Anonymous wrote:I am a mom that is open to life and so far I have 5 children. When I read the TTC or infertility forum I realize how blessed I am and it encourages me not to take my own fertility for granted.

This is a very judgemental thread. If they were lesbians that adopted 20 transgendered kids and were raising them as atheists they would get a standing ovation.

Oh the irony

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I have never watched the show, so I honestly don't know how this works: do the parents forbid their grown children to attend college or work outside the home If so, how is that enforced? Or is it just that they raise their boys to value being businessmen more than college-educated, and their girls to value being mothers more than any other profession?

Or is it a belief that homeschooling itself precludes higher education or advanced careers?

Many of the comments collapse various opinions into one, generic anti-Duggar one, so it is hard to pull apart the actual facts of their upbringing from the outrage at said upbringing. I would like to hear exactly how the older children are being held back by their parents, though.

--C9BL again

PS. I'm sorry if I was ranting and raving a bit...I'm taking a medication right now that makes me kind of extra crazy, with a capital C. Even though I know that, objectively, I still start to unravel sometimes.

Look, if you're qualified to homeschool your kids and you choose to do so, that's your own business. From what I can tell on the show, the kids receive a special online religious education, finish formal education at age 16, and then the girls turn around to teach the younger kids their lessons and take care of the household. The two oldest boys somehow have businesses, although the Duggars have made clear that they do not financially support them, it is unclear how they earned enough to purchase/start the business. The problem is that the girls were never presented with some sort of choice- and I can think of many that would be acceptable in Duggar culture- church youth leader, daycare teacher, nurse, etc. and were never given an opportunity to strike out on their own. They were too busy at home taking care of the younger children and running the homeschool.

Anonymous wrote:I am a mom that is open to life and so far I have 5 children. When I read the TTC or infertility forum I realize how blessed I am and it encourages me not to take my own fertility for granted.

This is a very judgemental thread. If they were lesbians that adopted 20 transgendered kids and were raising them as atheists they would get a standing ovation.

Oh the irony

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Have you noticed how much we are destroying the planet? I, for one, think it is a good thing that we aren't breeding enough for "replacement".

C9BL, your claim that the birth rate in the US is below replacement is a bald faced lie. The birth rate is almost twice the death rate. The death rate only exceeds the birth rate in a few counties. Please stop with your incessant lying. Overpopulation IS a problem.

+1
Overpopulation is a huge, long term problem, with irreversible consequences for humans and the environment.
By your logic, we should keep increasing the population by the trillions to care for the currently young, soon to be old -- a never ending cycle.
Age demographic imbalance would only be a problem for one generation of older people. Yes, it would suck to be them, but things would be so much better in the long run.

Anonymous wrote:I am a mom that is open to life and so far I have 5 children. When I read the TTC or infertility forum I realize how blessed I am and it encourages me not to take my own fertility for granted.

This is a very judgemental thread. If they were lesbians that adopted 20 transgendered kids and were raising them as atheists they would get a standing ovation.

Oh the irony

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Have you noticed how much we are destroying the planet? I, for one, think it is a good thing that we aren't breeding enough for "replacement".

C9BL, your claim that the birth rate in the US is below replacement is a bald faced lie. The birth rate is almost twice the death rate. The death rate only exceeds the birth rate in a few counties. Please stop with your incessant lying. Overpopulation IS a problem.

Anonymous wrote:I also think it is wrong to train kids into household servants. You got to let them grow up. This is the standard in our time and to deviate from it is criminal.
A girl growing up in rural Turkey might be in a Duggar-daughter situation, but even there the families do what they can to catch up to modern society. Duggars are raising a clan of beduins.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Have you noticed how much we are destroying the planet? I, for one, think it is a good thing that we aren't breeding enough for "replacement".

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I have never watched the show, so I honestly don't know how this works: do the parents forbid their grown children to attend college or work outside the home? If so, how is that enforced? Or is it just that they raise their boys to value being businessmen more than college-educated, and their girls to value being mothers more than any other profession?

Or is it a belief that homeschooling itself precludes higher education or advanced careers?

Many of the comments collapse various opinions into one, generic anti-Duggar one, so it is hard to pull apart the actual facts of their upbringing from the outrage at said upbringing. I would like to hear exactly how the older children are being held back by their parents, though.

--C9BL again

PS. I'm sorry if I was ranting and raving a bit...I'm taking a medication right now that makes me kind of extra crazy, with a capital C. Even though I know that, objectively, I still start to unravel sometimes.