by Millipede

Eventually, the church building materialized. At first, we had a larger group. Soon however, there was a falling out with a group which had comprised most of those from the Patriot group. Part of it was personality and some of it was viewpoint. Some wanted to the place to be a patriot type meeting house while some wanted it to be a church. This belied a rift that plays itself over again and again in this end of the spectrum.

On one hand there are what I would call the “political types”. This is simply for lack of a better term and is not indicative of a lack of Faith. People within this group were most often led into church via ideological means. Their religious views are part of a larger concert of views. I heard a pastor bemoan such people, saying that they simply added Christ onto a long chain of train cars of belief. One car might be their position on gun control, another states’ rights and so on. With the “religious question” answered they move on to continue to build the train. He stated that they needed to make Christ the locomotive, not merely regulate Him along a set of beliefs.

On the other hand you have those for whom Faith is the primary motivation. They often come from a strong Fundamentalist background. Not from in a distant childhood past either, but often having recently come from various conservative churches. for these folks, ideological issues are important, but they are subordinate to questions of faith.

At first both groups over lap in various organizations, but over time, they unwind. As one pastor said, there were the “beans and bullets” types and the “folks who wanted to have church”. Those outside the political spectrum might not notice. At face value, these two groups look identical. In fact they often proclaim identical or closely related viewpoints.

NOTE. This is a socio-cultural observation only, not a measure of sincerity or depth of belief. Both groups view themselves as being both committed Christians and as being sincerely dedicated to various ideological causes.
My husband and I along with our new circle of friends belonged to the “church goers”. In our view, a lot of patriot types liked the high ground that being a Christian presented, but were not really committed to the Faith. for a lot of them having church was really having a group of people sitting around discussing political issues. They had a “to each his own” when it came to theological views. We, on the other hand, were committed to pleasing God, in spirit and deed. If the Bible forbid something, we would abstain from it and would not hesitate to proclaim that truth even if it offended would be allies.

Soon, the church had a split with the more “political” group going off on its own to hold its own version of church. I saw people I considered my friends leave with that group. Even after the split, we remained on friendly terms, but we were not close. Our new circle, however was tight, both a result of personality and of viewpoint.
We enjoyed fellowship not only in church, but as friends. In the first couple of years, I enjoyed our time together. They were friendly people and we spent a lot of time together.

Our faith was a growing thing and with each new turn, we molded our lives around each new truth. My life had changed quite a bit. we went to church regularly and attended various conferences, often traveling hundreds of miles.
I made a great deal of personal changes. I had been dissatisfied with my job in the past and things came to a head when when we were getting heavily involved in our faith. when I told my husband that I was going to look for another job, he suggested that I stay home and we could start a family. When I replied that I was worried about our financial stability, he said that we should step out in faith. So instead of changing jobs, I simply put my two weeks notice in with plans to stay home. Not long after that a fortuitous event occurred that met our financial concerns, a sure sign of a blessing.

So I stayed at home and we tried, without success, to have children. This didn’t concern us. although we didn’t believe in birth control and were for having large and often home schooled families, no one was legalistic about it. It was between a husband and his wife about the number of children they should have. Also, if a woman abstained from having more children due to health concerns, no one looked down upon her. In this respect, I feel that our group was very balanced, there was no pressure or condemnation concerning the bearing of children. Even though I now take issue with other stances, I feel that we as a group had a healthy take on the issue. There was none of this “having children at any cost” or “maternal martyr” mindset. Indeed it was not beyond the pale, if the medical issue was grave enough, for a woman to have her tubes tied.

On the other hand, there were views that we adapted which proved harmful in the long run. They started with little baby steps at first which made it easier to swallow. Little things…

To be continued…

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

Part 1

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by Permission to Live

This post is part of a series of nine posts. Please click here to start with the series Introduction.

It had been a year since my spouse had come out to me. It felt like it had been much longer. So much had changed and yet nothing had changed. We still hadn’t decided how Christianity tied in with our changing reality: I was leaning further and further away from the idea of God but my spouse still believed. We felt like there were no real answers anymore. Life was not as black and white as people wanted it to be. My spouse was talking more and more about transitioning and I felt like there was no one-size-fits-all in gender identity. Maybe my spouse would become comfortable living as a man and wouldn’t need to transition, but maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he would transition to living as a female someday, but again, maybe he wouldn’t. The idea just wasn’t that scary to me anymore. My spouse was already living as such a feminine person as he had grown more comfortable with who he was, transition would just be a natural next step if it happened.

In fact the only fear that still clung to me was how this would affect our children, and that made me wonder if my spouse should try to put off transition until the kids were grown up. The faith and culture that I had been brought up in told me that children had to have parents of both genders to be happy, healthy, and well-adjusted. Wouldn’t our children resent us for having grown up with two female parents? How would society treat them? Would they always be the kids with the weird dad? Was it even possible to raise kids without a “manly influence?”

Despite my fears and doubts, I couldn’t deny that my spouse was happier than I had ever seen him. He was relaxed and involved. He was dressing more and more femininely at home, and the kids didn’t mind at all. They were starting to figure out that their daddy was a bit different than other daddies, but they were happy to have a peaceful parent who loved them and cared for them, talked with them and snuggled them and listened to them. It was as if a huge burden had been lifted off his shoulders, like he no longer had to spend the majority of his time struggling to constantly tread water and keep his head above the surface and stay alive. Instead, all of the energy that had been consumed in that struggle could be spent on parenting and living. The conversation about transition “someday” started to change into transition being a real option in the near future, and I couldn’t come up with a reason our kids should have to go back to having a depressed repressed parent who lived as a male and struggled to survive with the help of anti-depressants instead of a happy relaxed involved parent who lived as female. A guy as feminine as he was turning out to be was going to out of the ordinary anyway. Why was I questioning this at all? To please a god? Who had played this gender joke on us in the first place? A god I wasn’t even sure existed?

So, to combat my fear of my children growing up with gay parents, I once again turned to education. I started reading about non-traditional families and one of the stats that startled me was that over 50% of families today did not fit the traditional standard that I had been led to believe was the only healthy family. There were many children being raised by single moms or single dads. Often parents divorced and children spent time living with either parent at different times. Children today are being raised by grandparents, foster parents, and widowed parents. My kids certainly wouldn’t be the only ones with a “different” family. Studies showed that the child’s emotional well-being and healthiness had more to do with how they were respected and loved and cared for as individuals than the exact set-up of their families.

I began reading more and more about LGBTQ parents. I read the stats on how their kids did in school, and how they matured emotionally. I read books written by people who had grown up with gay or lesbian or transgendered parents, and listened to their perspectives. The stats were encouraging, and most of the hardships involved with growing up with LGBTQ parents seemed to come from the pressure from society to conform and the prejudice that created, not the parents themselves. In fact, the divorce that commonly took place after the revelation of sexuality or gender identity questions seemed to have more impact on the children than the sexuality or gender identity questions themselves. The parents and the kids seemed to have the normal range of personality traits and issues that any family would have. Why would our kids be any different? We didn’t hit them, we would accept them and love them whoever they were or whatever they wanted to be. Their emotional health and well being was a top priority for us, and would continue to be so. Did it really matter that their dad would have a unique story? Normally, if a parent had a medical condition that hampered their ability to be happy and productive, society would bless and encourage their seeking treatment. Why should my spouse’s condition be any different?

One of the things I had to consider was that if my spouse did end up completely transitioning to living as female, the medical treatments for gender dysphoria would mean an end to fertility and further genetic children. I had already come to the conclusion that I did not want as large a family as I had grown up in, but the idea of limiting children or being done was still relatively new to me. We now had four beautiful children, whom I loved dearly and who had kept me from getting a full night’s sleep for five years straight. I knew I needed a break and I did not want to become pregnant again in the near future. I also knew I wanted to have the time and energy to be there for each one of my children. But because I had spent most of my life believing that my main purpose in life was to produce children it was hard for me to imagine any other reality.

I kept thinking about it, determined to get to the bottom of my feelings and make sure that I really was OK with a future with fertility limitations. Slowly I started to see that I had value outside of my fertility. I asked myself if my spouse had any other medical condition, would I demand that he refuse treatment because it could affect his fertility? I also learned more about the range of options available for people who are undergoing treatment that may compromise fertility, including sperm banking. And I wondered if perhaps there could be a space in our family for adoption or fostering children someday, a dream which seemed so impossible back in our Quiverfull days of having a baby every 18 months.

As the idea of transition in the near future became more real, we talked at length about our children and our marriage. We asked ourselves if was divorce something that needed to happen? My spouse wanted to make sure I was really OK with him going ahead with gender transition. He insisted that he would understand completely even if we needed to part ways, and that he would continue to provide us financial support regardless. We talked about our children, and asked ourselves if they would they be better off if we separated? But divorce still didn’t make sense to me. I was happy with our relationship and thrilled with my spouse’s new involvement in our children’s lives. Even if for some reason we decided that our relationship wasn’t going to work out, I knew I would still want him involved with parenting our children. I was attracted to him now, and I couldn’t see that changing. He had been the first person to love me unconditionally, and had been there for me all along my journey of questioning and healing from my past. He was a caring, empathic, patient and passionate person, and I wanted to continue my life-story with him. And as I’d begun to unwrap my own sexuality for the first time, I was starting to feel that if we were to separate for some reason, or if my spouse were to die, I would be romantically interested in women anyway, so I had nothing to lose by staying together.

It was better for our kids for our family to stay intact,
and it was better for us,
even if that meant going through transition together.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

You can read more about Permission To Live at her blog – Musings of a young mom.

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This post is part of a series of nine posts. Please click here to start with the series Introduction.

It was the end of 2010. I was starting to question the existence of God while my spouse was as Christian as ever. Sometimes I did not understand how he could keep believing in a God who had made him this way and then said that he couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t understand how it was god-honoring for a person to live their life “the way god wanted them too” while being miserable and secretly hoping that they would get into an accident somehow that would force the removal of the hormone producing organs that caused them so much mental anguish. The thought reminded me of some Quiverfull women I had encountered who in their exhaustion wished that a horrible labour and childbirth would cause a uterine rupture or something, nothing too drastic, but enough to cause the removal of their reproductive organs and the reassurance that they would be done having kids without ever having to “disobey” God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. But the idea of limiting children through artificial means to save their life or their sanity wasn’t acceptable? It was better to live life trying to glorify God with the lot he had given you? I used to think that people like that just had a bad attitude and needed to find a way to be happy with whatever God had decreed for them, now I was starting to wonder if they were just stuck in a sick system.

My spouse often asked if he should stop talking about transgender questions and issues. He worried that maybe this was too much for me and that he should just fight this alone. But I had seen how healing it was for me to talk about my own issues and to let my kids express their feelings, and I didn’t want him to have to go back to bottling it all up. So I encouraged him to continue processing as much as he needed too, and told him I would always be here to listen. Now instead of being distant or depressed on a regular basis he tried to talk about the overwhelming gender dysphoria, trying to sort out who he was and where he fit.

He had begun to relax and be himself more. He started letting down his guard and not double checking how he was moving his hands when he talked or worrying that the way he crossed his legs was “too feminine.” He started buying his own clothes, choosing colors and styles that were closer to his sense of self than the pants and polo ensemble he had been letting me buy for him. We joked that he had enough style for both of us; I tended to be very practical in my clothing choices, comfort being my highest priority, but he actually cared about how he looked and that began to be reflected in his sense of style.

The dad who used to come home and usually disappeared into the basement to play video games had turned into a parent who played on the floor with the kids every day. He wanted to be involved in their day to day lives. He was learning how to feed them and dress them, he started taking them for bedtime walks bundled up in the wagon in the pajama’s each clutching a bedtime snack and their blankies. He would talk about how 3 babies seemed to be more work than 2, and I would laugh at him and explain that to me this was the easiest parenting period yet, because he was parenting them alongside me for the first time. He stopped complaining that grocery shopping was women’s work and began going with us to the store on his day off, I didn’t have to shop alone with multiple babies and toddlers anymore.

Genuine smiles had been few and far between during the last few years, I used to have to tickle him to get him to give a real smile for pictures. Now he was smiling all the time, and laughing. Instead of shrugging and vaguely referencing a life led by whatever ministry dictated, he was dreaming about the future again. Crazy loopy dreams, like driving out to Alaska or teaching English abroad or becoming a makeup artist in the movie industry. He was getting piles of books out of the library and reading sections of them aloud after years of saying he was too busy reading theology to check out anything else. It was as if his world had become more 3-dimensional. He was swimming regularly and had lost a lot of excess weight and had started letting his hair grow longer. Sometimes I caught him in front of the mirror, he would look at his reflection and say in wonder “For the first time I am starting to like what I see.”

It seemed so natural for him, that it didn’t feel strange to see him painting the kids toenails and then painting his own. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to see him in a bubble bath at the end of the day, I laughed at how happy it made him. Choosing anniversary cards and birthday cards was easier. For the first time I felt like I knew how to really love him. A flower left on his desk or watching a movie while playing with his hair meant more to him then the silly sex ambushes all the marriage books recommended. After being married to someone who had kept part of themselves so mysterious for so long, it was a relief to be getting to know all of him. I didn’t want to lose that ever again.

That Christmas was the best we’d ever had. For the first five years of our married life I had wracked my brain every Christmas and birthday, trying to figure out what to get him. It was always bewildering to try and pinpoint what he would enjoy, and when I asked him what he wanted he couldn’t really come up with anything that sounded cool. I usually went with a book or some article of clothing in the end, but this year for the first time, I knew exactly what he wanted. I knew what he liked for the first time. I bought him a hair dryer and curling iron, tools for a trade that he told me he had always been interested in. We had hopes that going into cosmetology would get him involved in enough feminine things that he would be happy living as a male. He had experimented with some of my eye shadow, so I bought him a kit of his own to have fun with. And the pink fuzzy socks I threw in his stocking became something he wore almost every day they were clean.

It was a good Christmas.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

You can read more about Permission To Live at her blog – Musings of a young mom.

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by Barbie Getzreal

The Quiverfull Party Line: If We’re Not Trusting God, We Are Playing God

Are We Pro-Choice or Pro-Life? Most Christians would answer Pro-Life. By this they mean that they are against terminating a life that has already been conceived through abortion. But are they really Pro-Life? What if God should so desire to bless them with another family member? Usually not. The majority of the church has openly embraced birth control, even though it’s very name clearly implies that someone else is in control other than God. Their bodies, destiny, family size, timing and structure have never been turned over. God’s creed has always been conception, birth and life. The world’s creed has always been birth control, sterilization and abortion. It all accomplishes the same purpose. Life has been stopped. Whose side are we on? (excerpted from Who Is In Control?)

Not surprisingly, the central issue regarding birth control is CONTROL. Namely, who (Who?) is really in control when it comes to the making of a new living being?  ”Jess” at Making Home, engages her readers in a thought-provoking dialogue regarding the significance of determining God’s will:

I see one very KEY and CRITICAL difference between the determination of God’s will regarding a new house or job and the determination of God’s will regarding birth control, and it is this: house and job decisions have much lower stakes. Those kinds of decisions will not determine whether or not a human being is ever conceived.

There are some questions to consider that have some critical implications for what we believe about the sovereignty of God:

IF (and this is a big if) there is some implied standard in the Word that because children are a blessing and everyone must therefore partake of as many blessings as possible, THEN is the at-large Christian community intentionally and willfully bucking the will of God for our own ease?

At Boundless.org, Candice Watters, co-author of Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies, weighs in with her observation that generally, it appears that God lets couples have their own way when it comes to family planning:

Yes, God can work around and through birth control, should He so desire. And birth control can and does fail on occasion. But as a rule, God follows the principles He set in place to govern our natural world; stories of miraculous conceptions despite a couple’s efforts to prevent more children are an exception, not the norm. I believe God is not inclined to make the pill or patch fail in order to impose His will for our families on us. When we erect barriers to God’s blessings, He often lets us. We limit God by decisions of our free will.

Is God really sovereign over the womb? Can God be limited by mankind’s exercise of free will which He himself, has conferred upon us?  God gave us brains, doesn’t He expect us to use them?

But maybe that’s our problem – perhaps we’re thinking too hard. In The Way Home: Beyond Feminism and Back to Reality, Mary Pride suggests a simple alternative to “scheming and plotting how many babies to have and when to have them”:

It can be summed up in three little words: trust and obey. If God is willing to plan my family for me (and we Christians all do believe that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives), then why should I muddle up his plan with my ideas?

Consider this: If we use birth control, we are “playing God” by making a conscious determination regarding the prevention of life – and if we forego birth control, we are also “playing God” by making a conscious determination regarding the conception of life. Either way, we make a choice. Knowing good and evil – having the capacity to choose – this is what makes conscious human beings “like god.”

If we refuse to make an active choice regarding family planning, we are nevertheless making a choice.

Do our choices to use or not use birth control actually result in the prevention or conception of a baby? Who can know for sure? There are entirely too many variables and unknowns to reach any verifiably objective conclusions. Does God exist? If yes, does He supernaturally interfere with the natural course of a Christian couple’s reproductive life? Is His specific will regarding believers’ fertility revealed in the Bible? Whose interpretation of the relevant passages of scripture are most accurate? How do the “laws of nature” or “random chance” figure into the equation?  The list of relevant considerations goes on and on …

Seeing that, for all practical purposes, these deep philosophical deliberations about “Who’s in control?” and “trusting God” vs “playing God” are essentially irrelevant to the question of whether Christian couples will have two babies, or a dozen babies, or no babies at all – believers should feel free to consider practical matters such as family dynamics, financial concerns, health risks to moms and babies, parental energy levels and temperament, and even individual personal preference, when “playing God” in their choice to welcome, or prevent, future pregnancies.

The real hinderance to mature discernment and clear thinking with regard to Christians and birth control comes from the absolute, black and white, either/or mindset implied in the phrase “trusting the Lord with our family planning.”  This terminology should be recognized as a thought-stopping tactic contrived to arrogate the moral high-ground from anyone who might dare to question the validity of the claim that eschewing birth control is the only means of “trusting the Lord” with one’s reproductive life.

Reducing the issue to a simple matter of “Who’s In Control?” essentially derails the conversation and leaves no room for consideration of extenuating circumstances or personal conviction.

What do you think? Yes, you are allowed to think – and to express your personal views without fear of judgment regarding your spiritual maturity, personal devotion, or level of commitment to the Quiverfull party line. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

This is the first in a series intended to address real life issues that we former QFers faced – and the pat answers and comforting platitudes we repeated to console ourselves when the ideal did not exactly match up to reality.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

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Children are a Blessing from Moore Family Films on Vimeo.

Children are a Blessing from Moore Family Films on Vimeo.

We would love to feature your personal story on No Longer Quivering. Please submit what you have to say via our submissions form.

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I recently ran across an article on Vision Forum president Doug Phillips’ blog, in which he repeats a line I heard so often growing up: Our world isn’t facing an overpopulation crisis, but is rather headed toward a demographic decline that will result in economic catastrophe. In other words, having 12+ children doesn’t contribute to overpopulation but rather serves as a way to fight and avert the potential problems of demographic decline.

This idea is frequently put forward by the conservative Christian news magazine World, and has been the subject of several documentaries, including Demographic Winter and Demographic Bomb. It shouldn’t be surprising that this idea was put forward in the 1970s by the man who single-handedly created dominionism, Rousas Rushdoony himself. Based on these ideas, Vision Forum, which sells Rushdoony’s books and supports his views, recently held a pro-mass-reproduction event called the Baby Conference.

Libby Anne cites the typical arguments used to discount and dismiss concerns about the global overpopulation crisis with which Quiverfull believers are intimately familiar and offers several common sense rebuttals:

The trouble is of course that choosing to have only one or two children, or even none, does not mean one is automatically “selfish.” There are all sorts of ways to give back to the world and to those around us, to work to make the world a better place, outside of having children. Furthermore, wanting to give each child the best we can, or to raise children with economic security, is not selfish.

…

Not unexpectedly, Phillips rejects the idea that a continually expanding population could lead to environmental catastrophe or resource wars or food shortages. Why? Because (a) God told us to be fruitful and multiply, not to be fruitful and multiply until there are enough people; (b) God has said that only he can destroy the earth; and (c) the earth was created to meet our needs and will therefore always be adequate. This is (a) dependent on the existence of God and divine nature of the Bible, (b) stems from a fairly fundamentalist and literal interpretation of the Bible, and (c) runs contrary to what we know – resourcesare limited, and mankind can destroy, or at least very much damage, the earth (imagine what a nuclear war would do, for instance).

Finally, do you notice how very nativist this entire idea is? Phillips ignores the fact that the populations in most parts of the world are booming. The trouble is that ourpopulations, the populations of white Western Christendom, face decline. Kathryn Joyce addresses this nativism, especially as connected to Europe, in an excellent article here.

Libby’s conclusion is spot on:

Rather than looking no further than my own home, I want to embrace the world and seek global well-being. But more than anything, I am simply glad that I no longer have blinders on telling me that the best thing I can do for the planet and the future is be a baby-making machine.

Libby Anne has recently switched “Love, Joy, Feminism” to FreeThoughBlogs – be sure to bookmark her new web address.

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by Incongruous Circumspection

Baking is one of my favorite pastimes.  I make a killer banana bread.  I love baking cookies and many times, like Marie Barone, bake a cake just because.  I follow recipes very closely but always add vanilla even if it is not called for.  I can follow those recipes to the letter for one simple reason – I live 900 feet above sea level.

Those who live 2500 feet above sea level cannot enjoy the ease of baking I take for granted.  When a recipe calls for a certain amount of flour, they have to add a bit more of the liquid ingredients.  If baking powder is needed, the elevated baker must reduce the amount by as much as half.  Baking temperatures must be increased.  And it isn’t as easy as following specific directions for a perfect cake either.  In order to find the perfect balance of everything, copious testing and many failures must ensue.  But, just as the elevated baker is finding the correct balance, a thunderstorm hits and their angel food cake comes out of the oven in the shape of a discus.

Such is life in the baking world and such is the idea behind marriage.  What works for one couple will not necessarily work for another couple.

Everyone in the world is familiar with JimBob and Michelle Duggar.  They are all over television with their TLC program, as well as having been on numerous talk shows and the subject of many a news story.  They tow the line of an organization called Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and their home schooling program Advanced Training Institute (ATI).

IBLP/ATI is run by a chronically unmarried man named Bill Gothard with a storied past, full of scandals.  This gentleman has propped himself up as an expert on marriage and everything to do with family life.  He is quite the guru with millions of direct and indirect adherents to his ideas.  Yes…ideas.  Bill Gothard has seven steps to this, fourteen steps to that, twelve steps to everything except alcoholism, three steps to whatever else.  The material he puts out is so formulaic, a follower of his has nothing to do but reference any of his hundreds of manuals for any question in life.

As was put forth in ATI material that Michelle Duggar handed out to women at a conference she was speaking at, the formula for marriage is very simple.  The wife must worship her husband at every turn in life.  She must stand behind him in all his decisions and respect his leadership.  She must look at him lovingly whenever he speaks and not interrupt.  She cannot argue with him or disagree unless she follows a formula to make a “godly” appeal.  All financial decisions are his.  All final decisions are his.  Her husbands vision must be her vision and absolute unquestioning trust and faith must be placed in the man she married.

This seems to work well for JimBob and Michelle Duggar.  JimBob appears to be an ambitious man and has started numerous businesses.  Currently, he is successful at real estate, not to mention the large amounts of money involved in any television show.  Trusting a man to make good decisions is very easy when that man works hard, efficiently, smart, and enough to more than enough money is rolling in.

The problem is that two people living together is never a cookie-cutter situation.  JimBob and Michelle Duggar, as well as all adherents of IBLP/ATI practices, have a favorite line that you will hear whenever they give public interviews or are backed into a corner, defending their ancient and outdated belief system.

“This is simply our conviction.”

No it isn’t.  If you dig into the reality of IBLP/ATI/Duggar, you will see what they portray as their conviction is really much more.  They posit that, due to their convictions, they have been blessed by God.  The obvious conclusion is that if others do not have the same convictions, then God is obligated not to bless them.  Thus, the “simply our conviction” line is really a translucent lie.

In 2011, I played on a church softball team.  This league was unique in that most of the families showed up to watch their husbands and fathers make fools out of themselves.  (Ok, it was really just me making a fool out of myself).  A highlight of the game was the after-party where the home team would bring snacks and drinks and the families enjoyed meeting everyone.  My wife and I met a mother of eight children.  These children were very poorly dressed and had obvious, easily treatable medical problems (rashes, etc.).  We asked the mother how many children she had and she hesitated before she “remembered” that she had eight.  The children were well behaved but the older girls, around eleven and twelve, were very exasperated while taking care of their younger siblings.  The father was nowhere to be found.

I record this scenario here to portray a different side of formulaic marriage and family life as put forth by IBLP/ATI/Duggars.  The church league I played in was heavily involved in this mindset and they lived it, even to their detriment.  My wife and I went home and began asking the following questions.

Why is it right to have as many children as God gives you if you cannot support them?

What if the husband doesn’t listen to “godly” appeals and railroads through all his decisions, no matter the detriment to the family?

What if the husband is abusive?

What if the wife has a superior financial mind and makes better decisions in that area?

What if the husband has no marketable skills?

What about inflation where one income is not enough?

What if the wife is not educated enough to sufficiently school the children and money is too scarce to get assistance?

All of these questions, and many more can be easily answered when you watch JimBob and Michelle Duggar.  They don’t have to worry about them because everything appears to work for this family.  But this rosy, happy Hollywood story, is far from reality.

Not everyone has a husband who works hard and “gets lucky”.  Many marriages work better when all parties handle everything equally.  Many marriages work very well when the partners have extended arguments and constructive fights.  Disagreement is good in life. Many families struggle to make a living and need all parties to be gainfully employed.  Sometimes the spouse needs to sleep on the couch overnight to reboot the romance.  I cannot even begin to list all the real life differences from the perfect life formula that the Duggars portray as absolute and necessary.  There are hundreds – and they grow exponentially with every passing hour of life.

Happiness in marriage is what the two married parties make of it.  It will look different for every marriage.  Don’t let anyone tell you that your marriage would be better (or even worse, truly blessed by God) if you only followed their principled life.  It just isn’t true.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

I am a 30 something husband of one and father of 6 dynamic and loud children. My wife and I are still madly in love – at least in my view. My world is exciting, tense, and full of life. I love to write and hope to one day, do it full time. – Incongruous Circumspection

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by Hopewell

Recently  on “19 Kids and Counting,” Michelle Duggar was seen giving women a handout on the “7 Basic Needs of a Husband,” a document produced and distributed by the Advanced Training Institute –the Duggar’s “homeschool group.” She also gave out the group’s “Character Qualities” chart, which I discussed in an earlier post, The 49 Character Qualities of the Duggars.

The 14 Basic Needs of Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar: How they meet each other’s 7 Basic Needs:

7 Basic Needs of a Husband:

• A man needs a wife who is loyal and supportive: Obviously, Jim-Bob picked the right wife! Michelle has been there with him, supportive to the max, thru years of small businesses, scrimping and buying used and saving the difference to achieve his (well, their) dream for their family. She’s put up with a two bedroom house on a car lot keeping 4 or 5 small children quiet while Daddy made a car sale. She’s sold cars herself with babies underfoot, gone out to tow cars on her own and kept all the family fed, clothed and healthy throughout it all. That was the early years.

Today Michelle is beside Jim-Bob at every possible moment—even on the Santorum Campaign trail when possible. While she has Grandma Duggar and the big girls to take up much of the day-to-day running of the family, caring for Jim-Bob is her responsibility and she obviously takes it seriously. Her rapt attention when he is speaking shows her love for him.

• A man needs a wife who honors his leadership: Michelle honors her husband by taking any opportunity to praise him as a father, speaking lovingly of love of family fun, of making a careful response to problems and of modeling the behavior he wants to see in his children. She openly admires his vision for the family and his business acumen. When he is speaking she is completely focused on him.

• A man needs a wife who develops inward and outward beauty Michelle has kept herself in very good shape considering all the years of pregnancy she’s endured. She honors her husband’s preference for long hair at an age when most wives have long since cut theirs for convenience. She maintains her composure in difficult situations and tries always to speak in a loving voice. She laughs easily and her smile at that time is lovely. She is a very outgoing lady.

• A man needs a wife who will make appeals, not demands.  While we cannot know what goes on when the cameras are off, it does not appear that Michelle is a very demanding of her husband.  She does not complain about him dragging home an antique harp or buying a new bus—she’s used to his whims and trusts his business sense. She knows him well and lives easily and happily with him.

• A man needs a wife who understands his need for time alone with God. While we have not been shown Jim-Bob’s “quiet time” on the show, I’m sure when it happens Michelle actively protects his privacy. She is very supportive of family Bible Time and this support has paid off—we have seen Josh Duggar having devotions with his own family and have heard John David say he had his “Bible and his music” and that was all he needed!

• A man needs a grateful wife. Michelle openly and sincerely expresses her gratitude to her husband. She obviously enjoys being married to him.

• A man needs a wife who will be praised by others. Michelle has been recognized by like-minded  people as a model wife and mother. That’s pretty high praise!

7 Basic Needs of a Wife:

A wife needs a husband who demonstrates spiritual leadership. In their times of crisis, such as Josie’s birth, Jim-Bob’s taking time to pray with Michelle was an obvious comfort to her and helped her to become calmer.

A wife needs to know she is meeting her husband’s vital needs. Well, she only has to look around to see how she’s meeting the most intimate of his needs! Joking aside, she clearly seems to know, as most wives do, those things that set Daddy off and tries to minimize them.

A wife needs a husband who cherishes her: Jim-Bob beams with affection for his wife. Few wives have had a husband bungee jump yelling “I love you!” Michelle has to be one of the most publically adored wives in history. When the Duggars had their wedding vow renewal ceremony, Jim-Bob showed his love for his wife by wanting her dressed in a modest, but beautiful dress and expressed a preference for the styles of their youth—a very touching moment.   Jim-Bob is very physically affectionate to Michelle—much more so than to their children.

A wife needs a husband who protects her. Jim-Bob proved in the very early years of their marriage that Michelle’s life was more precious to him than his own. When a break-in occurred at their car-lot home he begged the armed intruder to not harm his sleeping, pregnant wife. The man agreed. This was part of the reason Jim-Bob visited in the man in prison and forgave him. Jim-Bob consistently shows his concern for Michelle by praying in times of crisis.

A wife needs to have intimate communication with her husband. Jim-Bob tells his wife he loves her over and over again. It’s a hallmark of the show. The Duggars model active listening with each other. When one is talking the other is giving full attention to listening, to watching the facial and body language and to modeling  respect by not interrupting except in fun. We’ve seen occasional times of slight irritation on Michelle’s part though—such as when preparing to go on stage in Big Sandy, Texas, she asked rather sharply what they were speaking about so they would be on the same page. Still, her tone may have been prompted by something we didn’t see or by her husband’s anxiety about speaking to a crowd. She may also have felt she dropped the ball on this occasion by not making time to prepare for the talk.  When listening to Michelle, Jim-Bob often appears impatient or even a little angry, but this may just be his “listening” face.

A wife needs a husband who honors her: Recently, Jim-Bob took a day to manage the household to remind himself of how much his wife and daughters do for the family. He acknowledged how hard they all work and that he does not cope with it all as well as they do.  While Jim-Bob honors Michelle with his words of affirmation and by giving examples of what he likes about her, he has also said negative things such as publically discussing his wife having a dating “past” that to most people would be nebulous. While his words may have been badly edited by those in charge of the show, they seemed disloyal, mean-spirited and bitter—in no way a model of God’s grace and forgiveness.

A wife needs a husband who invests in her life. Jim-Bob invested in Michelle in the early years by working in partnership with her to build their businesses. Later on he invested in her as wife and mother by building the house she needed to comfortably raise and organize their children. Recently he has invested in her by encouraging her to speak to wives and mothers and by providing exercise equipment and joining Weight Watchers with her to improve her health. He takes her out for date nights and they occasionally get away together as a couple which is good for any marriage. Jim-Bob encourages Michelle’s friendships with other women, too. All of this is well and good, but limiting family size (especially after the trauma of Josie’s birth) would have been a much stronger statement of concern for her and her well-being.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum!  Comments are also open below.

More from Hopewell:

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by Libby Anne

I can’t say how often I’ve heard ordinary Americans defend Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their popular TLC television show, 19 Kids and Counting. “I wouldn’t choose to have nineteen kids,” they say, “but if they can manage it, who am I to question their choice?” “The kids look happy and healthy,” they say, “look how polite and well mannered they are.” I hear these comments and I just have to sigh.

First of all, I want to point out that I would have concerns about the Duggars even if they were your ordinary family plus seventeen extra children. For one thing, there is no way any two parents can give nineteen children the individual attention and time they need. It’s just not feasibly possible. The Duggars like to say that “love multiplies,” but the thing is, time doesn’t. And then, of course, there is the population issue.

But it’s not these things I’m going to discuss here. The fact is, the Duggars aren’t just your ordinary family plus seventeen extra children. There is a great deal of editing that goes into making TV, and one thing that gets edited out are the Duggars’ religious beliefs and their beliefs about child rearing. There is much, much more going on here than you see on TV.

I know this because I grew up in a family very much like the Duggars. We had a third fewer kids and we didn’t have a TV show, but otherwise it was about the same. Our beliefs were nearly identical to theirs, as was our way of living. When I look at the older Duggar girls, I see myself. I was them. With that in mind, I’m going to take a moment to outline nine specific concerns I have about the Duggars.

1. Isolation and Indoctrination

The Duggar childern are homeschooled in part in order to shelter them from bad influences, i.e. from other kids and teachers who hold different beliefs or live different sorts of lives. The Duggar kids don’t have friends who aren’t pre-approved by their parents. In fact, the Duggar kids aren’t even involved in church activities – their family participates in a “home church” where they and several other like-minded families get together on Sunday mornings and worship together.

Furthermore, even the older Duggar children are not allowed to go anywhere without having an “accountability partner,” i.e. another sibling, to keep tabs on them. When one of the older boys volunteered at the local fire department, one of his sisters always went with him to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t get in trouble.

Another reason the Duggar children are homeschooled is in order to teach them “God’s truth.” This means that they use religious textbooks, creationist science curriculum, etc. I understand that we have this thing called “freedom of religion” in our country, but I also believe that children have a right to an education, and teaching children one side of everything becomes indoctrination rather than education.

Not surprisingly, the Duggars’ computers have internet access limited to about seventy “approved” websites. To get unlimited internet access, the children – even the older ones – have to get a password from their mother and then have another sibling sitting by them watching the screen as they surf the web to make sure they stay out of trouble. The main reason for this is likely to keep the children from viewing internet pornography, but it also helps ensure that they don’t get subversive information or other viewpoints.

2. Children raising children

If you think Michelle is the one raising all of those kids, think again. Those older daughters, some of them already adults, are the ones who are actually doing the majority of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare. They are, in effect, raising their younger siblings.

Now I’m not saying Michelle sits back and watches soap operas while the kids work, but rather that with that many children there is simply too much for her to do on her own. She doesn’t have the time or energy to raise her children without her older daughters’ help. And fortunately, because the Duggars homeschool, those older daughters are available to help 24/7.

The Duggars have this thing called the “buddy system.” When each new child is born, that child is assigned to one of the older children. In this way, the older children are responsible for dressing, feeding, and even educating the younger children. Michelle hadthis to say about the buddy system:

This house would not work if we didn’t have the buddy system. The older children mentor the younger ones. They help them with their little phonics lessons and games during the day, help them practice their music lessons. They will play with them or help them pick out the color of their outfit that they want to wear that day, and just all of those types of things.

I’m all for siblings helping each other and playing together, but this goes way further than this. This is siblings raising each other. And as we’ll see, this means a lot of sacrifice for the older siblings doing the raising.

3. Authoritarian discipline

Though they have not directly admitted it, there is a lot to indicate that the Duggars follow Michael and Debi Pearl’s discipline methods. This means they require absolute obedience from their children and see even bad attitudes as signs of disobedience. It also means they use corporal punishment. The Pearls suggest that you begin to spank your children at around six months, and they urge parents to spank a disobedient child until that child submits completely. Complete submission to the parent’s will is the hallmark of the Pearls’ teachings. Here is a quote:

If you are just beginning to institute training on an already rebellious child, who runs from discipline and is too incoherent to listen, then use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final. (To Train Up A Child, page 49)

The Duggars have stated that they use blanket training. What they do is place a baby on a blanket and tell the baby not to get off. If the baby crawls off, he or she is spanked on the leg, told “no,” and placed back on the blanket. If you do this for long enough, the baby will learn to stay on the blanket, and then you can safely leave the baby there while you cook lunch or school the older ones. This all seems counter to the nature of a naturally curious baby.

Authoritarian discipline shuts off questions and leaves little room for children to explore. The emphasis on obedience overrides anything else, and as I’ve written before, this can behighly problematic.

4. Bill Gothard and IBLP

The Duggars are big fans of Bill Gothard and are enrolled in his Institutes for Basic Life Principles. Outside of the circle of his followers, Bill Gothard is frequently regarded as a cult leader. He teaches, for instance, that troll dolls delay labor, that cabbage patch dolls are possessed by demons, and that Christians today must follow Old Testament sexual purity codes, including abstaining from sex the evening before weekly worship. Oh, and he teaches that tampons take girls’ virginity.

Until 2002 Gothard ran a group home for delinquent children in Indianapolis, Indiana. Children were sent there by the juvenile justice system for years until the place was closed down under allegations of abuse, including Gothard’s notorious “prayer closets.” There has been a growing movement among young people raised on Gothard’s teachings to expose the abuse, physical, emotional, and spiritual, they suffered at the hand of Gothard and his multiple ministries, including orphanages in places like Russia.

What bothers me most about the Duggars’ involvement with Gothard and IBLP is their use of his “re-education” camps (my term). When Josh Duggar was showing some signs of being “rebellious” years ago, they sent him to Gothard’s military boot camp for young men, the ALERT Academy. He returned much subdued. They’ve done the same with some of the girls, sending them to Gothard’s Journey to the Heart programs, where they are reminded of how wicked and sinful they are and told again and again that following God means obeying their earthly parents.

5. Emotional control

The Duggar children are also taught to carefully control their emotions, and emotions like anger or ingratitude are not acceptable. I’ve often heard people argue in favor of the Duggars by stating that “they look so happy!” Here is an excerpt from blogger Dulce, who was raised on the same teachings as the Duggars, dealing specifically with this issue:

One of the creepiest things about Gothard and the Pearls is that they teach that happy is the only acceptable emotion.  If you do not have a joyful countenance, you are publicly shaming your authorities.  In other words, if the kid looks unhappy, it is a personal offense against the parents.  Pearl also has nauseating quotes and anecdotes about how any time his kids expressed unhappiness or anger they were hit even harder and longer until they were cheerful.  How twisted is that?  Children are taught from babyhood to always be cheerful, or else they deserve a spanking.  As they grow older, it is not just the fear of a spanking that causes them to keep smiling.  It is the sincere belief that they are sinning with ingratitude, rebellion and more if they don’t present a happy face.

As I said earlier that a bad attitude is seen as rebellion, and immediately dealt with. I have no idea whether the Duggar children are happy or not, but I know that if they are unhappy they aren’t allowed to express it, especially for the TV cameras (being a Christian “witness” to the world and all that jazz).

6. A quiver full of expectations

As I said in my introduction to the Quiverfull movement, Quiverfull is more than just seeing children as a gift from God. It’s also about seeing children as potential culture warriors. Children are “arrows” who are to be sent out into the world spreading the gospel and Christian values and replicating their parents beliefs and lifestyles. This mindset leaves little room for children who may differ from their parents or what a different sort of life.

In a family influenced by Quiverfull beliefs, children who embrace different beliefs or ways of life from their parents are seen as failures. The idea is to raise ideological clones. The amount of expectations this places on children is immense. I really don’t know what those older Duggar kids want out of life, but I do know that if they want something different from what their parents want for them they are in for a lot of trouble, a lot of emotional manipulation, and a lot of guilt.

7. A patriarchal family order

The main emphasis in the Christian Patriarchy movement, as I pointed out in myintroduction to it, is on a hierarchical family order where each member plays his or her role and everyone stays in their place.  As an example, click here and here to see what the teachings the Duggars follow regarding the proper role of the husband and of the wife. The gist is, of course, that the husband is to lead and the wife is to submit.

The main way this plays out for the children is threefold. First, the children are required to obey their parents without exception. Second, the children are being raised for their future roles – the boys are to be providers and protectors and the girls are to be homemakers. They’re taught this from day one. Third, daughters are taught that they must obey their father even after they become adults.

Those older Duggar girls have been taught that they are under their father’s authority, and that they must follow his will for them. His commands are absolute, just as their obedience is to be absolute. By obeying their father, they are preparing for the time when they will similarly obey their future husbands. Furthermore, by staying at home rather than leaving the home to attend college or get a job, they are preparing to spend their lives as homemakers, as mandated by their gender.

8. Courtship, modesty, and purity

Like many Americans, the Duggars teach their children to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. But they go further, teaching that even kissing should wait until the wedding day. Furthermore, virginity is not just physical, it is also emotional. “Giving away pieces of your heart” through crushes or childhood romances is viewed as permanently damaging, and sexual thoughts are strictly forbidden.

The Duggar girls are also taught that they must dress extremely modestly so as not to “tempt” their “brethren in Christ” (why is this always the female’s responsibility?). That is, of course, what is behind their long jean skirts. This sort of emphasis on “modesty” can be damaging to both girls and boys.

In addition, the Duggars believe that their children should find spouses through parent-guided “courtships” rather than through dating. Dating is portrayed as “practice for divorce” rather than more realistically as “practice for carrying out relationships.” I’ll give an overview of what such a courtship looks like below, but for a young woman’s excellent courtship story, which finishes with damning analysis, click here.

First a young man goes to a young woman’s father and asks to court her, and the father says either yes or no (or sometimes maybe later). The young woman is given the chance to veto the courtship if she is not interested in the young man. If a young woman has her eye on a guy, she can share that with her father and he can possibly talk to the young man or the young man’s father, but she can’t initiate anything herself.

A courting couple is ever under the watchful eye of parents and other chaperons, and sometimes is not given a chance of privacy at all. The father can call or suspend the courtship off at any time for any reason. Eventually, if the courtship goes well, the young man asks the young woman’s father for permission to marry her, and if he obtains that permission he asks the young woman, and if she says yes a wedding follows almost immediately.

9. No teenagers allowed

Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about the Duggars is that their older children aren’t allowed to be teenagers or make their own choices. You can see this strung throughout this entire post.

The older children spend their teen years raising their younger siblings and are only allowed friends from a small pool of approved families. Their access to the internet is strongly curtailed, and they aren’t allowed to go anywhere without an “accountability partner.” Disobedience or ingratitude is seen as rebellion and dealt with swiftly and immediately, sometimes through one of Gothard’s many “re-education” camps. Extreme modesty is enforced and dating is forbidden. Contact with the opposite sex is watched closely. Adult daughters are expected to obey their father’s will for them, are taught that being a homemaker is their God-mandated role in life, and are only allowed to marry through a courtship controlled by their fathers. Furthermore, teen and adult children are expected to adopt their parents exact beliefs and way of life, and any other option is seen as failure.

All this is seen as a good thing. Just like my parents, you see, the Duggars don’t believe in teenagers. Let me quote myself on this issue:

It’s true that the word teenager is less than a hundred years old, and it’s true that our current modern conception of the teenager is new. But the reality is, in our society today, being a teenager is not simply about gossip and boys and a lack of responsibility, it’s about figuring out who you are as an entity separate from your family and their beliefs. Because I was never allowed to be a teenager, I never differentiated myself from my parents at all. I never learned who I was. I was never allowed to.

While I do wish I had been allowed to be a teenager in external trappings – clothes, dating, hanging out at the mall – what I really regret about not being allowed to be a teenager is not the material trappings but rather not ever separating myself and my identity from those of my parents. I wish I had been allowed to be different from them, and encouraged to find my own interests and beliefs. I wish I hadn’t been so enmeshed in my parents’ lives and identities as to lose myself completely.

The Duggar children are given no real chance to differentiate from their parents and to explore what they themselves believe and want from life. Instead, they are set off along a prescribed path and are quickly nudged back onto it if they so much as angle to toward the edge. Rather than forging their own paths, the Duggar children are expected to simply follow the path forged by their parents. No questions, no buts, no backtalk.

Have you noticed that all the Duggar girls share one room and all the Duggar boys share another? Michelle said that’s because that’s how the children wanted it – they didn’t want to be separated. That may well be true, but it’s worth noting that when you share your room with your eight sisters, some still toddlers or babies, it’s really hard to find a moment of privacy or a place for sharing secrets.

Conclusion

Most of this stuff doesn’t come across on the TV show, does it? On the TV show the Duggars try to portray themselves as just one big happy family following God’s commands – a witness to others. What you don’t see is that the Duggar children live lives in a fishbowl, carefully scripted lives from which no dissent or differentiation is allowed. Their lives are laid out for them, and growing up is not about exploration but rather fulfilling the expectations of their parents. Conformity is key and stepping out of line is not acceptable.

Bowing to negative publicity, the Duggars recently enrolled some of their children, including the older girls, in an online college program highly promoted by premier Christian Patriarchy group Vision Forum. This program promises bachelors degrees in as little as two years and has the advantage of keeping the Duggar children safely under their parents’ watchful eyes. Not surprisingly, the girls are interested in studying things like nursing and midwifery. I have no idea whether they’ll actually finish, but it would be great for those older girls if they were able to get college degrees of some sort, because it might open more horizons for them in the future.

As for what’s in the future for the Duggar kids, if all follows their parents’ plans the boys will be set up with careers of some sort and will court girls from like-minded families and then start their own families with a baby at least every other year. We’ve already seen Josh Duggar follow this prescribed path.

The Duggar girls, in contrast, will remain at home until some suitable suitor approaches Jim Bob to ask to court them, and they will then move to their own homes to continue their duty as homemakers and begin having numerous children of their own.

If things work out differently, though, and one or more of the Duggar kids strike out on their own, I can only guess how hard things will be for them. And I have to say, the TV cameras and publicity won’t help. I can only wish them the best.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum!  Comments are also open below.

Libby Anne lives with her husband and toddler somewhere in the U.S. She has left patriarchy for feminism and has found freedom. She is a graduate student with big plans for her life. You can read her blog at Love, Joy, Feminism.

Read all posts by Libby Anne!

This post was originally published at Love, Joy, Feminism– crossposted by permission.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8r6upSGTXk

by Vyckie Garrison

During my Quiverfull days, I honestly believed that Michelle Duggar’s TLC show – which began as “14 Children and Pregnant Again!” and is currently titled, “19 Kids & Counting” – was an awesome witness to “the world.” I was in awe of the Duggar family, and it thrilled me that such a wholesome, godly family was given a national stage on which to exemplify for America what a truly biblical family looks like.

I’m sure every detail of the Duggars’ television show, numerous talk show interviews and guest appearances at political rallies is calculated to paint their “traditional family” and their “pro-life values” in the best possible light. However, as a former Quiverfull believer-turned-outsider-looking-in, it now seems plain that non-fundamentalist Americans are not particularly impressed by this mega-family, nor is the general public overwhelmed with the conviction that all families ought to live similarly.

Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar want to tell the world that children are an unmitigated blessing from God and those who embrace the “biblical model” for marriage and children will be the most happy, most satisfied, and most “successful” families both now, and for eternity.

But that is not the message which is coming through.

Under the category of “Entertainment,” the Atlantic Wire published a review and commentary of the program’s most recent episode.

“The fifth season of TLC’s beguiling, baffling, and oftentimes be-rage-ifying (just go with it) Quiverfull family series 19 Kids and Counting premiered last night, and while it was mostly a typical Duggars episode, with eerily wholesome family activities and a dash of stomach-turning religiosity, there was a new grimness to the series that didn’t sit right.”

Along with complaints about the producers’ handling of Michelle’s recent miscarriage, the Atlantic’s writer, Richard Lawson, noted: “And then of course there was the infusion of religion that probably earns the series a fair number of looky-loos (ahem). Michelle Duggar, the broodmare who gave birth to this baseball team, was invited to speak to a ladies group at a nearby church, and though what we saw of the speech was mostly a series of platitudes about family and children and all that, there was a single shot that said much more — the camera panned over a handout that Michelle brought to the event, and the content was pretty unsettling. TLC maybe included this shot for people like us, who of course paused it and advanced the frames to read as much of it as we could, and, whooo boy, was it unpleasant. It was all about how to make your husband happy in a marriage, which is of paramount importance to patriarch-dominated Quiverfull families. There were things about how wives shouldn’t refuse their husbands’ sexual advances, about how self-reliance is what kills marriages, about not stepping out of bounds in terms of what your responsibilities are as a wife (do too much and you emasculate him, you see). It was all reeeeally gross stuff that you never really hear the Duggars talking about on the show, but is absolutely the unspoken (on camera, at least) foundation of their family. (As evidenced by the fact that older boys are encouraged to pursue education and careers while their sisters remain indentured babysitters.) So that’s why the rage-junkies watch this horrorshow, to get that electric adrenalin rush of anger at what a strange and backwards belief system these seemingly cheery and wholesome creatures actually operate under.”

I can easily imagine Michelle dismissing the criticism with the popular evangelical retort, perfectly expressed here:

“Remember we are not responsible for results; we are only responsible for our obedience. So be encouraged and continue in your obedience, keep it up; keep your feet beautiful!”

Of course, Michelle & Co. will continue in obedience to what she believes to be the true calling of God on her life. The Duggars aren’t going away. It doesn’t matter that the multitudes scoff. Public ridicule only strengthens their resolve.

“”No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

Jim Bob & Michelle will never say, “Enough babies!” And if it is physically possible, Michelle will get pregnant again. How can she do otherwise?

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.  Comments are also open below.

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