Links were easy to find. "Jim Bob Duggar" was the more useful search string.
Official site of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 15 children. Has good links on first page to five articles about the family in major and minor publications.
http://jimbob.info/
Pages of interesting comments from secular type folks. Only creatures from outer space would have astounded them more. Excerpts below.
http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=3120234
Some comments on the Duggar's television appearance. Taken from the top with little editing:
An hour of my life that I will never get back. But I must know if anyone else was both as compelled and repelled as me.Nov 6, 2004 @ 08:14 PM Anchor Email
I watched, and was totally squicked at the idea of having 15 kids. I have two, and I don't plan on having more than three, because I just don't think I could handle it. Either Mrs. Duggar is a saint, or she was putting on a good face for the camera. Everything was just a little too perfect. All the children were perfect and precious and hard-working and helpful? I find that hard to believe. She homeschools all of her precious angel babies and everyting is just hunky-dory? 14 kids holed up together in a tiny *** house together everyday? I don't think so.I also find it hard to believe that they don't recieve some sort of public assistance. They kind of glossed over the financial question with vague answers about real estate investments and living debt-free. That's great, but it is still hard to believe that you can have 14 kids, one parent working, and be okay without some help from the government.
I recently saw on CNN that Mrs. Duggar recieved the mother of the year award. It does seem like she is doing a great job. I just can't help but look at the whole situation with skepticism and incredulity.
Nov 6, 2004 @ 08:32 PM Anchor Email
Yikes! I watched this one too, (it was oddly...hypnotic) and I felt that there was something seriously amiss here. She seems like a really sweet lady and the kids all seem well-behaved (given the amount of parents who can't even raise one well-behaved child, this is an accomplishment). Maybe it was their clothing. Someone needed to send them all to What Not To Wear, and get them out of those plaid sacks and matching trousers! The only plus is that you could pick them out in a crowd if they ever got lost.These people are ****ing crazy! And yes I was both compelled and repelled by it all. $823.00 in groceries??! Holy ****. They seem to have their routines down, but when they are all older there's no possible way all of those kids can have the kind of dedication and attention they need from just their two parents no matter how great everyone is. I cringed when the mother got to talking about the littler ones, she totally blanked and couldn't remember a damn thing about them!
I was really wondering about the finances too, WTF? Building a house that big? Gotta be the mob.
Everything was just so creepy, especially the wife.
Nov 6, 2004 @ 10:01 PM Anchor Email
What creeped me out was that these kids really have no contact with people who aren't exactly like themselves. Just about the only people they know outside their family are other fundamentalist Christian families. God forbid they ever have to make contact with the outside world because they'd be lost. Since I am an evil person I kept thinking, "I wonder what would happen to these kids if they were exposed to regular people." These kids don't watch TV, don't seem to know of any other music besides hymns, and don't seem to do much reading except for schoolwork and the Bible.Also, the clothes just weirded me out. I just got a very culty vibe from all of the kids. Hearing all the girls talk about wanting to grow up and have lots of kids made me want to go down there and tell those girls a woman can have a life outside the home and still be a good mom. And tell them about birth control.
****** Addendum - later post in thread: *******
The birth rate among white American women is 1.86, a bit below the replacement rate of 2.1 but not nearly as bad as Europe.
The Euopean Christian culture is dying out.
Perhaps those with large families should be encouraged.
And appropriately supported with gifts of clothing and food and education expenses and housing by those relatives, friends, and church members who are able to assist and are led to assist in these ways.
Families of a dozen children were rather common in colonial days.
And fify years ago an efficiency expert wrote about raising his family in the well received "Cheaper by the Dozen". Made into a movie, with Clifon Webb, I think.
