Churchhoney

As someone who grew up in another highly controlling family, I would just say that, yeah, many of them do probably "love each other very much." But that "love" is the kind of "love" you get in highly controlling situations. i.e., it's not like what I would call the ideal definition of love or like any love that I'd want to perpetrate on other human beings, now that I've gotten out of the situation and know for sure that there are other ways for people to treat each other. As a child in such a family, someone is only "loved" to the degree that they can be looked on as an appendage of their parents -- and a useful and ego-building appendage, in addition. Respect and nurture a kid's individuality as an individual who might be different from her parents -- which, to me, is part of the definition of love? Nope. Not in this situation. And from the kids' direction towards the parents? The parents have portrayed themselves as the only safe haven for these kids in a horrifying sea of evil people who are taking the world quickly to hell and would love to take the Duggar children with them. So, yeah, the kids "love" their parents -- to the extent that love means clinging to the people that you imagine are your only salvation against numerous horrifying fates. But, again, if you define love as truly caring about another individual and that person's individuality. I doubt the kids feel much of this toward their parents. They're grateful to be saved, and they look up to their parents, because they've been told and told again -- perhaps with blanket training -- that their parents' perceptions and will must be their perceptions and will or else they'll lose everything. But is that a love that makes you love someone back as an individual? Not likely, in my opinion. So, yeah, all this is love, after a fashion. Certainly many families "love" in this way. But I'd say that, while it's the only love these dimwitted, egocentric parents appear to be capable of -- at least for the most part -- the whole thing is a lot more like codependency and enmeshment than anything a mature person would call actual "love." Sorry if it's not kosher to speculate about the nature of love at the Duggar house, but I needed to get that off my chest. I'll shut up about it now (I hope.).

Just to clarify for Googling purposes --- His last name is spelled "Jeffress"

Well, I was kind of joking. But I have never seen one before. This is what comes of not using either Facebook or a smartphone. I never see anyone's baby pictures any more. And they come in a pack. Now that makes sense! I had this image of them all in separate little cellophane packages, but of course not. They're like socks with days of the week on them. Thanks for the information.

Who's "equipping and releasing" now? Well, good for JB and M, I guess. They're obviously unafraid to throw themselves into jobs for which they have absolutely zero experience.

Very interesting observation. Couldn't do that, of course. Might not have total control over those husbands.

Maybe we should be more hopeful. Perhaps she's getting some different thoughts about all that. ... If JimBob and Michelle were my parents and I was changing my mind about some of these rock-solid Duggar principles, I'd keep it to myself. Maybe Jill's doing that. I don;t think it's completely out of the question. Well, if you plan to have a lot of kids, this may not be as ridiculous as it sounds. Can't see how they would sell many of those shirts, though. And they look like an impulse purchase, but I can't quite picture the retail layout you'd need to display them. Do you suppose there's a shirt for 16 months? 22? 42?

Seriously. We sort of laugh about this, albeit nervously, or with head shaking or low-level disgust. But I think that's probably an inappropriate reaction based on our sort of seeing them as sit-com characters because they are, in a way, on a sitcom. (I was noticing one day how they describe their episodes in promotional listings on websites and such, and they're described with little plot and dilemmas, just like sitcoms.) But when you truly think of an adult man doing what he did there, I don't see how you can avoid the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with this guy. ... And then when you think that not only is he a grown, real-life man but a man who has for years set himself up as a sterling example of character, moral probity, ideal Christian faith and responsible fatherhood -- both for his own kids and for the whole rest of the world -- it's impossible to get your head around it. Well, impossible to get my head about it, anyway. Maybe I'm overreacting? But I don't think so. I can't imagine anybody I know doing that in those circumstances. And he was apparently stone cold sober. Exactly. And what he did could either have been an act -- and a big red flag for needing help -- or genuine -- also a big red flag for needing help. And they decided -- after a lengthy delay -- that a stint of hanging drywall would fix him. And, when he came back, believed that it had and put him on television. It's astonishing.

Whoa! I haven't seen this Gawker piece posted -- on Gothard-y counseling and the Little Rock center, so here it is. Sorry if I missed it somewhere: http://gawker.com/the-truth-about-josh-duggars-sham-cult-center-counseli-1709335574 "So instead of giving those in need of counseling the—by their own admission—“right” information, the counselors of IBLP are trained to give those in need...no information. Instead, all that likely got instilled in Josh was a deep sense of self-loathing and some wildly inaccurate science. IBLP, on the other hand, got some free labor for whatever construction might have popped up as well as the cost of admittance." Includes a document on the Hobby Lobby family gifting it to Gothard.

Good question on the book. I wonder whether the ghostwriters from the original feel that they're up to this new challenge ... Kind of hard to imagine, really. Also: Love the picture.

Yesterday for the first time, I looked at a bit of 14 Children and Pregnant Again, on Youtube. That was released in 2004, so filmed just barely after the first round of this horror was ending, right? .... The idea that those parents could go with something with the fairy-tale narration about how what they've created "looks much more like The Waltons than like anything out of this century" or some such Discovery Health channel romanticizing lyric -- appalling and phonier than a three-dollar-bill with JimBob's picture on the front of it. And this was supposedly the darkest and most hideously painful period of their lives. And there they are, blithely setting themselves up for the world to admire as this wonderfully innocent and, yes, utterly perfect family. Because they didn't have to let the tv network make that documentary. Just this fact tells me that JB and M either have been completely cynical utter pathological liars from the beginning or are frigging insane.

I think it was "FU Internetz! We are NOT doing this just to get our show back! (except that we are)." I don't know who they think they're fooling with this. But then I guess I don't know who they think they're fooling, period.

She should change her name to Megyn No-Follow-Up-Questions-No-Matter-What Kelly.

They might also feel like praying for TLC to cancel all future Duggar shows, since they've got a Duggar kid essentially in their household now, and I'm pretty sure at least some of the Joe Goes to Clown College story was slated for airing when the show returned to broadcast. Wonder what they're feeling about that right now.

A hyper-controlling environment will do that to you. I doubt that they'd realize this about themselves, though. They don't have enough significant contact with other people who didn't grow up in infantilizing environments. Wonder if Derick notices, though. ...and quite unconsciously making it sound like even more of a horror story.

I think it's all part of the overall Duggar lack of empathy. And when I think about it, it makes perfect sense to me that they wouldn't have empathy. Living in the isolated way that they do, nobody else is actually real to this family. And there are so many of them that I doubt they have much room left over in their consciousness to think of anybody else having the same level of reality that they do. Everybody and everything else is just a prop in their lives, somebody who illustrates a bad lesson about what happens if you don't embrace the Duggars' god. And so on. So I guess I'm not surprised that none of them gave a second thought to any bad messages they might be sending to other people or to whether it's okay to present the family myth as truth, whether it is or not. Nobody and nothing outside of Duggartown even seems real to them, so outside considerations don't matter. Strange way to interpret Christianity, but it comes right out of the family decision to regard themselves as a sort of armed camp in a world of the unworthy.

Oh, but that would have required reading. These are the Duggars. Who put the "home" in homeschooling but left the "schooling" outside the door.

They have been urged, prodded, encouraged and even required to grow up as ignoramuses. I suppose because that's the only way anyone could swallow the mental swill that their parents feed them. And part of that swill has been the idea that everything sexual except JimBoob dry-humping Michelle on a miniature golf course is a sexual sin and a sexual sin of the exact same order. That's left those kids, now adults, knowing exactly nothing and incapable of making accurate judgments of nearly any kind. I never thought about their being role models to young girls, especially in a spinoff. But that's exactly what would happen, obviously. Awful thought.

Really quick, over their clothes and kind of subtle pretty much makes a hash of the "he was curious" defense as well, in my opinion. What the heck could he have observed or found out that way? Seems to me that the "sexual assault is a power play" explanation is a lot more likely with these kinds of touches. Josh was in some kind of tumult and he needed to comfort his own ego so he touched those little girls because he could. One after another, on and on, becoming more aggressive and possibly trying to groom them to accept his future touches. Curious, my ass.

Yeah, but boy howdy, they deserve their own tv show.

Yeah, you're certainly right about all that. .... I've just reached a point with the Duggars, JImBob especially, at which I see pretty much all of their "beliefs" as just tracing back to ego and ego alone. I really don't think that JB "believes" in any idea or principle because it seems right or accurate or moral or in line with the Bible or whatever, be it Gothard or anything else. I think he merely embraces whatever ideas promise the most exaltation and protection for his own huge but fragile ego. To my mind, a lot of Gothard stuff would clearly be ego-boosting for JB. Thus, he "believes" in Gothardism. (And I think he'd totally ignore any Gothard principle -- or any other principle -- if it didn't protect and build his ego.) Honestly, I think he's too stupid, ignorant and shallow to hold beliefs for any other reason.

Well, I doubt that the messed-up little slimebag wants to defend himself! They might not thing he'd do a good enough job, though. But I think they defend him and ignore the daughters because what Josh did reflects badly on them, and that's all they care about. He did bad things, which could make them look bad. So they have to prove that he didn't really do bad things. Otherwise, their image is tarnished. Can't have that. Meanwhile, the girls didn't do anything that reflects badly on them. The girls suffered things, but it would only occur to them to talk about that if they had empathy or feelings of responsibility. And since they don't have either of those, the girls don't even register as a possible topic.

I agree. I still think that this is as likely or even more likely to be the family myth that they've gradually bought into over time as to be actual deliberate present-day lying on their parts. I am somewhat biased in this because I've seen this mythbuilding happen in a brainwashing family. And I've heard my family members spout some outrageous party lines that they once knew were not true -- but when they said the stuff, I'd be hard pressed to call it lying. On the other hand, I do think that it's certainly possible that Jessa and Jill are deliberately and consciously lying here. Just saying that there is another possibility.

Good brief summary, with links to additional pieces and some good comments below, from Homeschoolers Anonymous: https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/a-homeschool-alumnas-thoughts-on-megyn-kellys-interview-of-the-duggars/

Alternating with "bad choices" -- which makes me think of inadvisable tattoos.

Based on the Duggar methods of professional credentialing, of course.