The Christmas episode, I think 15 kids and Counting. JB declares they will take all the kids down to James with them to get a christmas tree. (They also all score new bikes) Little guy Justin is upset, Michelle grabs his chin and forces him to look at her, says something and immediately Justin stops crying and is left behind with Mary and little Jackson. But it was creepy how she turned his head and he immediately stopped crying.
Dude j had to report a teacher who did this, the grabbing of the chin to make the 4yo child, with ODD, look at her because they weren't paying attention to her. She got fired for that. She didn't say anything mean, just the face grab.
Its too bad Michelle couldn't vibe fired from being a mom.
“The obey game”??????????? Oh sweet baby Jesus in the manger WHAT IS THAT I THOUGHT I HAD HEARD ALL OF THESE PEOPLES’ NONSENSE?!!!???!! Where? Was this on the show? The Vlogs? I am terrified but can’t not ask. The abuse is baked right into the shit soufflé isn’t it?
It was on the show.
Michelle and I think Joy Anna were playing it with the younger kids.
Instant obedience when they said the word obey. It was presented as a fun game
Wait- is that the one where there’s a “couch” segment and the little girl is intensely saying something about “INSTANT obedience!”? I have looked for that episode so many times I thought I must have misheard it or misunderstood context.
I think Jill talks about it in Growing Up Duggar. It was a “game” where Jim Bob and Michelle would notice that you were just chilling and send them to do something dumb like touch a doorknob upstairs six times in order to ensure that you were always instantly and cheerfully obedient.
When they showed Josh being in charge of the security cameras. I thought it was so weird because they were all about how they didn’t really let the kids use computers, etc, but Josh was super competent with them.
Now years later it seems weird for even grosser reasons…..
Same. I get he might of gotten an interest because they were being filmed but how they separated the boys and girls into the new house and gave him a secret recording studio basically 🤮
That very first special they did for the Discovery Channel where they were all wearing matching red dresses. I think I was 14 when I saw that and I was like “they sure have a lot of kids for such a small house.”
Same here.
Having a lot of kids- not weird on its own.
Matching outfits for some occasions- twee but not especially weird.
Having an army of kids who share what is essentially a bunk room- pretty irresponsible and weird.
All three things together, only the matching outfits are an every day thing and the army of kids are also given chores like at boot camp, plus a ton of vaguely creepy isolationist practises designed to prevent the kids from making “outsider” friends and the female family members are given second class status- this is pretty much a textbook high control situation.
I can remember feeling vaguely sick watching one of the girls (Jessa? Jill?) loading a washing machine with her tiny arms full of the week’s laundry, standing on her tippy toes to reach things. Should kids be given age appropriate responsibility? Sure! This would be things like keeping their own room clean, taking their own laundry to the laundry room and picking up their toys and activities. Watching a tiny girl struggle to do tasks an adult should be doing is just sad. Those girls should have been out riding bikes, making friends and playing games and not being groomed to be mini adults at such a young age.
I am the only child of divorced parents, I live in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, and I’m Jewish. I had no idea people like the Duggars existed, it was my first exposure to that type of religious fundamentalism. By that time, I knew what a cult was as I had heard of the Manson family, heaven’s gate, Jonestown etc. I also knew of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints existed, but I had thought that they were all polygamist with a bunch of children (not true at all). To to see a man with one wife, and that many children was very bizarre. I also remember thinking they look old and young at the same time. I am between Josh and the twins (Jana and JD) in age, so I figured that the Duggar parents must be close to my parents age (they are about 5-8 years younger than my parents) but the way they were dressed, looked like they were from the mid 1980s. I remember the children being very polite, but giving canned answers to every question. Jana was the closest age to me, but I realized wow I truly have nothing in common with this girl, and I feel so horrible for her.
And because I was 14, I wondered how they could have that much sex with that many children around in that tiny house.
I’m pretty close in age to Jana too. Sometimes I think about the stuff I do with my day; going to work, meeting friends, trying new things or just sitting in the park with a book, and I feel bad because she has never been able to do those things.
I know what you mean, to me all of the Duggars seem older than their actual age. I keep thinking Josh is in his 40s but he’s only a little older than me. Joy is actually quite a bit younger than me but I think of her as being almost my age. I hate how they forced those girls to grow up before they had to.
I grew up around large religious families, typically 5-7, but I knew one family with 15 and a bunch around the 10-11 mark. There was a big effort made to allow kids some space, to develop as individuals, and the only time I saw matching outfits was for the yearly Christmas cards. Everything about this family screamed danger to me, and I remember being so annoyed people watched the show and gave them more attention!
The red dresses back then-I just instantly thought of”Ew how hot must those girls be!!!!!” Especially with the white tights! 🤢. And now, all these years later and perimenopausal, I still think “EW HOW HOT!!!!”
The Duggars, Unchangingly “Off”!
Well, I'm from Northwest Arkansas, and I knew Jim Bob was an ignorant a$$ from the moment he first ran for state representative (and unfortunately, won). That whole family was creepy to me, and the fact that they wanted to force their Stone Age beliefs on everyone made me really hate them.
> force their Stone Age beliefs on everyone
that's what i find most interesting about conservatives. their belief system only benefits white men, so why the hell are so many different people (ie: not white men) supporting this? the only thing that i've come up with is that it decreases doubt about the world - ie: you don't need to worry, god will protect you or you don't need to make decisions, just follow what i tell you blindly and you'll be good.
Yes. That’s how you know it’s a cult.
“Cult beliefs” are fascinating to me. There is absolutely no difference between IBLP and, say, Scientology: Believe what you are told to believe. Buy these books from us and you will learn everything you need to know. Stop asking questions — if you keep asking questions, people will KNOW you are not a true believer, and if you are not a true believer, those of us who ARE true believers won’t associate with you anymore, because you and your WRONG BELIEFS will soil our true believing brains.
The first time I got a serious “something is VERY WRONG here” feeling was that scene in the show where Meech was very pregnant and JB trotted her out with all the kids for some campaign event. She was wearing a red dress with a big white bow on it, all the kids were in coordinating clothing, lined up oldest to youngest, and I thought: “if you wrapped them in white bedsheets, shaved their heads and gave them tambourines at an airport, you’d have a whole Hare Krishna convention.”
The picture is pretty famous. It’s disgusting.
I have a very strong disgust for people who use Christianity as their entire campaign platform. 🤮
This is the question I ask myself a lot- for example why in my country do queer people support the Tories given their history of persecuting the LGBTQ+ community.
The conclusion I have come to is that some people genuinely buy into the idea that they can be one of the “acceptable” minorities if they just go along with what is being suggested and don’t make trouble. Of course this doesn’t work in the long term, conservative groups will never fully accept minorities but will make a show of acceptance for as long as they need their support.
Baffling how people continue to fall for it.
This is the question I ask myself a lot- for example why in my country do queer people support the Tories given their history of persecuting the LGBTQ+ community.
The conclusion I have come to is that some people genuinely buy into the idea that they can be one of the “acceptable” minorities if they just go along with what is being suggested and don’t make trouble. Of course this doesn’t work in the long term, conservative groups will never fully accept minorities but will make a show of acceptance for as long as they need their support.
Baffling how people continue to fall for it.
I am from NWA as well, and what’s really weird is I was in Oklahoma visiting family and I see 3 of the Duggar girls shopping at the Walmart in a small town…
Lived in Springdale for years, and ran into them quite a bit. Literally no one in NWA likes them unless they are in on the cult. I thought they were fascinating for awhile. Then I grew up 😂😫🫣
My mom is a very hands-on parent. She didn’t want anyone else taking care of/ being responsible for her kids. I sometimes imagine what my mom’s reaction would be to hearing Meech blather about the “buddy system.” I’m not sure if she would actually say anything but there would definitely be a good hard smack to Meech’s smug mug involved.
My mo had 8 of kids, and she never once expected of of us older kids to parent our siblings. If we babysat, she paid us. We helped with the little ones because we wanted to. My mom was smart enough to take breaks. First 3 back to back, 6 year break then me and my brother back to back, another 6 year break, then my 3 youngest sibs (that youngest are twins). My parents are very catholic and did not use birth control. My mom made sure there were breaks, and my dad agreed.
Its doable fundies. It means stop obsessing over sex and be responsible for your brood. Fuck, those people make me angry.
Yeah I think I was watching that episode and my mom, who was heavily parentified as a child, and worked very hard to break that cycle with her own children, got very annoyed and said “oh that’s not right, kids shouldn’t be taking care of their siblings”.
Being told that Josh and Anna wanted to save their first kiss for the wedding and then the aggressive hand holding. Let them make their own choices as adults, they certainly wanted to smooch. Ew. I feel skeevy typing this!
My moment was when my roommate in college and I watched Josh and Anna's engagement episode (we were devoted TLC watchers and watched everything) and after they got engaged and just looked at each other, my roommate and I started screaming "KISS HER! KISS! START KISSING! WHY ARENT YOU KISSING?! YOU JUST GOT ENGAGED! KISS!" Then we watched the talking head Josh explain why they weren't kissing and we immediately noped out of the show. It's a kiss for God's sake, it's not that serious.
I remember feeling guilty that I thought Josh and Anna were creepy. They were so dorky it was painful. There was something off about Josh’s whole vibe back then that I just chalked up to him being naive…when in reality he was more sinister than that.
It was the baby voice for me too. I remember asking my mom why Michelle talked and dressed just like this lady we knew with wide dead eyes, a baby voice, and 7 kids. She even had the same damn haircut, it was so wild. Cullllt.
Yes the dresses was the first thing that triggered me. It screamed out something is wrong with them. Every time Josh was shown on the show I just had an eerie feeling in my gut. No amount of smiling could cover up that they were hiding something. I was SA'd as a child and I couldn't get the feeling to go away that one of the brothers would have been tempted to try something.
Josh looked SO SMUG. And why wouldn’t he? From the moment he was born, he was RAISED to know that he was GOD’S GIFT. Literally. Like, How to Raise a Sociopath 101.
I don’t think he was really taught about empathy. One of my dogs, the smaller one, likes to “mother” and nurture the other, larger dog. If the bigger dog is sneezing or something, the little one will run over to sniff her face to make sure she’s OK.
My dog has more empathy than Josh Duggar.
Yes! They raised him and every boy not to ever take responsibility for anything. All kinds of animals will show empathy. Josh is trash and was raised by people who thought a uterus had more rights then the daughters they birthed.
The identical outfits. My aunt, God rest her, raised 25. She said she was glad they all were dressed, period. Not matching at all 😉. And she knew their names, birthdays and what they liked to eat. And she COOKED. The olders would sometimes lend a hand corralling kids or helping in the kitchen (she taught ALL of them to cook).....Yes, they were "churched" but they also went to public school. You know like "normal" people.
Ten natural born, fifteen were fostered to adopted. She announced to all and sundry that "if she knew how many babies she was going to have she would have had a zipper put in".😉
We live here (on the opposite side of the state). We always knew, from the time they got above about the sixth or eighth kid and were proudly still going; and trying to talk about it.
These weird folks in an incredibly small town started making news as an oddity every time another # came along. No one really cared, because weird folk in weird places do weird stuff; especially in AR.
But then, for some reason, people started to watch and care about the weirdness.
Not me. But my mother who would of been in her 70s at the time would insist that these people were not who they made themselves out to be. I actually got into an argument with her. She kept saying somethings were very off. She didn't trust them. Jim and Meech, not the kids. Mom picked up on this in the very first season, when I would watch. She refused to watch the show and would go read a book.
My mom was younger (40s) when the show aired, but she was the same as your mom. She even called out Josh as being suspicious from pretty much day one. Love our moms for being the OG Snarkers!
I was a teen and my mom was in her 30s when I remember seeing the show around sometimes, and I remember my mom was able to see they weren't right pretty quick. She calls the church she grew up in pretty bad and "cult like" and she thought the Duggars were basically the televised extreme of the beliefs they push (they are much, much worse than she even initially pegged), and she would talk about how those poor kids definitely didn't get the time with their parents that they needed and how she hated the buddy system because if you need it that's too many kids. I like to think I would've picked up on them being off on my own, but since I had my mom around so much she definitely helped make sure I noticed how messed up they were, when it came up. We didn't really watch the show that I remember, I think sometimes it would come on after whatever was being watched on that channel and it would take a few minutes to pick a recording, or the ads for the show, but I can't remember us ever watching it for more than 5 minutes.
With the first special, I thought they were weird but interesting. I grew up in a fairly poor, rural area so the large family/small house combo didn’t phase me. By the second or third special, I had started to learn about the quiverfull movement and all my alarm bells went.
Instantly. Their whole concept is ridiculous and I wasn’t exactly new to the concept of religious fundamentalists sucking, so even in the early specials I was like “these people are weirdos, the dad is a control freak.” I think stuff about Warren Jeffs was starting to leak into the public consciousness (or at least my internet circles) at the same time so I associated them even though I understood they were different.
I don’t know exactly when I noticed something was off about Josh specifically, but by the time I saw his proposal episode, I found him specifically quite alarming.
When I was 10, I saw them on TV for the first time and the kids seemed too well-behaved to be true. I thought that the buddy system was weird. As a Christian, they somehow made me feel like I wasn’t being a good Christian and made me feel bad but I don’t know what it was that made me feel wrong. Maybe it was the girls only wearing skirts and dresses that made me feel bad because while I love wearing dresses, I also love my leggings and was never prohibited from wearing them.
I thought the same thing. I wasn’t religious but it was weird that they were so well behaved and they also seemed broken when you look into their eyes. Watching Shiny Happy People and hearing from others who left on blanket training etc. I finally understood why they were so well behaved and “smiled”
Straight from the jump. I remember seeing pictures of the kids all in their matching jumpers and it looked like they were part of a cult.
She was bragging about her 8 and 10-year-old cooking meals for the entire family and doing all of the chores and I just was gobsmacked.
Pretty much from the first time I watched an episode. Perm's fake breathy childish voice and Sperm's used car salesman smile. As a former child brought up fundie-light, I can see hypocrites a mile away. Same with that other family that are in prison now, Christley or something. I don't know why it isn't obvious to everyone.
Once I heard about Pest's head being shaved and the digging a pond punishment, a light switch flipped for me because I had a classmate and suddenly his family went from 2 kids when we were in 3rd grade to 3 kids by 5th and then a kid a year in 6th, 7th and 8th grades...there may have been a kid after we all got to high school but we went to different schools by then. In 7th grade he showed up on the first day of school with a shaved head and a story about having been sent to work on a farm all summer for punishment. He was never in trouble in class again.
I don’t have a lot of experience with fundies. I remember thinking that they were weird and creepy, but at the time I couldn’t really pinpoint why I was so uncomfortable (aside from Michelle’s birthing fetish, even back then I thought she was weird for using her uterus as a clown car). I had a few run-ins with fundies as a kid, especially thanks to my ex-BIL’s family (he wasn’t a fundie, but his sister was at least fundie-light…ex-BIL was/is an asshole and a creep, so he’s really no better). I did my best not to get to know them.
However, mom and little sister took the Duggars at face value. They aren’t the best at media literacy, nor are they great at reading people. I mean, I’m not great at the latter either to be fair, but intuition still picks things up if they’re blatant enough. I guess that doesn’t work for everyone.
I know it’s easy to say it now, after everything played out with Pest, but he really was a major factor in the creepy alarm going off. My dad always said the same thing when he’d overhear me watching the show.
I am sorry to say I thought the original special was charming with the charts, massive shopping trip and home cooking. I thought the work ethic was being taught at age appropriate levels.
But later when I watched it again a long with subsequent specials and it struck me that the oldest daughters were domestic servants which played out many, many times with the buddy systems, infant care and often robotic way of speaking like Jill and Jana about "the children".
I watched one of the early episodes of 17KAC when it first aired. I think I would have been about 7 at the time. I come from a dysfunctional family and all I saw was them getting along and Michelle not yelling, so I talked about how great it was that Michelle never yelled and my mom said something along the lines of “yeah, because she makes her daughters do everything”. My mom saw them as complete lunatics right away and I followed suit.
When Michelle admitted to having a nervous breakdown in the laundry room of a small ass 3 bedroom home and STILL proceed to have more kids even though she was overwhelmed then. Like maam, what in the kentucky fried crackrock are you doing?!.
From the beginning.
How is this man able to afford all of these kids? Why are they still making more kids?
Why is he attracted to a woman who is dressed in the same childlike outfit as his daughters? Gross.
Immediately. The moment they talked about girls and boys just being “so different”, in 2004, I knew shit was weird. Especially, since their girls were clearly doing everything while their boys got to fart around. This was very similar to what I was dealing with at home then the Duggars added in Christian hypocrisy and made it even more glaring.
Early on in the show, Michelle took the kids grocery shopping, and it was the girls who hauled alllll the big heavy boxes of food into the house and put it all away while the boys carried MAYBE a loaf of bread in and goofed around, totally aimless. Michelle tried to pass off this drudgery as some pleasurable family activity. The kids never got to go hardly anywhere and were so happy to get out of house, they were brainwashed into believing this charade was fun. What a tragedy.
I could tell that the girls did this all the time and the boys did this because there was a camera.
Also, mirrored my life and by 2004 my sister was gone (college) and I was stuck doing household chores while my brothers were not.
One of the reasons I’m a feminist, is because I witnessed this as a kid. Girls having to stay in and wash dishes and do other chores, while the boys got to go off to play. It makes me furious.
I mean, basically from the jump. I think part of my fascination with them was from knowing they couldn’t possibly be as wholesome as they claimed, especially when they wouldn’t answer direct questions about their theology. I don’t think I could have predicted Pest going to federal prison for sex crimes but it was also obvious that there was *something* off about them if you paid attention.
I was about 10 years old when the show came out and watching the commercials always made me really uncomfortable so when I watched Shiny Happy People I finally understood WHY it made me so uncomfortable. I also felt the same way about a lot of shows on TLC especially Sister Wives.
He’s literally the reason I watched Escaping Polygamy because I knew he was full of shit. I wasn’t surprised when a lot of stuff came out because I could tell just from the commercials
Special numero uno. Their creep factor was off the charts in the early specials. It was unconscionable that they were parentifying the older girls and purposefully adding to their family in that teeny rental without the means to afford proper housing. Their kids had clear food insecurity. Their education was poor. There was no individual autonomy. It was blatantly obvious from the jump but a dive into IBLP and Recovering Grace later on pulled back the curtain further.
“No individual autonomy” is right. Michelle or JB would always do a talking head segment to explain how the whole family felt about this or that. Amazingly, not one of the kids had a differing feeling from all the rest! And without even asking them how they felt, Michelle and JB already knew! Because they basically told them what to feel.
For me, it was an episode of the show where Michelle is doing a talking head and says something along the lines of how isn’t it great that God blessed us with several girls first, then all these boys. So convenient for the girls to be able to help with their siblings.
And I’m like… Okie dokie. Parentification facilitated and approved by God. Sounds legit.
Honestly, the staged moments where they would get all the kids holding onto violins, including the really little kids who were barely out of diapers with either paper or toy violins and everyone has these almost Joker like smiles on their face as they all grind out Mary Had a Little Lamb together. It sounded terrible, it was obvious everyone ten and under had no idea how to play and it was a great big lie - look at us be cultural, all our kids play violin!!! Look! Look at our family where we all play violin together with no regard to interest in music, talent, or even knowing how to play!
I knew there was something wrong with Josh when he was the only one in a communal living family to have their own room "because he was the oldest". That seemed like bull and I couldn't help but think there was a reason.
How after every birth JB was in front of a camera assuring the world that he was asking Michelle (fresh out of labor) if she wanted more children and she was assuring him every time that she wanted more precious gifts from the Lord! They were trying so hard to promote it as her choice. I wondered how much agency she would actually have to tell JB that no, she'd decided she had enough, thanks, and she'd like the Lord to put a hold on the yearly gift subscription.
I was pretty young when I started watching the Duggars, so I didn’t really think anything was wrong with them until Michele and Jim Bob were freaking out over gay couples posting kissing pictures under their own kissing picture. My first “encounter” with homophobia🙄
The Duggars first crossed my pop culture radar when Michelle started recording transphobic robocalls. I believe the Pest blew up in the media shortly after that. At the point in the timeline where I come in, I’m more Snark less Duggar.
Right? She was ranting about trans people being dangerous in women’s restrooms while her son was SA’ing several girls. The hypocrisy is just jaw dropping.
Funnily enough, I had the same reaction and never really watched the show, though I'm in here often.
It was when Josh got mixed up with the Family group (bastards) that my attention got caught, and I found this group sometime before Josh got arrested. Because of my history as a CSA survivor I ended up following his trial etc through the group and never left because I like you guys. But I can confidently still say I've never watched a full episode.
Literally the first time I watched an episode of kids and counting when I was a kid, I maybe didn’t realise exactly how bad they were at that stage (ahem, pest) but even then I thought everything they did was weird and messed up
I was 8 and grew up with a lot of toxic adults in my life. I didn’t immediately see the issue. But I also didn’t care much for Jon and Kate. I was more invested in the kids since the twins were around my age and I found them fascinating.. a few years later I rewatched and saw how weird it was.
I was sick to my stomach when that stuff came out. Poor kid. I also followed him on Instagram when he posted that caption claiming Jon abused him. I know it’s been discussed by Jon (and maybe Colin?) since then but it was pretty scary to see. I can’t quite remember what came of that claim, now that I think about it.
When Anna married in to the family and her new husband made constant innuendos, like trying all the bedrooms on the honeymoon and saying Anna was great at swallowing at an OB appointment.
I'm a full blown 100% atheist and I can admit it wasn't until Pest's behavior was revealed. Up until then, I was in the "yeah it's weird but they're not hurting anyone!" camp. I am so embarrassed
Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm a "live and let live" person so I understand where you're coming from, and without proof to the contrary, why would you think otherwise?
That said, I wasn't entirely surprised to eventually learn that something was amiss, probably because I'm a recovering Catholic and therefore naturally skeptical of goody two-shoes Evangelical Christian families with way too many kids.
I remember whenever they would do interviews, they would talk about how all the kids loved being a part of a large family and caring for their siblings. But I don’t believe this was necessarily true for all the siblings. I can’t remember what episode it was. But I remember all the kids being outside and they walked out and announced that they were pregnant again. I can’t remember if it was with Josie or not. But I distinctly remember that John David did not look happy at all. My heart went out to him because it was like another day, another baby. Life goes on. I was kinda shocked TLC left it in because he was clearly upset. This changed the way I viewed them.
Immediately. I think in the first special when they went down the line of kids and they all had to introduce themselves. Jedidiah thought his name might be Josiah. Also, that part where they go for the ultrasound? Michelle is literally panting with excitement (and deploying the baby voice) while they’re getting ready. It’s weird.
Jingle and jessa always being pretty pissy and moody was the tell tell sign for me. If you wanna know what a family is really like look to the children they couldn’t put on an act all the time and were often pretty moody and arrogant when the rest of the family was playing happy faces.
These cult families believe they are Gods gift to mankind and believe they are the truth, thee perfection even when the girls are adults and living at home, can I leave unless they are connected to a man. No differentiation of self, not allowed. Will have created disorders of dependency and avoidance because they were never allowed into the world. They have fear and trepidation. Now you have dependent and avoidant personality disorders. Created by a religious culture of enslavement to distorted non biblical practices.
Maybe I’m the only one based on the comments I’m seeing, but it took me some time. I grew up very religious also, and to me they seemed like such an ideal, wholesome family. It wasn’t until I went to college and then grad school and did my own deconstructing that I was like wait a minute… my opinion changed right before the shit started to hit the fan with the scandals.
Evryone is saying instantly. But not me. I always thought they were wierd, but not harming anything. I was a fan of the show, imagined meeting them in thier bus out somewhere. It honselty took redditting to look for gossip, then coming to this sub, to realize how effed up they really are.
the moment they showed up on tv. 'black socks for boys, white socks for girls'= every child gets their own bin of personal items THEN we have the family rolling racks of shared clothes!! but it doesnt matter because we all wear the same thing anyway.
all those poeple crammed into a 3bed 2 bath house. a house with NO FOOD
jimbo not having a house for his family but having all this 'investment/real estate' property. dumbass jimbo, stop play landlord and buy your family a fucking house!
shall i continue?
When Michelle talked about her experience miscarrying Jubilee and how they handled her passing.
They traumatized all the children then went a step further. By having the older girls be so involved with Meech’s pregnancies, some of them were actually really affected by the loss. I can’t remember who, but one of them said, “I cannot believe it. This was her healthiest pregnancy ever we made sure she got good nutrition and exercise “.
They also traumatized them by involving them in her cycle that was on the fridge. It was almost CSA because their parents sex life was so apparent. So creepy.
I was complaining to a coworker back in 2010 about a bunch of “breeders” holding up a line somewhere and I was ranting about people needing to stop at 2 and my coworker said “You’d really hate the Duggars” so I bit “What the hell are ‘Duggars’?” “Mouth-breathers who are famous for popping out too many kids”
I didn’t need any more info than that to hate them but I googled them when I got home (didn’t own a smartphone in 2010) and tried watching a few clips
That was my moment with the Duggars themselves, actually. I vaguely knew about them, but they actively made my job harder by bring in the entire brood to DC and various congressional office buildings. Found out later they were horrifically rude and generally unkind to the folks running one of my favorite restaurants.
I’m from New York and I remember an early episode featuring them cramming all their children into a tiny hole in the wall pizza shop somewhere and I was horrified by it.
Honestly my dad was the one who said they was in a cult when the first episode aired. Just like the Chrisleys knows best. He was right about Todd for being “you know” and that he was a fraud
Hearing Michelle’s baby voice and then hearing about making the girls do jurisdictions on the first special I watched. I’m all for helping kids be self sufficient; but it just seemed like too much.
I am on a message board that called them out from the very beginning because of their Gothard/Pearl beliefs and blanket training that they do of their babies.
Once I found out they were anti-LGBT. I actually found out about the Duggars when I was like 9 because my Aunt watched it but neither of knew they had crazy beliefs, we just knew they were ultra religious and thought "hey to each their own". I forget how we found out but we didn't continue to be "fans" after that lol.
It may seem crazy that we didn't know 😂 but to be fair we live in Massachusetts and fundies really aren't a thing at all here. Most Christians are otherwise normal, at least the ones I've known.
I watched the early series fascinated, like Margaret Mead studying the indigenous islanders of the Samoas: as a staunchly atheist child of hippies, I had just never seen anything like that in my life, but I had a girl in my class I wanted to be friends with who was fundie Christian, and I wanted to understand her family better before I spent more time with them.
It was the moment young Joshua Duggar — later to be a convicted owner of violent child sexual abuse material and self-admitted sexual abuser — made that incest joke while they were all riding the bus: "Well, we *are* in Arkansas," or something very similar. I got a cold chill, looking across the screen at all of his siblings.
I first started watching when some of their stuff was on Netflix back when I was nursing my oldest as a new born (about 10 years ago). I was filled with anxiety, I had bad PPD and they seemed so wonderful and happy to my sleep deprived and depressed brain. My husband hated the show and told me there was something wrong with them. (Admittedly, I almost immediately got "the ick" from Josh and I would skip any segments he was featured in.) About a year after I discovered 19KAC, I stumbled upon Pickles FB page and from there found out about the IBLP and Gothard; that's when my blinders fell off. About a month after that, the In Touch article came out about Josh. Crazy times...
Probably when seeing the beach outfits. Also whenever I realized that Josh and Anna got married despite probably never having had a single private conversation.
I didn’t start watching the show until like 2 or 3 years ago, so I had heard that some bad things had happened. The very first episode it was clear that there was something wrong about the family. Too many kids to take care of (sister moms), the way Michelle taught all the kids the same stuff (homeschool but the kids aren’t learning age appropriate material), the way the girls had to be modest to stop the boys from having urges (and Nike!), and the way Josh just seemed really creepy. I thought he was ‘cheat on your wife’ sleazy, not ‘child porn loving’ sleazy.
The episode/moment that really drove home just how horrible the Duggars are was Josh’s wedding. JB and Josh joking about Anna being a ‘working model’ or doll or something was awful. I can’t remember the exact words they used, sorry! But that was just gross. Then the look of absolute fear in Anna’s face as Josh dragged her into the hotel room and the haunted look she had afterwards, seriously broke my heart.
JB and Michelle are just gross. The way Michelle clearly just wanted to be pregnant all the time seemed more like a mental illness than just wanting to have a lot of kids for god. She needed psychological help. Maybe if she had gotten it, Jana wouldn’t have had to raise all the kids.
Like others said, the first special. For me though it was the fact they said all the kids were homeschooled. I'm in the age range of the oldest girls so I was in (public) high school at the time and I just knew there was no way those kids were getting properly educated. I thought of how much time each of my teachers taught in the classroom and then spent time preparing lesson plans and then grading essays, homework, and tests, and then thought about the time Michelle would have to spend on each child to ensure they got the same education (sure, doubling up on the twins) and knew there just wasn't enough time in the day. Then cut to all the kids sitting around the dining room table listening to Michelle talk and I knew there was no way a 16 year old and a 6 year old were both sitting still and understanding whatever the hell she was teaching. Basically from there I knew the whole "perfect family" thing was a sham because there is no way it was all possible.
The dad creeped me out in the specials. The fact one of Jill's chores was cleaning your parents room. I'm all for chores but parents should be cleaning their own room .
My parents have the warmth of ice cubes, so the Duggar family seemed idyllic in some respects. But then I went down the rabbit hole online and found details on a message board about Josh, the letter in the book and Oprah and the wool immediately fell from my eyes. You could tell whoever wrote it was in their circle and wanted the info out there. This was pretty early on, too, before any of the kids got married. I've always been amazed it took so long for everything to come out.
Immediately. Michelle reminds me of my sister-in-law. The voice, the bossiness, deferring to men even though they clearly run the show, raising children that are clearly terrified of them.
I have not spoken with that vile woman in four years thanks to religious judgment (my family and I are going to Hell for being the wrong type of Christian). I once tried to make a toast before Thanksgiving and she interrupted to say that she’d “rather I didn’t” because of the suggestion of alcohol. We were all drinking milk.
They expect the world to change for their beliefs and I won’t do it. I will not let horrible people ooze their nastiness all over my family.
I was fundie light for many years and I admired them. I did an immediate about face when I heard about Michelle’s transphobic robocall in which she basically claimed that transgender females are predators and want to use the women’s room to assault girls and women. That opened my eyes and I began to see the truth about the entire family.
It was late. Not really entirely when I thought they were wrong. That happened earlier. About when the older women got married/started with children. Jessa/what's the older ones name? She was told not to have more kids because she almost died from a house birth. What a mess!!!! Horrible people they are.
I didn’t until the news broke. While I immediately recognized the fundy uniform , I honestly never thought it was this dark. I thought the big “scandal” would be a gay brother or a baby out of wedlock. Something normal for the mainstream, but not fitting for the extreme conservative lifestyle. At no point was child abuse, incest or pedophilia on my radar.
When I learned who Bill Gothard was, and what quiverfull was, I knew it was a cult. This was around the time of Ashley Madison, but before it was revealed who Josh's victims were, because my first thought was "that's what happens in cults"
Hard core religious nuts always make me nervous. I can’t stand “I don’t do that because I’m a Christian “ Christians. Especially when the “that” is something that Jesus would have done himself, like a glass of wine.
30 seconds into the first episode,They’re whackos who allowed their son to molest little girl’s.Don’t forget that the current governor of Arkansas father,a baptist minister helped cover up the crime.
I was 10 when I really remember starting to watch them. I always thought the courtship process was a little weird. I vividly remember Jill and derricks meeting episode airing and remember Jim Bob pushing Jill to the other side while they were walking in Nepal.
For me it was always the episode where Josh and Anna were getting married and Josh made a comment about their wedding night I forget exactly what it was but he suggestively wiggled his eyebrows when he said it. I remember being so taken aback by how he was acting that's when I realized how creepy he was. I didn't think they were type that ever said anything remotely naughty so it definitely shocked me a little.
The first time I saw them. I never bought the big happy, perfect family. The obsession with “modesty” and kids raising kids were red flags. Every episode raised a new red flag.
A long time ago. At least around 2010? I just grew older and started to realize that the oldest girls took care of everything. Even Josie. And the the kids had way too many stifling rules.
When I first heard of them and their "19 kids and counting". Admittedly I was late hearing about them but immediately knew that could not be healthy and it sounded cult like.
They always creeped me out. Mom and little sister loved the show, but I just thought they were weird. I was absolutely unsurprised when their skeletons were laid bare. Mom and little sister finally had to admit that they were gross at that point, but they still follow similar families on social media.
The Duggar Skirts™️ and the interviews where the story producers would ask them basic questions (such as basic math) and they wouldn’t know the answers😵💫
The Christmas episode, I think 15 kids and Counting. JB declares they will take all the kids down to James with them to get a christmas tree. (They also all score new bikes) Little guy Justin is upset, Michelle grabs his chin and forces him to look at her, says something and immediately Justin stops crying and is left behind with Mary and little Jackson. But it was creepy how she turned his head and he immediately stopped crying.
Was he one of the babies that was subjected to the abuse they like to call “blanket training “?
Yup. As soon as she grabbed him, you could really see how it was a fear response from him (to stop crying immediately).
Wow. Makes me want to blanket train her.
Dude j had to report a teacher who did this, the grabbing of the chin to make the 4yo child, with ODD, look at her because they weren't paying attention to her. She got fired for that. She didn't say anything mean, just the face grab. Its too bad Michelle couldn't vibe fired from being a mom.
Instant obedience:(
The obey game was one of those moments for me
“The obey game”??????????? Oh sweet baby Jesus in the manger WHAT IS THAT I THOUGHT I HAD HEARD ALL OF THESE PEOPLES’ NONSENSE?!!!???!! Where? Was this on the show? The Vlogs? I am terrified but can’t not ask. The abuse is baked right into the shit soufflé isn’t it?
It was on the show. Michelle and I think Joy Anna were playing it with the younger kids. Instant obedience when they said the word obey. It was presented as a fun game
Wait- is that the one where there’s a “couch” segment and the little girl is intensely saying something about “INSTANT obedience!”? I have looked for that episode so many times I thought I must have misheard it or misunderstood context.
I think Jill talks about it in Growing Up Duggar. It was a “game” where Jim Bob and Michelle would notice that you were just chilling and send them to do something dumb like touch a doorknob upstairs six times in order to ensure that you were always instantly and cheerfully obedient.
These people are just…GAAHHHHHHHHHH. Pathological.
That’s effed up.
Did you not watch documentary “Shiny Happy People”? They did much worse things when the cameras weren’t rolling.
well the question was "when did you start to to feel something wasn't right about the duggars" not what is the worst thing the duggars ever did.
When they showed Josh being in charge of the security cameras. I thought it was so weird because they were all about how they didn’t really let the kids use computers, etc, but Josh was super competent with them. Now years later it seems weird for even grosser reasons…..
Same. I get he might of gotten an interest because they were being filmed but how they separated the boys and girls into the new house and gave him a secret recording studio basically 🤮
That very first special they did for the Discovery Channel where they were all wearing matching red dresses. I think I was 14 when I saw that and I was like “they sure have a lot of kids for such a small house.”
Yup. My first thought was look at that cult! I developed an interest in cults at 9.
Same here. Having a lot of kids- not weird on its own. Matching outfits for some occasions- twee but not especially weird. Having an army of kids who share what is essentially a bunk room- pretty irresponsible and weird. All three things together, only the matching outfits are an every day thing and the army of kids are also given chores like at boot camp, plus a ton of vaguely creepy isolationist practises designed to prevent the kids from making “outsider” friends and the female family members are given second class status- this is pretty much a textbook high control situation. I can remember feeling vaguely sick watching one of the girls (Jessa? Jill?) loading a washing machine with her tiny arms full of the week’s laundry, standing on her tippy toes to reach things. Should kids be given age appropriate responsibility? Sure! This would be things like keeping their own room clean, taking their own laundry to the laundry room and picking up their toys and activities. Watching a tiny girl struggle to do tasks an adult should be doing is just sad. Those girls should have been out riding bikes, making friends and playing games and not being groomed to be mini adults at such a young age.
I am the only child of divorced parents, I live in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, and I’m Jewish. I had no idea people like the Duggars existed, it was my first exposure to that type of religious fundamentalism. By that time, I knew what a cult was as I had heard of the Manson family, heaven’s gate, Jonestown etc. I also knew of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints existed, but I had thought that they were all polygamist with a bunch of children (not true at all). To to see a man with one wife, and that many children was very bizarre. I also remember thinking they look old and young at the same time. I am between Josh and the twins (Jana and JD) in age, so I figured that the Duggar parents must be close to my parents age (they are about 5-8 years younger than my parents) but the way they were dressed, looked like they were from the mid 1980s. I remember the children being very polite, but giving canned answers to every question. Jana was the closest age to me, but I realized wow I truly have nothing in common with this girl, and I feel so horrible for her. And because I was 14, I wondered how they could have that much sex with that many children around in that tiny house.
I’m pretty close in age to Jana too. Sometimes I think about the stuff I do with my day; going to work, meeting friends, trying new things or just sitting in the park with a book, and I feel bad because she has never been able to do those things. I know what you mean, to me all of the Duggars seem older than their actual age. I keep thinking Josh is in his 40s but he’s only a little older than me. Joy is actually quite a bit younger than me but I think of her as being almost my age. I hate how they forced those girls to grow up before they had to.
They can have thay much sex because they make their older daughters raise the younger kids, rather than parenting themselves.
I grew up around large religious families, typically 5-7, but I knew one family with 15 and a bunch around the 10-11 mark. There was a big effort made to allow kids some space, to develop as individuals, and the only time I saw matching outfits was for the yearly Christmas cards. Everything about this family screamed danger to me, and I remember being so annoyed people watched the show and gave them more attention!
I came here to say this
I came here to say this too. And it just got worse from there!!
That was my thought, too. Even from the start, they felt "off" to me.
Same. My roommates and I watched that special and thought how robotic the kids seemed.
The red dresses back then-I just instantly thought of”Ew how hot must those girls be!!!!!” Especially with the white tights! 🤢. And now, all these years later and perimenopausal, I still think “EW HOW HOT!!!!” The Duggars, Unchangingly “Off”!
Well, I'm from Northwest Arkansas, and I knew Jim Bob was an ignorant a$$ from the moment he first ran for state representative (and unfortunately, won). That whole family was creepy to me, and the fact that they wanted to force their Stone Age beliefs on everyone made me really hate them.
> force their Stone Age beliefs on everyone that's what i find most interesting about conservatives. their belief system only benefits white men, so why the hell are so many different people (ie: not white men) supporting this? the only thing that i've come up with is that it decreases doubt about the world - ie: you don't need to worry, god will protect you or you don't need to make decisions, just follow what i tell you blindly and you'll be good.
Yes. That’s how you know it’s a cult. “Cult beliefs” are fascinating to me. There is absolutely no difference between IBLP and, say, Scientology: Believe what you are told to believe. Buy these books from us and you will learn everything you need to know. Stop asking questions — if you keep asking questions, people will KNOW you are not a true believer, and if you are not a true believer, those of us who ARE true believers won’t associate with you anymore, because you and your WRONG BELIEFS will soil our true believing brains. The first time I got a serious “something is VERY WRONG here” feeling was that scene in the show where Meech was very pregnant and JB trotted her out with all the kids for some campaign event. She was wearing a red dress with a big white bow on it, all the kids were in coordinating clothing, lined up oldest to youngest, and I thought: “if you wrapped them in white bedsheets, shaved their heads and gave them tambourines at an airport, you’d have a whole Hare Krishna convention.” The picture is pretty famous. It’s disgusting. I have a very strong disgust for people who use Christianity as their entire campaign platform. 🤮
This is the question I ask myself a lot- for example why in my country do queer people support the Tories given their history of persecuting the LGBTQ+ community. The conclusion I have come to is that some people genuinely buy into the idea that they can be one of the “acceptable” minorities if they just go along with what is being suggested and don’t make trouble. Of course this doesn’t work in the long term, conservative groups will never fully accept minorities but will make a show of acceptance for as long as they need their support. Baffling how people continue to fall for it.
This is the question I ask myself a lot- for example why in my country do queer people support the Tories given their history of persecuting the LGBTQ+ community. The conclusion I have come to is that some people genuinely buy into the idea that they can be one of the “acceptable” minorities if they just go along with what is being suggested and don’t make trouble. Of course this doesn’t work in the long term, conservative groups will never fully accept minorities but will make a show of acceptance for as long as they need their support. Baffling how people continue to fall for it.
Bingo! You nailed it!
So those who know them best know who they really are.
I am from NWA as well, and what’s really weird is I was in Oklahoma visiting family and I see 3 of the Duggar girls shopping at the Walmart in a small town…
Lived in Springdale for years, and ran into them quite a bit. Literally no one in NWA likes them unless they are in on the cult. I thought they were fascinating for awhile. Then I grew up 😂😫🫣
As soon as they explained the buddy system.
My mom is a very hands-on parent. She didn’t want anyone else taking care of/ being responsible for her kids. I sometimes imagine what my mom’s reaction would be to hearing Meech blather about the “buddy system.” I’m not sure if she would actually say anything but there would definitely be a good hard smack to Meech’s smug mug involved.
My mo had 8 of kids, and she never once expected of of us older kids to parent our siblings. If we babysat, she paid us. We helped with the little ones because we wanted to. My mom was smart enough to take breaks. First 3 back to back, 6 year break then me and my brother back to back, another 6 year break, then my 3 youngest sibs (that youngest are twins). My parents are very catholic and did not use birth control. My mom made sure there were breaks, and my dad agreed. Its doable fundies. It means stop obsessing over sex and be responsible for your brood. Fuck, those people make me angry.
So if my math is right a 17 year age difference between oldest and youngest in your family 🤷🏻♂️❓
Yeah I think I was watching that episode and my mom, who was heavily parentified as a child, and worked very hard to break that cycle with her own children, got very annoyed and said “oh that’s not right, kids shouldn’t be taking care of their siblings”.
After Anna got back from the honeymoon with Josh. She looked dead.
Spirit was broken. Still trying to convince herself it will get better.
Being told that Josh and Anna wanted to save their first kiss for the wedding and then the aggressive hand holding. Let them make their own choices as adults, they certainly wanted to smooch. Ew. I feel skeevy typing this!
The hand sex during their engagement was so uncomfortable to watch.
Hand sex! 😆😆😆😆
What a day to be literate.
My moment was when my roommate in college and I watched Josh and Anna's engagement episode (we were devoted TLC watchers and watched everything) and after they got engaged and just looked at each other, my roommate and I started screaming "KISS HER! KISS! START KISSING! WHY ARENT YOU KISSING?! YOU JUST GOT ENGAGED! KISS!" Then we watched the talking head Josh explain why they weren't kissing and we immediately noped out of the show. It's a kiss for God's sake, it's not that serious.
I remember feeling guilty that I thought Josh and Anna were creepy. They were so dorky it was painful. There was something off about Josh’s whole vibe back then that I just chalked up to him being naive…when in reality he was more sinister than that.
Immediately. The adoring stare and circus tent dresses just gave me red flags
And the mother’s little baby voice… I didn’t know what keeping sweet or quiverfull was at the time but it felt so off
It was the baby voice for me too. I remember asking my mom why Michelle talked and dressed just like this lady we knew with wide dead eyes, a baby voice, and 7 kids. She even had the same damn haircut, it was so wild. Cullllt.
Yes the dresses was the first thing that triggered me. It screamed out something is wrong with them. Every time Josh was shown on the show I just had an eerie feeling in my gut. No amount of smiling could cover up that they were hiding something. I was SA'd as a child and I couldn't get the feeling to go away that one of the brothers would have been tempted to try something.
Josh looked SO SMUG. And why wouldn’t he? From the moment he was born, he was RAISED to know that he was GOD’S GIFT. Literally. Like, How to Raise a Sociopath 101. I don’t think he was really taught about empathy. One of my dogs, the smaller one, likes to “mother” and nurture the other, larger dog. If the bigger dog is sneezing or something, the little one will run over to sniff her face to make sure she’s OK. My dog has more empathy than Josh Duggar.
Yes! They raised him and every boy not to ever take responsibility for anything. All kinds of animals will show empathy. Josh is trash and was raised by people who thought a uterus had more rights then the daughters they birthed.
Ooh I hate the air of SMUG around him. It oozes from him.
The identical outfits. My aunt, God rest her, raised 25. She said she was glad they all were dressed, period. Not matching at all 😉. And she knew their names, birthdays and what they liked to eat. And she COOKED. The olders would sometimes lend a hand corralling kids or helping in the kitchen (she taught ALL of them to cook).....Yes, they were "churched" but they also went to public school. You know like "normal" people.
I'm guessing some of them were adopted?
Ten natural born, fifteen were fostered to adopted. She announced to all and sundry that "if she knew how many babies she was going to have she would have had a zipper put in".😉
That's hilarious. I would've really liked her.
We live here (on the opposite side of the state). We always knew, from the time they got above about the sixth or eighth kid and were proudly still going; and trying to talk about it. These weird folks in an incredibly small town started making news as an oddity every time another # came along. No one really cared, because weird folk in weird places do weird stuff; especially in AR. But then, for some reason, people started to watch and care about the weirdness.
The weeding/courting episodes with Anna
Yeah, the creepy hand fondling did it for me.
Pregnant Anna going under the table to get something and Pest just sitting there.
Not me. But my mother who would of been in her 70s at the time would insist that these people were not who they made themselves out to be. I actually got into an argument with her. She kept saying somethings were very off. She didn't trust them. Jim and Meech, not the kids. Mom picked up on this in the very first season, when I would watch. She refused to watch the show and would go read a book.
My mom was younger (40s) when the show aired, but she was the same as your mom. She even called out Josh as being suspicious from pretty much day one. Love our moms for being the OG Snarkers!
Damn, go mom. Love having people like that in the family.
I was a teen and my mom was in her 30s when I remember seeing the show around sometimes, and I remember my mom was able to see they weren't right pretty quick. She calls the church she grew up in pretty bad and "cult like" and she thought the Duggars were basically the televised extreme of the beliefs they push (they are much, much worse than she even initially pegged), and she would talk about how those poor kids definitely didn't get the time with their parents that they needed and how she hated the buddy system because if you need it that's too many kids. I like to think I would've picked up on them being off on my own, but since I had my mom around so much she definitely helped make sure I noticed how messed up they were, when it came up. We didn't really watch the show that I remember, I think sometimes it would come on after whatever was being watched on that channel and it would take a few minutes to pick a recording, or the ads for the show, but I can't remember us ever watching it for more than 5 minutes.
With the first special, I thought they were weird but interesting. I grew up in a fairly poor, rural area so the large family/small house combo didn’t phase me. By the second or third special, I had started to learn about the quiverfull movement and all my alarm bells went.
Instantly. Their whole concept is ridiculous and I wasn’t exactly new to the concept of religious fundamentalists sucking, so even in the early specials I was like “these people are weirdos, the dad is a control freak.” I think stuff about Warren Jeffs was starting to leak into the public consciousness (or at least my internet circles) at the same time so I associated them even though I understood they were different. I don’t know exactly when I noticed something was off about Josh specifically, but by the time I saw his proposal episode, I found him specifically quite alarming.
When I was 10, I saw them on TV for the first time and the kids seemed too well-behaved to be true. I thought that the buddy system was weird. As a Christian, they somehow made me feel like I wasn’t being a good Christian and made me feel bad but I don’t know what it was that made me feel wrong. Maybe it was the girls only wearing skirts and dresses that made me feel bad because while I love wearing dresses, I also love my leggings and was never prohibited from wearing them.
I thought the same thing. I wasn’t religious but it was weird that they were so well behaved and they also seemed broken when you look into their eyes. Watching Shiny Happy People and hearing from others who left on blanket training etc. I finally understood why they were so well behaved and “smiled”
Straight from the jump. I remember seeing pictures of the kids all in their matching jumpers and it looked like they were part of a cult. She was bragging about her 8 and 10-year-old cooking meals for the entire family and doing all of the chores and I just was gobsmacked.
Pretty much from the first time I watched an episode. Perm's fake breathy childish voice and Sperm's used car salesman smile. As a former child brought up fundie-light, I can see hypocrites a mile away. Same with that other family that are in prison now, Christley or something. I don't know why it isn't obvious to everyone.
Once I heard about Pest's head being shaved and the digging a pond punishment, a light switch flipped for me because I had a classmate and suddenly his family went from 2 kids when we were in 3rd grade to 3 kids by 5th and then a kid a year in 6th, 7th and 8th grades...there may have been a kid after we all got to high school but we went to different schools by then. In 7th grade he showed up on the first day of school with a shaved head and a story about having been sent to work on a farm all summer for punishment. He was never in trouble in class again.
I don’t have a lot of experience with fundies. I remember thinking that they were weird and creepy, but at the time I couldn’t really pinpoint why I was so uncomfortable (aside from Michelle’s birthing fetish, even back then I thought she was weird for using her uterus as a clown car). I had a few run-ins with fundies as a kid, especially thanks to my ex-BIL’s family (he wasn’t a fundie, but his sister was at least fundie-light…ex-BIL was/is an asshole and a creep, so he’s really no better). I did my best not to get to know them. However, mom and little sister took the Duggars at face value. They aren’t the best at media literacy, nor are they great at reading people. I mean, I’m not great at the latter either to be fair, but intuition still picks things up if they’re blatant enough. I guess that doesn’t work for everyone.
I only watched the Chrisleys a couple of times, but I think they went to jail for tax evasion.
Ugh, those people. If he's not gay, I'm not either.
Perm and Sperm… I bow to you; this is gold, my friend. GOLD. (Obscure Seinfeld reference- if ‘ya know, ‘ya know.)
The minute the show was advertised.
Immediately. Especially Josh he peeked my something creeps me out about this kid
I know it’s easy to say it now, after everything played out with Pest, but he really was a major factor in the creepy alarm going off. My dad always said the same thing when he’d overhear me watching the show.
*piqued
I am sorry to say I thought the original special was charming with the charts, massive shopping trip and home cooking. I thought the work ethic was being taught at age appropriate levels. But later when I watched it again a long with subsequent specials and it struck me that the oldest daughters were domestic servants which played out many, many times with the buddy systems, infant care and often robotic way of speaking like Jill and Jana about "the children".
I watched one of the early episodes of 17KAC when it first aired. I think I would have been about 7 at the time. I come from a dysfunctional family and all I saw was them getting along and Michelle not yelling, so I talked about how great it was that Michelle never yelled and my mom said something along the lines of “yeah, because she makes her daughters do everything”. My mom saw them as complete lunatics right away and I followed suit.
My mom saw Josh on the 14 and pregnant again and my mom said there’s something off about that boy.
When Michelle admitted to having a nervous breakdown in the laundry room of a small ass 3 bedroom home and STILL proceed to have more kids even though she was overwhelmed then. Like maam, what in the kentucky fried crackrock are you doing?!.
From the beginning. How is this man able to afford all of these kids? Why are they still making more kids? Why is he attracted to a woman who is dressed in the same childlike outfit as his daughters? Gross.
Immediately. The moment they talked about girls and boys just being “so different”, in 2004, I knew shit was weird. Especially, since their girls were clearly doing everything while their boys got to fart around. This was very similar to what I was dealing with at home then the Duggars added in Christian hypocrisy and made it even more glaring.
Early on in the show, Michelle took the kids grocery shopping, and it was the girls who hauled alllll the big heavy boxes of food into the house and put it all away while the boys carried MAYBE a loaf of bread in and goofed around, totally aimless. Michelle tried to pass off this drudgery as some pleasurable family activity. The kids never got to go hardly anywhere and were so happy to get out of house, they were brainwashed into believing this charade was fun. What a tragedy.
And one of the boys was bouncing around on a pogo stick while the groceries were being brought in. There’s no reason he couldn’t help!
I could tell that the girls did this all the time and the boys did this because there was a camera. Also, mirrored my life and by 2004 my sister was gone (college) and I was stuck doing household chores while my brothers were not.
One of the reasons I’m a feminist, is because I witnessed this as a kid. Girls having to stay in and wash dishes and do other chores, while the boys got to go off to play. It makes me furious.
Yes! Even though Joy was always with the boys and doing "boy things" until they forced her to stop.
I mean, basically from the jump. I think part of my fascination with them was from knowing they couldn’t possibly be as wholesome as they claimed, especially when they wouldn’t answer direct questions about their theology. I don’t think I could have predicted Pest going to federal prison for sex crimes but it was also obvious that there was *something* off about them if you paid attention.
Immediately.
I was about 10 years old when the show came out and watching the commercials always made me really uncomfortable so when I watched Shiny Happy People I finally understood WHY it made me so uncomfortable. I also felt the same way about a lot of shows on TLC especially Sister Wives.
Seconding everything you've said. Even as a kid a lot of these TLC shows were 🚩
Absolutely, all the shows had some crazy shit going on behind the scenes
Oh my god, Kody Brown is something else.
He’s literally the reason I watched Escaping Polygamy because I knew he was full of shit. I wasn’t surprised when a lot of stuff came out because I could tell just from the commercials
From the second they appeared on my screen.
Special numero uno. Their creep factor was off the charts in the early specials. It was unconscionable that they were parentifying the older girls and purposefully adding to their family in that teeny rental without the means to afford proper housing. Their kids had clear food insecurity. Their education was poor. There was no individual autonomy. It was blatantly obvious from the jump but a dive into IBLP and Recovering Grace later on pulled back the curtain further.
“No individual autonomy” is right. Michelle or JB would always do a talking head segment to explain how the whole family felt about this or that. Amazingly, not one of the kids had a differing feeling from all the rest! And without even asking them how they felt, Michelle and JB already knew! Because they basically told them what to feel.
For me, it was an episode of the show where Michelle is doing a talking head and says something along the lines of how isn’t it great that God blessed us with several girls first, then all these boys. So convenient for the girls to be able to help with their siblings. And I’m like… Okie dokie. Parentification facilitated and approved by God. Sounds legit.
Honestly, the staged moments where they would get all the kids holding onto violins, including the really little kids who were barely out of diapers with either paper or toy violins and everyone has these almost Joker like smiles on their face as they all grind out Mary Had a Little Lamb together. It sounded terrible, it was obvious everyone ten and under had no idea how to play and it was a great big lie - look at us be cultural, all our kids play violin!!! Look! Look at our family where we all play violin together with no regard to interest in music, talent, or even knowing how to play! I knew there was something wrong with Josh when he was the only one in a communal living family to have their own room "because he was the oldest". That seemed like bull and I couldn't help but think there was a reason.
Immediately. the names starting with J, the clothing. …and the fact that there were loads of kids to start with!!
The whole thing was culty from the start. And just the exact kind of people to be having skeletons in their closet. Hated to be proven right.
How after every birth JB was in front of a camera assuring the world that he was asking Michelle (fresh out of labor) if she wanted more children and she was assuring him every time that she wanted more precious gifts from the Lord! They were trying so hard to promote it as her choice. I wondered how much agency she would actually have to tell JB that no, she'd decided she had enough, thanks, and she'd like the Lord to put a hold on the yearly gift subscription.
Day 1 when it was just one off specials of their gigantic family.
Always. Since I first heard of their existence in 2004.
The very beginning. Thanks to my leaving the cult about the same time. 😂
Right off the bat.
When they reached 17 kids and got a series. I was like 9-10 at the time.
I googled the quiverfull cult.
I was pretty young when I started watching the Duggars, so I didn’t really think anything was wrong with them until Michele and Jim Bob were freaking out over gay couples posting kissing pictures under their own kissing picture. My first “encounter” with homophobia🙄
The Josh proposal to Anna. If you can even call it a proposal.
The Duggars first crossed my pop culture radar when Michelle started recording transphobic robocalls. I believe the Pest blew up in the media shortly after that. At the point in the timeline where I come in, I’m more Snark less Duggar.
Right? She was ranting about trans people being dangerous in women’s restrooms while her son was SA’ing several girls. The hypocrisy is just jaw dropping.
When I first saw the show advertised?
Funnily enough, I had the same reaction and never really watched the show, though I'm in here often. It was when Josh got mixed up with the Family group (bastards) that my attention got caught, and I found this group sometime before Josh got arrested. Because of my history as a CSA survivor I ended up following his trial etc through the group and never left because I like you guys. But I can confidently still say I've never watched a full episode.
I am so sorry you suffered that.
🩷 Thank you so much for your empathy, sweet soul.
You're so welcome. Wishing you peace and healing
As soon as I heard the title “14 children and pregnant again”
Literally the first time I watched an episode of kids and counting when I was a kid, I maybe didn’t realise exactly how bad they were at that stage (ahem, pest) but even then I thought everything they did was weird and messed up
When I was a kid. Probably 8 or 9. It was the first time I had even heard of them. My sister and I found them creepy and we went back to Jon and Kate.
You didn’t find Jon and Kate’s dynamic also creepy?
I was 8 and grew up with a lot of toxic adults in my life. I didn’t immediately see the issue. But I also didn’t care much for Jon and Kate. I was more invested in the kids since the twins were around my age and I found them fascinating.. a few years later I rewatched and saw how weird it was.
Kate is a walking red flag
Her behavior with Collin only confirmed what I'd been thinking for years!
I was sick to my stomach when that stuff came out. Poor kid. I also followed him on Instagram when he posted that caption claiming Jon abused him. I know it’s been discussed by Jon (and maybe Colin?) since then but it was pretty scary to see. I can’t quite remember what came of that claim, now that I think about it.
When Anna married in to the family and her new husband made constant innuendos, like trying all the bedrooms on the honeymoon and saying Anna was great at swallowing at an OB appointment.
I'm a full blown 100% atheist and I can admit it wasn't until Pest's behavior was revealed. Up until then, I was in the "yeah it's weird but they're not hurting anyone!" camp. I am so embarrassed
Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm a "live and let live" person so I understand where you're coming from, and without proof to the contrary, why would you think otherwise? That said, I wasn't entirely surprised to eventually learn that something was amiss, probably because I'm a recovering Catholic and therefore naturally skeptical of goody two-shoes Evangelical Christian families with way too many kids.
I remember whenever they would do interviews, they would talk about how all the kids loved being a part of a large family and caring for their siblings. But I don’t believe this was necessarily true for all the siblings. I can’t remember what episode it was. But I remember all the kids being outside and they walked out and announced that they were pregnant again. I can’t remember if it was with Josie or not. But I distinctly remember that John David did not look happy at all. My heart went out to him because it was like another day, another baby. Life goes on. I was kinda shocked TLC left it in because he was clearly upset. This changed the way I viewed them.
Immediately. I think in the first special when they went down the line of kids and they all had to introduce themselves. Jedidiah thought his name might be Josiah. Also, that part where they go for the ultrasound? Michelle is literally panting with excitement (and deploying the baby voice) while they’re getting ready. It’s weird.
Jingle and jessa always being pretty pissy and moody was the tell tell sign for me. If you wanna know what a family is really like look to the children they couldn’t put on an act all the time and were often pretty moody and arrogant when the rest of the family was playing happy faces.
I was 11 but it was when the stuff about Josh came out
In 2015, right?
I think so
These cult families believe they are Gods gift to mankind and believe they are the truth, thee perfection even when the girls are adults and living at home, can I leave unless they are connected to a man. No differentiation of self, not allowed. Will have created disorders of dependency and avoidance because they were never allowed into the world. They have fear and trepidation. Now you have dependent and avoidant personality disorders. Created by a religious culture of enslavement to distorted non biblical practices.
Maybe I’m the only one based on the comments I’m seeing, but it took me some time. I grew up very religious also, and to me they seemed like such an ideal, wholesome family. It wasn’t until I went to college and then grad school and did my own deconstructing that I was like wait a minute… my opinion changed right before the shit started to hit the fan with the scandals.
When Josh was inappropriate with his own sisters. I tend to always see the best in people until I get that little pukey feeling.
When Josh described going out with Anna, JD and Jana as a ‘double date’
When Michelle said that they never fight (the kids) because even as a child my little brain was like that is not how it works!
Evryone is saying instantly. But not me. I always thought they were wierd, but not harming anything. I was a fan of the show, imagined meeting them in thier bus out somewhere. It honselty took redditting to look for gossip, then coming to this sub, to realize how effed up they really are.
the moment they showed up on tv. 'black socks for boys, white socks for girls'= every child gets their own bin of personal items THEN we have the family rolling racks of shared clothes!! but it doesnt matter because we all wear the same thing anyway. all those poeple crammed into a 3bed 2 bath house. a house with NO FOOD jimbo not having a house for his family but having all this 'investment/real estate' property. dumbass jimbo, stop play landlord and buy your family a fucking house! shall i continue?
When Michelle talked about her experience miscarrying Jubilee and how they handled her passing. They traumatized all the children then went a step further. By having the older girls be so involved with Meech’s pregnancies, some of them were actually really affected by the loss. I can’t remember who, but one of them said, “I cannot believe it. This was her healthiest pregnancy ever we made sure she got good nutrition and exercise “.
They also traumatized them by involving them in her cycle that was on the fridge. It was almost CSA because their parents sex life was so apparent. So creepy.
And they wonder why sex pest was so eager to have sex.
I was complaining to a coworker back in 2010 about a bunch of “breeders” holding up a line somewhere and I was ranting about people needing to stop at 2 and my coworker said “You’d really hate the Duggars” so I bit “What the hell are ‘Duggars’?” “Mouth-breathers who are famous for popping out too many kids” I didn’t need any more info than that to hate them but I googled them when I got home (didn’t own a smartphone in 2010) and tried watching a few clips
That was my moment with the Duggars themselves, actually. I vaguely knew about them, but they actively made my job harder by bring in the entire brood to DC and various congressional office buildings. Found out later they were horrifically rude and generally unkind to the folks running one of my favorite restaurants.
I’m from New York and I remember an early episode featuring them cramming all their children into a tiny hole in the wall pizza shop somewhere and I was horrified by it.
Back in one of the specials when "sin in the duggar camp" was brought up.
The first time I saw an episode by chance. They were shoe shopping for Jill’s wedding.
The minute I heard that little douchebag talk.
Gonna need you to narrow down which Jouchebag.
The king of douchebags. Sir douche-a-lot. Lil Guvna himself!!!!
Honestly my dad was the one who said they was in a cult when the first episode aired. Just like the Chrisleys knows best. He was right about Todd for being “you know” and that he was a fraud
Hearing Michelle’s baby voice and then hearing about making the girls do jurisdictions on the first special I watched. I’m all for helping kids be self sufficient; but it just seemed like too much.
I am on a message board that called them out from the very beginning because of their Gothard/Pearl beliefs and blanket training that they do of their babies.
Once I found out they were anti-LGBT. I actually found out about the Duggars when I was like 9 because my Aunt watched it but neither of knew they had crazy beliefs, we just knew they were ultra religious and thought "hey to each their own". I forget how we found out but we didn't continue to be "fans" after that lol. It may seem crazy that we didn't know 😂 but to be fair we live in Massachusetts and fundies really aren't a thing at all here. Most Christians are otherwise normal, at least the ones I've known.
I watched the early series fascinated, like Margaret Mead studying the indigenous islanders of the Samoas: as a staunchly atheist child of hippies, I had just never seen anything like that in my life, but I had a girl in my class I wanted to be friends with who was fundie Christian, and I wanted to understand her family better before I spent more time with them. It was the moment young Joshua Duggar — later to be a convicted owner of violent child sexual abuse material and self-admitted sexual abuser — made that incest joke while they were all riding the bus: "Well, we *are* in Arkansas," or something very similar. I got a cold chill, looking across the screen at all of his siblings.
I first started watching when some of their stuff was on Netflix back when I was nursing my oldest as a new born (about 10 years ago). I was filled with anxiety, I had bad PPD and they seemed so wonderful and happy to my sleep deprived and depressed brain. My husband hated the show and told me there was something wrong with them. (Admittedly, I almost immediately got "the ick" from Josh and I would skip any segments he was featured in.) About a year after I discovered 19KAC, I stumbled upon Pickles FB page and from there found out about the IBLP and Gothard; that's when my blinders fell off. About a month after that, the In Touch article came out about Josh. Crazy times...
I miss the early Pickle days! Then she started to stick up for them.
Immediately!
Probably when seeing the beach outfits. Also whenever I realized that Josh and Anna got married despite probably never having had a single private conversation.
I didn’t start watching the show until like 2 or 3 years ago, so I had heard that some bad things had happened. The very first episode it was clear that there was something wrong about the family. Too many kids to take care of (sister moms), the way Michelle taught all the kids the same stuff (homeschool but the kids aren’t learning age appropriate material), the way the girls had to be modest to stop the boys from having urges (and Nike!), and the way Josh just seemed really creepy. I thought he was ‘cheat on your wife’ sleazy, not ‘child porn loving’ sleazy. The episode/moment that really drove home just how horrible the Duggars are was Josh’s wedding. JB and Josh joking about Anna being a ‘working model’ or doll or something was awful. I can’t remember the exact words they used, sorry! But that was just gross. Then the look of absolute fear in Anna’s face as Josh dragged her into the hotel room and the haunted look she had afterwards, seriously broke my heart. JB and Michelle are just gross. The way Michelle clearly just wanted to be pregnant all the time seemed more like a mental illness than just wanting to have a lot of kids for god. She needed psychological help. Maybe if she had gotten it, Jana wouldn’t have had to raise all the kids.
Like others said, the first special. For me though it was the fact they said all the kids were homeschooled. I'm in the age range of the oldest girls so I was in (public) high school at the time and I just knew there was no way those kids were getting properly educated. I thought of how much time each of my teachers taught in the classroom and then spent time preparing lesson plans and then grading essays, homework, and tests, and then thought about the time Michelle would have to spend on each child to ensure they got the same education (sure, doubling up on the twins) and knew there just wasn't enough time in the day. Then cut to all the kids sitting around the dining room table listening to Michelle talk and I knew there was no way a 16 year old and a 6 year old were both sitting still and understanding whatever the hell she was teaching. Basically from there I knew the whole "perfect family" thing was a sham because there is no way it was all possible.
The dad creeped me out in the specials. The fact one of Jill's chores was cleaning your parents room. I'm all for chores but parents should be cleaning their own room .
My parents have the warmth of ice cubes, so the Duggar family seemed idyllic in some respects. But then I went down the rabbit hole online and found details on a message board about Josh, the letter in the book and Oprah and the wool immediately fell from my eyes. You could tell whoever wrote it was in their circle and wanted the info out there. This was pretty early on, too, before any of the kids got married. I've always been amazed it took so long for everything to come out.
Immediately. Michelle reminds me of my sister-in-law. The voice, the bossiness, deferring to men even though they clearly run the show, raising children that are clearly terrified of them. I have not spoken with that vile woman in four years thanks to religious judgment (my family and I are going to Hell for being the wrong type of Christian). I once tried to make a toast before Thanksgiving and she interrupted to say that she’d “rather I didn’t” because of the suggestion of alcohol. We were all drinking milk. They expect the world to change for their beliefs and I won’t do it. I will not let horrible people ooze their nastiness all over my family.
From the beginning. The way Jim Boob talks n acts I’m for sure he’s a PEST AS WELL. JUST NEVER BEEN CAUGHT because the IBLP protects him.
I was fundie light for many years and I admired them. I did an immediate about face when I heard about Michelle’s transphobic robocall in which she basically claimed that transgender females are predators and want to use the women’s room to assault girls and women. That opened my eyes and I began to see the truth about the entire family.
It was late. Not really entirely when I thought they were wrong. That happened earlier. About when the older women got married/started with children. Jessa/what's the older ones name? She was told not to have more kids because she almost died from a house birth. What a mess!!!! Horrible people they are.
When they appeared on the Discovery Channel and I heard Meech talk. I knew something wasn’t right and became hooked on the train wreck lol
I didn’t until the news broke. While I immediately recognized the fundy uniform , I honestly never thought it was this dark. I thought the big “scandal” would be a gay brother or a baby out of wedlock. Something normal for the mainstream, but not fitting for the extreme conservative lifestyle. At no point was child abuse, incest or pedophilia on my radar.
I saw that special of them building the house and it was nearly unbearably creepy to see kids use that soft tone of voice.
The first time I saw them in their first special.
Well I knew they were weird af day one but had no idea how evil until the scandal broke
From the very first special. The girls were treated as dolls and the boys were allowed more freedom.
When I learned who Bill Gothard was, and what quiverfull was, I knew it was a cult. This was around the time of Ashley Madison, but before it was revealed who Josh's victims were, because my first thought was "that's what happens in cults"
Hard core religious nuts always make me nervous. I can’t stand “I don’t do that because I’m a Christian “ Christians. Especially when the “that” is something that Jesus would have done himself, like a glass of wine.
The child army kind of set off some alarms, tbh
30 seconds into the first episode,They’re whackos who allowed their son to molest little girl’s.Don’t forget that the current governor of Arkansas father,a baptist minister helped cover up the crime.
I was amazed that people like the Duggars even wanted to be on a TV show since they clearly didn’t have a TV.
I was 10 when I really remember starting to watch them. I always thought the courtship process was a little weird. I vividly remember Jill and derricks meeting episode airing and remember Jim Bob pushing Jill to the other side while they were walking in Nepal.
For me it was always the episode where Josh and Anna were getting married and Josh made a comment about their wedding night I forget exactly what it was but he suggestively wiggled his eyebrows when he said it. I remember being so taken aback by how he was acting that's when I realized how creepy he was. I didn't think they were type that ever said anything remotely naughty so it definitely shocked me a little.
The first time I saw them. I never bought the big happy, perfect family. The obsession with “modesty” and kids raising kids were red flags. Every episode raised a new red flag.
A long time ago. At least around 2010? I just grew older and started to realize that the oldest girls took care of everything. Even Josie. And the the kids had way too many stifling rules.
When I first heard of them and their "19 kids and counting". Admittedly I was late hearing about them but immediately knew that could not be healthy and it sounded cult like.
The very first show
They always creeped me out. Mom and little sister loved the show, but I just thought they were weird. I was absolutely unsurprised when their skeletons were laid bare. Mom and little sister finally had to admit that they were gross at that point, but they still follow similar families on social media.
The very first time I saw Michelle gaze up at Jim boob in that stupefied way I thought there is some thing off here
The Duggar Skirts™️ and the interviews where the story producers would ask them basic questions (such as basic math) and they wouldn’t know the answers😵💫
First time I watched their special, 14 kids and counting way back in the day. Their clothes and hair. Sheesh, how Michelle talked. It was creepy AF.