The twenty-ninth last time my mom friend-requested me on Facebook, I accepted her request briefly, just long enough to take a look at her page. I found that she had shared the Duggars' announcement that she's pregnant again, and if this one doesn't result in a miscarriage, it will be their 20th child. Upon looking up their Wikipedia page, I found that they are members of the Quiverfull Movement. What their beliefs are that you and your opposite-sex spouse are to have all the children "God blesses you with." Well first of all, if God existed, he's not the one impregnating Michelle Duggar, who desperately needs a hysterectomy by the way, it's that clown she's married to. If you need me to tell you that, somebody must have missed a few days in health class. I think Subway just announced that her hoohah is going to be their newest $5 footlong. Then they say that the man is to be the breadwinner and that a woman's only purpose of existence on Earth is to pleasure and obey her husband, give birth to as many children as humanly possible, and home-school the children and "protect them" from everything American. Does anyone here come from that big a family? Is it as bad as it sounds? In the Duggar clan, the older children have to raise the younger children because mom and dad are too busy in the bedroom making more for the older kids to raise. After the 2020 Census, their house is going to be given its own Congressman. I was the oldest of two, and that was bad enough. What would it be like being the oldest of ten or more? There's a family I read about in Rockford, Michigan that just had their 12th consecutive boy-the oldest is 21. Uh, guys, there are permanent methods. To be fair, this is coming from a guy who doesn't understand why anyone would want to reproduce, and has sworn off parenthood until the day I die. It's fun going through the process of reproduction if you're straight, but why on earth would anyone want to pull the goalie and dedicate the next 18 years to sleepless nights, soiled bedding, thinner wallets, dirty homes and a constant waterfall of hormones. And yet the Earth has a human population of 7 billion, and according to the US Census World Population Clock, 2 people are born every second. What's it like being from a large family, and what's it like to be the oldest?
I'm the second oldest in a family of six kids. We look downright modest next to folks like the Duggars. The four youngest are all pretty close in age- oldest being 10, youngest four. My brother and I are young adults- so through high school, the two of us guys were pretty involved in keeping house and minding the kids since until recently, both parents worked full-time. Once my mother decided to homeschool me and the four youngest, got to be a mess. For a while, I was practically in charge of educating them. Having a large family, definitely forces you to grow up. I remember often feeling I never really had a proper adolescence, but I try not to be too cut up about it. Seems overrated. The Quiverfull movement's huge with the wider homeschooling movement. Lot of evanglistic homeschoolers who feel public schooling's ungodly and evolution's the devil. Try buying high school science curriculum at a homeschool fair and you'll see exactly what I mean. Lots of Ken Hamm's philosophy, young earth, Noah walked with dinosaurs, that sort of deal. Think you'd find this worth a read: No Longer Quivering Blog about people who escaped the Quiverfull movement. Talks about families, the ideaology. Worth a glance.
What I don't understand is how they remember all their names. 2 is the max for me. It'll probably closer to 0.
That and they all start with the letter "J." All 19. My brother and I have the same first letter, and nobody can keep the two of us straight, much less 19!
"Okay, take out the trash Joy... Jacob- no, um Jake, Jimmy Joe, Jacky? God, it was Jacky, right? John? No. Fuck, that's the dog. Okay. You. In the pigtails. Take out the trash. And roll up your socks. That's sinful to be exposing your lustful heels to the neighborhood. We can't distract those neighborhood boys from their patrichal duties."
That was how it was with my dad's mom, having 4 children. Their first letters were J, D, B, and L. They just became "You, boy!"
Eugh. I can't understand wanting one kid, let alone that many. As I've always said: the vagina is not a clown car.
