would make the cost manageable at the expense of equity in the policy, or whole life?

They depend on the charity of others, such that without it, they’d be in the red? How do you know?

Again, this is a predicament shared by many families across the country. But for their large brrod, they could live a very wealthy lifestyle. They have chosen to live more simply and have more children. Unless you know something about the family’s balance sheet that I don’t…

Perhaps that’s not true in this case. Perhaps they have weighed the risks and decided to exercise their reproductive freedom - a phrase I thought I knew the meanig of until I read this thread. Now it seems to mean something a bit different.

80

I think what they tend to get is hand-me-down clothes and toys and that kind of thing. There’s no shortage of that stuff in the world…go to any Goodwill store to see that. It’s not like taking those hand-me-downs is taking the clothes off some other child’s back.

That’s right. We ALL were raised in our own culture, and most of us were pretty much like our neighbors and friends. Who are we to say that another culture is inherently better? They aren’t doing anything evil.

That’s the thing I don’t get. I’m not such a big fan of the idea of having 18 children, I’m just always surprised at how angry it seems to make people.