And Baby Makes 18 !?!?!

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.