SometimesBites

I agree that she'll have to get tough, completely. But toughness is usually something we have to grow into as we go through hell. With 4 tiny children including a nursing newborn, and a life under severe publc scrutiny, this all has to be a little slice of hell, heartbreaking and scary. As stringently as I disagree with her world view, and as stupidly ignorant, arrogant, and sappy as I've always found Anna, I feel for the hurt and utter disallusionment she's grappling with today. Breach of trust is a deep wound.

I feel for Anna. My guess--only a guess--is that THIS fuckarow is one she knew nothing about. It's extremely common in a cheating situation for the betrayed partner to have a first reaction of "Am I not enough? Not sexy enough, not adventurous enough, not pretty enough, not available enough?" Even if the rational mind knows better, the broken heart reels. Anna played the part that her church and her parents told her was the foolproof way to righteousness, and here she is: married to a cheating, hypocritical sack of shit, no education, no job skills, no prospects and four tiny children counting on her to make their world okay. Worst of all, she has to face this fresh emotional insult with the whole world watching. It truly sucks to be her this morning.

Translation: TLC execs are on their knees as we speak, thanking the Baby Jesus that they decided to cancel 19KAC before Josh could dig the hole any deeper.

The correct answer is: "Yes, Josh really IS that stupid." But we do have some nice parting gifts for our contestants, including the Ashley Madison home game and a year's supply of tater tots. Oh honey. Ya wanna see glee on the snark site?

I have to admit I'm not completely sure what you're getting at here. I'm a plain speaker, and I don't like to assume I know what someone means when they type "ahem" or "um." My guess is that you are commenting on the general hilarity about Josh's new and deeper fall from grace. But is that surprising? This forum has been snarking on Duggar minutia for years, so when Josh--the public mouthpiece of self-righteousness, moral turpitude, and biblical judgment--is discovered to have been simultaneously (and aggressively) seeking an extramarital sexual hookup, it doesn't seem at all out-of-character for the conversation to be a whole lot of schadenfreude. He was more than happy to sit way up high and point fingers at all the nasty little sinners below him, all the while hoping to get a little DC strange. Hope he packed a big parachute, 'cause this fall is going to be a long, hard tumble.

I noticed a few weeks ago how tiny Jinger looked in some group photo posted somewhere on the forum. What gets me most about the picture upthread is how strained her face is. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her expression looks deeply forced. Poor girl. She always seemed so funny and quirky when she was younger. The pressure to conform must feel like carrying the weight of world, and the constant threat of guilt for not beong pure enough, pretty enough, happy enough. I really do wish her an escape hatch.

Exactly! Further evidence of the warped sense of importance their pseudo-celebrity has ingrained in their empty noggins.

When I saw that photo of Ben with his hat on sideways, the first thought I had was, what a derp. And while I'm a big supporter of pregnant women being able to wear whatever clothing makes them happy, the judgmental hypocrisy of Jessa telling people they're going to hell while simultaneously wearing skintight tops and laughing about her out-y belly button makes me want to smack the smug right off her pretty little puss.

From comments on one of the IG photos: "Miss 19 Kids and Counting? Want daily Duggar news & updates? Stay tuned to our page for duggar news, updates, edits, rare photos & more! God bless you! " This is what reality TV does. Suddenly the most pedestrian people are convinced that there is something FASCINATING about them, as they mow the lawn, meet a boy, have a baby, clean up a nasty rental house, crawl around on the kitchen counters, ad nauseum. "Rare photos"?? Who. Fucking. Cares?

OMG, I'm laughing so hard at this post. *wipes away a tear.

I'm a week late finding this gem. OMG. Thank you for the most gloriously appropriate snark ever.

I actually have several friends and one family member who travel from the U.S. to various Central American countries to have major dental work done. The doctors are outstanding, and (sadly) the cost of travel, hotel, AND dental work ends up costing less than it would to have the work done here. Someone needs to write a musical ala "The Book of Mormon," called "My Quiver is Too Full!"

Spot on. That was worse than the most awkward middle-school melodrama ever concocted in the history of asinine. They actually seem to believe they're "ministering" to a bunch of children. After all, they speak a different language, so how intelligent can they be? The body language of the locals was loud and clear--"OMG, this is hilarious--try not to laugh out loud..." Good to see that Jill and Derrick are following in the footsteps of the many arrogant missionaries who've gone before them.

Going on record, friends: I have no doubt that giving birth 19 times has been crazy hard on Michelle's body, and I get what a stressor repeated and relentless pregnancy presents. I have trouble, though, with using the word "ruined" to describe the way pregnancy changes the body. My 5 full-term pregnancies left a legacy, for sure. I'm different than I was before the children, but I'm not ruined. :)

White makes right, baby, and we're just the next thing to albino!

I totally agree. And I have no doubt whatsoever that there are plenty people who populate the fringes of the quiverfull belief who are ripe for the influence, and just need a little extra dose of Koolaid to put them square in the middle of Kamp Koo-Koo.

It wouldn't at all surprise my to find that a couple of the younger Duggar kids manage to forge a path out from under Gothard and Jim Bob, especially now that the TV show has faded to black. But I think chances are very good that it will be the next generation to fully uncouple from the Duggar trainwreck. I'd love to be a fly on the wall on some actual college campus where a Duggar grandchild tells a story to friends about how her grandparents were these uber-religious nutjobs who had almost 20 children. Fly free, future Duggars!

Only in the voyeuristic era of reality television can an inexperienced, uneducated, pregnant 22-year-old who is married to a self-important teenager become an advertised public speaker and pseudo-celebrity, pseudo-expert on hair curling, junk-food dessert-making, and public restroom selfies. Moral self-righteousness paired with an utter lack of intellectual curiosity make for a most insipid and arrogant human being. If there were a hell, it would have to have a large arena dedicated solely to parents who crippled their children with stifling, limiting beliefs.

Guess when you're pregnant you no longer have to worry about drawing the eye to your "countenance." What, exactly, is the point of wearing a skirt for supposed sake of modesty, then pairing it with a skin-hugging top? They make this shit up as they go...

^^^^YES^^^^ I so agree with this post! As mentioned elsewhere, I had four kids with my first husband, and I remember longing for that overwhelming feeling of joy and love. The brain and body get flooded with all the feel-good hormones, and for a few days you are treated as though you're the first woman ever to bring forth a precious new life. That's powerful stuff, and for Michelle you have to throw in 1) the driving Gothard message that giving birth is what GOD put her on earth to do, and 2) the direct monetary link between her reproducing and the Duggar family income. Recipe for loony.

Wow. Nice photo, Jessa. Obviously it's ALL about the baby, right? Ugh...the narcissisism! (This is a perfect example of the worst thing about selfies. I'm so sick of the ocean of "look at ME--aren't I just DARLING??" pix out there. Sorry...little rant.)

Polygamy and celibacy are extremes on a single continuum--someone interpreting the book and advocating that their way is the "right" way to do sex/marriage. Polygamy is obviously problematic, and celibacy brings it's own set of problems (seen many Shakers lately?) ;)

The annual baby. That is such a bizarre idea, yet so close to reality that it boggles the mind. How WEIRD it must be for her now--to spend decades reproducing like a queen bee populating a hive, and then suddenly, no more babies, and you have no practice mothering. And to ice the cake, the cameras disappear! Strange days indeed, Michelle!

Thanks, Aja...I can't stop laughing at this. I have written a book, but it's a novel, not a memoir about my checkered past. ;)

I won’t speculate about whether Jim-Bob is physically abusive when the cameras aren’t rolling, although it is certainly in the realm of possibility; having lived through it myself and having later worked in the field of domestic violence, I know it’s horribly commonplace. But I can’t know it’s a fact for JB and Michelle unless someone owns up to it. But I do want to touch on this exploration of Michelle and her reasons for apparently choosing and staying in her nutty life. I was caught up in a not terribly dissimilar situation for over twenty years. Although I only had four kids (“only” in comparison to Michelle!) I can easily imagine myself in her shoes. If I'd been with a man who was really into the quiverfull movement the way Jim Bob is, I might very well have gone far overboard in that direction. I loved the story of Susannah Wesley and her 19 children (yep…19). I had home births, and for quite a while I home-schooled. And I was doing all this while married to a man who was physically, emotionally, and financially abusive. He also turned out to be an alcoholic. All told, I stayed with him for more than 18 years. This may be hard to believe, but I’m not a doormat personality, and I’m not a stupid person. In fact, I’m pretty assertive and fiesty; I have a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and a Master’s degree, too (that all happened long after I escaped the first marriage). So how did I end up living in a way that was so foreign to my nature, with a man who was not only a dick, but an idiot? I think it’s sort of a perfect storm situation. I married at a young age (20), and I had extremely romantic ideals about marriage/family that were strongly under-girded by my fundamental Christian belief system. Even after my actual husband and actual marriage proved to be highly problematic and not even close to the supposed ideal biblical marriage, the system I was immersed in acted as an institutional steel fence. The ideas were so strongly proscribed and prescribed, the roles and standards so utterly black-and-white, that even at my most desperate I would double-down on them in an attempt to make things better. EVERYTHING in my life was geared to keep me there. The pastoral counseling. The confiding to women in leadership positions. The books I read, the bible studies I attended, the prayer groups I went to, the songs we sang, the retreats I went on…all of it just pointed me back to the center of my torment, like a rat in a maze that has no exit, or a starving person who eats poisoned food to relieve her hunger. It was truly an insane way to live. I escaped it, finally, in a big, dramatic, painful fashion. But my marriage and family wasn’t on display in front of the entire country. No matter how Michelle might feel about her life in the deepest realms of her psyche, she may as well have a choke collar around her throat. It’s almost no wonder that she was willing to keep having babies even when her life was at risk—that would be one way to escape and still be looked on as a Proverbs 31 woman. I believe it would take an explosion of nuclear proportions to shake her out of this circus she’s living in (assuming she can even admit that the way her life has evolved is a train wreck). (PS: My life now is absolutely wonderful…I can hardly believe I wasted all those years!)