Radio Lady Discusses: Arkansas couple has 17 natural children, and they want more.

I couldn't help wondering about this over my vacation! Just keeping them in sneakers and feeding them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would be a lot of work!

Do you have any comments on this family?

All the children's names begin with the letter "J" -- Jumpin' Jehosaphat!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20134584/

Meet the Duggar family -- all 19 of them!

For many couples, one perfect child is enough. For others, two or three is ideal. But no matter what the number is, most American parents reach a point at which they say “Enough!”

Not Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. The Arkansas couple just welcomed their 17th natural child and still aren’t ready to declare their family complete.

“I’d like to have more,” Michelle told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer Monday from the family’s 7,000-square-foot home in Tontitown, Ark. Next to Michelle sat her husband of 23 years, Jim Bob Duggar, and arrayed around and behind them were 16 of their children. The newest member of the family, Jennifer, born last Thursday, slept peacefully in her mother’s arms.

The children — all with names beginning with “J” — range in age from 19-year-old Joshua to Jennifer. In between are nine more boys and six girls: John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson and Johannah.

(More at link, above)

Having said that, though, I watched the most recent special about the family, and they seem to be taking responsibility for their family. They are self-supporting; that is, they aren't using charity or government funds to take care of their children, and the kids don't seem to be starving or anything.

I've read some comments from other DUers, regarding the family's "buddy system", wherein the older kids are paired with the younger ones, and are responsible to look after them. While on the one hand, I can understand their disagreement with that arrangement; on the other hand, being the oldest of 5, I had responsibility toward my younger siblings, especially the two youngest. I wasn't permanently scarred by it, and did get lots of time to play with my friends, and to be a kid.

Lots of people say that a woman's right to choose whether to have children or not is no one else's business, and I couldn't agree more. And in that same vein, I say it is no one else's business how many children the Duggar's have. If they are being responsible, if they are taking care of them, it really isn't anyone's business how many children they have.

Posters to previous threads claimed that the Duggars have all the kids on Medicaid and the ones under 5 on WIC, but I can't find a reference for it.

I remember reading some of those comments, and my feeling is that those comments were made by people who wanted to strengthen their arguments against the Duggar's, and not based on fact.

Maybe global population is something to seriously consider before having 17 kids. Also, there is no possible way on earth or in heaven that either of those parents can give each and everyone of those 17 kids the love and attention they need; there are only 168 hours in the week. And I'm sure two people could take care of twice that many children in an orphanage, too, and do an adequate job of feeding and clothing them.

In the GD thread on this earlier in the week, I was lambasted (a little) for saying "Just because she has a choice, it doesn't make it the RIGHT choice." And I stand by that statement. I don't think it's fair to the kids. I would support her in her RIGHT to make that choice, but I would I also humbly suggest that she made the wrong one.

And as far as "anyone's business" is concerned, it's none of yours or their supporter's, either; just because someone supports them doesn't make it their business.

At any rate, I know that we both wish the Duggars well.

I was offering my opinion about it, and again, I don't think it's my place to judge them for what they are doing.

And I do understand your statement about having a choice doesn't make it the right choice. As I said in my original response to Radio Lady's post, I can't imagine having, or even WANTING TO HAVE that many children, and I truly don't understand that kind of mindset. However, I can't judge another based solely on my own opinion or preference.

And yes, we do wish them well.

I would have more respect if they had 1/2 a dozen and adopted the rest...

I wonder sometimes about the long-term consequences for those kids for being primarily raised by siblings, but for now they seem to be doing well. Not my cup of tea, but this is still America and they have the right to have a large family if they want. I don't think it's going to start a trend!

more disposal diapers to fill landfills. Eeewwwww

I hope they use cloth diapers to save the environment.

were more prevalent than baby diapers in the country's landfills.

I don't have a citation for that comment, but certainly monthly products go on for much of each woman's life, while baby diapers are (usually) outgrown in a couple of years.

Judging from the bulky hygiene products sold over the counter for older people, that may also be a part of the problem.

Here's an interesting article posted on the Internet which deals with this situation:

http://www.vegfamily.com/earthtalk/feminine-hygiene-products.htm

will make a big dent in that.

Adult diapers are another thing.

I wonder why so much energy in put on these planet on forcing women to do unnatural things with their bodies.

To world: Women will bleed every month. Get used to it!

and women were pregnant for most of their lives, I've heard some scientists argue that NOT having a period every month is more natural.

Me, I'd be more than happy to try the new pill! :D

When you screw around with a natural function, you are looking for trouble.

LOL.

bleed every month for 40 years.

Until the last 40 years, women throughout history alternated between pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. This significantly reduced the number of periods you could expect to have over your lifetime. And many women didn't live til old age. Untold numbers of us died in childbirth. That also stops periods. :sarcasm:

So I say, if you can cut down on the number of periods you have and feel better, go for it. But it's not just about convenience and being "unnatural." There is some scientific evidence to suggest that uninterrupted menstruation is a risk factor for breast cancer. Researchers suspect it's the monthly hormone roller coaster.

edit: coding, spelling

menstrual periods are NOT the enemy.

And what you are saying, so natural circumstances automatically stopped women in the past from having periods, so why be in favour of unnatural methods to stop women's periods in our day and age? Do women in North America and Europe have it SO bad?

In our modern society it's VERY RARE for women to die in childbirth, and women live on average 80 years or more. It's not like modern women are glorified broodmares popping out kids year after year.

Women will bleed once a month, very natural. It stops after a while so I don't see the crying need for intervention :sarcasm:

Maybe I didn't make it very clear.

The fact that our foremothers spent a significant chunk of their fertile lives pregnant (i.e. not having a period) might very well have protected some of them from breast cancer later in life. When I say "foremothers" I mean all those women back over eons in the foggy mists of time who contibuted their DNA and mutations. What we've done since recorded history really isn't relevant when you are talking about biological change. Surely you know that.

We in the modern world can, thankfully, choose when and how many children to have or not to have children at all, all the while still enjoying our sexuality. Wow, what a gift! However, there might be some of us who didn't have children who will get breast cancer because we chose not to get pregnant. Ironical, no? Research on this topic continues.

That's why I'm saying that if you can more or less simulate the effects of a pregnancy or two with BC pills, i.e., stop menstration for a while, why the heck not?

And before you go trying to yank my Goddess/Earth Mother credentials, the greatest gift one attains with enlightenment is the mastery of self in body and mind so that on can commune with the Divine.

edit: clarification

I just don't believe in tampering too much with Mother Nature. ;)

Birth control pills screw with mother nature - the only reason we have periods while taking them is because they include the little "fake" pills for a week. The other poster does have a point - women are not technically made to have periods for 40 years straight - we've messed with nature by NOT having children.


And as far as that goes, things like insulin shots and childhood vaccines screw with nature. Any kind of medication screws with nature. Selective breeding of plants and animals screws with nature. How much is "too much?" I would say when it's a health risk. And since there's no real indication that there's a health risk in not having a period, I have no problem with those pills.

thank you for that post, skygazer. I agree with everything you said.

If you know the history of the pill, you know that the fake pills were added as a kind of PR move. They thought initially that women wouldn't take them if they didn't have a "period" every month like always. They thought, perhaps rightly, that women would be suspicious of them. So they added in that week of placebo so women could feel "natural."

'Course now we know that that first generation of BC pills was way overdone in the hormone levels. We have much lower-dose pills now. But the the routine remains the same three weeks and then bleed.

And yes, there's no evidence to suggest that not menstruating is harmful.

that somehow natural processes that happen to women need to be "fixed".
Going through menopause, hell, here's a dozen or so pills to take, hey, if your boyfriend or husband doesn't like the look of your privates, get surgery, etc etc etc.......
Why fix when it ain't broke?

Is there always some kind of pill to take to "cure" us? Yes, we do take unnatural things into our bodies, but isn't enough enough sometimes?

They do now...and longer. Start at about age 10, quit at 60+

Unless my math is wrong.

most women start at around 12 and go until around 50-ish. Certainly there's a wide variance.

What I was really saying was we weren't meant to menstruate uninterrupted every month all our fertile years. The genetic expectation is that we will spent at least part of that time pregnant (not menstruating)

I've never heard of 60, I've heard 50, so for some women maybe 40 years.

menopause. :cry:

Please tell me that "age 10, quit at 60+" was just a wild guess. :yoiks:

I've been waiting for menopause since I was 11. :cry:

My family was one of the lucky ones...all of us women have been done since about 40 or a bit before. Except for my youngest sister. She's 54 and has just started having symptoms.

But the majority of women I've known (and their mothers) didn't even start menopause until their mid to late 50's and carried on into their early 60's.

And hot flashes aren't the only discomfort of peri-menopause. There's the 2 or 3 months that you'll go without a period and then the 6 months where you'll have one every 15 days.

I am happier, have more of a sex drive, and have lower blood pressure without them despite bleeding more. I don't think that it would be fair to make women feel that they were being environementally irresponsible if they choose not to take artifial hormones to supress their periods.

women who don't use it as environmentally irresponsible...just commenting that the numbers of women who would find this alternative attractive would make a dent in the amount of non-degradable waste going into landfills.

I stopped needing such products before the advent of the modern no-leak, no-strike-through products. The ones I used would start to degrade before you could even get them out to the trash can...or, in the case where we were very rural, the burn barrel.

Through them I found a store that sells sea sponges. I might give them a try. :thumbsup:

I know I use a lot of products every month and it does bother me to bulk up the landfill with it.

As for the Duggars. As long as everybody is content and well taken care of, I can't really complain about them, even if it's not the choice I would make. Time will tell of ALL of the kids are content with the situation, or if they grow up to live in an opposite way from their parents. Even if people disparage what they think they see now, we all still have free will. Even the Duggar kids.

http://www.gladrags.com/

I bought them here in Portland, OR in the 1990s. I didn't have any problems with them.

Very interesting! I have added it to my favorites.

thread. Suffice it to say I'm not a fan of the Duggars.

Like about 40 years...

they can have their own militia

:hide:

n/t

if they had darker skin & were named Hernandez or Washington?

and excellent point.

The Duggars and their cohorts would be the first to complain about them.

1) This is the South.
2) The Duggars are ultra conservative whites, who home school and have strict gender roles.
3) The Chrisitian Identity movement advocates that white women should breed more so that there are more white babies, to put it tackily.


You are correct in that there is no direct evidence, but being a native sounterner, my bullshit detector is going off. Color me surprised if they ever have said/will say that they are pro brown people immigration.

I remember asking the same question along the line of "Would the media be covering the Duggars if they were black or Latino? I've been on different websites about the Duggars. There was alot of negative as well as positive feedback. One has to wonder if the people on those websites would be saying about a family of 17 children if their names were Washington of Hernandez?

I think they are personally irresponsible and should be condemned rather than celebrated.

And I've noticed a odd little trend: non-white families that are large are usually condemned, while these white, christian families are usually applauded. Hmm.

But hey, this is America...

I support privacy rights as much as anyone, but occasionally
a story like this makes me think that exceptions are appropriate.

How will all those kids and their progeny affect the environment?
What about overpopulation in general?
It's past time for society to wake up and recognize this problem.
Individual decisions are the ideal solution. Failing that, government
mandates may become necessary.

the Duggar bugger channel.

Duggar porn!


EEk. I think I just made myself sick.

when you've shown pregnancy and babies?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Now we get a surgery show on Discovery Health!

At lest two of those kids are going to turn out to be gay.

I can't wait for the fireworks.

problems.

i dont think i would ever legislate a womans body, but i just wish people would realize that actions have consequences. this is just irresponsible behavior.