Churchhoney

Well, no matter what happened now, it seemed pretty clear earlier that they (or somebody) were likely setting a timetable for the most serious relationship of their lives based on the filming schedule of a frigging tv show. Gotta get that dramatic arc and big finish for the next season. And they'd already been the highlighted "next season" teaser. Nobody should ever be in that situation. And, especially, naive kids in their very first relationships should never be in that situation (or be encouraged or coerced, subtly or blatantly, to be there). Sad that they ever had to be in a relationship that was being shaped by external forces in that way. And it's a shame if this whole mess broke up a relationship that really could have been good for them, as seemed to be a possibility. Hoping the best for both of them going forward.

I hope so. Can't say it worked in my family, though. The piss-poor went right on thinking they were the greatest no matter what the younger generations did. Hopefully Michelle will have a better heart. Or maybe having a full bakers'-dozen-and-a-half kids to show her better examples will do the trick. It would be nice if she could see it. Might send her right around the bend, though, if she did. If the truth actually did strike the guilt might be nearly unbearable.

Good grief. Don't her nails even have a design on them? I suppose she has as much right to that kind of thing as anybody else, but whenever I see nails like that on somebody who presumably should have a lot of work to do around a house -- tending to kids, playing with kids, lugging groceries, gardening, cooking, cleaning, hauling kids and their stuff hither and yon in the car -- I never can figure out how she has the time to get her nails done that way and how the nails stay done. I must just be extraordinarily messy and slow, but I don't think I could fit that kind of manicure into my schedule, and I know that I couldn't keep a fancy manicure pristine for more than about 20 minutes without spilling poster paint or glue or bleach on it or chipping a nail off with a hedge clipper or something. To me, that's such a sign that she doesn't live anything like the life you'd expect of the mother of a large brood.

I'm of two minds about this. I think she may know. But then I also think that the Duggar kids all act about three or even three-plus years younger than their non-isolated peers. I'm certainly biased by my own experience, but as another kid isolated within my own family, I was very very out of step with many milestones of social awareness and social development. And I even went to public school, and held some jobs from quite an early age. But because I didn't have actual social interchange with regular people or regular kids, I was incredibly immature in speech and action and concept -- I would say and do things that were horribly childish/childlike (or old-lady-like) and only a few years later would think of the thing and be flooded with embarrassment when I realized how completely weird I must have seemed to outsiders. I didn't fully catch up for about a decade after I left home, either. I agree that both kids look kind of uncomfortable to me in the picture. But I'm really unsure about whether Hannie would have the feelings about dressing like a relative that the average girl her age might be expected to have. I frequently have seen things coming out of the older girls' mouths, for example, that suggested they had the adolescent feelings and approaches of girls way younger than they are. I'd be interested to know whether Hannie's more in step with the real world or whether she's behind, too, the way they have been.

So far from accurately reading anybody's emotions, it's probably a victory for childkind that they even knew which ones these kids were and didn't refer to them as "Whatshername" and "That Other One."

"Well, that's good cause now she won't get shingles." TM Jim Bob Duggar.

This raises a question that I've had often. Even as a full-fledged adult, there are so many things you don't know about babies and young children and what they need, and who doesn't ask pediatricians, read books and get all sorts of solicited and unsolicited coaching from friends and relatives? (not all of it right or useful, of course, but... still...there's information there and questions get raised) But how much learning and coaching did the sister moms get? Every time someone took over a new baby, Michelle seems to have been already checking out on her way to the next baby. If they looked to their only available role model, they really didn't see her modeling the role. And even though she was apparently more checked in during the older girls' early childhoods, they most likely wouldn't remember much or any of that in a way that would help them. And this is not a family that reads, so there most likely weren't baby books or magazines around -- and, of course, as young kids who necessarily had their own growing-up to attend to also, you certainly wouldn't want them to be going on well-child visits or sitting around reading about child development. But as I understand it, they were close to primary caregivers. I don't even see how that's possible. As a 14-year-old with a couple of way young buddies, would you even have questions about what was the right thing to do or would you just blunderbuss along so you could get your childraising over with and go back to your own kid life? Would a 12 or 15 year old ever realize what you just mentioned about babies' leg strength, for example, even after she'd been nearly a mom to a couple of kids? I'll bet Jill has a million more questions about how best to bring up Izzy now, when she's a grownup and her brain is pretty fully formed, than she did when she was "raising" her sibs, back in the day. The whole spectacle just baffles me. And the same, to a lesser degree, for Jessa and whichever other older ones have superintended the "schooling." Have they even had a clue about good ways to do that? As teens, would the question of "What would be the best way to do this?" even enter their heads? I kind of doubt it. If it all is as many describe it, the whole situation just screams "neglect" on so many levels. The blind leading the blind doesnt' even begin to describe it.

Exactly. I imagine Jim Bob is really good at playing both good cop and bad cop to keep people in line with his plans. Derick's probably never had close contact before with somebody that manipulative, I would wager.

Okay, I evilly gave that a click. The guy means their old pre-TTH house, I think. At least one of their old houses was sort of church-supplied and not next to a landfill, I don't think. Whether it was actually next door to the church, I don't know.

Honestly, I'm thrilled that nobody's heard anything one way or another. These are two kids, who've had very little chance for much exposure to the world or to other people. If the current situation is just allowing them now to withdraw and have a relationship, or not have a relationship, just as suits them, without anybody telling the public about it, I think that's by far the very best thing that could happen to them. That's normal life. And that's what they all need. Of course, we're all going to speculate. Everybody Duggar-obsessed is obsessed with it as a story, obsessed with them as characters. But I hope that they're now in a position where they and their families feel absolutely no need to respond to or fuel any speculation. Off the public radar is exactly where young adults' personal relationships ought to be. They're hard enough to sort out without thinking about public expectations. I can't even fathom what those years would have felt like in my life if I'd thought that I needed to put on some kind of show or offer some kind of explanations for public consumption. I would hope that they can proceed without thinking about family expectations too, although I suppose that's way too much to ask. Live your lives in peace, Marjorie and Josiah. My curiosity should never ever ever be your concern.

I don't know. Just given the little I've seen of and heard about Derick's family of origin, I would bet he had absolutely no idea when he married into the Duggars just how intense the juggernaut of a massively controlling set of parents can be, especially when you're yoked to someone who's been utterly utterly under their control and, apparently, utterly blinded to their faults, such as that they aim to have puppets, not human offspring. If one did -- as I suspect Derick did -- go from a quite rational and pretty easygoing family into Duggardom, I think it'd probably be darned hard to evade and fight against their bland expectation of total mind control, especially if, as in Derick's case, you didn't even know your own wife very well when it all started. And it's not as though he could really make common cause with Jill early on, if he did want to push back against some of the fam's expectations. So resisting anything JB and M wanted would have entailed not only resisting them but also creating some difficulties in his marriage. I think it's probably a lot harder to assert yourself against the tide of Duggardom when you're inside it than it looks to be from the outside. So I'm really glad he took his wife and baby and left the country. Maybe distance is better than confrontation, in this case. (And, of course, maybe he's still totally on board with everything Duggar and doesn't want to confront them at all. Who knows?)

I agree. When he's front on, I feel kind of bad for him because it looks to me as if his surgery has kind of skewed the top and bottom of his face away from each other. Despite that, however, I also think he looks pretty good in these shots. He's skinny, yeah, but I think he's just a really skinny guy. I think that he looks fairly relaxed and healthy and pretty happy, and I don't mind the mustache. I still wonder whether he isn't wearing it partly to distract from the differently skewed face that he now has. I would think having your face made that different by an operation might spook you a bit in the mirror, and you'd look for a distraction.

He really is just parroting a lot of talking points. The "Christians are being persecuted and the persecution is growing" thing is all over, and no doubt it's all over any media and/or family conversations that Ben actually hears. And even the most educated and conversationally skilled people who are among those initiating this idea and making the arguments as educated adult professionals often have a little trouble getting those arguments clearly articulated and ordered -- since they're obviously on shaky ground in an overwhelmingly Christian country. I mean, they have to argue as one of their major points that other Christians, such as the Pope and the United Church of Christ and so on, are among the leading forces persecuting Christians. And they don't say "persecuting conservative Christians" most of the time, because that doesn't sound grand and scary enough. These are very hard arguments to understand and to make coherently. And Ben is not what you'd call the best-informed, brightest and most articulate guy. So after he parrots the first premise of the debate, he's in very very deep water and really has no idea what he's supposed to say next and certainly can't come up with a good response on his own. A very solid education would help him a lot. Not only would he become a better parrot of propaganda initiated by others but he might even come up with some ideas of his own. But I get the feeling that he's been told by his dad and maybe by the Duggars, too, that his religious background has already acquainted him with the full truth and that despite his young age he's completely ready to take on the world's persecution as a warrior and argue against it on the level of Jonathan Edwards or somebody. (well, the Duggars wouldn't have mentioned Jonathan Edwards -- but Mike might have ...) I keep wondering whether his problems in these arguments could alert him to the importance of learning more before he takes on the world. But I suppose that in the climate he's living in they're more likely just to reinforce the idea that the people disputing his points are Satan's minions who are best ignored. More's the pity, if that's the case.

Where did she get the time and the money to keep that hair up? I suppose that's because responsibility one was to look good for Jim Bob in the Gothard style? But I can't imagine having that many kids and having hair that looked so high-maintenance. Although I suppose it may have been done specially for the big family photo and it wasn't like that all the time.

And the Duggars being the Duggars, it would never occur to anybody that maybe he could just sit between them. Looks to me as if someone might have done that in this picture. Tried -- although maybe didn't try very hard -- to sculpt some curly do with product of some kind.

Izzy's overseas! : )

It kind of seems to me that most groups (from families to institutions to political parties to ideologies to religions to nations etc.) will forgive pretty much any sins committed by those they think of as close and welcome parts of their group. But are very reluctant to forgive the exact same sins when they're committed by somebody in a different group or somebody who's in the group but on the outs with it. To me, it looks more like it's the sinner not the sin that decides whether forgiveness will be granted, most of the time.

Yep, I followed that injunction. It's far from the only reason that I wouldn't have 19 kids, though. : ) (On the other hand, while I agree that keeping kids clean and kept up and helping them look pretty if they want to is a big part of being a mom, there are many things that I see as way more important -- such as cooking nutritious food and teaching them that food can be tasty and good for you and fostering their curiosity and their interests and helping them learn about the world.) I do take care of hair, even though I wish we lived on a bald planet because there are dozens of uses of time that are infinitely more important to me. If someone really cares about hair, then I'll help her (or him!) out with it. But I admit that unless I have such a good reason, I've always cared for hair in as simple a way as possible as long as it's clean and looks presentable. And that goes double -- triple, quadruple -- for my own hair. Taking care of that is what I resent by far the most, actually. So it's short and gets a part and a quick brush-through in the morning. And that's it. I hope Michelle didn't have to yank too much on their hair to get it into a do. I suppose that varied with the kid, though. Not everybody's hair cooperates in the same way. My hair's really fine and limp and knots very easily, and I hated the time and yanking that was spent putting it into hairdos when I was a kid. I didn't care about hair then, either -- but my mother did. : )

Yeah, and you especially wouldn't want her putting it into a "hairdo" like that, because there had to be some pulling and tugging involved in creating it, and she already had four daughters' hair to fix by this point. I imagine that could get her quite grumpy. I think it would get me quite grumpy. I resent the time it takes to do one or two people's hair, let alone four girls' and my own. I would've been doing a lot of ponytails.

My guess is that shortly after this they stopped being people who had any individual importance at all and started being absolutely nothing except props to bolster, first, JB's political ambitions and then his tv show, aka his salary. Since that picture was taken, everybody's had to be "on" a huge amount of the time. I think it could be just the resulting tension, pressure and lack of any appreciation of any of them for their individual selves that turned them all into kind of saddish zombies. Or JB and M may have enforced a less and less spontaneous atmosphere. Plenty of parents do that. In my house, the saying went, "If you go on laughing like that, the next thing is that you're going to cry." They became a little useful army rather than kids.

Thank you, nc socialworker. Sorry about the "terrorizing." I know what you mean. I can't think of anythng much more horrifying than how the Catholic church has "handled" its own gigantic molestation problem. You wouldn't think there'd be a rug big enough to sweep all of that under. But they went on sweeping for decades (centuries, really, I suppose). The thing is, I think that they're far from unique and that anytime you have an in-group or an institution that looks on itself as important, chances are high that its people will do the exact same thing. I hope there's a chance someday for someone to say "I told you so." But I don't know if I hold out much hope for it. (This is maybe the biggest disadvantage of atheism. It leaves open no path for humanity to change for the better or learn lessons except through humanity's own action. And history may provide a tiny sliver of hope for that, but not much. So I hope the "I told you so" happens, but I only have about a teaspoonful of hope. Kind of depressing. But, to me, it's also what gives life meaning -- the absolute imperative to try to do well and make life what it could be, since ain't nobody gonna do it for us.)

Lots of embossing. The terrifying thing is that I'm actually getting a clear picture of this book in my mind.

Gay ice cream? Hilarious.

This is all very true! But your point of view echoes that of the general public because you, and many of us, find child molestation so unacceptable that it would trump anything else. Unlike most of the world, though, a big group of political insiders trying to enact laws to their liking, though, tend to see their political game as by far the most important thing. And if they found someone useful for the game they'd grab onto any reason to tell themselves that the molestation isn't as important as all that. And in Josh's case the family has presented reasons for them, right there in the Megan Kelley interview: He was a young teenager, not an adult, and therefore he's not terribly culpable; he's confessed and done penance; Jesus has forgiven him; and his so-called victims didn't even notice what happened and consider what he did to be no big deal. To me, it's the exact same case as the Catholic Church, where you have members high and low of the hierarchy molesting tons of kids for years and years, while virtually everybody in their in-group looked the other way because they deemed what was happening far less important than the things the priests and brothers did when they weren't molesting children (and other people in their parishes). And tons of people quite credibly accused of multiple molestations have been given all sorts of additional jobs and duties, including high-level ones and ones in which they had contact with children, because others in their organization prioritized many other things above children's welfare. Many in the Church are still looking the other way and haven't ever stopped being surprised that most people, all over the world, have been beyond outraged. I'd just be really surprised if conservative political interest groups and PACs and so on weren't like the Church in that regard. If somebody might possibly help them politically and can present himself as being "one of them," some will find a reason to look the other way because those things -- and not what happens to kids -- are what matter most to them. I don't think a lot of people will necessarily see Josh as all that useful. But if somebody does, I'd expect them to act just like the cardinals and archbishops.

This sounds right on the money. Disturbing how many people want them brought back to tv because they're such great "role models."