the duggar family

[SuzySunshine]

You may be right, I may have misread it - but this is the debate section each is right to have their own opinion.

[Sheherezade]

I think the objection was using the "God's will" argument when it suits you -- instead of all the time or never.

[SuzySunshine]

Not taking offense to it, just asking the question.

I agree, some people use the God's will to much IMO. Its the same way with fate - DH hates that word.

Is it God's will that some of us never get to be parents then?

I don't buy into the various "it's God's will" arguements. I think infertility treatment is perfectly fine and wish anyone / everyone luck on the path they choose to parenthood.

I was saying I don't like the idea of something being "God's will" invoked medically, b/c the same people might use medical intervention to change something else that in that context could have also been called "God's will".

[Rapunzel]

Sometimes people use the term "It's God's will," to justify their own decisions. You have to be careful with such a statement - it can be the means to justify a lot of things that may not, in the end, be good.

I'm not specifically saying this in regard to the Duggar's decisions or anyone else's situation, for that matter.

It's just that saying it's all God's decision (or fault?) is like swearing on your mother's life - you better not do it casually. And, you darned well wanna be right if you're going to say it (and saying it doesn't necessarily make it true)....

I guess I think that phrase can be used to abdicate responsibility (your own or another's).

[Meenah]

I still can't get past what her uterus must look like. I would be afraid that if I had another I would die from complications of a ruptured uterus. Then who takes care od all of those kids. For me (my own opinion) something about the whole thing is just odd.

[Cumberland]

The kids take care of each other already through a buddy system. She mostly takes care of the infants.

[Vanquisher]

Now it's innapropriate picture time:

:funnycry:

I don't know about inappropraite, just funny!

[mommax3]

They remind me of the McCaughey septuplets- they said they didnt believe in a selective reduction bc it was God's will for them to have all of the babies. But was in God's will for her to have her eggs and sperm joined in a lab and artificially implanted in her? Or was it God's will that she just have only their older child and not be able to have any more?

I *think* probably where the McGaughey parents were coming from on this was that they believe that God is the giver of life, however (wherever?) it begins.....after all, in vitro doesn't always work, right? So once "life had begun" (and there is a debate for another day ) they didn't feel that they had a right to pick and choose which lives could continue.....and there was no guarantee that any of them would make it to birth, anyway. I am sure they are thankful that God allowed them to live during a time when medical advances allowed them the chance to have more children.

I don't presume to speak for them, of course, but many of their basic beliefs are mine, also, and I don't think that participating in fertility treatment, yet not wanting to selectively reduce, are incompatible stances.

Sally

[mommax3]

You know, I find it interesting that it is okay to make rude remarks about someone simply because they have chosen to have a lot of children.
It is not a choice I would make, or even recommend, but I really don't understand the ridicule.

Sally

[Vanquisher]

My issues:

1. Professing to he able to financially care for 17 children, but also whoring yourselves out to TLC to help with your monster house, family vacation, etc.

2. Teaching girls that they have no career options.

3. Lack of individuality.

4. Kid-bots.

5. Uterus hamburger.

That's 5. I have more, but I'm typing one-handed.

[Vanquisher]

That's 5. I have more, but I'm typing one-handed.

You talented medical transcriptionist, you.

I don't think it's an honest portrayal of life with 17 kids. Really. That bugs me because life with 17 kids has to be a little...crazy. But whatever. I know the truth. :>

I guess I don't think the reaction is always proportional to the issue. I don't get the whole kick-your-teeth-out reaction.

I am watching a 5 month old for some extra .

I don't have a kick your teeth in reaction, but more one of and abject curiosity, much like a freak show. Can't look at that train wreck...Must....not....look....

I think somewhere, way before 17 kids, there has to be a line. Do I know that line? No. Is it different for Michelle Duggar than it is for me? Obviously. I just don't think it is possible to give enough PARENTAL attention and individual time to that many kids. I guess that's why they have a buddy system.

[Sheherezade]

You know, I just realized that my own grandmother came from a family with 15 children. That's just how it was. All the girls (except the oldest) went to college, too. Schoolteachers, then motherhood. I think that was just the "successful" career path at the time for women.

I have never thought of my grandmother's family as a freak show. In fact, she tells great stories. I think the Duggar's bug people because they could choose to have fewer children -- and they don't. I agree it has to be challenging, but I do think the older kids help the younger. We had two families of nine in the town I grew up in - and the older sibs were like babysitters much of the time. The spread was 20 years!

It is interesting to note that when my mother told her grandmother (mom of 15) about the new pill you could take and not get pregnant, Gran's reaction was "What a miracle!"

[SuzySunshine]

My dad came from one of nine and all of his sisters are RN's and I beleive he is the only one of his brothers that didn't go to college. I think there is just a different thought process today of what is "normal". I have several aunts (on my dad's side) that have 6+ children and they're mostly normal.

[Auspicious]

I think a lot of the ire I've seen directed at the Duggars comes from two places:

1) Their TV specials really seem to be about how great and perfect they are. Once you hold yourself up like that, the gloves come off. The same reason celebrities and politicians get kicked in the teeth all the time.

2) Jim Bob was in the legislature (and I'm not convinced he's done with those aspirations) and he holds a worldview that makes the left and I think most of the center dismayed. Once you're running for U.S. senate, it kind of negates the whole "aw shucks, we're just a nice family and I don't understand why you're picking on us." Unlike other large families, I feel that they're promoting their crazy ideas as the way others should live, rather than just living it themselves in peace.

Since the specials with the Duggars have been so popular, TLC has run other specials about other supersized families, and watching those has made evident how weird the duggars are. The others don't have the matching everything (clothes, names, musical instruments) and showed a lot more humanity and individuality among the children. At this point I think the huge family is a symptom of their weirdness, not the cause of it.