I think we have to remember that this is reality tv and it is edited. So we're really not seeing the whole story.
You are totally right. But that can go both ways. Some things not shown include the way they discipline their babies. They practice "blanket training" which is reported to involve placing a baby on a blanket with toys and then hitting the baby with a wooden spoon whenever she tries to get off the blanket. This is done to enable parents the ability to get things done without hauling a baby around. Just google "blanket training" and "duggars" and you will see what I mean. Some say the Duggars claim they do not use physical punishment along with their blanket training but I see evidence that they do. I read parts of their latest book in which they describe blanket training. They use the term "correction" to describe what they do if the baby tries to get off the blanket. Correction is often a euphemism for spanking in fundamentalist Christian circles. But if the Duggars employ this method, they are very careful not to show this kind of thing on air.
JJenny, I think their job prospects are quite good. Home schooled children are often smarter and intellectually ahead of students their age who have been educated in a traditional school setting. Home schooled children can and DO go to college and have careers. Why would you think otherwise?
I'm quite sure that JimBob and Michelle would support whatever their children wanted to do with their lives, even if it did not involve having large families.
I think you are right about many home schooled kids. if you compare a child sitting in a class with one teacher and thirty other students to one who is getting individualized attention, you can see how the homeschooled kid could get a better education, depending on the level of education of the parent. I think that's why kids in the old days were so much better educated than today - they had very small classrooms, with, for example, 10 kids per teacher. They had shorter school years but knew more in 8th grade than I did until college!
That being said, I do not believe the Duggars would support their girls doing whatever they wanted. I have watched them carefully. They have some strict ideas about women's roles and they shape their kids lives with those ideas. They have seemed very hesitant when talking about the possibility of their r daughters going to college.
I think the job prospects for the Duggar children are wonderful. They already have a strong work ethic, a strong knowledge base and sense of pride that comes from a job well done, qualities SORELY lacking in many young adults today.
YES, home schooled children can go onto college, they often go earlier than publicly schooled children.
We live in the USA and the Duggar girls can have a career if they chose to.
Yes, it occurred to me that not everyone of them would want to have their own large family. That's their choice to make. As a matter of fact, I posted up thread on that very topic
The Duggars may live in the USA but they are not raising their kids with American freedom, IMO. You know I read somewhere once that JimBob has been connected to a movement that supported the creation of a fundamentalist state that would have laws based solely on the fundamentalist Christian bible and that would secede from the union. I don't thin k these kids have the same freedom most American kids have. I also think the psychological pressure and the years of being raised to think and feel a certain way would heavily influence what they do as adults. Just like in many other families.
Does it really sound like that's what I am arguing?
What I am saying, if you aren't up to the task of parenting, don't have any family to help and the only recourse is daycare...maybe you're not really ready to start a family.
I am saying, back off the Duggars....it may not be your way...or mine...but they seem to be doing a whole lot right!
Have any of their children run away? Come home drunk? Been arrested for stealing? Doing drugs? Heck they're not even disrespectful!
I worked as a daycare teacher for years and I have to agree with you on daycare. I saw what goes on there. Small children and babies, IMO, belong with relatives who love them, not people paid to raise them. I do understand that not everyone can choose to stay home but I do believe strongly enough in raising one's own kids that the decision to have or not have them should be made with the possibility of daycare in mind. It is one thing to face financial difficulties or other issues after you have a kid and then have to put them in daycare. It's another thing to choose to have a kid knowing they will be in daycare at 6 weeks of age. Poor things.
That being said, the Quiverfull movement does not take into consideration economic or other issues that can impact how children brought into this world will be provided and cared for. Most people in the U.S. cannot support 20 children financially or emotionally. The Duggars started out being careful with finances and with the resources to support their kids. But now, a lot of their resources come from their reality t.v. show. Most families would not have that option. The Duggars were involved with real estate. We have all seen what happened to that industry. If they did not have a t.v. show to fall back on, it may have been disastrous economically. They were lucky. Most families would not be. Imagine breeding a mega-family and then losing your job through no fault of your own, during an economic recession or depression. What happens then? They may say, "God will provide" but millions of good, God-fearing people have said the same and starved to death.
I agree that the Duggar kids seem to be nice kids and they do not, for the most part, seem to be robotic or too unhappy. They seem to be pretty well-adjusted kids and true, none are on drugs, in jail, etc. So I think something these people are doing is working. I do not agree with their choice to breed like crazy, or with their religious and political views, for the most part, gender assumptions, etc. Their philosophy as a whole frankly creeps me out. But I also believe in being fair and as objective as possible and from what I have seen, the kids seem happy, normal, and level headed. Good kids. That speaks to the Duggars abilities as parents.
Nevertheless, my problem with the family is two-fold: One, IMO, almost every problem on earth can be attributed in some way to overpopulation. Run off from pesticides and fertilizers from billions of lawns and farms creating water pollution and ocean dead zones. The need to fuel 6 billion people causing oil wars, and oil spills. The need to feed 6 billion people causing a decline in seafood and creating the need for factory farms, which in turn cause issues with salmonella, e-coli, etc., and clear cutting or slash and burning in order to provide fuel and clear forests so they can be farmed or ranched, which in turn causes air pollution and loss of necessary bio-diversity. Almost every war, because wars are essentially a quest by someone for the resources of another. Things are bad in Iraq, so they invade Kuwait for their resources, etc. Too many people concentrated in optimum areas means too many people driving, creating pollution and an excess of fuel consumption. Too many people means famine when the weather or natural disasters or corruption comes into play. I could go on and on. So yes, I think it is ridiculously irresponsible to advocate excessively large families through breeding as opposed to adoption.
Two, Andrea Yates. She was a member of the Quiverfull movement too.
Some people may not be mentally equipped to bear dozens of kids and stay home with them all day. Post-partum issues may play a part with many of those who are not equipped. Poverty plays another part. But, their values compel them to do this whether or not they are equipped. God has commanded it and that is a heavy obligation. The movement believes that God will give only those kids that the parents can handle so birth control is verboten. That is not logical to me and a very dangerous way to think. JMO but i think God gave us logic and discernment and the intelligence to create things like birth control so we can plan our families. God gives us the tools, one of which is our brains. I can only hope that one of the Duggars is not going to be one of those, like Andrea Yates, incapable of raising a quiverfull of kids, but feeling that doing so is a mandate from God.
JMHO.
