It’s really nice when someone finally attempts to correct a gross misunderstanding.
I positively beamed all over after reading Charlie Richards’ account of his recent meeting with famously super-sized Duggar family.
After doing a bit of research and reading on the internet (Don’t do that! It’s bad for your soul to read the comboxes on a Duggar article from any mainstream news source!) Richards was prepared to meet Duggar children who were mindless robots held prisoner in their own home.
He was pleasantly surprised, though, to find that the Duggar children were well-adjusted and — here’s the real shocker — pretty much normal kids. In fact, he thinks they might even be more “normal” than typical American kids raised in smaller families and attending public schools.
My wife and I spent considerable time talking to the three teenage girls, Jill, Jessa and Jinger. They are sharp, fun and informed. They know what’s going on out there. But it isn’t at all a part of their every day life. And, to the shock and dismay of so many, they’re okay with that.
While, admittedly, I admire the Duggars for much of what they do, I didn’t expect what I saw in these three girls. The world has yet to beat them into submission. They don’t watch the Disney Channel, so they’ve yet to learn that adults are buffoons and parents are embarrassing. They don’t listen to the local rock station, so they’ve yet do discover life is supposed to be one promiscuous event followed by another. They don’t attend public school, so they’ve yet to learn teenage girls are required to be filled with angst and riddled with insecurities.
This observation is an affirmation for all parents who attempt to protect their children from sinister cultural influences to any degree. We don’t all homeschool or outlaw popular music, but many of us do make decisions to curtail the culture’s influence on our kids.
Though I do not often watch the Duggars’ television show, I have written before about how inspiring I find Michelle Duggar’s calm and peaceful approach to motherhood.
I appreciate Charlie Richard’s honest account of his experience with the Duggar family. I don’t think his defense of the Duggars will make a bit of difference to those who are prejudiced against them for their religion, their values, and their family size, but his positive words are encouraging and affirming for those of us leading somewhat less extraordinary but still counter-cultural family lives.
As a mom of eight who does a fair amount of “sheltering” her own children on any given day, I am encouraged to know that I might be getting some of those things right. I am gratified o know that with God’s grace, my kids’ “abnormal” upbringing might just afford them the kind of freedom they need to be truly “normal” and to be truly themselves in the end.
(cross-posted at the National Catholic Register)
I think it is a sin to have so much more than you need. In an overpopulated world, there is no need to have so many children. Normal or not, having that many children is wrong. How about adopting children who desperately need a normal life rather than overproduction because this couple can’t control their sex drive?
Great article! The Duggars are an exceptional family and I love watching them on TV. I’ve learned a few things about patience and just general understanding from them and I love to have my kids watch because it shows to them how growing up in a big family doesn’t have to be full of fighting. They like watching how the siblings interact.
Sick of it… overpopulation is a myth. Get over it.
I have 8 siblings. We had a lot of fun growing up and I wouldn’t trade my experience in a big family for all the designer clothes in the world.
But naming a girl Jinger?
“Sick of It”……is that really your business?
I think the Duggar show really creates a sort of cognitive dissonance among mainstream conformists. They want the Duggars to be neurotic, fearful, and generally dysfunctional, and when they turn out not to be so, it makes the brain explode.
And Sick of it, the “people who can’t control their sex drive” are those who arrange their lives to have as many orgasms as possible without commitment or the risk of bringing new responsibilities into the world. Such people were once called, in popular parlance, “promiscuous.” And you would find such individuals preferable neighbors to the Duggars?
I work for a large, child-oriented non-profit. In my daily work I meet lots of kids–public school, private school and homeschooled. Without exception the homeschooled kids are more involved, expressive and aware than any but the most exceptional others. Far from being antisocial misfits, they are poised and willing to speak to adults in a refreshing way.
My daughter was discussing homeschooling her children when they are of age. Not surprisingly, both she and her husband were concerned that homeschooled kids won’t be “socialized” like kids in conventional classrooms. I told her that public schools these days seem more likely to make one sociopathic than socialized.
The Duggers seem to be controlling their sex drive just fine. All those kids are the result. Seems weird to me, having so many. But they seem to be a thoroughly happy, well-adjusted lot, so hurray for them.
Most(?) people who use the term “socialization” appear to confuse it with “socializing.” Socialization is the process of conforming to a particular social environment. Thus, socialization can be positive or negative.
Negative socialization occurs when children are forced to conform to the anti-standards of a peer group of other unsocialized children.
All seven of our kids (the youngest is now 17) were homeschooled through high school. They had plenty of opportunity to socialize (4-H, church youth groups, friends and activities) but virtually no peer group pressure.
Three of them are now out of college and the other four are attending. They get along just fine with friends, coworkers and classmates. The positive socialization that resulted from home schooling worked well for our family.
Sick of it – of course you are entitled to your opinion, but if people want to have a huge family that is their decision – as long as they don’t expect the government to support them (as in single moms with 10 kids from 8 different men and the men are NOWHERE in sight and not providing for their children), then they should be free to have as many children as they want and can afford.
Of course, they are happy! They have never been away from their little cocoon. I had a miserable time in France when I was a teen. I lived with a family, didn’t understand the language, and had to really grow as a person. My parents sent me into the world and expected that I would be ok. They trusted God that I would survive and I did. I hope that the Duggar girls meet some nice Christian boys to marry. Hopefully they’re exposure on tv will help their cause. I wonder what they will do with their lives if marriage and family doesn’t work out. They don’t seem to have anything else going on for them – no hobbies or outside interest besides helping their mom with the babies.
I can’t help but wonder if the Duggars aren’t under pressure to continue having kids to keep people interested in their show, especially if it’s responsible for a large portion of their income. That would be a sad reason to have more children. I think it’s a natural time for a woman to stop having children when she becomes a grandmother.
I really don’t think the Duggars feel pressure from the show to have more kids. They have only had like three of the nineteen since the show began. And they really don’t need the money from the show; they really see it as a ministry…being salt and light. I think if it ended tomorrow they would accept that and go on with their lives whether that included more children or not.
It’s all well and good to show the world large families are not a bad thing, but I don’t think reality shows are the way to do it. First of all, who is watching this? And why? What is even remotely entertaining about watching a bunch of people you don’t know walk through the boring and mundane realities of their life — and how real are their lives, anyway, once the cameras show up?
This sort of thing has replaced the old time freak shows at the circus. Are the Duggars really any different than those repulsive Jersey Shore people?
The Duggars and their fans insist they’re not doing this show for the money, but it’s not like they’re doing it for free, either. And this insistance on going for another baby right away in spite of the health issues both mother and child are experiencing from the last pregnancy is, well, telling. But another season looms, and the show must go on…
Also, the Duggars follow that fundie quiverful doctrine which does not accurately reflect the Church’s position on marriage and parenthood at all. Just because they’re a big family doesn’t mean we should aspire to be them. There’s a danger in thinking any big family is good, or any mindset that fosters a big family is good. That’s a form of idolatry.
Right now, too, things may seem fine with the kids, but who knows what effect this living in a fishbowl will have on them down the road? What happens when Mrs. Duggar can no longer have babies and the show gets cancelled, or if it just gets cancelled because people are bored with it and have moved on?
For me, there’s just something off about parents who pimp out their kids for personal gain. As Christian-y as the Duggar thing is packaged, the mindset is just not all that different than that of Michael and Dina Lohan.
…It’s natural for women to stop having children when they have grandchildren? Based on what?
How the heck do you explain all the “uncles” or “aunts” that were younger than those grandkids, then? Going back through my family history and looking around the time, it was not that odd to babysit your uncle. That isn’t even in families all that large, either– when you have a child at twenty, the math changes a lot compared to having a child at 28.
“…It’s natural for women to stop having children when they have grandchildren”
Depends entirely on the marriage traditions in your family – for example, in my immediate family no one seems to get married before they are 30 and having kids into their 40s is usual. However I have worked with women who are great grandmothers by the time they are in their mid-50s – they got married at 19 (and had children), their daughters got married (and had children) at 19, and their grand daughters did the same. My mother didn’t became a grandmother until she was well into her 60s.
“…It’s natural for women to stop having children when they have grandchildren? Based on what?”
On the typical pattern of families, where the next generation succeeds rather than overlaps the last.
Typical these days, in the ‘first world’– probably a side effect of the at or below replacement level birth rate. We’re the abnormal ones.
I have perhaps watched one of the shows. I certainly do not know much about the family or their show, wish them well, but am not really interested in their show.
However, this does bring up a question, to me, of population. Please think about this and do not condemn the questions. Have you thought about the future US with a population of 600 or 800 million people, or the world with 12 or 16 billion people? This involves all kinds of changes and could go in many directions. I appreciate that most of us will not be here for it, but it will happen in 50 or 100 years (pardon me for not looking up projections, but I am sure they are available). Is there any good Catholic literature on this subject?
Underpopulation is myth get over it
Nowadays if someone is a great grandparent before 60 are than likely the grand kids aren’t married. This isn’t true with the Duggars at least not yet. The daughter of the Jeubs, who were featured in the”Cheaper by the Dozen” special, was ostracized from her family for having a bi-racial out of wedlock kids.. Her mother practically had kids out of wed lock herself.
These ‘Quiverfull’ families often go through great lengths to stay debt- free. the Duggars are Royalty in their circle. Many of these poor kids in other fundamentalist /QF are living near poverty levels in less than acceptable conditions. The Jeubs done with no shoes on their kid’s feet. To me it isn’t acceptable to continue bringing kids in the world while the rest in the family are doing without basic essentials like adequate heat or even shoes.
It disturbs me to hear of anyone aspiring to be like them before doing any research on their beliefs. True designer clothes aren’t needed but frugal can only be carried so far.It isn’t less ‘godly’ to supply basic needs. Married or not, religious or not, doesn’t give any one the right to have as many as they please.
“How about adopting children who desperately need a normal life … ?”
Our daughter and son-in-law are hoping to adopt children. They’ll give those children the best life they can, but the children that are available for adoption in this country are rarely going to have anything like a “normal” life. They usually come with a variety of serious problems, some physical, some emotional, some social.
I’m GLAD there are more children like the Duggars to help bring some “boring” stability to our communities!
Questioning-
no good Catholic lit on it that I know of, because it always boils down to those with said “questions” already being sure there are far too many people, there’s no way to support them, and other peoples’ numbers must be reduced. Amazingly, it never goes “oh. There’s too many of me. I will not have children, live in the lowest-impact way possible and research how to comfortably support people with the dignity God’s children deserve.”
(should have written: I will not have sex, since most “gee, aren’t there too many people” folks are pro-abort and/or pro-birth control.)
The Duggar kids will be funding everybody else’s Social Security. You can be sure that they know how to work and be responsible already.
I’ve only read about them, but it sounds like the parents made a reasonable accounting of how they could keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, etc, then went for their dream in a big way.
Cool. A society can NEVER have “too many” hard-working, productive people with solid values who know how to live independantly.
“On the typical pattern of families, where the next generation succeeds rather than overlaps the last.”
So that would make it cultural, not natural.
What the Duggars are doing isn’t natural, either, strictly speaking.
And that whole “J” name thing speaks to an objectification of these children — children as extensions of the parents’ egos — that’s beyond creepy.
It’s like a weird alternate Marina universe…creepy, creepy, creepy.
*snort* Having a name theme is creepy and objectifying? Sounds like the gals who congratulated me on not taking my husband’s name, until I explained it was just until the paperwork hadn’t gone through yet.
http://pop.org/ (Population Research Institute) is a good site to look at for population issues. It was founded by Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B., in 1989. He also founded Human Life International in 1981.
There are a lot of things creepy about the Duggars, the name thing is the least of it, although the mullet hairdo on the wife is pretty bad, too.
What does taking your husband’s name or not have to do with anything? Completely unrelated.
Time will tell if the Duggars are making the right decisions for truly Godly reasons. Right now, since they’ve chosen to profit from putting themselves in the public eye, anyone can think anything about them without reproach.
That’s the bargain they made…
Tha
What does taking your husband’s name or not have to do with anything? Completely unrelated.
The standard objection to a woman taking her husband’s name is that it’s objectifying the woman. Absolutely related, even if you hadn’t heard that one yet.
Right now, since they’ve chosen to profit from putting themselves in the public eye, anyone can think anything about them without reproach.
Oh bull pucky. Them accepting a TV show to try to spread what they believe is the truth does absolutely nothing to the requirement for us to be decent people, and that includes not slandering, being petty and trying to be charitable.
“They are creepy because they have a lot of healthy children, I don’t like the mom’s hair and they objectified their children with names that started with the same letter!”
If they had done the tv show and asked that their reimbursement go to charity, I’d believe for a second this was all about evangelization.
They are doing it for profit — they did not ask to do this for free or for charity, they chose — chose — to do it for profit, money, filthy lucre, kachingkachingkaching.
There is absolutely zero difference between the Duggars and the Real Housewives of Wherever.
They are opting to turn themselves and their families into public freakshows in return for money.
Claiming they’re doing it for evangelization is like saying a prostitute is turning tricks for the same reason because she hands her johns some Christian tract after the act.
You put what should be private out in public for cash, you’re a prostitute. You sell your minor children for public consumption, you’re something pretty darned evil.
I have no issue with how many children they have, although there really isn’t anything “natural” about their production-line-like baby producing schedule — they’re going for sheer numbers here, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of thinking down the road on the part of the parents.
I think ALL theme-y, cutsey, too-precious-for-words baby naming schemes are creepy. That’s just me.
And mullets on grown women in this day and age ARE creepy — and hidious.
So shoot me.
Whatever.
I guess I have to worship at her shrine, too, or I’m a baaaad person who is going straight to hell.
We’ve replaced the Holy Trinity, we’ve replaced the Mother of God with the likes of these people, with Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, anyone who comes along and gets their fifteen minutes of fame, and it’s just wrong and evil and idolatrous.
And, again, the Duggars do not have any rights when it comes to being free from criticism. To me, they’re just another Jon&Kate+8, or the balloon-boy parents, or the Real Houswives, or the Jersey Shore people, or For the Love of Ray J. The only differences are the sets and the props and the level of fake tanning going on. It’s ALL bad, all equally bad and wrong and indicative of something gone terribly wrong in our society. Dressing it up in Christian clothing just adds another level of evil to it AFAIC.
You don’t like that opinion, fine. Why you would care about what anyone else thinks regarding a stupid TV show is beyond me, but it’s just my opinion, and when people whore themselves out for public consumption, that’s what they leave themselves open to. They don’t like it, they can stop doing it, but they don’t, so I guess they’re fine with it.
Oh, and as far as our big fat call to charity, that always only seems to work one way with the Catholics and Christians in the blogosphere — we’re all to be charitable towards them, regardless of what they do, but they don’t have to be charitable towards anyone who doesn’t yes them up, down and under, or kiss their butts, or blindly, mindlessly accept every word that falls out of their mouths.
Whatever. You stick with worshipping over at the Church of Duggar and I’ll stick with the only Truth that matters.
The Truth? Your personal preferences deserve a capital letter, eh?
Can’t say I’m shocked; you can’t even deal with someone disagreeing in an adult manner.
LOL!
Whatever…if you read your comments, with your snorts and all, they’re hardly all that mature, either…
I don’t like the Duggars, I don’t like “reality” TV, I don’t like idolizing people we see one very contrived, manipulated side of, and I don’t much like you.
The “Truth-with-a-capital-T” would refer to God, dear, which isn’t my preference — God is, even when I would much prefer He did not. Sorry if I believe in God and if I think God and God alone is worthy of worship.
As I said, worship who and what you will…I’ll stick with God.
Shana tova!
Now you’re claiming your views are from On High? Oy.
Wow, you’re not really all that bright, are you?
No.
My views come from me. My views are shaped by my faith.
I’m saying that the trend to idolize moronic reality TV show people is, well, moronic. And probably tinged with more than a small amount of evil.
I’m saying I prefer to worship God than to worship at the shrine of the latest false idol the Republican/Christian/Catholic blogosphere has set up.
If you don’t believe in God, that’s fine. I have no issues with that.
Now, since this is really now all about you getting in the last word and feeling like you “won” something (you’ve heard the one about the Special Olympics, right…?), I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy your virtual trophy…
Ta!
I’m saying I prefer to worship God than to worship at the shrine of the latest false idol the Republican/Christian/Catholic blogosphere has set up.
Such as when children should be born, or how a woman is allowed to name her hair, or what children are allowed to be named….