Churchhoney

Maybe Jill is learning that she's utterly incompetent, extremely fearful of the world, and unable to navigate in it. Just as the guys may be learning that if you marry one of JIm Bob's children in haste, you could end up repenting for a long time at leisure, I think it's possible that Jill -- who's launched with perfect confidence into a lot of things that it seemed she'd be ill prepared for -- is actually learning from each of those things that, yeah, she is ill-prepared.That, despite the wonders of the training Jim Bob provides all his children in many many trades and skills (as Joy repeatedly reminds us) and despite the extreme wisdom imparted by Gothard's curriculum around the dining room table, Jill now feels quite unprepared even for the few things she's done and is growing unconfident. Maybe I'm really kidding myself, but I like to think that this is possible.

Because it's what people talk about who have absolutely nothing to talk about? Because that certainly describes these idiots who have their own damned tv show.

I wonder if there is anybody there who loves Jordyn. Maybe Grandma? Jana? Or one of her closer-in-age sibs? Those are really the only possibilities, seems to me. And since I expect that Grandma and Jana have pretty much taking on the charge of loving all the kids -- since they see that nobody else is going to -- it's probably next to impossible to get much individual attention, even from them. They have a crowd to love. (Plus, they have to do all the friggin laundry, cooking, mail handing, etc. etc.) The Duggar kids pretty much live in an orphanage that pretends to be a super-loving home, seems to me. So not only are they deprived of a lot, but they're constantly misled and lied to about the most basic concepts that kids are intended to imbibe. They believe that the Duggar way is the right way and the way things are all over, because that's how kids naturally think. No way they're not all warped and damaged as hell, with damages that'll persist throughout their lives. It's pitiful.

I expect Jill is terrified by the idea of doing anything like this. In her life, she's never really interacted on her own with strangers speaking English, let alone some other language. With pretty much everything she's ever done in her life -- including going to the freakin grocery store -- she's basically been surrounded by a phalanx of other Duggars, and she's not only been sheltered by them but, most likely, mainly interacting with them, rather than with other people who are around. Not only that, but at the Gothard events and such in which they do apparently sort of mingle with other people, there really seems to be very little spontaneous conversation. In those places they're dealing with people who are all brainwashed into talking in the same scripted phrases about the same scripted things that the Duggars apparently talk about on their own. So even those occasions probably aren't much like what the rest of the world would recognize as legitimate conversational interaction with other people. I mean, look at how stilted and awkward -- and reliant on scripted phrases -- the Duggar family's interactions are even with each other. They truly do practice extreme isolation -- even though it kind of doesn't look like it since they're always in a crowd. But it's really only a crowd of Duggars with maybe a couple of "family friends" salted in to give the impression of something else. But I doubt that the "family friends" say all that much or initiate anything when they're moving along with the Duggar ant army. Doesn't surprise me at all that Jill would shy away like mad from listening to and speaking in Spanish on the streets. Trying to get along in a foreign language only is scary even for brave and gregarious people, let alone for Jill, who may never have had a spontaneous conversation with a stranger in her life, even in English.

Remember: She's a Duggar. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see a Duggar ask the plumber to diaper the kid -- at the same time as he's/she's fixing the plumbing aaaaand teaching the Duggars to plumb aaaaaand listening to them crow about how the next time they need a plumbing fix they'll be able to do it themselves.

And I suspect a lot of really super-fundie heads of families (Jim Bob comes to mind, and possibly Michelle as well) also have serious personality disorders (as well as arrested development). (which is why they're attracted to the fundie view) This black-and-white thinking and blaming people for illnesses (either the sick person or another family member, for example) is very typical of people with severe personality disorders. The personality-disorder sorts don't blame themselves for illnesses that they get, however, only others. .... Which is why I think that Michelle could very likely be on some prescriptions. Josiah or Jana (or Cathy Dillard) might be to blame if they got an illness. But Michelle wouldn't be to blame for hers. Rules don't apply when you're a massive narcissist or whatever. She'd just be doing what's necessary to look good for the teevee.

And then, of course, we also get this kind of comment, which makes your hair stand on end: "Happy Birthday, Jordyn. I am so grateful for your example to other children. You truly are a blessing from God. I pray you continue to encourage others your age to be godly people." Yes, there are some people out there who think that all children ought to be treated this way, and it's not just the Duggars. How can someone who writes this not see the comments about the extreme limitations of how this child is viewed by her family and have a bit of a second thought? And how does this person raise her children? Hope to heck that she is just clueless and not actually following the Duggar pattern in her own family.

Good thing this isn't the 19th century, or they might get to mention that, before she is able to enjoy herself doing all of the fun things in this list, she loves to go down in the coal mine and shovel scrap into a great big wheelbarrow. (cleaning? organizing? a just-turned-seven-year-old? WTF?) If this isn't the description of a child laborer/slave, I don't know what is. And they never ever ever ever mention anything of an intellectual nature in these birthday wishes. So their view of schooling is just about the same as that of the evil Scrooges who sent the little kids of their society down those mines. They don't give a crap about education. Or their children. The kids get absolutely zero encouragement to use their brains in any way, shape or form. It's truly outrageous.

I'm sure TLC knows and has known for some time that virtually nobody would really want to watch very much of a series about the Jill and Jessa families. Their boringness positively screams. But TLC also knows that there are enough leghumpers who love their fantasy of the whole Duggar fam -- plus a side of hate watchers who love their vision of the whole Duggar fam -- to sustain a niche show for at least a while. And since every show today is a niche show pretty much, that's fine with them. So...pretend you're doing a show that leaves Jim Bob, Michelle and Josh behind -- to placate their detractors -- fill the show up with many other members of the mega-family that fans project their wishes onto, and when you get millions of people watching, take it as a sign that the detractors can safely be told to go suck an egg. Everything on schedule and proceeding as planned, looks like.

Well, I think some more probably did have that urge. But the Duggars do make it pretty hard for anyone to get out of their sight or get access to anything, except possibly via computer and phone. And who knows what level of filters they have on those. These kids don't have friends except for family friends, they never get near libraries or youth centers and they always have accountability buddies for shopping and so on. ... Josh got the opportunity to work in an office that had non-filtered computers and he went for it. (To me, one irony of his prohibited use of office computers being supposedly such a big deal is that, in his case, what other computers would he have been able to search for porn on? ) At any rate, there don't seem have been many chances for the others. (I expect that some have taken whatever meager chances they could get, though. They are human.)

Only makes sense that the Giant Dumb Dumb is packing them then.

When I think of their ages, I can't help but think of Michelle talking as if she's moved into a new season of life with no young children to raise. She acts as if she's an empty nester as many weddings occur. Yeesh. Two six-year-olds. The mind reels.

I didn't watch the show, but when I heard this, what occurred to me is that there's a song, apparently, called "Worthy of the lamb." So I thought maybe the t-shirt was about that -- Ben being such a hipster and all. ..... The thing about the song is, the title drives me crazy, and I've always suspected that it was perpetrated by somebody too dumb and careless to know that the real line is "Worthy is the lamb." But I've been too lazy and otherwise disinclined to delve into the matter and find out the lyrics and origin, etc.. ....

Hard to see it any other way, given Mike's blog posting about how you should let kids get married really really really young, and if you try to avoid this you're a bad Christian. I'd love to know what they're thinking now.

I love it. There've been several times in the past couple decades when Gothard exposes have started brewing -- when his troubled-youth facilities got into hot water and a few times when politicians were found to be pushing his ideas, for example. But the stories have never gotten any traction. Nobody picked them up and they remained single-outlet pieces. You'd think that the Duggars' prominence would get more attention to it -- and there's the lawsuit against the Gothard board now. But it seems that nobody has ever cared. And I suppose they won't care this time either. I guess that what Gothard pulled just wasn't sexy enough or something.

Maybe the real reason Mike was so eager to get Binny married off to a Duggar living an afternoon's drive away is that he was eager to get rid of him. ....Just kidding. But it is odd.

This is what I called it in my family. And i could occasionally get someone to laugh. Because even people in deep denial will laugh if the joke is accurate enough. Cell mates is exactly what they were.

It would be especially good if they went with a really factual presentation and had them do a circuit ministry. I think I've read of some of those being between 50 and 100 miles around. And people generally had to walk it, and carry all their stuff on their backs. Boiling summer, snowy icy winter. The Seewalds walking their circuit with Ben in his high collar and black suit. Not a lot of opportunity for selfies or fast food, either.

What would an A list reality tv family look like? I sort of thought that just being a reality-tv family disqualified you from being an A-list anything.

Jessa doesn't know anything about the world, though. I expect she has pretty much no idea how question and answer sessions usually go. All she knows is that she would freak out if she couldn't have the questions prescreened and read by a host. And that to push her to do something that makes her uncomfortable would make baby Jesus cry and constitute persecution of one of the country's best Christians (not to mention a little princess). And if they figure her presence will draw in a certain demographic -- and it will -- the show people will let her get away with it, because why do they care? They're not running a journalism shop. They're trying to get a lot of ladies in the door to buy makeup.

I think so, too. And i know that, then, they'd be very very surprised at the results of their stupid wish. .... I would pay to see this happen so I could watch the consternation. Nostalgia for things you actually experienced is a misleading enough emotion. Let alone nostalgia for times about which you truly do not have a clue.

Yeah, well, this is America. And Jesus wants us to be able to manipulate people.

They've been deprived of many many stages of normal development. Their bodies grew up but their brains have had whole years knocked out of their developing time. It'll affect them for life. ... And yet millions of Americans and a stupid cable network want their parents to be held up to the world as "sweet" "precious" and super "godly" role models for America. "We miss you so from tv, Duggars! Prayin' for your return!" TM leghumper. .... It's nauseating and horrifying.

Plus the fact that you don't really hang around a Duggar, in any case. You hang around the family. Even with "friends," it's just about the same as courtship. You don't make friends with Jana or Jedediah and then go hang out with them at the craft store or the go-kart track. You supposedly "make friends" with one of them -- although that's not easy since they never go anywhere or do anything without a half dozen other Duggars trailing along. And then you go and sit with the whole Duggar family in their bus station waiting roo....errr... living room. Or trail along with them to Silver Dollar City. It's not much different with "friends" than with people courting. No alone time or independent activities are actually allowed. .... So if you had objections to what anyone in the family did or if you mistrusted someone or simply couldn't stand the sight of them, you'd nevertheless be spending lots of time with them, if you ever tried to be a "friend" to a Duggar kid. I'm guessing the Duggarlings think in terms of "shunning" people because that's what their family's done all their lives. Live by the sword, die by the sword, Duggarlings.

Yeah, I'm with you on the "can't really last" part. It's just too boring. I do think that they may actually get a first series though. TLC seems just that determined. Or desperate. Or something. damn and blast. I hope you're right.