The Duggars – Family of 19 people

Karen says:

I find this completely disgusting. I’ve read other articles about this family. As soon as a baby is born, the parents turn over its care to the children. I think in this day and age of limited resources, it’s selfish and obscene to have that many children. Instead of giving these people all the freebies they get, why don’t we honor couples that have only one or two children, have responsibly decided not to have more children, but have a hard time making ends meet. All these handouts are nothing more than welfare and encouragement to have more children than people can afford.

Ms. Wakame says:

I have read a lot of slander about them on various sites which seems to be based entirely on imagination. Most of the sites Ive read that hate them are written by almost illiterate people and the comments people half leave are even more stupid. The linked article is an exception from the usual riffraff but even in this one imagination-based beliefs and personal fashion opinions comes into play:

“They’re essentially raising a cult of clones… All of the children are dressed alike (in Quaker-style jumpers and horrific-style mullets) and home-schooled (no doubt in the “God Hates F*gs” tradition) by their baby factory of a mother”

No doubt? Oh well then I guess I wont need to find out.

And the real reason for alarm comes out:

…I do believe that some method of controlling the population needs to be put in place to prevent Christian “Right” freaks and other bigoted, hate-preaching fundamentalists from breeding completely unchecked.

Funny. Ive read more hate-preaching about this family across the blogosphere than I’ve heard from the Duggars about others… nothing so far.

Not to mention the double standard of how countless Catholic families dont believe in contraception either. They’re not accused of being religious zealot baby factories, but rather their way of living is generally tolerated or at least people dont gossip about them and tell them how disgusting their families are. Luckily for our over-populated planet not many catholic families seem to be as fertile as this couple or we’d have a much bigger problem than the Duggars pose. The world Catholic population recently passed 1 billion. People like to have sex often.

I do completely agree with you that its a huge burden on the planet for any family to reproduce so rapidly. 200 loads of washing a month is crazy. But from what I do know about this family, they are a lot more frugal on resources than many families bother to be and they don’t just take. The Duggars are debt free. They share clothes and hand-me-downs. A lot of people spend a bomb on clothes, and to keep up with fashion a lot of it is discarded and pathetic attempts at recycling sometimes occur where the clothes are in such bad shape they cant even be given away. That has a massive impact on the planet. Everything the Duggars have is carefully looked after and shared. They feed the entire family for a very modest $2000 a month, which indicates to me that no food is ever wasted. A lot of average-sized families throw out a LOT of food. There are many average-sized families who easily blow this much on food and going out if they honestly add up all their receipts and look at the reality. Heck, there are couples and singles who blow more than this on eating out alone and waste a lot of it. Nobody tells them what to do. Also, why is it assumed that a family that upholds tradition and lives frugally would definitely be using disposable diapers and filling up landfills? Nobodys bothered to check. And I have yet to meet an older sister or brother who didnt have a huge hand in helping to rear the younger siblings as the family expands. This is something that happens in normal society and the kids arent seen as slaves, but as good brothers and sisters. Its a lot easier to cope with kids if everyone helps share the load, unlike our smaller families where a lot more strain (than parents would admit to) falls on the shoulders of one oldest sibling while the parents work or feel stressed out.

Also, the Duggars kids are being raised to be of service to society and give back to the community instead of thinking about themselves first. This is the complete reverse of how many Americans are raised to believe the world revolves around their immediate needs. Their community service output might just balance out their own carbon footprint in some way, though I believe that if they had an eco home it could make a huge difference. They are currently buildiing their new home themselves and solar panels may be in the planning, if not to reduce their bills. It almost seems unlikely they haven’t considered this approach.

At least they don’t just sit on their butts in front of the TV consuming food as much as some of the rest of us. They keep busy with healthy activities, consume very modestly if you break it down per person, and they have a strong focus on being of service to others.

I’m fascinated by this family. They don’t disgust me.

Ms. Wakame says:

hehe youre right again :@) I disagree with their choice of having so many kids for lots of non-religious reasons… I guess I feel bad that they get so much flack and in many cases the things they are criticized for arent even applicable to them.

Sophie says:

I watched the Duggar show last night for the first time and was frankly horrified by the size of the family and the fact that the mother is pregnant again! It seems she feels her soul purpose in life is to procreate. I feel sorry for the children who are not only forced to vie for what scraps of parental attention they can get but whose list of responsibilities continues to grow as the family gets bigger and bigger. Last night’s episode revealed that one of the girls is responsible for cleaning her parent’s bedroom, which makes me wonder what responsibilities the parents themselves take on, besides having sex and procreating. Daycares have rules and laws governing the number of children a staff member can manage. This is for good reason–young children have special attention requirements in order to grow up healthy. The Duggan children are attention deprived and will never be normal. Mrs. Duggan, I have some advice for you: find some other way to give your life purpose besides reproduction; try using birth control or abstinence if birth control is against your religion; and for god’s sake, recognize that when you force your kids to raise your kids, you are foolishly and selfishly depriving them of the childhood they deserve. TLC, this show is disgusting for what it represents, and should be taken off the air.

Sarah P says:

These people scare me.

Sara says:

Just because most of you people on this website are not Christians does not mean that you have to put down the Duggars. I believe they are doing an AWESOME job of raising their family. Do you see any of their children acting out or being a burden on society in any kind of way? NO! If they want to have more kids, let them. It is their right. It will be good for this country to actually have some children being raised with morals.