I guess I didn't realize how much of a cash cow this show was for TLC. |
Fourteen year olds aren't usually charged with felonies. They're not usually incarcerated either. |
...and their records are typically sealed. |
I think that's my issue with this scandal. The privacy of all of the children involved should be respected, and it wasn't. It certainly could have been, but everyone would rather expose them as hypocrites than think about the emotional cost to the victims by making this national news. |
+1. I have two older brothers. Both went through teen years while I lived with them, and both were curious about sex. Neither molested me, ever. That is normal behavior. And, even the babysitter: totally normal to fantasize about her. Totally normal to catch a shot of cleavage if she bends over in a loose shirt. Touching her vagina while she slept? A 14,year old should have a better sense of boundaries and if that had happened to any of us as teen babysitters we would have been very upset and not thought it was normal. Nothing about any of these actions are normal. |
I think 13/14 year old boys are at a turning point in their lives and have an explosion of hormones they don't know what to do with. Normal boys go to school, watch tv, read magazines, see movies, have outside babysitters come over. They have all kinds of other females they are exposed to for their fantasies. It is always up to parents and teachers to talk about boundaries of personal space and body parts. At our school they talk about this starting at a young age in guidance. As parents we have always talked about this at home too. Josh Duggars at age 13 was in a very isolated situation. The Duggars back in the begging shows were more isolated than today. He was the first child in the family. Perhaps his parents never told him about personal space and private parts and sex and hormones and his feeling that were happening at age 13. He was rarely around or saw other females except maybe at church. I think his parents were naïve to think these things don't need to be discussed. I think it is unfair to label him as a life long pedophile for mistakes he made at 13/14. I think his parents failed him and that as soon as a problem came up the entire family needed outside counseling Josh, the parents, the girls. |
I think the entire family needs an outside therapist now to determine if it is the isolated lifestyle and lack of parental guidence that caused this situation and all the kids and parents need help when it comes to issues of sexuality. This family needs help. |
PROVE I SAID IT......on an anonymous message board. |
Don't blame the national media for publicizing the actions of a family that has sought non-stop publicity and fame. The parents had a choice way back when to keep their family life private. They've been more than happy to open up about the parts of their religion that they want to publicize; now they have to accept the fact that the seamy side is coming out, too. They obviously didn't give a shit about the privacy and safety of their daughters when their son was sexually abusing them. It sounds like they're getting more compassion from strangers than from their own father and community. |
And maybe Josh Duggar should have been a little more careful knowing that he had this in his past and more than a few people who dislike the organization he worked for and the things he represented. He's happily loaned his "family values" persona to support conservative candidates and now left many of them embarrassed by their association.
I am 100 percent in favor of keeping people's private lives private as long as they don't harm children or present themselves to be something they're not. |
Attitudes like yours are why molesters get away with so much. People hide the truth about what is going on over concerns for "privacy." They convince the victims that THEY are the ones who should be ashamed, rather than their abuser. You enable rape culture. You're almost as bad as the Duggars. |
While privacy should be respected, so should the safety of girls in their own home. Nor should they be paraded in front of TV as one big wholesome perfect happy family, and forced to smile for the cameras while being sexually abused in their own home. Or "forgive" their abusers. That is appalling to me. I don't like the privacy of victims being violated, but my hope is that this can be a teaching story for (1) the impracticability of isolated living and religious fundamentalism, (2) for victims to not be forced to put on a smile and "forgive" their abusers (as is recommend by the Duggar family, mentors, religious "leaders," etc), and hey, maybe get off your moral pedestal and properly deal with things in your own home, with the necessary outside help. Molestation by a sibling is not some "private family matter" that you deal with alone, or with your insane cult methodology. |
Ask yourself why you'd say something so terrible to another person. Seriously, you should be ashamed. You don't know me, or what I've experienced in life. Protecting identities of victims is important. If they chose to go public when they're old enough to decide for themselves, I'd support them. But, it was leaked for profit, not out of concern for the victims. |
Yup. Those kinds of things are normal hormonal curiosity. Josh's behavior is frightening, because he had no moral compass. No sense of what he was doing was wrong, and repeatedly going to different girls and assaulting them. This isn't normal teenage boy stuff, it's highly disordered. It's like "put animals in the microwave" level of disturbing to me. Boys will step on insects out of curiosity to see what happens to them. And then one day, they put a bird in the microwave. And liked it, and then put a squirrel in, and liked it, and then the family cat. Catching a peek when someone bends down? Pretty normal. But you don't go from girl to girl to girl and assault their vaginas while they sleep or you read a book to them, and brush it off as "boys being boys." |
1. I am so sorry for the girls. I would be mortified to have this go public if I were one of the girls who was molested. She will never be able to forget this now, and for the rest of her life, this will be publicly attached to her name.
2. I wonder how much more common this kind of thing is in very, very large families? The bond between parent-child and child-sibling in such a dynamic must be different than it would be in a smaller family... |