Random Michelle Duggar question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Michelle spends her time traveling (speaking engagements and book signings), taping a reality TV show, writing, and working out.

She outsources the homeschooling, child care, menu planning, shopping, cooking, and cleaning to her five eldest daughters (ages 15-23).

Their education is at home, via various computer and on-line programs. Once they earn their GEDs at the age of 16, their education is over. They have received some coaching for CLEP testing via a program called "CollegePlus!", but none are pursuing actual degrees.

All potential suitors must be vetted through Daddy. When the eldest (Joshua) was courting, he and his future wife were never allowed to be alone. Their dates had to be chaperoned; their phone calls were monitored; the only physical contact they had before marriage was holding hands.

Of the 19 offspring, let's look at the stats of the eldest six:

JOSH:

age: 25
education: homeschooled; GED at the age of 16
marital status: was married at the age of 20
residence: lives with pregnant wife and two children in a home owned by Daddy
occupation: runs Daddy's used-car business

JOHN DAVID:

age: 23
education: homeschooled; GED at the age of 16
marital status: single; has never dated or had a girlfriend
residence: lives with parents/siblings
occupation: runs Daddy's towing company

JANA:

age: 23
education: homeschooled; GED at the age of 16
marital status: single; has never dated or had a boyfriend
residence: lives with parents/siblings
occupation: unpaid nanny/cook/housekeeper/teacher

JILL:

age: 21
education: homeschooled; GED at the age of 16
marital status: single; has never dated or had a boyfriend
residence: lives with parents/siblings
occupation: unpaid nanny/cook/housekeeper/teacher

JESSA:

age: 20
education: homeschooled; GED at the age of 16
marital status: single; has never dated or had a boyfriend
residence: lives with parents/siblings
occupation: unpaid nanny/cook/housekeeper/teacher

JINGER:

age: 19
education: homeschooled; GED at the age of 16
marital status: single; has never dated or had a boyfriend
residence: lives with parents/siblings
occupation: unpaid nanny/cook/housekeeper/teacher

Agreed, except that Jill has done some training to be a lay midwife.

The girls have said that their favorite book is Before You Meet Prince Charming. (I doubt they have been exposed to much in the way of books.) The book is all about being a stay-at-home-daughter and waiting for your future husband to present himself.

amazon.com/Before-You-Meet-Prince-Charming/dp/0971940541

[Anonymous]

Agreed, except that Jill has done some training to be a lay midwife.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that training was through other home-schooled young women... I doubt her services will ever be used by anyone outside their own ATI/Gothard bubble.

They are even more insular than the Amish -- at least the Amish have a very large community around to support them. The Gothardites breed only with other Gothardites. They refuse to be employed by non-Gothardites. They push their children to live at home until they are married. However, the young men cannot present themselves as suitors until they have their own home and business.

Between the huge number of children and the small pool of eligible suitors, their lifestyle is simply not sustainable beyond one or two generations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed, except that Jill has done some training to be a lay midwife.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that training was through other home-schooled young women... I doubt her services will ever be used by anyone outside their own ATI/Gothard bubble.

They are even more insular than the Amish -- at least the Amish have a very large community around to support them. The Gothardites breed only with other Gothardites. They refuse to be employed by non-Gothardites. They push their children to live at home until they are married. However, the young men cannot present themselves as suitors until they have their own home and business.

Between the huge number of children and the small pool of eligible suitors, their lifestyle is simply not sustainable beyond one or two generations.

I completely agree.

I also think that the Duggar girls will have a hard time finding a suitable husband, because the Gothard/ATI approach does not generally create young men capable of supporting a family at a middle, much less upper-middle class level, and the Duggar girls have been living a pretty comfortable life for awhile now. Their pool of potential mates is severely limited: College is discouraged, education generally is discouraged, boys are expected to engage in entrepreunurial ventures sufficient to support a large family (because mom must SAH and homeschool, and birth control is verboten) - but what financial and other potential do most of them have?

Duggar specifics aside, I agree that the ATI lifestyle is just not sustainable over the long haul.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who has 4 girls. She home-schools them so she is with her girls all day long. Which I can't even imagine, with my full-time job and my one kid. The kids are, for the most part, delightful. The youngest child craves attention sometimes and has the loudest screech I have ever heard. She does this in their minivan and my friend doesn't even seem to notice. Meanwhile, I'm trying to not put my hands over my ears because it is LOUD and kind of obnoxious.

I'm thinking that moms of many kids must just have a very high tolerance for stuff that would bug me. Or maybe impaired hearing.

[Anonymous]

15:43 here, sorry, that should have said *entrepreneurial*.

[Anonymous]

Heaven grant me patience.

After all the anti-Duggar, anti-big family threads, you'd think I'd be inured to the meanness, but I feel compelled to take a few moments and try to explain away some misconceptions. I do not share the Duggar family's religion, fertility (though I wish I did), or outlook on life, but I do know about big family life, and homeschooling, which no one here apparently does:

Throughout human history, the birth rate generally hovered around an average of 6 children during a woman's lifetime. Exceptionally large families (10+) have always been, well, exceptional, even after antibiotics and vaccinations and sanitation and nutrition improved life. Some of the greatest human beings who ever lived have been from exceptionally large families: Benjamin Franklin (15th of 17), Johann Sebastian Bach (8th child, born when the oldest was 14), Saint Catherine of Siena (23rd of 25). But plain old large families have been the norm for human beings in every civilization and every culture until very, very recently.

The birth rate in the US is now below replacement, at 1.9. For white women, the birth rate is approximately the same in the US as it is in Communist China, which has had the horrible One Child policy for two generations now (1.6). In the entire developed world, the birth rate is below replacement. In some places, this happened in a single generation. This means that there are far too many old people, and not enough young people to care for them. This demographic disaster is compounded in the Asian world by tens of millions of missing girls.

These human-created problems have never been seen in all of human history: too many old people, too few young people, and a gender imbalance. Overpopulation is NOT a problem. Demographic imbalance IS a problem. The few people still having children in the Western world are the only hope we have for a stable, economically successful future.

But to big family life: no, it does not look just like small families. That is not necessarily a problem. We march to a different tune. We can be (but aren't always) more chaotic, more messy, more communal, more boisterous and more connected. The hardest years are not when all the children are little, though that is the hardest in terms of manual labor. The hardest years are when the needs diversify: when you still have lots of little ones needing diaper changes and waking to nurse and needing to be dressed and fed, but also when you have teenagers who need to talk and emote and cuddle and learn from you, and also middle kids who fight like little kids and have nightmares and want to stay up too late like the big kids. That is hard, but we don't live by what WE think we can handle.

Family doesn't need to look like the documentary Sexy Baby. It can look like the family in Little Women, or Pride and Prejudice, or the Little House books, or the Seven Silly Eaters. Teenagers don't need to be sullen or distant or crazy busy. They can be awesome. One of my favorite "how to raise your kids" authors, Ray Guarendi, who has 13 (adopted) kids, has a great spiel about teenagers. He says, go back in time 100 years and ask a parent of a 13 year old boy, "So, how's your boy? Driving you crazy?" And the parent will say, "What are you talking about?! He finally has the muscles and the energy I've been waiting for! He's my right hand man!"

That's my teens. They have tons of time to learn, to play--and to contribute to the household, and to society! What a great time to be alive, when you're free and full of energy and enthusiasm and hope and passion and joy! I don't know what life has in store for them, but for now, for all my kids, they have so much love to share, and to love is to SERVE.

As for the Duggar kids, who knows what life has in store? But what's wrong with an honest day's work for the boys? With a life of loving motherhood, perhaps combined with midwifery or doula-ing, for the girls? If they live life with love and joy, isn't that the best we can hope for any of our children? They are all being raised to be humble, giving, financially independent, responsible members of society. There is nothing regrettable about any of that.

I love being with my kids all day long, even when they drive me crazy. I love and cherish every moment. Time seems to pass faster and faster. I pray every day that I am blessed with more children, because I realize more and more how much each one of them is a GIFT, and I never appreciated that enough. Life is a gift. Love grows. And a unique, priceless human being is the most amazing, undeserved gift to two people in love.

Now please excuse me--I have just discovered a stinky diaper with no child inside of it. Yikes.

--C9BL

[Anonymous]

C9BL, we are not criticizing anyone's choice to have many children, but rather the movement's cult like habits that prevent any opportunity for self sufficiency or independence, which especially affects the young, single women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Took a day off to get the house together but instead I'm making brownies and watching 19 kids and counting...yes I know pathetic. Anyhow anyone wonder how Michelle is so calm 100 percent of the time? Her voice is so monatone ans soft and she never seems to get flustered. I wonder if she's drugged or the reality of having that many kids just becomes white noise after awhile. Something is off about her.

LOL. Ya think? The woman has 19 friggin kids. I'd say something is off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:C9BL, we are not criticizing anyone's choice to have many children, but rather the movement's cult like habits that prevent any opportunity for self sufficiency or independence, which especially affects the young, single women.

Agreed. I watch that show and see 19 bright kids who, I feel, should have the opportunity to go to college and discover life for themselves. Michelle and Jim Bob both did. Instead these kids are given very few paths to follow. I think Michelle and JimBob are handicapping their kids.

[Anonymous]

C9BL, no one is criticizing your lifestyle, we are criticizing the Duggars' lifestyle. But if you think the Duggar girls are being raised to be financially independent, you have been sniffing something other than "stinky diapers."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:C9BL, we are not criticizing anyone's choice to have many children, but rather the movement's cult like habits that prevent any opportunity for self sufficiency or independence, which especially affects the young, single women.

Agreed. I watch that show and see 19 bright kids who, I feel, should have the opportunity to go to college and discover life for themselves. Michelle and Jim Bob both did. Instead these kids are given very few paths to follow. I think Michelle and JimBob are handicapping their kids.

First PP here. Right. The kids are obviously disciplined, patient, nurturing, and hardworking, which would serve them well in a number of professions if they were allowed/encouraged to get formal training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:C9BL, no one is criticizing your lifestyle, we are criticizing the Duggars' lifestyle. But if you think the Duggar girls are being raised to be financially independent, you have been sniffing something other than "stinky diapers."

This. They are bright and capable and hardworking but have been raised to be barefoot and pregnant and dependent and submissive. It is a crime, a form of child abuse IMO to deny your children the opportunity to pursue careers, financial independence and options other than the ones you might want for them.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if her kids are so much bright and hardworking as they are brainwashed. I also can't imagine becoming a nurturing human being if you were hit with a wooden spoon as a baby every time you wandered off your baby blanket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The baby voice is related to lack of intelligence, in combination with having been thoroughly brainwashed by IBLP/the Gothard cult for more than two decades.

http://jezebel.com/5897270/michelle-duggar-sees-nothing-wasteful-whatsoever-about-having-19-kids

"...overpopulation is a non issue because if you took everyone in the world and stood them next to each other shoulder to shoulder, we could all fit in the city of Jacksonville."

She should be air lifted and dropped into Bombay or Shanghai if this is what she thinks.

[Anonymous]

BS, these girls are in AMERICA they can pack and leave whenever they want to.