Another Duggar baby is on the way!

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Mirabelle

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 12:54 pm

First of all, the Duggars can financially handle all their kids, so why should we care how many they have?

Second of all, can anyone think of a kosher way to make tater tot casserole????
(check out the Duggar family recipes on their website)

Mama Bear

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 1:16 pm

in their defense, the show is the duggar's parnassah. They are not on any taxpayer's payroll but live off the show's proceeds. that oughta be something to respect them for.

chaylizi

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 1:24 pm

I don't have a hang-up on the Duggars by any means. They don't excite me & frankly I prefer to ignore people who think blanket training their kids is the way to go. I just fail to see why we are getting all excited here. Why is this newsworthy? Wake me up when octomom gets pregnant again with quints. I'm not just talking about imamother. All the comments about the irresponsibility of large families & carbon footprints, blah, blah, blah... All this for the FIRST kid of an of age couple who are not living on public funds. ÃŽ'm going back to my cooking now.

penina

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 1:55 pm

I love the Duggers! I think there's a lot to admire there. She spoke once about how she tries to never raise her voice to her children and lose her patience and how it's very difficult for her. When you see the show, it's true! She never speaks loudly to them. I also think its a good thing to force children at a young age to sit quietly for chunks of time (keep in mind, a church service is only 30 minutes). Sitting still is a fact of life, better they should learn it early than be those kids running amok around shul. Afterwards, she rewards them with possitive reinforcement and its only 30 minutes. How can anyone say that's "harmful"?

supermama2

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 2:05 pm

penina wrote:

I think the poster meant not so much that sitting still is bad but the whipping that occurs when training a child ( or baby ) to sit in one place. I have a book that teaches such but I've never put it into practice.

Twizzlers

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 2:07 pm

Mama Bear wrote:

in their defense, the show is the duggar's parnassah. They are not on any taxpayer's payroll but live off the show's proceeds. that oughta be something to respect them for.

I dont respect having your children do something they dont like doing so that you can earn money.

Clarissa

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 3:02 pm

penina wrote:

Sitting still is a fact of life, better they should learn it early than be those kids running amok around shul. Afterwards, she rewards them with possitive reinforcement and its only 30 minutes. How can anyone say that's "harmful"?

There's a reason little kids run around and don't sit still most of the time. It's not "running amok." That doesn't mean that they should be in shul or church all the time, but it's what they do sometimes. They are not very small adults, they are little children, with very different energy and attention than adults have. But since this is your take on children and what is, and should be, natural for them, I guess you have a very different notion of what is natural and what parenting them well means. And if you find it acceptable for there to be any physical punishment (hitting with a small rod or switch) for very young children not sitting still in one place, you have ideas about parenting that are so far away from anything I can imagine, I don't find it at all surprising that you find the Duggars so admirable. I don't beat small children for moving around, I don't hit them, I think people that do are abusers. So she can talk in her sweet little girl voice (note: this is while cameras are present) until the cows come home, and I will still contemplate whether she could, in any way, be considered a good mother or even an acceptable one. I can't wait until some of her hard-working kids bust out of the mold. It stands to reason that at least one of them will be gay. It stands to reason that at least one of them, at some point, will openly talk about being forced to raise at least one other sibling, with everything that entailed, including sacrificing her own childhood. I also expect that at least one of them has to curb some kind of chemical imbalance (like ADHD or depression) to toe the line with the rest of the pack and sit still and act all cheerful for the media. At some point one of them will admit that she rarely had her parents' attention when she needed to unburden herself of some feelings of one kind or another, and when she had their attention, certain feelings were just unacceptable, because of the nature of the family itself. I'm sure the publishers out there are just tapping their nails on the table, patiently waiting for the poopoo to hit the fan with one or more of the little androids when they come of age.

Last edited by Clarissa on Tue, Apr 14 2009, 3:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

Mama Bear

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 3:07 pm

clarissa, I dont think her kids will be wildly off the 'duggar derech'. they have come to be raised that their way is the right way and it's the best way to be like that. My MIL has KEH 12 kids, not a single one of them is even slightly off the 'very chasidishe derech' they have been raised with, which you can also argue is 'not the normal american way to live'. they are happy with their lives. maybe not all will go on to eschew birth control or get married at 20 and be shomer negiah until they do, but I doubt any of them will go on to do what you say they will.

and I'm sosssssooooo glad I got you out of hibernation, Clari Bear Very Happy

Clarissa

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 3:11 pm

Mama Bear wrote:

I am sure your MIL did a great job, and that your husband is a lovely person. He obviously picked a wonderful wife! But when I read some of these threads here about all sorts of marital problems, I think there are ways to be "on the derech" (married, shul-going, learning, child-fathering) will being secretly off-the-derech. How else are the closeted gays carrying on their awful marriages? Or the distant, remote, insensitive, or abusive husbands? You can, by appearances, be with the program while, in fact, being WAAAY off the derech.

eta: We also know of stories here of women who were raised by parents who were dysfunctional, unsupportive, clinically depressed, mentally disturbed, etc. In the frum Jewish world these people don't necessarily leave the fold. They stay in the fold and screw up the next generation. Also, plenty of people here do have siblings or cousins off the derech, and we don't hear their stories of what led to this departure.

marina

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 4:05 pm

I just need to point out that Off the Duggar Derech is a coined term, known by it's more popular acronym, ODD.

Clarissa

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 4:17 pm

marina wrote:

I just need to point out that Off the Duggar Derech is a coined term, known by it's more popular acronym, ODD.

Also coined is a word for those Duggers who loyally follow their parents: Faithfully Respecting Every Asinine Kook, or FREAK.

Barbara

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 4:21 pm

Clarissa wrote:

penina wrote:

And even if they all not only toe the line but cure the common cold and bring world peace, you're not going to convince me that any person who threatens a BABY with a switch in order to force the baby to stay within an extremely constrained area is a good parent.

Tova

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 4:41 pm

Maybe I'm being dense, or it's 4/14 and I've been driving my brain hard for my tax deadline, but I don't see what's either news-worthy or "creepy" about the oldest married son expecting a baby of his own. What does it have to do with his parents' discipline methods?

sequoia

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 5:00 pm

Clarissa, I suspect the Duggars freak you out because they're Christians. A lot of frum Jews also have many, many children and you would never call them "freaks" -- at least not on this site.

For example there is a Chabad family with 17 children that's been in the news lately -- that article about conference calls on the mom's birthday (maybe someone can find it). You wouldn't call them "freaks" (even if you thought so). And we both know there are frum families, as well as Christian families, that use discipline techniques you wouldn't agree with. So why not just say that you don't like fundamentalist Christians, and that whatever they do is wrong?

Clarissa

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 5:09 pm

sequoia wrote:

Why would you say that? Do you know me? Do you know that I don't have Christian friends? I have more way Christian friends than frum Jewish friends. I didn't have frum Jewish friends until I came to this site. True, I have few fundamentalist friends, and that's to be expected, given my general point of view about most things in the world. But I do have friends who were raised in fundamentalist families and/or communities.

I absolutely would rant about any Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, etc., person using such ridiculous and cruel methods of discipline to train human children like circus animals. I don't even like it for circus animals. And I don't like people turning their desire to keep making babies like something to be flaunted on the news like it's something truly newsworthy, turning their children's lives into even more of a circus. These nuts had to announce the DILs pregnancy on the Today show? That's big news for the world? Call me up when one of the kids gets fitted for a diaphragm -- that's actual news. By the way, I call lots of people freaks, here and elsewhere. There are fun freaks, but there are creepy freaks. I definitely consider these people creepy freaks. If you want to know if I consider a large Jewish family freaky, I'd certainly have to know more about the family in question. If they look, act and live like the Duggars, I will proudly tell you I think they are FREAKS, regardless of their religious affiliation.

greenfire

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 5:16 pm

I didn't read any of this ... I'm appalled that you guys have so much to say about some random baby & their troop & soon to be grandkid ...

how would you like it if YOU yes the frum women with the 2 dozen kids give or take 1/2 dz ... would be the center of somebody else's scrutiny ...

Puke

Clarissa

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 5:19 pm

greenfire wrote:

how would you like it if YOU yes the frum women with the 2 dozen kids give or take 1/2 dz ... would be the center of somebody else's scrutiny ...

Puke

If I had a huge brood (which obviously wouldn't happen) and I traipsed them all over tv like they were little android Paris Hiltons to be gaped at by the public? I'd expect it to be scrutinized. Did you hear what I said, Greenie? They announced the grandchild on THE TODAY SHOW. Great privacy.

greenfire

Tue, Apr 14 2009, 5:22 pm

okay okay - I read your post ... but only the one before mine and the one after ... What

gonewiththewind

Fri, Apr 17 2009, 4:48 pm

Clarissa wrote:

Mama Bear wrote:

If I really thought that the sholom bayis and emotional health threads represented what was secretly happening in a lot of homes, I would give up and despair. If you take a close look, the vast, vast majority of the people with the jaw-dropping issues have non-standard risk factors in their background. Not all, ok. Most, yes. I was so freaked out by this site a while back, that I asked many of the people who would know, such as therapists and rabbonim (I know many) how representative it is. And while no one should or could deny all kinds of issue DO exist, the picture given by this place is way skewed.

In addition, I think people who don't live in a commuity where the norm is 10 kids automatically picture themselves with 15 kids and say no way, it would be dysfunctional. But most people who grew up like that know how to do it. My SIL's sister just had number 10 erev pesach. Her house was all ready a few days early, and she was taking them on trips since she knew they would miss their chol hamoed trips. My other SIL has 6 kids age 8 and under, and her house always looks like it was just cleaned for Pesach. And she works. They grew up in homes with 12-14 kids and it comes naturally.

Not everyone has to have so many kids. Some people have emotional and physical issues that make them decide to limit, and that is fine. No everyone can do it. But lots can.
And not everyone has relatives who went off the derech. We were doing a geneology thing on my husband's grandfather, who had 14 siblings. He came to America in the 1920s and brought his family over so they were not in Europe during the war. Anyhow, as far as we could find, all the descendants of these 14 siblings are all shomer shabbos and mitzvos. There are Satmar, Lubavitch, MO, settlers, and everything in between, so that was cool. I do have not frum relatives, but they are from my mother's side and were never frum.

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