Temperance

There are a bunch of fundie-snark-following accounts on Tumblr. This week someone asked "why are the Duggars famous?" After this question was asked and answered by fundie snarkers on Tumblr, JB and Michelle posted that Facebook post @OpieTaylor posted. The snarkers on Tumblr now think it's a reply to their posts why the Duggars are famous.

Alyssa has been posting pictures on her Instagram. Trace brought his girlfriend.

I didn't name Toby Willis, because I don't know of any direct connection between Willis and the Duggars. (Beyond TLC). The people I listed are all friends and acquaintances of the Duggar family personally with the possible exception of Caleb Williams' brother. It's clear the Duggars know Caleb and so they probably do know the brother.

So we have Bill Gothard (1) who faced sexual misconduct allegations from as many as 34 women. And that's just the ones who realized it's not my fault for defrauding him. Josh Duggar (2) JB's state trooper friend (3) who was consulted about what to do about Josh. Tabitha Paine's husband (4) Caleb Williams (5) and his brother (6), who are both facing sexual assault charges. and now Mike Schadt (7) who performed the wedding ceremony for Ben and Jessa. I mean granted I have no idea how many people I know who have issues with sex abuse, but it seems like a lot to me.

Yes she is. I checked the wedding website through the knot. And there she is on the bed right behind Carlin.

Alyssa and John went to Carlin's wedding without their kids.

I loved the moments of recognition for Nina. Love her! I loved seeing the other girls, particularly Mercedes. I agree with others are saying about Brooke and Vanjie. They didn't vote this year. Last year they voted on who should win. I wonder if Ru was worried someone wouldn't get any votes. Nina had some good reads, but the reads have been off this season. Last season, at the reunion Dusty and Yuhua both had some good reads that hadn't got to use.

They have nine with 2 on the way. Zach and Whitney have 2 kids with 1 on the way. Erin and Alyssa have 3 each. Tori has 1 kid. Josie (Bates Balka) is pregnant with her first. I hope these kids are able to have at least some opinions of their family size, and don't feel compelled just to add to the family count.

I always associate Ark Encounters with the Duggars since I believe they went there once. Or twice. Anyway Ark Encounters is suing their insurance company. Because flood damage.

She was wearing them at Israel's last birthday party.

I checked the print magazines: People and Us Weekly and no word of the Duggars this week.

Lauren seems to be registered at Amazon. I say seems, because you never know on the internet. It lists her due date as November 17th.

The Bates girls grew up just as (or almost as) fundie and most of them have shorter hair than the Duggar girls. With Gothard gone and Gil Bates on the board of directors for IBLP, they seem to be moving away from their old clothing and beauty standards (curls are going) and yet the Duggars still keep them. It's also not IBLP to have a nose piercing. I tend to think Jill keeps her hair long for some kind of personal preference versus a religious one.

I'll say this for JB and Michelle; they're actually pretty consistent when it comes to counting their kids. Since Josie was born they've said 19. After the second miscarriage, they still said 19. It was only after Tyler came to live with them that they said 20. Since Tyler seems to be there for a long time, I think it's good that they include him.

We don't know if Jill is pregnant. I actually think the blue dress is kind of nice. It's similar to the dress Amy's wearing in black. Amy's dress does a nice job of mimizing her bump.

A lot of people have "more than one best friend" and I tend to think it's okay. Then again for fundies (especially IBLP/Gothard types) best friends is loaded concept that got corrupted by Gothard and other fundies. Friends were seen and still are as dangerous cohorts trying to lure your kids into sin and depravation. Gothard taught that all the siblings in the family were best friends. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. While I can understand trying to get your kids to love their siblings, the idea that John David and Josie are best friends is ridiculous based on the age difference (19 years). Not to mention any abusive sibling relationships. Other friendships according to Gothard, were supposed to friends of the whole family and not friends of any particular person. Most of the IBLP crowd doesn't follow this exactly and allows their children to have best friends outside of the family these days (not allowed under Gothard), but they still have a lot of hang-ups about friendship. The Bontragers are a good example of this. I watched the livestream of Chelsy's wedding. Her father had her best friend stand up as well as other best friends of his kids. The "best friends" were all older than the child in question, because they needed to bring maturity to the friendship. It was clear that Mr. Bontrager felt he got to approve and maybe choose friends like a courtship. He advised making sure your kids had older best friends during the service. The Bontragers also insist that all of their kids are best friends, and that seems to be common among fundie families even with no ties to Gothard. (The fundies in real life who insist their big family are all best friends, are Catholic with no Gothard ties.) JB and Michelle as well as David and Priscilla warned over and over about bad peer groups during the Youth for Christ Conference (the video from the JB and Michelle thread). They told that story about Austin and his rebellion, which they saw as peer motivated. Austin lost most of those friends when he turned his life back to Jesus. The only friend he kept also turned to Jesus and is now Austin's brother-in-law Bobby. Austin didn't exactly unfriend people, but he told about his faith and that he was going to be Christian now. (Of course his friends kept up their dissolute habits and have gone to seed appropriately. Of the three friends who turned their back on Jesus, one went to prison and one was doing something with a screwdriver and gauged his eye out. The third one's life path is unknown. Hopefully he's doing better than the other friends.) Anyway all this aside, Joy's and Carlin's friendship always seemed genuine and they saw each other more before Joy got married.

Joy is the only Duggar girl in the wedding party, but her brother Justin Duggar is in the wedding party. I'm predicting most of the Duggars will be there with the exceptions of Jill, Jessa and a few more of the marrieds.

Hoping she's off to college soon.

Dear America, You've recently heard that as many as five of our children are giving us grandchildren this year. You may think our daughters and daughters-in-law are super fertile. But this week is the anniversary of Michelle giving birth to our 15th child on national television. We had four more children on television. We were lucky enough to get pregnant with #19 and #20, although we lost #20. Michelle is still the most fertile woman who ever lived and it is through her uterus we became famous. She has still given birth on tv more than any other member of the family. She is the bestest at pregnancy ever. Our expanding family wouldn't be expanding in the same way without her. We're still coping with the challenge that is this season of life: menopause, but rest assured, the Duggar family is still trying to single-handedly overpopulate the planet. It is an exciting adventure for anyone else to even try to follow in our super-fertile footsteps-- --JB and Michelle.

She does look happier now. It probably helps that having been through this once she has experience to guide her this time. As for her weight, I could never judge anyone for their weight, but she looks about the same to me.

I don't really understand what it means that she looks like she's having "a much healthier pregnancy this time around". I can't tell anything about her pregnancy this time or last by looking at her. Please explain.

I don't know if he's gay. He doesn't look entirely happy to me. But that could be a lot of things. Among other reasons, I'm glad I didn't have a baby on the way at 22. It's not necessarily an age thing and it's not necessarily that I feel worse for him because he's a guy. But for most people I've known 22 is an age where you still trying to figure stuff out and try stuff out and he seems to have his life planned without really seeing what else is out there.

So she's the one I said she was.

All three of the women and the flower girl who are on the opposite side of Jill are Ben's sisters. The one who got married, has the big hair and is standing next to Jessa.

That one looks too young to Jessica. Ben has four sisters and Jessica is closer in age. Having googled to look at the full wedding party, definitely not.