Saturday, May 17, 2008

And Baby Makes 18 !?!?!

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Ye, Gods, they’ve been at it, again. The Duggars are expecting their 18th baby on New Year’s Day – or thereabouts. If I were his wife, I’d have soldered all his zippers shut 15 babies ago. But, that’s just me.

They made the papers, again, on Mother’s Day, when they went, en masse, to the buffet at the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock. It reportedly set them (or someone) back over $500. Try to imagine looking up from your meal and seeing two parents and 17 kids storming the buffet tables. I feel an anxiety attack coming on.

You remember Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. They live in Tontitown, Arkansas, located in the Northwest part of the state, not far from Springdale and Fayetteville. He served in the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1999. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and lost to Tim Hutchinson. Then, ran for the Arkansas State Senate in 2006 and lost.

They are Conservative Baptists who endorse the teachings of Bill Gothard, who claims to have dedicated his life to helping teenagers and their parents. Gothard is relatively unknown outside his gilded realm. He rarely speaks to the press and photos of him are hard to find. He heads an Institute in Basic Life Principals, generally thought of as a cult, which teaches, among other things, “married believers should eschew birth control and have as many children as possible.” Easy for him to say. He is unmarried and has no children.

To give you a sense of what he’s about, a few years ago, Gothard tried to get Cabbage Patch Kids off the market because he claimed that they were “causing strange and destructive behavior in children that could be alleviated when the dolls were removed or destroyed”. If you want to know whatever there is to know about him and his cult, you can Google him. There are several articles, and one of them even connects him to our former Governor and Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee. But, back to the Duggars.

Duggar has not been specific when asked how he supports such a big family other than a vague reference to real estate, but says that he and his wife live debt free, “the fruit of a financial freedom seminar” he attended about 20 years ago. This seminar was sponsored by Gothard, and taught by Jim Sammons. Its purpose is to help people understand what the Bible teaches about money. I suspect that Duggar is on Gothard’s payroll, somehow, maybe as a “recruiter” of some kind. As always, I could be wrong.

The Duggars live in a 7,000 square foot house that they claim was built by family members and friends, and carries no mortgage. Michelle has been pregnant for 135 months (that’s eleven years) of her life. She estimates that they use 90,000 diapers per year and does 200 loads of laundry per month. She says they feed the brood for less than $2,000.00 per month.

She says that they will keep on having children as long as God wills it. They have had a baby about every 18 months, on average. She’s only 41 years old, so God still has plenty of time to work His will. Let’s see, it seems to me that not very long ago a 63 year old woman had a baby. If Michelle lasts that long, she could have…….you do the math. I can’t stand to think about it.

All the children have names that start with the letter “J” and they are home-schooled. Of course they are. I’ll bet some of them are barefoot, too. Can you imagine what it costs just to keep them in shoes? Wouldn’t you love to be the youngest, wearing hand-me-downs from 16 older siblings? Would anything match?

Imagine, for a moment, if you can, bedtime in the Duggar household. “‘Nite, James. ‘Nite, Jana. ‘Nite, John-David. ‘Nite, Jill. ‘Nite, Jessa Lauren. ‘Nite, Jinger Nicole. ‘Nite, Joseph Garrett. ‘Nite, Josiah Matthew. “Nite, Joy-Anna. ‘Nite, Jeremiah Robert. ‘Nite, Jedidiah Robert. ‘Nite, Jason Michael. ‘Nite, James Andrew. ‘Nite, Justin Samuel. ‘Nite, Jackson Levi. ‘Nite, Johannah Faith. ‘ Nite, Jennifer Danielle.

I’ll bet even the Pope would be appalled.

19 comments:

Acrimony said...

It's totally easy to live debt free when you turn your family into a circus and get paid to do television shows and talk shows and the like.

Plus, that house they "built" was partly built by them but the Discovery Channel brought in a crew to finish it up AND to furnish it fully and then GE donated all the washing machines etc. At the end of every one of their tv shows is a huge list of donors and what they were given. Oprah even bought them a school bus sized van!

So yea.. I could live debt free too if everyone gave me everything for free and then I got paid to sit around on TV as well.

I feel sad for those kids, I really do. Everyone has a "buddy" that they are required to parent and the girls are given insane amounts of domestic duties and brainwashed to believe they can't have any real world aspirations. Someplace I saw that the "fire pole" that they slide down out of their bedroom goes into a playroom for the boys and into the laundry room for the girls?! I can't imagine being a girl in that family.

But then, at the same time, I can't wait for the first one of the kids to break away from their little cult, er I mean family, and write a tell-all best seller.

Someone needs to tell that woman that it's a uterus, not a clown car.

Goodness, sorry about the comment that should be, itself, a blog post. LOL!

Betty said...

talisman: I have to admit that I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the tv shows about them. I feel sorry for the girls, too.

Anonymous said...

I was at The Peabody Mother's Day brunch, and there were several tables of large groups enjoying their meals.

The Duggar Family didn't stand out any more than these other large parties. In fact, their children were all nicely dressed and well-behaved. They also seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

I've seen much smaller families let their children run wild in restaurants before. Give Jim Bob and Michelle some credit for disciplining their children – something very rare in this day and age.

Jay said...

The Duggars aren't a family, they're a cult. And they live off a welfare system created just for them.

Betty said...

anonymous: I wasn't suggesting that the Duggar children were unruly. That's undoubtedly been programmed out of them. Just that the sight of any group of 17 children with two adults would be enough to make me hyperventilate.

Betty said...

jay: I fear you are correct, sir.

Golden To Silver Val said...

I'm sorry but I agree with talisman...I can't wait to read the "tell-all" book that is bound to be forth-coming in the future. To have this many children is just..... unnatural and suspicious and seems to be much more like a cult than a FAMILY. I would also hate being a girl in this family. His 'income' has always been very ambiguous...and when that happens...you know there's a good reason for it. heh heh heh

Peggy said...

I just hope that Michelle Duggar survives this next pregnancy! I wonder how they will rationalize their belief system if she is "called to Jesus" during this 18th childbirth. Do you think that good old Jim would be able to cope if she is harmed or worse? Do they think about these things?

Betty said...

golden to silver val: Don't be sorry. You're right.

peggy: An even scarier question would be, if Michelle were called to Glory birthing this child, would he find another, younger woman to help him populate the world?

kenju said...

Oh, I just bet he would find another, younger woman!

I have watched them on TV and been rather amazed that the children behave as well as they do. I had no idea what their family is tied to.

Joy Des Jardins said...

Holy Guacamole....it's just like the White family when I was growing up. Hmmm....I feel a post coming on. Oye....I'm tired just thinking about it.

patsy said...

99.9 chance the lady will die in child birth.
my father and mother had 8 children and this was the greatest gift they gave us. I really don't know what to say about this but I guess the less said the better.

Cazzie!!! said...

Yours, Mine and Ours!! OMG!!!

Betty said...

kenju: No telling what the punishment is, if they don't behave.

joy: I try not to think about it, then I see yet again another story in the paper and have to think about them again.

Patsy: How would you like to have 10 more brothers and sisters? Would you have gotten lost in the crowd?

cazzie: Not mine!

Maria said...

I think it has all been said. I loved the comment about the uterus not being a clown car. Large loving families can be wonderful and there are days I wish I had had more babies. Then I realize that taking care of them and raising them would be overwhelming. With the cost of college today, I would think it better to cut the number of kids back to a more reasonable size.

Anonymous said...

How come they missed out 'John Boy' ?

savannah said...

bless their hearts, they must have a farm and need all those the hands to harvest crops, sugar! ;-)

Betty said...

maria: Have a few more, then you, too can live on donations and television appearances.

john: That'll be #19.

savannah: They live on a farm, all right. A baby farm.

Richard said...

Betty, I have never heard of this family. Are they really that bad or just Jesus freaks that dig kids?

I can't imagine a family with all those younguns, but some folks do like a lot of children.

This family seems to have carried it to an extreme. They make the mormons look like pikers.


Rich