I don’t know about you, but I have a powerful visceral reaction to people who are full of shit. Typically people who act like everything is sunshine and roses all the time – cause we know it’s not. Life is messy, parenthood has ups and downs, marriages can be rocky, working full time or staying home full time – these things can wreak havoc on your mind. Nothing is easy. Certainly everything isn’t rosy every single day. I like it when people are real. If we are friends – tell me about something totally hilarious and awesome that happened today. But when something crappy happens, don’t pretend like your life is a sunday walk in the park filled with sunshine and roses. Cause guess what – it’s pretty transparent that you are faking it.
So, I immediately puke in my mouth when I see the Duggars on the TV. Specifically last week, I caught a bit of them on the Today Show. Unfortunately real life – 2 sick kids and a nasty cold myself – prevented me from blasting them immediately when I saw them on TV. First of all, I think they are psycho. You cannot tell me that you have that many children and it’s wonderful and there is no impact on the children. Give me a freaking break. I can barely find enough time in the day to feel like my TWO kids are getting sufficient attention from me. Add in 17 more and forget about it.
So first, in case you feel differently, then you can tell me how the Duggars were awarded 2009 Parents of the Year. And I still puked a little in my mouth. Someone get me a towel to wipe it up. Wait – maybe if I had a dozen more kids, one of them could run and get me a towel?
Or you can tell me all about how they make their money themselves and never lived off public assistance.
I’m sorry, we should even mention that?
But here’s the added twist – their 19th child – keep in mind Michelle is in her early 40s and has been pregnant roughly every 9 months for about 20 years. So tell me what that does to her body? How is that good and healthy for her to constantly be pregnant or nursing?
So the 19th child was born at 24 weeks and has been in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Arkansas since early December. She’s almost 2 months now and weighs 2lbs. Yet the Duggars sat on the Today Show, beaming smiles, and waxed on about how their life is a blessing and everything is wonderful and their daughter is so beautiful.
BE REAL PEOPLE
Give me an f’ing break. Having an infant in the intensive care unit for easily three months with innumerable possible developmental problems due to her early emergency delivery must rate up there among the highest stressors parents can face. Then you add in 18 more children, many of whom are very young and still need constant care and attention from parents – and who is paying attention to them? Surely at least Michelle is pretty much always in the hospital with baby Josie. So you’re telling me that one parent is sufficient in taking care of all the needs of 18 other kids? But wait – so then who is working to make money to support this family? Oh right – I guess that’s where pimping your kids out to TV networks to make money off them comes in handy? I’m sure God would definitely approve of that strategy. And you’re telling me that the absence of one parent and the logistical inability of the other parent to pay sufficient attention to all these other kids doesn’t impact them? Before you consider bringing home a baby a potential host of special needs? Or maybe instead of hiring nannies to help them tend to all these children and all the needs they have (school drop offs and pickups, sporting events, ballet, music lessons, art class, birthday parties), maybe the Duggars farm out the parenting responsibilities to the eldest children. Ah yes, I can see how that would earn them parents of the year award. Let’s keep having children so our older children can raise them!!! God said it was ok.
And then they casually toss in that they moved their entire family to Little Rock to be closer to the hospital – and we’re still meant to believe life is grand?
Having moved every three years of my life until I went to college, I know all about being uprooted and how stressful it can be on a kid. So they uproot 18 children and you’re telling me there isn’t resentment and anger among some of the kids that they had to leave their school, their friends, their life because their parents can’t stop having children? By my last count, at least 5 of the kids are of high school age. My sister still talks about having to move before going into her senior year of high school…and well…..she’s many years past high school.
I think it’s irresponsible on their part. I think it’s irresponsible and disgusting to constantly put themselves out there, to welcome and encourage media attention (hello- camera crews in the ICU? Remind anyone else of the Octomom, profiting off the circus show of having so many children? Yet they hide behind God’s blessings instead of a creepy Angelina Jolie plastic surgery make-over and it makes it OK for the Duggars to do?), and I think it’s dishonest to smile and talk about life’s blessings.
I think the media play a role in perpetuating this insanity by paying families like the Duggars to profile their lives on TV. And it’s time to stop.
Bottom line – the only thing I am left wondering is – given the fact that Michelle always has the same plastered, spacey, taped on smile on her face, I am left wondering -what is she on? And can I get any of it?
Here’ s the thing Wired Momma, as members of the Quiverfull movement, a Christian sect that eschews birth control, the Duggars probably think that everything that happens to them, be it a full Diaper Genie to a one pound baby is part of God’s plan. Are they really psycho or just view themselves as pieces of holy meat being shuffled around some cosmic chessboard by a man with a great big beard on a throne somewhere? They have no responsibility for their actions but rationalize all their REAL choices as part of their religion. The worst thing is that the Discovery channel is feeding their disgusting worldview and profiting off of these children’s enslavement. A one pound child? Is this woman going to have children until she finally drops of exhaustion? Our society is like a parasite feeding these people’s behavior and I admit, I love the perversity of it, but damnit, I feel sorry for those kids, especially the one pounder.
Okay so I just loved the opening line of this post!
I always wonder what would happen if their children had an independent thought. And they are all homeschooled as well so switching high schools isn’t part of the equation. But seriously – won’t her uterus implode at some point. Why on earth not get a tubal litgation when doing the c-section?
Well for your information Momma Duggar aka clown car was not always at the hospital. Most of the time she was out protesting liquor stores opening in her town. I am sorry I would not be on tv at this time in my life if my baby was sick in the nicu I’d be an emotional wreck. I wonder if this woman is capable of loving her children at all? I don’t see any parenting on her and the sperm factory. Its bad that the oldest are forced to raise the youngest. What example does that set to the young girls women are nothing but baby factories used to take care of men. Men are allowed to go do things and have fun. It aggravates me the whole thing.
They are definitely a sick religious cult unique unto themselves. My mom watches this show, and apparently all the girls have the same long curly hairstyle because “that’s the way dad likes it”. If that isn’t frightening, I don’t know what is.
Thank you for writing this!! I have spent way too much time this morning trying to figure out how these people have attracted so much positive attention. I grew up in a home where personalities and emotions were stifled, books and tv were censored, and backtalk and rebellion were unheard of. If I were a Duggar child I would be absolutely overcome by humiliation and embarrassment at being included in such a phony cult – especially if they dressed me in the signature tablecloth garb the family has come to embrace. Kind of like the Sound of Music, only this version is directed by Quentin Tarantino and Julie Andrews is nowhere in sight. Looks to me like Daddy is a pedophile, mommy is a narcissistic sociopath enabler, and the kids are going to be so effed-up they’ll need years of therapy to learn how to think for themselves and establish normal boundaries. Control through humiliation. That’s the ticket!