Comments on: Bring Me The Flaming Head Of Barbie! – Adventures In Recovery

By: JonelB

JonelB — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:46:15 +0000

To quote a friend who was mocking the way patriarchal men are:
“To them, sheep are sheep, one baa’s as good as another.”

By: Arbourist

Arbourist — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:08:05 +0000

“Not getting health care while you have children in the home to finish raising is just irresponsible.”

—–

How about: Not getting healthcare [when you're sick] is just irresponsible.

The first statement seems to predicate children being necessary for a woman to consider getting healthcare, which is potentially misleading, as women in any state, deserve medical attention when it is required.

By: madame

madame — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:26:54 +0000

Calulu,
I totally agree with your disgust at the way the Duggars and TLC are using their children to make money. Even the loss of one has been used to make money, but it was, IMO, almost inevitable. Everyone who follows them knew she was pregnant. They don’t miss a chance to proclaim their love of children and QF ideas, so if they lose a child, it’s going to be public as well. Of course, if you really want to, you can close the door and say “not this time”.
Personally, I found the pictures beautiful, but the sharing of them unnecessary. I wonder if they ever give a thought to how their choice to be on TV and make their life so public is affecting their children!

The Duggars remind me of the Little House on the Prairie show. It looks at a tough life full of difficulties through rose colored glasses and misrepresents the reality of what frontier life was like. I hope anyone watching them knows they are also human, not always sugary sweet, get angry, yell, and that their house must be a mess from time to time.

By: Donna

Donna — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:41:29 +0000

When I was little, I was grossed out by the coffin pictures that my grandmother occasionally showed me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would even take such a picture. Many years later, I read in a history book about the 19th century that when photography was new and expensive most people never had a picture taken of themselves during their lives. As a result, it became common for grieving families to have a photo taken of the deceased to remember them. When cameras became cheaper and easier to use, this custom slowly became less common.

By: elizabeth scobie

elizabeth scobie — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:26:32 +0000

As a grieving mother who miscarried at 24 weeks back in September I find your lack of compassion and education very offensive. When you lose a baby before it is born you don’t have any other pictures to remember them by. At a “normal” funeral a photo of the deceased would likely be displayed and probably many photos would hang around the home for years to come in remembrance of that person. Families who lose a child are no different. If you didn’t know that the photos were taken after the baby had passed there would be nothing offensive by looking at those little hands. It’s amazing and very sad that the majority of people today don’t understand or appreciate the grief of losing a loved one, at any age, and especially the grief of a parent losing a child. That grief is intensified by individuals like yourself who call it gross and horrendous to honor and remember the precious life that was stolen from a mother much too soon.

By: Calulu

Calulu — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:11:10 +0000

I have had 9 count em 9 miscarriages, some as late as Ms. Duggar’s last one so I DO have some notion what she was/is suffering. It’s not her suffering I am objecting to, nor that she’s doing it in public. It’s the whole nature of it all being out in the media like it is and yes, many of the photos online of the service did include a shot of the photos, it wasn’t all ‘tabloid media’ like you imply. I have no problem with her having a service, I have no problem with them having photos. The problem is that everything they do is geared to how it will play out on tv and in the media. In my eyes they are no different than those folks that go on The Jerry Springer Show or any reality show that services no real purpose except to paint a false picture. They are such attention whores. I feel certain this tragedy is being exploited by the Duggars and TLC for maximum dollars and eyeballs glued to the show.

The Duggars present a very false innocuous face of Fundamentalism, the whole Quivering Movement, ATI and so many things that aren’t at all like how they are presented on the Duggar show. It’s all Disneyfied on the show, cleaned up sanitized and perfected. It’s not reality being presented as reality.

By: Mrs. Spit

Mrs. Spit — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:48:41 +0000

I seem to recall that the Duggar’s didn’t release the photo’s, that the photo’s were at least first released by a gossip blog. I can understand, after watching the firestorm of comments, that they might release the photo to point out that their child wasn’t a monster or repugnant, she was a baby, no different than any other. I’m not so sure that I’m willing to blame people for trying to point out they had a child and they loved her.

Feel free to say that you wouldn’t release the photo’s of your child. That’s your decision. I would suggest that it is probable that you haven’t ever been in those shoes. I will maintain that the photo’s of my son show a beautiful and much loved child. There’s nothing wrong with them. In a great many ways, they are no different than any other photo’s taken after a birth. Yes, he’s dead, but he was ours and we loved him.

Please though, be kind. When you suggest mourning publicly is repugnant, you marginalize an entire group of people. One in 200 pregnancies ends in perinatal demise. We held a funeral for our son, about a hundred people came. I guess you could say that was public. It seems cruel to suggest that grieving people should be silent because they made you uncomfortable.

Make all the points about the politics of the Duggar’s you want. Grief? Perhaps it is kinder to leave judgement out of it.

By: Calulu

Calulu — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:58:37 +0000

I never said that the photos were repugnant. I said it was repugnant how they flogged them around for publicity. That is the abhorrent thing. I did not enjoy viewing them but I can understand why the family might have them.

By: nolongerquivering

nolongerquivering — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:04:27 +0000

I don’t really mind the pics – although I can understand how it could be offensive to some people – and I agree with Angela – it does seem like the publicity was in very poor taste.

The truly weird thing is – there are young, beautiful, intelligent women who would be happy to step into Michelle’s place as the new Mommy Duggar. You would think no sane female would want a ready-made family of 20+ – but actually, these patriarchs seem to have no trouble at all finding willing victims. Why is that?

So aggravating …

By: Angela

Angela — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:10:24 +0000

As a mother of a stillborn baby (38 weeks) I see nothing wrong with the pictures. It is NOTHING like taking a death picture of someone who lived a full life. This is a person whose only life was within it’s mother. A picture is the only thing the family has to remember that person. That picture is priceless. I realize that an earlier loss may be difficult to look at. But the Duggar picture that was shared simply showed tiny hands and feet-beautiful, perfectly formed hands and feet. My personal pictures look like a sleeping baby. A beautiful, perfect forever sleeping baby.
That being said, I do feel sickened at the thought that they capitalized on the death of that child. Measures could have been taken to keep things more private. And the picture of the whole family smiling at the service for baby Joy was eerie and truly sickening. God’s will or not, big toothy smiles at a funeral service are just wrong.