Everyone has been talking about it, so I might as well, too. Now that Michelle Duggar has recently given birth to her eighteenth J-named offspring, the Duggar family again crops up in (mostly negative) conversations everywhere. Arriving just in time to be Christmas party small-talk topical probably only increased the popularity of the Aren't-The-Duggars-Totally-Nuts subject. So, I might as well express myself too.
First, I will say I share the sentiments of many. I can barely get my head around what that would actually be like. At our family Christmas party, all thirteen of my Cumberland nieces and nephews, plus my own three kids posed for a picture. This is what the Duggar family actually is all the time, plus two more! It is simultaneously fascinating and slightly horrifying to contemplate.
The Duggars, along with a small sliver of the population nicknamed "Quiverful" families, believe that they should have all the children that would naturally occur in the course of their fertile years. They reject birth control and sterilization.
Many people - even Christians - utterly hate the Duggars. The interesting thing to me is that people like the Duggars are the only Christians who actually carry their beliefs about God's sovereign plan in creating life to it's full and logical conclusion. Here are the Christian beliefs that apply:
1) God intentionally designs every single person for His express purpose.
2) God's will is always superior to human will.
Is any person accidentally created by God? Are there people God would rather not create, but since the silly humans fail to use birth control or become sterilized, He just has to go along with it and make another person? Does God need people to intervene and make it impossible or improbable that they will bring another life into existence?
The argument against it, I've heard, is this: "Don't you think God means for us to use our brains?" This is a condescending way of saying, shouldn't we intelligently avail ourselves of medical means of limiting children? Actually, I would say the answer is No. The Bible gives constant examples of how God wanted people to do what made no sense to their human intelligence. What happened to Abraham? He started to think maybe God must have meant something else when He said He would be the father of many, because God surely didn't mean it would be with Sarah! She was way too old! So, Abe worked out a plan to conceive with Hagar, Sarah's servant.(Actually, I think Sarah nagged him about and then later regretted it.) Anyway, none of that worked out too well. God actually did mean he would be the father of many through Sarah after all.
As unimaginable as I think it is to have a family like the Duggars, and frankly, I don't envy Michelle, I think they are right to put their money where their mouth is. It's better than being one of the majority of Christians who simultaneously believe two incongruent things: that God purposes every life and yet, that they must control their childbearing. Besides that, the Duggars have serious nerve. I don't think I'd be a big fan of holding my extreme beliefs up for national criticism. More people hate them than admire them and even people who admire them in some respect still tend to feel, "Better them than me!"
Okay, now I've gone over the philosophical point of my post, but I still have lighter things to say about the Duggars. Although I watch the TLC show with deep fascination, there's still a lot I would love to know. So, here is my Top Ten Questions to Ask the Duggars:
1) How can Michelle's body parts actually hold up for all that? I don't mean this in a rude way. I've had four babies and I know what can happen to relevant muscles, organs, skin, etc. I'm actually surprised she hasn't suffered serious pelvic collapse.
2) How in the world does the homeschooling work? Seriously. I'm wondering if the younger kids' "buddy" is responsible for teaching reading, writing and 'rithmetic. Because how could Mom ever spend the individual time with what has to be at least six or seven pre-fluent readers?
3) How does medical care work? Do they all go, say, for six-month dental checkups, or are they crisis-only in their approach? I just took three kids to the dentist to the tune of four hundred bucks. The next week, Collin broke his front tooth and I spent another four hundred plus getting that fixed. How the dentistry of 18 kids can work out is unimaginable.
4) How do you mentally keep abreast of eighteen kids? I mean things like who's at what stage of adolescence, who needs to start potty-training, who needs more kisses and hugs, who really needs some personal time with Mom, and so on?
5) What do they do for birthdays? Do they give Christmas gifts? I'm figuring there has to be a month or two that holds three or four birthdays. Do they celebrate each child? Or would that just be totally unfeasible?
6) Do they have toys? Do the children get to have personal possessions or is everything just group belongings?
7) Why no dancing?
8) Does Michelle ever lose her patience?
9) How in the world would anyone ever get a husband to go along with this?
10) Why, having exhausted all those J-names, haven't they had a Julia? Come on! Dad was rooting for Julie Grace for this most recent baby and I was all, "YES!", but no, they went and picked out a hyphenated name with a weird middle name. Darn it. Should have listened to Dad. Oh well. Maybe the next one will get to be Julie. So, Michelle, go with Julie next time. Let me enjoy this one vicarious pleasure with your prodigious procreation. Julie Faith.
6 comments:
Well said! I know we have talked about this family before. If you haven't yet, you should check out their website. Did you know that when they first got married, they used birth control? Michelle has a great way of explaining why they have accepted so many children in their family. I will remain fascinated with that family for awhile.
P.S. I'm having fun reading your blog!
Sharon, I haven't been to their website recently, but I've been there before. I do know the full story of how they came to their belief system. I just can't believe Jim-Bob ever went along with it! ;) Seriously, my own beliefs are definitely in that direction, but not only did that obviously not work out for me medically, Kelly would never have gone down that road, either.
I do expect to get their book. They do fascinate me.
Danielle
P.S. I'm glad you're enjoying my blog!
The answer to your implied question pertaining to why Christians appear to believe two things is not dificult to answer. It is simply because most people claim to believe one thing, and actually believe another.
Ever notice how people will wait until they are financially sound to begin tithing? lol
James says that the prayer o faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise them up... but John Travolta is a nutjob for not taking his kid to the doctor.
People are sheep. They hear something on Sunday and say, "Praise the Lord". But Tuesday afternoon they lack the faith to put what they heard into practice. Why? That one is easy too.
Church is mostly a social club. It is a safe house where 2 people in 100 actually believe, and the other 98 come for the chicken dinners. Ever notice the gleam in the eye of someone who is giving their testimony? How the Lord brought them out of drug use and prostitution, or gang life. They are remembering, many times with a bit ofondness, the life they used to live. And telling the rest of the crowd, "Jesus had to walk a few steps further to reach this lost sheep...so he cares more for me than you."
I can quote the Bible all day, and i dare say I am one of the few people I know who has actually studied it. I have researched the contradictions. I have compared historical texts to prophecy. I have looked up the original Greek and Hebrew when I wanted to know more clearly what was being said.
I have also been asked to leave a Sunday School class, because the teacher didn't know what he was talkig about and I told him so...in class.
Wanna know one thing, perhaps THE one thing, you can do to really piss off a Christian? Quote the Bible to them. They hate that. Give them a few good cliches like, "The Lord moves in mysterious ways", and "I'm just an old sinner saved by Grace", and they're good. Just don't say anything that impacts their finances or attitudes. Don't tell them that the Bible calls someone who doesn't tithe a thief. Don't tell them not to be judgemental, or accuse them of being a hypocrite. Or that holier than thou is a lie they tell themsleves, since according to the Bible there is none righteous, no not one.
In the end it's a game. Catholics and Protestants, Baptists and Assembly of God. On and on... amillion different flavors. All sure they are right and everyone else is wrong. Sitting behind their bricks and stained glass windows, waiting for the "sinners" to get their just rewards. Smug in their self righteousness.
And the most irksome quality of all... they smile condescendingly and shake thei heads at the people who actually practice what they preach.
At this point in my life I have only one prayer, and no real faith that anyone hears it. But if the whole story is true from start to finish, then I ask the Lord for only one thing. Let me be there to see and hear, and laugh at those to whom he says, "I never knew you, depart from me you workers of iniquity".
Doug, it amazes me that we seem to think so similarly. It's as though we arrived at the same place about many things, even parsed them out in similar ways, though we haven't spoken all these many years. It's striking, really.
First time at your blog - I like it!
My dad is one of twelve, next to last born, his mom at the time was 42 years old (his younger sister, last one born, was born when his mom was 44). Back then it wasn't weird or odd to have that many children.
My grandmother lived to 88, so her body obviously held up well - she certainly didn't have access to the medical advances we have today all of her children, except my aunt who was youngest, was born at home! When I was growing up, she used to say she would have loved more, but got started late in life....umm, to her that was in her 20's!
From what my dad has said of growing up with that many siblings - you don't really know the olders, they're there sometimes, but before you really can have a relationship, they're on with their own lives.....so it really is that it's like a bunch of families - the olders, the middles and the youngers when they grow up.....true, they all stay in touch, but friendships amongst them are really divided by age groups of when they were born.
My grandmother did have time for each of them individually too.
Long time between posts, but "anonymous" brought the post back in to my in box.
It is striking Danielle, and yet maybe not so much as it would appear at first glance. We grew up in the same place, went to the same churches, had the same teachers...and most importantly, we both think.
I don't find it strange that we came to the same conclusions. It simply serves to reinforce those conclusions. If two thinking people arrive separately at the same thought, then that increases the odds that the thought is the "correct" one.
So...two points for us. lol
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