Thanks for clarifying, but I’m still pretty sure I fall into that group. (Good company, to be sure, but still…)
Plus, I’m not really making any headway, have you noticed?
I actually thought I remembered it from one of their shows…but I remember it like friends would give them stuff, or leave a bag on their front steps, that kind of thing. Not that they were going around collecting stuff from a church or anything. To me, that’s perfectly normal. When my day care provider’s daughter grows out of her stuff, she’ll give it to me, then when my daughter grows out of it, I’ll pass it along to another mom who has a younger one. Doesn’t everyone do that?
And even if they do it to raise some cash, what’s wrong with that? Their shows are a lot more dignified than going on Wife Swap, and lots of people are apparently willing to put their kids through that.
That’s what I think, too. I have 2 kids, and I’m stopping there (ok, I might have 1 or 2 more if I weren’t so elderly 
), but they seem like nice folks. Who am I to say their way isn’t better or richer in some way?
Are you aware most research is done with white rats? Because they are easy to obtain and resemble humans in many ways?
Also that maybe it’s hard to find these somewhat more rare huge families and get them to consent for data collection?
And that obviously humans cannot be used in an experiment like this due to ethics?
And did you read the first sentence? Abstracts aren’t supposed to cite other articles, only talk about their own study and general knowledge.
You can’t just diss a cite for something like that. You keep calling for cites and dismissing everything. Yeah I didn’t find one huge meta-analysis titles “Having lots of kids is bad for your health” but I found at least a shred of evidence. I also have a life, and don’t care enough, because this is not the crux of my argument, just a minor add-on I was called out on.
I don’t need a cite to think this family is crazy. It’s personal opinion, straight up. A lot of it is influenced by my personal distaste for their flavor of religion. I am not saying they should be prevented from having more children. But I am saying I don’t agree with the act or the reasons.
A few weeks ago I met a woman who was from a family of 20 brothers and sisters. She didn’t seem at all unhappy about it.
I mean, your argument, logically, kicks in at the second kid. I have one daughter; is it unfair to her if we have another kid, since I won’t be able to give my daughter as many things?
You said that a poor, inner-city mother should refrain from having a child based on her lack of college education or her likely inability to pay for that child’s college?
I don’t and freely admit I assumed that when people donate items to a church they expect the church to give the item to someone who cannot afford the item and needs it, not to someone who doesn’t really need it but could use it. Is this incorrect? Church handouts are not for the poor, but for the frugal?
Bricker, unless you can show someone in this thread who is advocating making it *illegal *to have 18 kids, I’m not sure where you’re coming from. Even the strenuously pro-choice don’t think people should be denied the right to express opinions about abortion.
Or, maybe you’re just trying to establish a basis for hypocrisy. But someone who thinks women should have “reproductive freedom,” but also thinks it’s a bad idea to have 18 kids, is not a hypocrite. If they thought it should be legal to have an abortion, but illegal to have 18 kids, then you’d have a case.
That’s what I was thinking. Even with the four in my family, we had to spread things kind of thin sometimes. I guess I COULD be resentful that #3 & 4 were ever born, but I’ll keep them around, thanks. If I disappeared them, our older brother might get me next.
So it was ok to have lots of kids before when there was less of a choice, but now that it’s more of a choice, it’s wrong? Would you be willing to be the first Chief of Procreation Police? Or maybe Child Raising Cops or Religious Regulation?
My objection was not to ‘in rats’ but to ‘is associated with’, sorry if I confused you. ‘Is associated with’, is not proof of anything, ask the tobacco companies if you don’t believe me!
That subjects are difficult to find doesn’t really have anything to do with it, either way.
Thank you, that’s more like it. That was all I was asking for. Hey, maybe I am making headway after all!
Honestly, unless you’re like a millionaire, there is no way you can afford, debt-free and all, to send anywhere near 18 kids to college. Even if they get scholarships, there are so many of them close in age, if they go away to school, mom and dad don’t seem to be able to help out with books and dorm room, unless they save a significant amount of money each month.
If you can have three kids, and afford to go on vacation every once in awhile, buy them new clothes for school, help pay for college, and have a good amount of time to spend with each kid, then why have 18 and lose many of these things? No one wants to scrimp by, why purposefully put yourself and children in that situation? It’s not like they’re homeless or anywhere close, but it still just doesn’t make sense to me.
You can’t compare a life with 3 siblings to one with SEVENTEEN. I mean, seventeen siblings! And unless you’re a bad person, you’d probably never wish your siblings weren’t born just so you could get an ipod.
Do no parents ever think “Well, I know how much money we make. It could change for better or worse, but this is what we have now. I’d like to have a kid. Will it cause financial strain at this point and would I be depriving my child of stuff I want them to have? What about if I have two kids?” And so on?
And I’m not saying it’s WRONG. I never said it was wrong. I just said I personally think it my not be the best choice.
Well there isn’t much “proof” out there really if stuff like this isn’t good enough for you. When you write a scientific article, you’re not supposed to say “x proved y.” That’s fundamentally wrong. You say “x showed a relationship with y” or similar.
And my “personal opinion” quote did not apply to the issue of pregnancy and health. It applied to my overall view that having 18 kids because you think god fills your womb as he pleases and birth control is wrong is stupid and not a great environment for children to be raised in. No facts can apply to that.
Oh, sure they do…that’s what most parents do, I would guess. My mother has told me that she would have really liked to have 6, but realistically she knew she would not be able to help us all with college if she did. And I think that’s a balance most people make. And, frankly, it wouldn’t have killed me to pay my own way through. I also think that our lifestyles now do not lend themselves to having large families. Take me…I work full-time and have 2 kids in daycare. I couldn’t afford to do that if I had more kids, so if I did I would have to stay home. It’s not a big deal, but it’s a lifestyle change.
There are all kinds of considerations in planning families. But, is my choice better or worse? I’d say that it would be pretty easy to come up with a bunch of objections to my working and having my kids in day care, and some of them might even be the same as objections to the Duggar’s choices…less time for bonding, for example. We all do what we think is right for ourselves, and I see nothing inherently wrong in what they are doing.
The oldest, Joshua, is now 20 and twins Jana & John-David are 18. They’re all still living at home, aren’t they? I wonder that their plans for the future are. I have a feeling that at least some of the boys will join the military. Can/when will they start to break away?
Why is it “not a great environment for kids to be raised in?” Their kids are well-behaved, intelligent, well-fed, and pleasant.
Okay, I’m gonna go do productive stuff now.
But I would like to reiterate again before I leave, since it seems to be the main point of everyone’s arguments against me:
I never said it was wrong
It’s not wrong
I simply think it’s pretty stupid
And that maybe it sometimes is more smart to not have as many kids as physically possible, in any circumstance, to give your children the best possible chance
It’s just my personal opinion
This started out in MPSIMS and I was just stating I think the Duggars suck. I have every right to think that. You have every right to think I am wrong. I do not care.
Plenty of people can’t afford their ONE kid.
Plenty of people don’t give their ONLY child enough attention.
Plenty of people make their kids to chores beyond what I, personally, would give my kids.
Plenty of people don’t intend to send their kids to college.
I wouldn’t have eighteen kids, nor would I raise my kids the way the Duggars do. I suspect the Duggars would be outraged about how I do raise my kids.
I would not want to be a Duggar child, and I do wonder what will happen as the kids leave home and some of them - just statistically - come out, get into drugs, get pregnant without getting married. But perhaps they will be able to impart their values onto all their children to reduce this risk and it doesn’t happen - I hope so. I hope that I will be able to do the same with my two kids.
The point I was making is that clothing drives always, without exception, produce more clothes than there seems to be a market for. So with clothing, specifically, the attitude is not so much “this is for the poor,” as it is, “I don’t want to throw this away, so get it to someone who can use it.” Obviously, if there were contention, people would prefer to see the items go to those suffering from poverty. But again, with clothes specifically, I don’t ever see a “the well has run dry” situation.*
*One exception that’s not really relevant here.
Apparently well fed, what is your basis for well-behaved, intelligent and pleasant, besides how they are portrayed on a pro-Duggar TV special? The family website says each plays the piano and violin, it doesn’t say any of them are prodigies. Do you think the Duggar’s are going to let it be known if any of them are demons? 18 kids and not one is a terror?
No, it’s a disgustingly selfish example of two complete blockheads who’ve decided to raise a brood of slaves who never get to experience a real childhood.
I’m not impressed by the violin and piano stuff, either, because I’m sure not all the kids wanted to devote the time needed to learn those instruments, which is considerable, but they were all forced to, because they have shitty parents who think of them as property with no rights, who only exist to do slave labor for them and make them look good on TV and in pictures and articles.