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Eighteen Babies?!?!Submitted by Resolution on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 7:28pm.
I know I've had a "big family" debate before, and I know that it all boils down to personal choice, but still...the Duggar family is expecting their 18th baby, which to me just seems...well, wow. I can't imagine it. Having five is a scary prospect. I'm sure, after awhile, they all keep each other occupied...and it IS nice to have a support system...I just wonder how the children can learn their individuality in a family that is a required to be a system of sorts. There can't be room for chaos, I would think. There can't be alot of time for the parents to spend with each child, and they keep having them... I know some people look at me the same way when I stroll around with four, pregnant again. I just wonder what Michelle Dugger's life will be when she hits menopause. Will she grieve? Will she mourn? Will she be ecstatic? She's still pretty young for menopause, though...she may have to wait ten more years before that happens, and she and her husband say they'll keep having them as long as the Lord will give them the gift. I don't know what to say about this. What do you Mamas think? as long as they can take care of them all each to their own i personally couldn't possibly be pregnant for 18 years i think i would have died. not to mention I'd be in the looney bin but thats me. if their happy who gives a rats ass.nobody elses business as long as the kids are taken care of. Jessica to the older siblings. If I'm not mistaken, each child is directly responsible for the one under them? I think they are being robbed of a free minded childhood. Mom and dad put a lot of adult responsibility on the kids to care for their siblings. It seems benign enough, but I think it's deeper and the repercussions will surface later on. yeah thats a little rough Jessica There is a good discussion going on here on a blog titled Why is Michelle Dugger Fair Game: Thank you SO MUCH for posting this! Nomad, I mean -- don't know why this won't appear under your response. I know, right. It was good to read/see. Though, I just can't help my hair snobbery. I can be a hair snob. Not that I care if anyone has bad hair (IRL) but I always notice the cool hair. Mine falls between bad and right before cool. Having curly hair makes it impossible to have "cool" hair (at least, I can't have any style that a straight haired person would have without major work everyday). anyway, did i just justify my hair comment? there is no justification for that, i know. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm you are evil person with hair bigotry!!! I always notice hair too. In fact, it's what I notice first, physically, about a person. And then if they change their hair, if I don't know them well, I won't recognize them! (includes facial hair for men...I recently went to a bday party for someone I'd met only a few times. He'd shaved his beard and as he welcomed us to the party I was like WHO is this guy?!...sad, huh?). I wish my hair was cooler right now but with slightly wavy hair and high humidity = nightmarish. And yeah, to do anything semi-cool with it would require WORK. Whatever, like I have time for that. okay, have now totally gone off topic. sorry. uum, I blame it on mushy pregnancy brain!!! tee hee. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm good response... i'll read through it later. i did read the first quote, and i have to agree... she needs a makeover. she's a pretty woman but seriously, a new hairdo is in order. She has no time to fuss over those bangs, and it looks like she hasn't had time (18 kids and all) to worry about her do. So, yeah... that's my only comment... I'd love to see her with a new hair cut. She's a beautiful woman and a new do would compliment that beauty. Comeon' TLC, give that woman a day off. I bet the ratings would go up if people could see themselves in her hair, not actually stand on her hair. okay, i'll stop now. I am purposely avoiding the comments on this post that are disturbing to me because I haven't figured out how to word what is so disturbing about them. Not sure I'm in the mood for a heated discussion, either. Maybe later. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm First and foremost, I don't think how many babies one has should be legislated. Beyond that, one of my close friends came from a family of 16. He is somewhere in the middle. And by all accounts they had a pretty simple lifestyle. I know many of his family members and his parents and they seem about as normal and "well adjusted" as anyone else I know. In some ways, they are definitely "tighter" as adults than many families I know. I should add, however, that this family was NOT fundamentalists. Personally? I don't think I could do it. I'm too selfish. I waited too long to have by first one and I have to say there were a lot of things I'd gotten used to sans kids that I think I would resent giving up. All I can think about is, what does having that many children do to her body? Specifically her vagina. Is it hanging out? Does she do kegels every second of the day? Does she pee every time she blinks? Does she experience PPD or worse? I'm in awe over the fact that anyone would want to birth that many babies. I can't imagine doing it again. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm HOLY SHIT. Her bangs. You think its hair but upon closer inspection its really a cat. wow. And they have an awesome house. Not my style, but still nice. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm single use womb quivers at the thought of that many kids, I think it is great they have as many as they want. They obviously can provide for them. I might not agree with them spiritually, but I won't judge. DH and I shook our heads through most of the slide shows, but we agreed that there are worse things in the world. I say she should be able to have as many babies as she chooses. Not so long ago having 18 kids wouldn't be that uncommon. And I wish I was just half as organized as she is. The thing that bothered me was that photo on their site where she is gazing at her husband and the caption says: "Michelle admiring Jim Bob for being the spiritual leader of their home". First of all; Puke! Secondly; there are really people out there named Jim Bob? Jim Bob from Arkansas, really? my grandmother had 11 and no one even blinked in her part of the country back in her day. though i do think the family is kinda creepy. i'll admit it, it starts with the bangs and just goes on from there. i'm sure i'd think they were creepy if there were only 6 of them...or 9. 18 just makes it doubly so! so, it's not unlikely to see women with over 20 children when I was working on my genealogy. That was during the 17 and 1800s, and they sort of needed lots of hands for the farm too, so I guess it sort of makes sense, even though I feel sorry for my maternal relatives, cause that just sounds like so much work. lapina is right that there are definitely worse things happening in the world, but I still see it as an interesting philosophy. I have trouble thinking of having 2, when there are almost 7 billion people in the world as is (who cannot live like Americans, or the resources of the world would be eaten up in a matter of years)...so it's my own personal struggle with that that probably makes my eyes bug out when I see that stuff. "Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki Because you know some of them are gonna rebel hardcore. seriously- we've got to let love rule be able to walk after that many births, let alone run a huge household! I think I read that they are in real estate and the father has held public office. like if they were progressive would I care? I'd probably still think to myself that they are crazy, but the fact that they are fundamentalists makes me think they are *really* nuts, which is not very fair. I also have ecological issues with it, what with population growth, the fact that we *already* have an environmental crisis on our hands etc. And given that 18 children in the US consume a helluva lot more resources than 18 children in developing countries. But then, who am I to have anything to say about someone else's reproductive choices?! And I don't much like it that people look at you, Resolution, in a judging way for having 4 kids plus one on the way. So...... I'm a bit conflicted. And all I can really say is that I could never have anywhere near 18 children (we'll see how well we cope with just The Wee!)- it completely defies my imagination. Having more children to increase the number of fundamentalists out there does always make me think of Dolores Huerta. Not that she's a fundamentalist!!! But she always said something like, well, we needed more organizers, so I kept having more kids! I think the total is something like 11 children? Anyway, I always thought that was kinda funny. And...I heart Dolores Huerta...so... not because of their procreative indulgences, but because they're fundamentalists. they are not the first fundamentalists i've heard of who believe god wants them to fill the world with their kind. of course, if they do manage to do so, then the world will be full of fundamentalists with no moderates to, ya know, moderate, and then they'll all kill each other off 'cuz god said they should get the world to themselves or some shit, and the whole thing just makes me want to curl up with a kurt vonnegut novel and revel in my misanthropy. also, it makes me think of a distinction my ecology prof in college drew. to paraphrase her, people say evolution is the survival of the fittest, but it's not. it's the survival of the surviving. if a jaguar female births and rears the most perfect of all jaguars ideally suited to its environmental niche, and it gets struck by lightning, the jaguar niche won't go empty - it'll be filled by the surviving, less ideal jaguars. on my bleak days, i think all the effort so many humans have made/are making to make the world a better place will be nullified by the simple fact that part of making the world a better place is taking the population problem into account and controlling our fertility which means that folks who are totally focused on obeying god's law regardless of the detriment to anyone including their own children will overrun everything in _a canticle for liebowitz_ kind of endless cycle of human failure. and then the sun will burn out. wow. today must be one of my bleak days.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon I def think fundamentalism is frightening on any count. And the idea that the more a family procreates, the more of *their kind* (which they believe to be elevated spiritually and intellectually) will fill the world is a disturbing aspect of said fundamentalism. However, I think it is foolish of them to think that idea is even possible! I mean, seriously, it would never happen. Though, I do agree that every time I know of a forward thinking person having a baby I'm like, thank the stars... I've also heard that the population "problem" was a myth. That its not that our world is becoming over populated, its that we don't use the world efficiently. Too many people try to populate a small area of land (say, like NYC) instead of spreading out more and living responsibly as they spread. When I say responsibly I mean environmentally conscientious. I dunno the facts, but that makes some sense to me. I say, let them have their mini compound and live their lives according to what they believe (which, I know you aren't suggesting they shouldn't, only that its creepy as fuck). I'm not worried, maybe I should be? You know what they say... ignorance is bliss! I also realize that your personal experience prolly affects your reaction to this family and others like them. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm This is totally a tangent, but as a (non-native) New Yorker I feel obliged to point out that it's much easier to have a smaller carbon footprint here in the city than in the suburbs. Think about it: does it take more energy to heat an apartment building where 20 families live, or to heat twenty individual houses spread out from each other? And also we have relatively decent public transportation. I'd rather see more cities like NY than the same number of people tearing up farmlands and what wilderness there is left for more houses. That being said, I'd move to the suburbs in heartbeat if we could afford it. I didn't say you couldn't be environmentally friendly in NYC. I was talking about population crowding. That we aren't having a population problem as much as we just aren't using our land efficiently because everyone wants/need to live on top of each other so theycan work/survive ect. The whole argument to have only one child (or at least not 18!) because our world is overpopulated, I question the validity of that argument. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm Some of it gets shipped to Virginia. Just think -- all that fuel being used to ship trash. Ugh. Yet I doubt that NYers produce more trash per capita than anyone else in the country -- it just seems more overwhelming because we are so concentrated. But this is a good reminder to myself to be more mindful of the packaging of the food stuffs I buy... loads of the develped world's garbage goes. to garbage barges floating out in the middle of the pacific. mmmm mmmmm except with the move to the suburbs part. i'm pretty much there (in that most of LA is one giant ugly suburb) and it kinda blows. i also checked out the duggers website. i think the family closet is fucking brilliant. i'm trying to figure out a way to get that going in my home already. but the whole J-name theme eeks me out. jinger? really? ugh. my aunt did that with B's for all 7 of her kids and i shudder. i also feel for the 17 & 18 year old daughters who have to make lunch and dinner, respectively, for the rest of the whole damn clan. not my idea of an idyllic childhood by any measure. though the slides/lofts/tunnels are way cool. oh, and it says that the mom & dad both have their real estate licen And ONE of those older girls is responsible for all the laundry. I can't remember which girl but I think her name starts with a J. google their name. the have a family website that explains why the have so many kids, how they deal on the day to day, what their house looks like, etc. it's quite interesting. of a native City Of Angels mama. L.A. it's not for everyone that's for sure/ I agree about the siblings being the caretakers of the spawn. I can't wait for the follow up on which sister's and bro's head for the big city! you live in an idyllic canyon (xxoo) and the canyons and hills are incredible. but even a native like you has gotta notice that the rest of the city is pretty much one loooongass strip mall after another! when i was in college, i took a class focused on the french revolution, and it was a great class. the paper i did was on a man named louis de saint-just {thank you, wikipedia, 'cuz 20 years later, i was so spelling that wrong} who was one of the members of the committee of public safety {you know, the one that ordered scads of people beheaded?}. in researching and writing the paper, i felt myself getting swept up in saint-just's revolutionary rhetoric - i mean, what's not to get fervent about liberty, equality, et cetera? so, i'm reading along, and i come across this passage in one of his journals or letters where he's remarking on all the royalists he sent to death, and i just got brought up short. i realized in that moment that i am just arrogant and idealist enough to be just like him - the ideals of the revolution by any means necessary type thing - and i realized that i didn't want to be just like him 'cuz that kind of revolution just replaces one version of people enforcing their version of reality with violence and death with another instead of actually leading to anything resembling my version of utopia. so, i settled in for the long haul, realizing that the revolutions, if they come to fruition, will do so at a glacial or even geologic pace, and bloody revolution or fanatical repression often actually gets in the way {stalin, anyone?}. all of which sounds like a tangent, but really is just my way of saying i'm not out to force my version of reality on the world. i'm just trying to do my bit to move it toward a modality i consider more ideal. this may not differentiate me a whole lot from your average fundie in some ways, but in others, i really think it does, though i could be wrong . . . as to the population problem, yes, i believe it is one. i mean, yeah, we could all figure out nifty new ways of bending the planet to accomodate our growing numbers, but just 'cuz we can doesn't mean we should, right? some scientists in some depressing enviro doc i watched {planet earth series, maybe?} said the ideal # of humans for seamless integration into the planet's existing ecology is something like 500 million. i'm not up for arbitrarily eliminating the other 6 billion or so, and i'm also not up for returning to the stone age {which was basically the last time human technology wasn't fucking with shit on a grand scale}, so i'm not hypocritically suggesting i get a free pass to fuck the planet and the duggers don't. fundamentalists just freak me out {and yes, pob, that's probably in part 'cuz i grew up in the crotch of the bible belt} and get my misanthropy going 'cuz in truth, they are far more likely to be the future of humanity than my kind of progressive, hundredth monkey ilk if for no other reason than there are just a helluva lot more of them and more every dugger. {and yes, i know, people grow up and reject their upbringing, but it's hard as hell to shake off that kind of inculcation, and most folks just don't do it.} edited to add: all of which is not to say that mrs. dugger shouldn't birth her babies to her heart's content, but only that it fucks with me and why. i absolutely respect a woman's right to control her fertility, but that does not mean that i am guaranteed not to be problematized by her choices.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon That was a great tangent. I get you. That is also why I was never able to be down with Marxism. The flipping of power doesn't sit well with my gut, either, or the means in which to do that on a grand scale. I'd be interested in learning more about our population problem and what the opponents to this idea are cause I remember hearing of scientist who rejected this idea but have no idea who they were or if they had an agenda. I have a hard time visualizing our country being overrun by fundamental Christians but maybe I'm too optimistic (aka, naive)? The day I realize that they are the main teachers in our universities and librarians in our libraries, then I'll be scared. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm the karl marx version of marxism, though, if i recall correctly, actually suggested that capitalism will gradually erode into communism beginning with western europe. it was lenin et al who added in the vanguard of the proletariat part, and that didn't work to well in a context that was still almost entirely agrarian, and here i go on yet another tangent . . . here's the link to the planet earth series which is also available on netflix: http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Earth-Complete-BBC-DVD/dp/B000MRAAJW the last disc discusses the depressing stuff. i turned it off 'cuz it was freaking dd out, but the dude arguing on the we-don't-have-a-problem side a} wasn't a scientist and b} had i-know-i'm-lying-and-i'm-not-comfortable-with-it body language like a mofo. i'm sure there's more out there, too. that's just where i came across it. hell, woman, for years they have been taking over the school boards, legislatures, congress, the federal bench, the "justice" department, the supreme court, the white house, and they fuckin' invented the dept. of "homeland security" {if that's not an orwellian name, than i'm a smurf}, but in truth, i wasn't talking about right now today - i was talking about over the long haul generations hence.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon huh, maybe i remember wrong. the only book i've read on marx was called Marxism for beginners and was like a comic book. this was about 7 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm i skimmed the communist manifesto for an honors comp class my first year in college in 1990.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon A "quiver full" of kids. It's a movement in a lot of the new mega churches. I rejoice every time a progressive person has a child, because we are being outnumbered. I came from a conservative family, but both of my brothers are conservative. Sunflower the unflower but yeah, I agree with what mamaneen is saying here. Their website just freaking scares the hell outta me, especially the industrial kitchen with the fountain drink machine and the cups with each child's name on it. Where do they get all that money? I just keep wondering that... "Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki I'm curious about their money situation, too. But then again, I'm curious about everyone's money situation! I think if I was able to build a home for my family of 20 people, I may consider a cafeteria like setting, too! Though, when I looked at those pictures, I got the impression that was a business they were running outside the house. Which, if it isn't, and is indeed IN THE HOME, I can see why the oddity of that is frightening. Like, business = making babies = family, or something or rather. Put all of that together and it is different, that is for sure. It seems to me they are just trying to keep some order in their home, which with that many kids, it makes sense to run it like a business. "We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong." - Laura Stavoe Harm According to them, the pay for everything with cash, they have no debt. Way back in the day, before they had any kids I think, they went to some money management seminar or something like that. Since then, they have worked to live with no debt and pay for everything with only cash. The say they buy used mostly so it's always cheaper than what it seems. They are apparently just good with their money, and I do believe the receive donations from people. I doubt they ask for those donations, I believe people who know them in their hometown just like them and want to contribute, but I don't know this for a fact. I learned all this from watching the t.v. specials they've had, like 3 or 4 now. I just happened to catch them one day and was sucked in to the story. Am I down with the fundamentalist aspect of their lives? No, not at all. But they have the right to it. But I do believe if anyone could handle that many kids, it seems to be them. At least, if the t.v. specials portrayed thier life accuratley, which who knows if they did. But, if they did, I actually like the woman, despite of it all. She just seems really happy with her life, and I don't believe at all that she has been pushed or brainwahed into having these children. I think she really, really enjoys being a mother, and she seems more than capable of handling them. But, that's just the picture I get from what I've seen. I don't know the reality, but I hope that it's as good as it seems. They deserve to be happy in their life just like we do. BleuRoo Handcrafted Sweetness i just checked out their website and i'm seriously uncomfortable although i can't put my finger on exactly why. really, though, wtf do they get all that money from?? surely their little church can't bring in THAT much cashflow. they have some pretty swanky amenities at their little 'compound'....WAIT, that's why it freaks me out: it looks like a compound where you'd find, like, branch davidians or something. granted, some of that is necessary for their lives to have any order, but i'm betting that they love going through their cafeteria-style lunch line and picking their clothes out of their gigundo family closet. maybe they'll just name their next baby #18.... |
JUST KIDDING!!!
for what it's worth, we're not the only ones confused, though - according to wikipedia, there has been some ongoing disagreement between those who read a gradual withering marx and those who read a bloody revolution marx: 
It says on the family web site that they live in a 7,000 square foot home - and I'm thinking for 20 people, that's pretty efficient. The sharing of clothing, of bedrooms, cooking together, using a bus to bet around, it actually makes a lot more sense than so many American family life style choices.
And I don't think I saw a TV in any of the pictures.
Just think of it this way - they made their own commune.