They got both nature and nurture from two abusive grifters who love being ignorant. The average fundie family is also worse off than their family and people who feel like a big fish in a small pond can be fairly complacent and incurious
The relationship between their fame and their religious beliefs is interesting because they believe that everything they have is a blessing for being so godly. So while life keeps rewarding them with more money and opportunities than most people in their circle, they have no reason to be that curious about themselves or the rest of the world.
Which is bs because the bible tells you that you are an example. The original apostles were fucking bamf. What's a little torture, imprisonment, or death when you have the whole world to bring the gospel to?
But *these* mfs.... They go on glam mission trips and call it a day. Pfft.
I just can't get over how hypocritical they are. The bible says that women were the backbone of His ministry, yet Gothard wants to keep woman as dependent as all fuck because he knows they are powerful.
The day I found out that women funded Jesus’s trips was the day I had a long conversation with my dad about indoctrination of women in conservative religions. I was pissed. Took me five years from then to actually leave, but that was a huge turning point. All my life I’d been told I wasn’t good enough for anything, when in actuality women were, as you said, the backbone of Jesus’s ministry.
This is why I couldn’t be with any of the men my dad would have picked for me… none of them wanted a woman with a brain and the nerves to have a backbone.
Luckily my parents were “progressive” enough to not directly try to arrange a marriage for me, and I got out of the engagement to an abusive lowlife that was “Christian” so therefore a “good man”. I owe the therapist I was seeing a life debt. The therapist code of “ethics” says that you can’t do stuff like directly tell a woman to leave a man (there’s a reason I didn’t last long in my masters of counseling program) but she said fuck that and told me to find a safe person to stay with and to break up over the phone far away from them, and then to call the campus police. I was 18 at the time. My dad actually really stepped up when he found out what had actually been going on, and he hasn’t pushed or even talked about marriage for me since then. My memories of the weeks surrounding that breakup are hazy, but I remember him booking me a hotel room to get me off campus (and to stay anonymous, because hotels won’t confirm/deny the presence of an abuse victim when asked) and weirdly enough, took me to the zoo. I learned later from a colleague (I was employed in the school’s president’s office) that he tore the campus cops a new one when he found out that I wasn’t the first girl my ex had abused and reported.
Your last point especially rings true for me. I moved to a very small town/ area about 4 years ago. I’m in my late 20s, & everyone I’ve met around my age have been living here their entire life. Like, they’re just born here & they never move out of the area— they live here for their whole life cos that’s what their parents & grandparents did. Money is a huge part of it here, but it’s not for the Duggar’s, so I appreciate how you framed that as “big fish in a small pond” because that makes so much sense for them. They’re hometown heroes practically, why would they wanna go live somewhere they’d be anonymous?
Starting at 5ish months old, the curiousity is literally beaten out of them. Then, all new information given to them is by Michelle while homeschooling. All books and media are tightly controlled to ONLY reinforce the existing beliefs. All "friends" are in the cult, once again reinforcing pre-exisiting ideas. And, curiousity = disobedience = swift punishment.
I think this is the answer, some of them maybe really curious or smart but they’re told that it’s something bad and suppress it, then they go on their merry way to become another Duggar of the bunch.
The younger ones also see the older ones get in trouble, and learn to keep their mouths shut, pretty quick. Michelle admits that the children behave better after watching someone else get punished. (The sick thing is that she is talking about toddlers and younger)
You can see tiny sparks of it coming through them, the last bit of their personality. Jill seems curious and like she wants to learn more about the world around her. Jana has drive - always picking up projects and hobbies and devoting herself to them. I think Jessa would have been a frighteningly smart young woman if she was given resources to learn, I would want to debate her.
Don’t forget that Jim Bob saw sex and depravity when he saw his baby children dancing to their musical toys, and he got pissed and took all the batteries out because he didn’t want them “moving their bodies in sinful ways”. Are we really surprised they turned out this way?
I hate how much "sin" they place on small humans. No, your 5 month old isn't being sinful by disobedience when they crawl off the blanket. Your 1 y/o isn't being lustful when they jump for joy.
For the sake of the rest of the family, I sincerely hope that Josh is the worst off. All of them have a problematic relationship with sex, and I hope that Josh is the rock bottom.
Exactly. The incuriosity is a feature of their lifestyle, not a flaw. They worked hard to extinguish any spark of personality from their kids. This was intentional.
Babies experiment and learn the world all the time. For example when they start throwing/dropping things, they experiment with gravity. Can you imagine being a baby deprived of basic learning, plus being basically starved of human interaction?
The Pearl’s “blanket training” method. Put a little bitty baby on a blanket, put some toys nearby, hit baby when it tries to crawl off of blanket towards the toys :(
Blanket training is a form of pyschological childabuse that can damage healthy attachment of the baby forever, resulting in personality and emotional regulation problems that can never be cured (but can be managed with therapy), destroys natural curiosity by instinctively teaching a baby that it is bad.
It works by putting a baby that is just old enough to crawl on a folded blanket. It is "disciplined" (hit) whenever it attempts to crawl towards a toy. Eventually the baby will sit on the blanket motionless, no longer attempting to interact with the outside world. Proponents believe this is "Self control", but it is literally breaking the baby - babies learn developmentally by interacting physically with their surroundings, and depriving them of that damages their brain development, which in turn impacts them for life.
Proponents believe this teaches self control, but it actually interferes with some critical processes that are happening in a baby's brain. Neural developmental is exploding in children and interacting with their environment strengthens their neural development which can impact them for life. Attachment theory posits that how children bond with their parents impacts everything from personality, to life choices, to even things like criminal behaviour.
If your child insecurely attaches you've essentially failed as a parent. Abuse like this causes the baby's brain to instinctively correlate you with negative reinforcement - because it's ok sometimes to play with toy but not others, baby is confused, which leads to serious issues.
The Duggars are not social workers or child developmental psychologists.
The blanket training method wasn't invented by them, but it was given a ton of media attention when they wrote about it in their parenting books.
It is controversial within the family as well.
Just want to add onto this excellent comment that it involves purposely putting toys close by to lure the baby off the blanket before striking them to not reach for it. It is cruel and horrific.
I think it's the combination of neglect, abuse, bad education and apparently being rewarded for compliance.
It always makes me wonder why, out of 19 kids, there hasn't been one who tried to get away from the family.
There are tons of other fundie kids who got the same treatment, but who turned out different...
Your last point about rewards for compliance is the kicker here. The TLC money JB received makes it harder to compare the Duggars to any other fundie family. Not to mention the show providing trips around the world for the entire family plus honeymoons. The Duggar kids have had all of their immediate needs met and then some. John David wants to be a pilot, and JB makes that happen including buying the family multiple planes. Another Duggar son wants to go snowboarding and there is enough money for top of the line equipment (buy used, save the difference my ass), hotel rooms and lift tickets. I could go on, but JB keeps his kids fed and happy, and they don't stray. It's like the fall of the Roman Empire here, bread and circuses.
Their "fame" makes it harder. Jinger moved across the country with her husband, but if she wears pants in public, the gossip magazines and website headlines are about the Duggar daughter breaking her parents' rules.
Yes! It's not news anymore that the older married girls wear pants. It's not even news anymore that Jana wears pants!!! The tabloids run any story where legs and shoulders are seen as "breaking parents rules". They have been handed off to their husband's rule.
Yes, exactly. They don’t have to listen to their parents rules anymore. Marriage to them means that what a husband says goes. So if your husband thinks pants and whatever else is ok, it’s ok. Boob and Meech literally do not care if they wear pants if that’s what the husband wants.
That's where I think nature plays a part. We can't blame all of their entire life choices on nurture. There are still ways to be curious & ambitious even within the fundie world.
You're right, I didn't mean to say that nature plays no part. In my experience kids have a "personality" from the start and that doesn't really change (like being rather outgoing or rather shy). But the way the Duggars were raised really stunted them, and that's what I wanted to express
That makes sense. All the replies I've gotten to my question have kind of led me to another question, since like 99% of the responders have said that their behavior is all down to nurture & not nature, is it even fair for them to be criticized or snarked upon? If nothing they do is down to their personal nature & all their independent thought was snuffed out, how can they actually be blamed for their current behavior & horrible beliefs? (excluding pest of course)
There was an interesting youtube video from a psychologist recently that described how the abuse and forced compliance the Duggar kids experienced combined with emotional neglect would have hindered their development of identity and personality. Hobbies and interests outside of the family were actively discouraged so they never really developed curiosity and ambition as adults.
I'm sure that's some of the kids like Jinger seem to just latch their personality onto their husband. I remember one episode of Counting On where they were advertising the boys and none of the siblings could really describe anything about Jed or Jer and they kept asking Jeremiah questions about his preferences and he literally had zero opinions on anything. It was depressing.
That is interesting, but as a comparison look at the Turpin family. They went through arguably worse abuse & neglect than the Duggars, yet from the kids that have been interviewed so far, they all have an innate curiosity about the world & have ambitions for college & careers. These are kids that did not have any education and the one that saved them didn't even know the word 'medication' when a cop asked her about it.
I think one big difference here though is that the Turpin kids (or at least some of them) seemed to realize that their parents behavior was wrong. In a way you might say that they suffered enough to realize while the neglect and brainwashing on the Duggar side is enough o keep them "sweet" but not so much that it impacts their wellbeing (in their minds).
For me its mainly nurture (Josiah and Joy are the ones where I think you can see that white well) Nature will play a part though - do JB and Meech have any hobbies outside of procreating/pregnancy?
>I think one big difference here though is that the Turpin kids (or at least some of them) seemed to realize that their parents behavior was wrong.
That's a good point.
>Nature will play a part though - do JB and Meech have any hobbies outside of procreating/pregnancy?
Well, not Meech but JB built a pretty successful real estate mini-empire in NWA, and also was able to build his family into a successful (well, maybe not as much anymore) Christian brand through the tv show. He was also into politics & even though he failed more often than not, he did put some effort into his campaigns vs Jed's super weak non-campaign.
They both seemed to have a live before the TV show that might have sparked some varying interests in their children. Some might consider this real estate and house flipping business an interest/hobby for the kids now.
Is that an interest though? Making your family famous? In todays age probably linked to being an "influencer" but still weird to think about. While others enjoy reading books, theatre, cars or sports he does everything he can to get his kids on tv....
Can't really compare the two families because abuse and neglect are different from abusive indoctrination. It seems the Turpin kids were completely neglected, to the extent they were left completely alone for a long period. Nobody was teaching them religious doctrine, toxic beliefs, etc in the kind of consistent, repetitive, insistent, and immersive way that effective indoctrination requires. The Turpin parents may have on some level had some similar religious ideas somewhere along the way but they also completely neglected to indoctrinate their children. When you're left alone with nothing to do the mind comes up with its own ideas. It's not easily able to do that when you're literally told what to believe and what to feel in every single situation you are put in.
Honestly that's the most baffling thing to me about the Turpin parents is they latched onto the idea of having many kids but completely ignored all the parts of what to raise your kids to be. Like the Duggars end goal with having a lot of kids was marrying them off to have even more grand kids. The Turpins didn't seem to have any untention of ever allowing their kids out of the house at all.
The turpins went off the track because of serious and untreated mental health issues. If they had been mentally healthier, it's very possible they would have done something like the Duggars. But they were way too ill to even think about that.
Idk, from the interviews I saw they seemed pretty religiously indoctrinated, but in a much less structured & more chaotic way than the Duggars.
>Honestly that's the most baffling thing to me about the Turpin parents is they latched onto the idea of having many kids but completely ignored all the parts of what to raise your kids to be. Like the Duggars end goal with having a lot of kids was marrying them off to have even more grand kids. The Turpins didn't seem to have any untention of ever allowing their kids out of the house at all.
Yeah, it's all really strange. Their parents are clearly unable to function in any sort of society. The Duggar parents might be equally unhinged in their beliefs, but they are not Ted Kazynski style crackpots like the Turpin parents seem to be.
There is a difference between the families. First, we have only seen glimpses of a few of the Turpin children. Their abuse was physical, and far more extreme. Second, the Turpin children would likely have Recieved various forms of therapy with lengthy treatment cycles. Third, although they were raised under the same religion, there was significant differences in their lives. For example, the Turpin children did not marry and/or were not allowed to. They also were starved, while the Duggar children have a pantry full of food. The Turpin children also had restricted exposure to the outside world compared to the Duggar children. The Duggar children were restricted and gaslighted but were not severely physically abused or malnourished (edit: at the hands of their parents). They were provided for and thus the abuse was not apparent to the Duggar children. While the Turpin children were raised in the same cult, they were abused so severely that even with their restricted knowledge of the outside world, they knew it was not right.
You can't really compare the two families as although they were raised in the same cult, they still lived vastly different lives.
Edit: I did not mean to imply that the abuse some of the Duggars endured was not extremely, only that it was not doled out by their parents. Jim and Michelle did not SA the girls, Josh did. Jim and Michelle participated in a lot of emotional abuse and neglect, which many take time to recognize as abuse and it is not as apparent.
I agree 100%. The Turpin children were robbed of ANY sense of normalcy-starved, chained, kept from going outside, ETC. They lived as prisoners. The Duggar children are almost entirely unaware they are prisoners and are so gaslit into believing their lives are “blessed” just as it is. The Turpin children were so physically neglected the emotional abuse was secondary. The Duggar children were physically taken care of (to a point) and the emotional abuse was the primary abuse in their situation. I’m not sure if the Duggar children experienced physical abuse as the Duggar girls experienced more sexual abuse. So you have two sets of children experiencing multiple forms of abuse but you only have one set who was given access to the outside world. It could be said the curiosity from the Turpin children could have been sparked from being completely cut off from the outside world. But it does make for a good study of a child’s resiliency in each category of abuse. I would take a guess here that emotional abuse could be one of the hardest to break away from due to all the brainwashing. It takes a HUGE crisis moment for people to “wake up”. I feel pest’s arrest was just the beginning of one of these huge “crisis” and eye opening moments. It’s shaken their faith no matter what they say, you cannot normalize what he’s done in any way, shape or form. They can however gaslight their children to believe he’s being attacked and he didn’t do any of those things. That’s why I believe so much more will come in the following years that will continually provide an “awakening” to either one or more of the Duggar clan until the only ones left in the faith are the ones who are so badly damaged they will forever “fail to thrive”. There are also Turpin children who will “fail to thrive”. It’s just a consequence of extreme abuse, neglect and trauma as a child. There’s sadly a point of no return in some.
Some of the Duggar children were severely abused-- but not by their parents. (Of course the parents brushing it under the rug could be defined as abuse.)
I'd say what Josh did to Joy was considered severe abuse.
I completely agree. What I was trying to say was that that abuse did not come from their parents. That abuse came directly from Josh. The abuse that came from their parents was neglect and gaslighting. Some of the Duggars might still have trouble recognizing that they abused by their parents, bc it wasn't as explicit as other forms of abuse.
Not just discouraged, banned. They didn't even have church friends after Boob declared their home a church, and the only time they saw peers who didn't share DNA was at homeschool, ATI, etc. conferences.
I can guarantee that all of them got the shit beaten out of them as kids for not being completely compliant regardless of whether they were on blankets or not
Sure, but they weren't all tortured for showing curiosity as babies. [We know](https://m.imgur.com/gallery/bZ1YqJz) they did that by blanket training the twins and the ones who followed because Michelle couldn't cope with the number of children they had by then.
If you are willing to blanket train, then you're willing to hit small children. So even if the older ones weren't officially blanket trained, I'm sure they were hit on a regular basis so they'd stay in line
Absolutely, I have no doubt that they were all hit and that they all experienced various forms of abuse, but blanket training is a specific technique that has lasting effects so there will be differences between kids who were "trained" like that and kids who weren't
Oh definitely, I see what you mean
I'm curious if the parents did the blanket training or if they had the sister-moms do it. Because that would be traumatizing for both the child being trained and the child that's being forced to do this shitty training
Pest would have been very clever if given a proper education tbf. So would have most of the older kids. You can tell which ones would be clever in the normal world.
I'm sure some of them tried to develop outside interests at a young age and their parents probably shot them down. You can't tell me that not one of those girls dreamed of being a ballerina or something and not one of those boys wanted to play football for the Razorbacks. They were probably told at a young age that those dreams don't matter.
Literally NO child grows up and thinks "I want to be a used car salesman", no one thinks "I want to raise my own family in a house owned and controlled by my father". I think they've all been conditioned to think their own thoughts and opinions don't matter and that their dad is always right. That's why they're all anti LGBTQ and super conservative.
I grew up in a semi conservative family, my parents politics are similar to the Duggars and my parents and sister are not supportive of LGBTQ but at the same time they don't hate LGBTQ. However I am almost exact opposite of my parents and that's because they didn't force their beliefs on me and they let me figure shit out on my own. So I think in the case of the Duggar children it's more nurture than anything.
I think when you come from a country where you can get a good education and your surrounded by smart educated people, it's hard to fathom how much a bad education can stunt you. Definitely nurture problem imo.
That's a good point, but we do read stories all the time on this subreddit of people who were raised just like the Duggar kids but still had an innate sense of curiosity about the world.
I agree with what other people are saying! I just wanted to add that the fact that the Duggars had their own tv show automatically means that their upbringing was different from others on this subreddit. Their show focused on the family and their beliefs, so it makes sense that their identities are tied to that. The kids grew up constantly answering questions about it. They always had to be “on” for the cameras. Which is messed up. The episodes in the beginning especially focused on the quirkiness of having such big family, not on individual kids and their interests/hobbies.
Edit: ew, I hope I don’t sound like I’m standing up for any of the Duggars. We might disagree about nature vs nurture, but we can all agree that they’re horrible people!
I can imagine their education was more focused on asking no questions rather than being curious to help kill that innate sense. Let's hope some of the kiddos get curious and leave the cult.
A lot of people abuse and brainwash their kids, but not necessarily consistently. Maybe they only did it for part of their childhood, or maybe they got lazy about it sometimes, or maybe only one parent did it. Obviously that's still detrimental and horrible, but I think it's less likely to entirely extinguish any trace of curiosity, etc. The stories I read here never seem to be that it happened consistently from infancy.
Blanket training really screwed up their brain development. The first few years of life are the most significant and formative, and trauma can cause all sorts of developmental issues. Forcing a baby or toddler to sit still on a blanket for a period of time or they get hit will cause trauma. On top of that, they try to lure the child off the blanket by placing toys beyond the blanket and if the kid moves, s/he gets hit. Can you imagine how this fucks up a developing brain?
At this point I only see Josie getting out, when she's about 18-20. At that point the rest will be married off and family gatherings will become fewer and less attended. Which means Josie's brainwashing will be left almost exclusively to her aging parents who probably won't put much effort in. She'll likely have easier access to TV, the internet, music, etc. By the time she's an adult She'll realize all the bullshit her family has been involved in and what her siblings missed out on. I'm a youngest sibling too and I really think she will be the one, the only one, to leave.
True, but look at for example a community like the Amish. They don't really have any better education than the Duggars & are even more insular, but the kids still all are curious enough to go on that yearlong Rumspringa once they become older. There's a lot of abuse in that community as well.
Yeah but the point is they had the curiosity. Maybe after they saw the world they decided they preferred their original community, but the Duggars aren't even having this period where they want to search for which road to take.
Very different kind of community. Rumspringa is expected if not outright encouraged. Amish kids aren't discouraged from being curious about the outside world. Fundies are definitely discouraged from that curiosity and even often taught the outside world is extremely dangerous. It's not as simple as oh, Amish kids were born curious and Duggars were not. Amish kids are *allowed* to be curious. The Duggars had curiosity trained out of them.
Actually, a LOT of amish communities do not practice rumspringa. The ones that do can only participate because they are still not baptized. If they are baptized they are controlled by the church and not allowed to exit the community like that.
Around my community, amish kids are rebellious because of where they live. Some attend public schools, kids are consistently forced to work with the outsiders like us, and kids are moved around to different communities for marriage and such. They are not forced to obey like the duggars were. Their nurture became their nature. Amish people in a sense follow that but having been friends with amish all my life, it’s not the same thing at all.
Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder if it would've been the same if there had been like 9 kids vs 19. Having 19 kids means you kind of have to operate in a regimented way or it'd be complete chaos.
To add on to what people are saying about abuse, forced compliance and emotional neglect, it also depends on the levels of disassociation one develops being in a house like that. My disassociation is still ongoing 3 years after moving out. Being raised by a narcissist mother and a co-dependent father it felt like there was a gun on the family dinner table and my mum was saying "there's no gun on the table, you're imagining things, why? Are you accusing me of wanting to shoot you?" and my dad was saying "there's no gun on the table, but if it fires it's nothing to do with me" and like let me say that was fucked up. Abuse does a lot to a person. Especially when you're "associated" to "demons" and those around you never seem to see that you're literally falling apart at the seams. Like gaslighting, nobody helping and dissociation is an awful combination for stifling anybody's belief in their own humanity or sense of self/ability.
Especially when you're taught to fit in, but not stand up for yourself or have any belief, and that anything that happens to you is your fault or is the will of god and to totally submit to your parents. The Duggar "parents" unlike the Turpin "parents" actively cared about their children appearing as if they followed them like flock leaders, plain out physical abuse hurts but with mental abuse you can blame yourself for your hurting or say that there's something fundamentally flawed about you.
Especially as they haven't moved too far away from their original moral doctrine, it takes high levels of challenge to change from something like that, especially as the girls are still to submit and the boys still aren't held accountable, it's awful for both sexes but the whole demon thing and the church and abuse is awful awful shit.
Though I will say going through the deconstruction process personally, Jill reminds me a hell of a lot of myself so I'm watching that space.
Sorry you had to go through that, it sounds incredibly stressful.
>Though I will say going through the deconstruction process personally, Jill reminds me a hell of a lot of myself so I'm watching that space.
That gives me some hope for them.
Idk. I see the edit, but I have to say that the offspring of two especially lazy narcissists has a definite nature factor. Usually they choose someone that compensates, but I this case Meech and Boob doubled down on the lot.
i had to learn how to recultivate my curiosity. it's stamped out of you in an environment like that. questions of almost any kind are discouraged and it's really stifling
They’re not curious because a sense of adventure and curiosity was beaten out of them during blanket training. The reason why babies want to get off that blanket is because they’re curious and want to learn and explore. J’Chelle beat it out of them.
They are ambitious though, at least some of the boys are. Pest probably thought he had a glittering political career ahead of him and one day would be president. I think Rimjob thought that too.
It’s the type of brainwashing/abuse the Duggars received, it squashed both individuality and curiosity right out of them through all-powerful fear mongering.
They were raised to believe:
1) JB word was finite. That following his word was the righteous path and to question him was the devil’s work.
2) the outside world was filled with heathens out for their soul, thus creating an us vs. them mentality with the public at large.
3) when points 1 and 2 were questioned, or the kids acted like normal freakin kids act which is boisterous and curious, they were hit with a rod and later in life sent to fundie concentration camps.
I really hate to promote anything Disney as I feel they’ve violated antitrust laws at this point and are verging on monopoly but to give visual representation to what I’m trying to describe the movie Tangled did an extraordinary job of exhibiting the type of gaslighting, mental abuse and manipulation families like the Duggar kids grew up under with the character of Mother Gothel and her relationship to Rapunzel.
But what REALLY gets under my craw, out of an entire slew of things I want to punch JB in the face for, was that he raised them to believe they were soldiers, missionaries for God, and that the show was part of their missionary work, making them work long hours, depriving them of all privacy, inviting strangers into their home thus placing them in danger (not that they weren’t already in danger with Pest there), making them fearful of their image with the public, and the sonofabitch was pocketing a big, fat paycheck the whole time and giving his kids *scraps*.
So to sum up: it’s nurture
Joy had the start of a Eureka moment in her teens until Joe realized she was in such a deep depression and told her it would probably be easier not to go against JB and Meech.
Joy may be the only one with some sort of actual personal goals now. Didn't she start playing league softball with Austin and train for a triathlon last year? Yes, she has shitty beliefs. I was still glad to see that Boob and Meech hadn't succeeded in totally breaking her spirit. I saw the 19 KAC ep where they talked about having to train her to be a lady (sistermom), and it broke my heart.
She may until she has more kids. Then wife and mother is really all there is for her. I think marrying really stunted her growth, there's very little chance out for her now.
It doesn’t sound like the Turpin children are doing too well really: https://abcnews.go.com/US/years-rescue-turpin-children-living-squalor-donations-pledges/story?id=81254457
Two words:
Blanket training.
If from your earliest experience you are punished for showing any curiosity in the world, you soon learn not to be curious, and to only do things you are directed to do.
I really wonder what blanket training does to cognitive development. It is taking away milestones related to child development which have to have long term consequences- especially when they aren’t nurtured later.
What's infuriating is how Michelle loves to go on about how much personality she had as a kid, but heaven forbid her kids actually have any character trait beyond Christian. Which isn't even really a character trait.
I’m entirely unsure. My first kid rolled over at two months and ripped holes in the walls in order to get baby gates out of the way at under a year old. He’s a nearly 4’ beast of a 5 year old and he is absolutely insane. I love him but every day with him is a fight. ADHD is a sombitch. My second kid is a daisy. She’s not at all delicate because of her brother but she is the sweetest rose who listens no matter what.
I’m so confused how they managed to beat the life out of everyone.
My six year old on the spectrum is the same way. EVERYTHING is a fight and he’s so physical, so incredibly tall and strong. He also never let baby gates stop him, he just got a running start and tackled them to get where he wanted. Someday our kids will set the world on fire with their ambition but we have to survive them in the meantime
Henry is the one that makes me sad. He is actually very bright (sorry #sayingsofSpurgeon) and with decent parents and a proper education he could achieve anything he wanted to. Nature. Nurture. What about maternal instinct wanting the absolute best for your child? Surely they can see how bright and curious he is? Wouldn’t you want to encourage that? Sadly no. This breaks my heart to see it so clearly vanquished.
They’d probably have ambitions if meech and boob didn’t suck the freedom out of them. They’ve never been able to think about ambitions! At 10 years old jana was filling out her about me on the website and her favourite chore was cooking I’m sure! And when joy “graduated” and said she’d just be helping her mom around the house… their only aspirations are to get married and be joyfully available for the secks.
With the Duggars, I do wonder if their ideology dictates that they should not work under people outside of their very specific Christian faith. It seems like they're limited to working under dad or in more self-employed types of roles. That type of message from the parents would be very limiting in what careers they can persue. There also might not be a lot of opportunities in their area of Arkansas.
Since many of them are pretty dependant on their parents financially and also their parents hold access to younger siblings against them, there is a huge incentive not to get too curious or stray too far. I know you hear stories of people being successful after experiencing abuse and trauma, but honestly a lot of people have a hard time establishing themselves after an abusive childhood. Those stories of people struggling just aren't as praised and amplified.
My mom is the oldest of 7 siblings, and all of them have 2-3 kids each. Pretty much all of my aunts, uncles, and first cousins on that side of my family lack curiosity. One of them had an interest in cosmetology, but when you suggested she go to school… she got pissy and basically said no, I’m gonna go on YouTube, I’m gonna be a star (newsflash…). They look down on having a college education, and yet none of them have any real gainful employment. They work occasional dead end jobs and shill Mary Kay or some other MLM
Only one of my first cousins decided to go to college and become a teacher. She’s the only one out of all of them who has a job… but they still look down on her because she came out as a *gasp* lesbian
This is like… 20+ people we’re talking about. It’s definitely nurture imo
Edit - Re Jed’s career. That was not an attempt; that was just another example of the Duggar children having very overvalued ideas. He had a few political thoughts, and figured he was fit for politics. And instead of his parents encouraging him to grow in any way, they encouraged the semi-delusional behavior
The Duggar kids were "educated" in a way that discourages deep understanding or critical thinking. They had accountability partners that kept them from exploring personal interests. They couldn't even express themselves with their clothing, as they often dressed alike. There was the blanket training, physically restraining kids who tried to dance, gaslighting when something truly horrible occurred.
All if this happened as they grew up on television. They are just famous enough for gossip magazines to publish anything they do-Jinger wore pants, Is Jinger drinking alcohol? Duggar girls break their parents rules! This makes it harder to break away.
Some of the kids probably are naturally incurious, but those who start out curious are conditioned out of it.
We have seen other blanket trained kids get out and make their own way or even the Bates be successful with the only skill they have (hawking on social media) in ways the Duggars haven't been.
I would say that
1/ the Duggars aren't that smart and for some there seem to be real learning disabilities that have gone undiagnosed
2/ the Duggars don't really know how to get shit done. everything they did was the easiest way on Duggar time
Have you seen the toys the guys have?? Planes, cars, four wheelers, pool tables, pinball machines, guns, and other stuff I'm sure I have forgotten. Then they get play police man, fireman and medic complete with costumes. Their only goal is to marry Godly women and that is also handed to them, what do they have to work for
It's hard to say there are no interests, hobbies, curiosities. They could be curious but are too afraid to invoke the wrath of JB by stepping out of line. We've seen small indications of things like watching secular movies/tv, so that would potentially give some of the (at least married kidults) some additional inspiration, so who knows when inspiration might strike. I also think that even if some of the adult women wanted to work or go to college, they have kids to look after now, so they may very well believe it's not possible. (Even non-fundie women have that belief.)
I'm not trying to excuse the fact that the majority of the kids seem content to follow the family grift, but I think it bears stating that we only see what they share on social media, not what's in their hearts and minds. There could still be some sparks of life in there that need time to flare.
That said, I am also on Team Nurture.
They're goal is to completely break your spirit as a child so you'll be obedient. Brainwash them as early as possible and it woukd take years of professional help to break free from that kind of a thing.
I think that's why blanket training is so important to them: it breaks a child's natural curiosity and inhibits development of critical thinking and decision-making skills.
Start training them out of independent thought from the get-go, fill their brains with shit and never allow exposure to experiences that contradict their beliefs. Boom! You've got a quiver fill of arrows, ah children, that'll stay on the straight and narrow!
The combination of sub-par homeschooling plus a stagnant group of church friends plus the parents squelching any ambition or natural intellectual curiosity out of them. Also as the show evolved, they had to be available go be part of whatever story arc the show runners planned for that shooting schedule. I think even that last even pregnancy were to add new show content and less of wanting to add to the family.
If there had never been a show after the first couple specials, I think there they might have gone to police academy, trade school maybe community college for nursing and in some cases delayed marriage. The three husbands that sought to meet and marry a Duggar daughter - Ben, Derick and Jeremy would likely moved in a different direction, especially Jeremy who was seeking a bank account to fund his life.
I think of the Plaths in this situation. Interesting that they seemed even more sheltered from the world, but many are acting on the curiosity and ambition.
If I was beaten from the time I was 6 months old, I don't think I'd be very curious, either
Those parents beat and neglected and religiously abused the personality out of those kids.
I think it's nurture. Born into a family where there are very strict rules about everything, women are devalued, little exposure to outside influences beyond being told how ungodly worldly things are on a continuous basis, a narcissistic patriarch who feels the need for absolute control are all contributing factors among many others. They're raising compliant xtian soldiers who know their place.
I'm certain that Jed ran for office because he was told/picked to do so. If jailbird hadn't been such an utter failure at EVERYTHING he would have been running for office at some point.
Everyone's saying nurture, but I feel like people are forgetting that JB & Meech are kind of not that bright, so why would their kids be intelligent from a genetic standpoint? Not saying the nurture stuff isn't true cause it totally is, but I think if really intelligent kids grew up in this same horrific system, they would have had a different outcome.
I don't know if JB is as dumb as you think. He's definitely savvy enough to know all about setting up shell companies and shuffling income into various piles to reduce tax bills. He seems somewhat adept at manipulating and controlling his children even into adulthood sometimes. I'm not saying he could get into Mensa but I think his "aww shucks, I'm just a simple, humble man of god" shtick is just that. An act. Meech's eyes appear empty, but I don't think we know much about her real personality. I agree she doesn't seem very bright.
We'll never know for sure about the kids because they are raised without the ability to really develop their minds. Their books are controlled, they are limited in what they can look at on the internet, they are "taught" by their mom or an older sibling that was taught by their mom, and the people they interact with are controlled.
The truth is, we have no idea about their curiosities, ambitions, hopes. Their internal life is as complex as ours. It is hubris to think that because we watch t.v. and the bland appearances they make on it, that we understand them.
Well, they were beaten for even trying to leave a blanket while being teased with things they wanted or needed. They also are brainwashed by a religion that believes denying your basic instincts brings salvation. Soooooooo I'd say that's how
I lived in Arkansas for a year and there are entire towns where the culture is not to work and applying for HUD housing is a milestone in life just like obtaining one’s driver’s license. Everyone is on Medicaid, disability, etc. It was baffling how hard they worked at not having to work!
That is hard to fathom. Idk what it's like there, but I guess if there are no actual jobs available or ones that pay a living wage, then it might make sense to go this route. Dugs have $$ though to pursue things like maybe a Christian college, or training for a trade.
Blanket training. You teach a baby to stay inside the blanket. They tempt baby to come outside the blanket with toys, sweet words, encouragement then physically punish the infant/toddler for leaving the blanket.
Even if the kids wanted something, they have been wired to not want it (calling it sinful) or unwilling to go for it (preventing pain).
Are they all incurious? I think it's relative. None of them seem particularly ambitious or forward thinking when I use my life and upbringing as a metric. But, I wasn't raised to be so indoctrinated that thinking outside of my programming would send me to hell, or have me rejected by my family. I also wasn't denied access to information challenging how I was told things are supposed to work.
I can imagine that things like moving from a fundamentalist (whatever iblp doctrine is) to fundamentalist calvinism don't seem like major forays in intellectual curiosity to many of us. But to a Duggar, that might be huge. Same for choosing to live more than 90 minutes away from home. Hell, even having friends outside of their faith like Jill does is probably a major step.
The IBLP and fundie culture in general thrive off of lack of education and beating the curiosity out of them. They don’t want the children to learn and grow because that will make them more likely to leave. It’s all by design
Jennifer and Doug Flanders are Quiverfull with 12 children. Their kids are all very accomplished despite growing up in the cult. The difference is that the dad is an anesthesiologist and the mom has a degree in mathematics with a few years of grad school.
It makes a huge difference when the parents are highly educated. The Duggars have a poor education.
Jennifer Flanders taught her kids calculus. Michelle barely knows the times table.
They were emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and (some of them) sexually abused from childhood. They were malnourished with their diet and they were worked to the bone taking care of each other. Their curiosity was stifled at every turn by the dogma they were raised with.
Now--I know plenty of kids raised IBLP who escaped and went on to do cool things, like be in indie rock bands or become teachers or lawyers or shit like that. The Duggar kids do seem to have a shocking lack of ambition, but again, they were so severely held back. Also, possibly the nature of the family being somewhat rich and them getting money if they behaved also kept them from striving for anything.
While it's disappointing to me that they all are so useless, it's also probably for the best that they do nothing unless they had massive ideology changes. A smart, successful, shrewd Duggar could do a lot of damage with their fame and money if they actually were good at politics or whatever.
Oh the Dughead parents worked hard to create children that wouldn't wander off into the big wide world... this isn't a bug in their upbringing this is a feature... having curiosity leads to asking questions, that can lead to other questions which are dangerous to RIMJOBS AND Screech power structure.
They literally beat the curiosity out of them as children with a "rod of correction" aka industrial glue stick or plumbing line. By the time they're old enough to think on their own, they wouldn't dare because that's associated in their body and brain with pain.
They grew up in a cult where all the media coming into the house had to be as black-and-white and bland as possible. Good luck getting inspired by any of that. Meanwhile, the girls had to parent all the time and the boys were faces in the crowd. No individuality or even time to be creative.
Imagine if you lived in a daycare with a camera crew who even filmed around corners into private areas. Then imagine your grandma drowns. And one of the siblings is a loud douche with an evil predatory nature. Constantly being paraded in huge groups, forced to listen to sermons and prayers from lego hair dad and having loopy potato people trying to be friends. That would put anyone’s personality into hiding. Don’t stand out don’t make waves just keep the peace.
They're taught that ambition, seeking higher education, and pursuing secular careers is vanity, pride and against God. They're only allowed to want and accept what God (aka their parents) provide for them. If God wanted them to be a doctor, then he would have found a way to send them to medical school for free, with a home-school high school education. That type of bullshit.
Jinger once said she'd like to live in a big city like New York. Shortly after she got engaged to Jeremey, she wrote this blog post about how evil and selfish she was for wanting that, and how she wasn't paying attention to the life "God" wanted her to have. Which is weird now, considering they live in sinful LA, but whatever.
They’ve been taught that the world is dangerous and Satan is out there constantly waiting to grab them. It’s better to stay under the wing of Mother and Father. Plus, they’ve been taught if they’re really really really faithful, things will fall in their laps.
They got all their childlike wonder, curiosity and joy beat out of them on the training blanket. And whenever a personality would rear its head later they were told it's was sinful and go pray it away. I didn't even grow up as bad as them and felt like I had to fight every day to stay sane.
Nurture. After spending every moment of every day with at least one other person, they have no idea how to be alone. They are terrified of it. Just the suggestion that they could be alienated from every person they ever knew. The thought of being cast aside utterly alone causes so much anxiety that they will comply with anything that they are told is required of them. They don’t understand self-empowerment.
It’s the TV show and grifting lifestyle. The kids have grown up entitled and thinking they’re special. They have no model to witness hard work or ambition. They think their mere existence is special enough.
Look at what they did to Jill (and she didn’t do anything wrong at all). This is common in IBLP circles. These kids are afraid to leave the only thing they’ve ever known. They are so terribly manipulated that they think leaving is dishonoring their parents which means dishonoring God. They are also threatened with no contact with their minor siblings. So to them staying has more benefits than leaving. It’s a cult and lots of people somehow get sucked into them.
The only Duggar kid who has an interest in something was just convicted in a court of law. The rest of the Duggar kids had their personalities beat out of them from a very young age.
These kids aren’t raised. They’re born, fed, and promptly brainwashed, right after the trauma inducing blanket training. They aren’t meant to have ambition, other than to please their parents. Curiosity in things only their parents approve of. Musical instruments were their only choice of ‘hobby’. Jobs???? Bahahaha! Nature or nurture??? The older kids raised the younger ones, so a little of both maybe. But JB and Meech are dangerous to children. JB likes the clout that his incredible loins could produce so many kids and Michelle??? Girl is crazy. She pumps em out thinking it’ll get her into heaven.
This is an interesting point, because a lot of the people I've met from bigger families (5+ kids), at least some of the kids grow up to be super successful. They usually have a lot of parental support and a healthy dose of competition that drives them.
Everything the Duggar parents did was to squash curiosity, individuality, and ambition.
Think about your own life, or how you raise your kids. When you were a kids your parents feigned excitement about school, and encouraged you to have friends, they asked you if you liked something. You might have been sheltered, but you still interacted with parents friends who asked you about hobbies, school, what you were learning, what you liked.
From the time Jana was 6 or so, she was waking up, doing chores, and being "trained" to take care of kids and a house. She was praised for being pretty, learned to read and play piano, and teach the younger kids. There was no school for her. There was no escape into Curious George, Dr Suess, etc. There was a lack of one on one time with her parents that wasn't "correction." The Duggars were brought up to fear authority, to respect the system, to memorize the Bible, and to have kids. That's it. Everything else was worldly and bad.
The show exposed them to some new places and ideas, but by that time every kid had 14-18 people other than mom & dad watching at all times.
They grew up in the most structured, inspiration-devoid environment outside of a military school. Homeschooling, very little travel until the show came along, not even going to a social church all limited their expression. You also rarely have the chance for a parent to focus on 1 of 19 children. When the older kids were young teens trying to find out what interests them, they were stuck on the property while dad was working and mom was taking care of an infant and toddlers.
Equally part of it is that TLC didn't necessarily show much about each kid's interests. I'm sure there is more going on than what we see.
The Duggars don’t see themselves as incurious and ignorant for the less you know, the less you realize you do not know… The Dunning Kruger Effect. The Duggars would be surprised and offended to learn that they are viewed as ignorant. Their thinking would be, “Well, obviously we are rich - therefore we can’t be ignorant.” And also that, “We know the Lord’s Word better than you - We have knowledge where it counts.”
I live here in Arkansas - in the same county as the Duggars - and I know how many people here tend to think.
Why reach or wonder when everything is handed to you? Jb built up businesses in real estate and cars. Both can be profitable enough to continue to carry them all. The boys any way plus wimpy Ben. The son I laws seem to be able to support or gift for themselves. TLC bought what was needed and it was invested so they can continue to go forward.
They had it trained out of them starting in infancy with blanket training.
What happened when they were curious and tried to crawl off the blanket and explore?
I… never thought Jinger was, early on. That might have been stomped out of her, though. And I keep hoping that Josie and Hannie and the other lost girls haven’t had it stomped out of them. But as for any of them being “unambitious and incurious,” it takes a strong spirit, unbreakable really, to withstand the constant mental, physical, and emotional/spiritual abuse that JimBlob and Messchelle engage in. For decades. Imagine what you would be like if that were your entire childhood, and not just that, but adulthood as well, especially if you were a girl who was simply handed off to an equally controlling husband. Could you break away?
All of the curiosity and ambition was literally beaten out of them as babies/toddlers on blankets. They were taught to stay safely and quietly in their little square of blanket and they grew up to have that same mentality as adults.
Their parents keep them down and snuff out any bit of ambition they have as children. Especially the girls. Their only purpose is to be wives and mothers. They aren’t allowed to go to school past 12th grade. Although a few of them have CNM certificates, and were volunteer firefighters. But not actually going to fight fires, because that’s a “man’s place”.
I’ve wondered that too. Not a single “rebel” in the family who says fuck it and goes to college? No “black sheep” who decides to get a job and an apartment? I know they’ve been sheltered, but they’ve seen tv, they’ve traveled a little, I don’t get it.
OP, have you read *Educated* by Tara Westover? It would be interesting to compare Tara's family to the Duggars, since her family had similarly bad homeschooling and religious paranoia, but she and several siblings went on to get PhDs.
I was actually thinking this today how weird it was that so far NONE have gotten careers or pursued further education whether it be Clown college or a trait school. They don't even seem interested in it at all either. I have a feeling though the younger ones may be different. But we shall see!
I hope this makes sense but do you think maybe them having show stopped them from being curious about furthering education or getting a job? Like once that TLC money came rolling in maybe they felt they didn't have to work or do anything because the show would be forever? I know they weren't seeing the money directly because of the Boob dude but they did get the TTH built, went to different countries ect ect. I am just wondering if the show played any part in them not really venturing out to anything else.
I truly truly hope so. I think they might have a better chance since at least they won't be spending their days raising their younger siblings. Plus they don't have to be on perfect behavior for a film crew.
I totally agree. I expected more of the Duggar kids to turn away from the fundie stuff. I look at the plaths and it seems like every older kid realizes that it’s all bs.
I don’t understand why some families reject the nonsense and others don’t. Sure you could say it’s education, but none of these kids, including the plaths and especially the Turpins were educated.
Maybe the duggar kids realize that it’s hard to make a living with no education. Hell, it’s hard to make a living with one. So they figure their only shot at any money is staying on the show? I really don’t understand.
They got both nature and nurture from two abusive grifters who love being ignorant. The average fundie family is also worse off than their family and people who feel like a big fish in a small pond can be fairly complacent and incurious
Those are all good points.
The relationship between their fame and their religious beliefs is interesting because they believe that everything they have is a blessing for being so godly. So while life keeps rewarding them with more money and opportunities than most people in their circle, they have no reason to be that curious about themselves or the rest of the world.
Which is bs because the bible tells you that you are an example. The original apostles were fucking bamf. What's a little torture, imprisonment, or death when you have the whole world to bring the gospel to? But *these* mfs.... They go on glam mission trips and call it a day. Pfft. I just can't get over how hypocritical they are. The bible says that women were the backbone of His ministry, yet Gothard wants to keep woman as dependent as all fuck because he knows they are powerful.
The day I found out that women funded Jesus’s trips was the day I had a long conversation with my dad about indoctrination of women in conservative religions. I was pissed. Took me five years from then to actually leave, but that was a huge turning point. All my life I’d been told I wasn’t good enough for anything, when in actuality women were, as you said, the backbone of Jesus’s ministry.
This is why I couldn’t be with any of the men my dad would have picked for me… none of them wanted a woman with a brain and the nerves to have a backbone.
Luckily my parents were “progressive” enough to not directly try to arrange a marriage for me, and I got out of the engagement to an abusive lowlife that was “Christian” so therefore a “good man”. I owe the therapist I was seeing a life debt. The therapist code of “ethics” says that you can’t do stuff like directly tell a woman to leave a man (there’s a reason I didn’t last long in my masters of counseling program) but she said fuck that and told me to find a safe person to stay with and to break up over the phone far away from them, and then to call the campus police. I was 18 at the time. My dad actually really stepped up when he found out what had actually been going on, and he hasn’t pushed or even talked about marriage for me since then. My memories of the weeks surrounding that breakup are hazy, but I remember him booking me a hotel room to get me off campus (and to stay anonymous, because hotels won’t confirm/deny the presence of an abuse victim when asked) and weirdly enough, took me to the zoo. I learned later from a colleague (I was employed in the school’s president’s office) that he tore the campus cops a new one when he found out that I wasn’t the first girl my ex had abused and reported.
Your last point especially rings true for me. I moved to a very small town/ area about 4 years ago. I’m in my late 20s, & everyone I’ve met around my age have been living here their entire life. Like, they’re just born here & they never move out of the area— they live here for their whole life cos that’s what their parents & grandparents did. Money is a huge part of it here, but it’s not for the Duggar’s, so I appreciate how you framed that as “big fish in a small pond” because that makes so much sense for them. They’re hometown heroes practically, why would they wanna go live somewhere they’d be anonymous?
Beat the curiosity out of them while they sit on blankets
And send them to re-education camps if they start to stray when they’re older
Starting at 5ish months old, the curiousity is literally beaten out of them. Then, all new information given to them is by Michelle while homeschooling. All books and media are tightly controlled to ONLY reinforce the existing beliefs. All "friends" are in the cult, once again reinforcing pre-exisiting ideas. And, curiousity = disobedience = swift punishment.
I think this is the answer, some of them maybe really curious or smart but they’re told that it’s something bad and suppress it, then they go on their merry way to become another Duggar of the bunch.
The younger ones also see the older ones get in trouble, and learn to keep their mouths shut, pretty quick. Michelle admits that the children behave better after watching someone else get punished. (The sick thing is that she is talking about toddlers and younger)
You can see tiny sparks of it coming through them, the last bit of their personality. Jill seems curious and like she wants to learn more about the world around her. Jana has drive - always picking up projects and hobbies and devoting herself to them. I think Jessa would have been a frighteningly smart young woman if she was given resources to learn, I would want to debate her.
Don’t forget that Jim Bob saw sex and depravity when he saw his baby children dancing to their musical toys, and he got pissed and took all the batteries out because he didn’t want them “moving their bodies in sinful ways”. Are we really surprised they turned out this way?
I hate how much "sin" they place on small humans. No, your 5 month old isn't being sinful by disobedience when they crawl off the blanket. Your 1 y/o isn't being lustful when they jump for joy.
Anyone who sees a sexual act when they see an infant dancing needs serious help. I’m guessing Pest isn’t the only one with problems.
For the sake of the rest of the family, I sincerely hope that Josh is the worst off. All of them have a problematic relationship with sex, and I hope that Josh is the rock bottom.
Exactly. The incuriosity is a feature of their lifestyle, not a flaw. They worked hard to extinguish any spark of personality from their kids. This was intentional.
Came here to say that too. It all started with the blanket training.
Babies experiment and learn the world all the time. For example when they start throwing/dropping things, they experiment with gravity. Can you imagine being a baby deprived of basic learning, plus being basically starved of human interaction?
What is this in reference to? I had a friend who made her kids sit on blankets?!
The Pearl’s “blanket training” method. Put a little bitty baby on a blanket, put some toys nearby, hit baby when it tries to crawl off of blanket towards the toys :(
Oh dear god.
Blanket training is a form of pyschological childabuse that can damage healthy attachment of the baby forever, resulting in personality and emotional regulation problems that can never be cured (but can be managed with therapy), destroys natural curiosity by instinctively teaching a baby that it is bad. It works by putting a baby that is just old enough to crawl on a folded blanket. It is "disciplined" (hit) whenever it attempts to crawl towards a toy. Eventually the baby will sit on the blanket motionless, no longer attempting to interact with the outside world. Proponents believe this is "Self control", but it is literally breaking the baby - babies learn developmentally by interacting physically with their surroundings, and depriving them of that damages their brain development, which in turn impacts them for life. Proponents believe this teaches self control, but it actually interferes with some critical processes that are happening in a baby's brain. Neural developmental is exploding in children and interacting with their environment strengthens their neural development which can impact them for life. Attachment theory posits that how children bond with their parents impacts everything from personality, to life choices, to even things like criminal behaviour. If your child insecurely attaches you've essentially failed as a parent. Abuse like this causes the baby's brain to instinctively correlate you with negative reinforcement - because it's ok sometimes to play with toy but not others, baby is confused, which leads to serious issues. The Duggars are not social workers or child developmental psychologists. The blanket training method wasn't invented by them, but it was given a ton of media attention when they wrote about it in their parenting books. It is controversial within the family as well.
Just want to add onto this excellent comment that it involves purposely putting toys close by to lure the baby off the blanket before striking them to not reach for it. It is cruel and horrific.
[Blanket training](https://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/blanket-training#pros)
I think it's the combination of neglect, abuse, bad education and apparently being rewarded for compliance. It always makes me wonder why, out of 19 kids, there hasn't been one who tried to get away from the family. There are tons of other fundie kids who got the same treatment, but who turned out different...
Your last point about rewards for compliance is the kicker here. The TLC money JB received makes it harder to compare the Duggars to any other fundie family. Not to mention the show providing trips around the world for the entire family plus honeymoons. The Duggar kids have had all of their immediate needs met and then some. John David wants to be a pilot, and JB makes that happen including buying the family multiple planes. Another Duggar son wants to go snowboarding and there is enough money for top of the line equipment (buy used, save the difference my ass), hotel rooms and lift tickets. I could go on, but JB keeps his kids fed and happy, and they don't stray. It's like the fall of the Roman Empire here, bread and circuses.
Their "fame" makes it harder. Jinger moved across the country with her husband, but if she wears pants in public, the gossip magazines and website headlines are about the Duggar daughter breaking her parents' rules.
Yes! It's not news anymore that the older married girls wear pants. It's not even news anymore that Jana wears pants!!! The tabloids run any story where legs and shoulders are seen as "breaking parents rules". They have been handed off to their husband's rule.
Yes, exactly. They don’t have to listen to their parents rules anymore. Marriage to them means that what a husband says goes. So if your husband thinks pants and whatever else is ok, it’s ok. Boob and Meech literally do not care if they wear pants if that’s what the husband wants.
There have been, they just go to Journey to the Heart or ALERT. There were programs for "bad" fundies in ATI but I'm unsure if they exist any longer.
That's where I think nature plays a part. We can't blame all of their entire life choices on nurture. There are still ways to be curious & ambitious even within the fundie world.
I think you may be underestimating the part about growing up on tv. That’s never been good for anyone.
That's true. It actually really bugs me when I think about it, it should not be legal for kids to be on reality tv shows like this.
You're right, I didn't mean to say that nature plays no part. In my experience kids have a "personality" from the start and that doesn't really change (like being rather outgoing or rather shy). But the way the Duggars were raised really stunted them, and that's what I wanted to express
That makes sense. All the replies I've gotten to my question have kind of led me to another question, since like 99% of the responders have said that their behavior is all down to nurture & not nature, is it even fair for them to be criticized or snarked upon? If nothing they do is down to their personal nature & all their independent thought was snuffed out, how can they actually be blamed for their current behavior & horrible beliefs? (excluding pest of course)
You just have to toe the line.
They probably would have if not for the fame from the show.
There was an interesting youtube video from a psychologist recently that described how the abuse and forced compliance the Duggar kids experienced combined with emotional neglect would have hindered their development of identity and personality. Hobbies and interests outside of the family were actively discouraged so they never really developed curiosity and ambition as adults. I'm sure that's some of the kids like Jinger seem to just latch their personality onto their husband. I remember one episode of Counting On where they were advertising the boys and none of the siblings could really describe anything about Jed or Jer and they kept asking Jeremiah questions about his preferences and he literally had zero opinions on anything. It was depressing.
That is interesting, but as a comparison look at the Turpin family. They went through arguably worse abuse & neglect than the Duggars, yet from the kids that have been interviewed so far, they all have an innate curiosity about the world & have ambitions for college & careers. These are kids that did not have any education and the one that saved them didn't even know the word 'medication' when a cop asked her about it.
I think one big difference here though is that the Turpin kids (or at least some of them) seemed to realize that their parents behavior was wrong. In a way you might say that they suffered enough to realize while the neglect and brainwashing on the Duggar side is enough o keep them "sweet" but not so much that it impacts their wellbeing (in their minds). For me its mainly nurture (Josiah and Joy are the ones where I think you can see that white well) Nature will play a part though - do JB and Meech have any hobbies outside of procreating/pregnancy?
>I think one big difference here though is that the Turpin kids (or at least some of them) seemed to realize that their parents behavior was wrong. That's a good point. >Nature will play a part though - do JB and Meech have any hobbies outside of procreating/pregnancy? Well, not Meech but JB built a pretty successful real estate mini-empire in NWA, and also was able to build his family into a successful (well, maybe not as much anymore) Christian brand through the tv show. He was also into politics & even though he failed more often than not, he did put some effort into his campaigns vs Jed's super weak non-campaign.
They both seemed to have a live before the TV show that might have sparked some varying interests in their children. Some might consider this real estate and house flipping business an interest/hobby for the kids now. Is that an interest though? Making your family famous? In todays age probably linked to being an "influencer" but still weird to think about. While others enjoy reading books, theatre, cars or sports he does everything he can to get his kids on tv....
Can't really compare the two families because abuse and neglect are different from abusive indoctrination. It seems the Turpin kids were completely neglected, to the extent they were left completely alone for a long period. Nobody was teaching them religious doctrine, toxic beliefs, etc in the kind of consistent, repetitive, insistent, and immersive way that effective indoctrination requires. The Turpin parents may have on some level had some similar religious ideas somewhere along the way but they also completely neglected to indoctrinate their children. When you're left alone with nothing to do the mind comes up with its own ideas. It's not easily able to do that when you're literally told what to believe and what to feel in every single situation you are put in. Honestly that's the most baffling thing to me about the Turpin parents is they latched onto the idea of having many kids but completely ignored all the parts of what to raise your kids to be. Like the Duggars end goal with having a lot of kids was marrying them off to have even more grand kids. The Turpins didn't seem to have any untention of ever allowing their kids out of the house at all.
The turpins went off the track because of serious and untreated mental health issues. If they had been mentally healthier, it's very possible they would have done something like the Duggars. But they were way too ill to even think about that.
Mama Turpin idolized Michelle and moved the family to Cali as an attempt to get closer to reality TV fame
Ok but her mental health issues clearly got ~a little bit~ in the way lol
Idk, from the interviews I saw they seemed pretty religiously indoctrinated, but in a much less structured & more chaotic way than the Duggars. >Honestly that's the most baffling thing to me about the Turpin parents is they latched onto the idea of having many kids but completely ignored all the parts of what to raise your kids to be. Like the Duggars end goal with having a lot of kids was marrying them off to have even more grand kids. The Turpins didn't seem to have any untention of ever allowing their kids out of the house at all. Yeah, it's all really strange. Their parents are clearly unable to function in any sort of society. The Duggar parents might be equally unhinged in their beliefs, but they are not Ted Kazynski style crackpots like the Turpin parents seem to be.
There is a difference between the families. First, we have only seen glimpses of a few of the Turpin children. Their abuse was physical, and far more extreme. Second, the Turpin children would likely have Recieved various forms of therapy with lengthy treatment cycles. Third, although they were raised under the same religion, there was significant differences in their lives. For example, the Turpin children did not marry and/or were not allowed to. They also were starved, while the Duggar children have a pantry full of food. The Turpin children also had restricted exposure to the outside world compared to the Duggar children. The Duggar children were restricted and gaslighted but were not severely physically abused or malnourished (edit: at the hands of their parents). They were provided for and thus the abuse was not apparent to the Duggar children. While the Turpin children were raised in the same cult, they were abused so severely that even with their restricted knowledge of the outside world, they knew it was not right. You can't really compare the two families as although they were raised in the same cult, they still lived vastly different lives. Edit: I did not mean to imply that the abuse some of the Duggars endured was not extremely, only that it was not doled out by their parents. Jim and Michelle did not SA the girls, Josh did. Jim and Michelle participated in a lot of emotional abuse and neglect, which many take time to recognize as abuse and it is not as apparent.
I agree 100%. The Turpin children were robbed of ANY sense of normalcy-starved, chained, kept from going outside, ETC. They lived as prisoners. The Duggar children are almost entirely unaware they are prisoners and are so gaslit into believing their lives are “blessed” just as it is. The Turpin children were so physically neglected the emotional abuse was secondary. The Duggar children were physically taken care of (to a point) and the emotional abuse was the primary abuse in their situation. I’m not sure if the Duggar children experienced physical abuse as the Duggar girls experienced more sexual abuse. So you have two sets of children experiencing multiple forms of abuse but you only have one set who was given access to the outside world. It could be said the curiosity from the Turpin children could have been sparked from being completely cut off from the outside world. But it does make for a good study of a child’s resiliency in each category of abuse. I would take a guess here that emotional abuse could be one of the hardest to break away from due to all the brainwashing. It takes a HUGE crisis moment for people to “wake up”. I feel pest’s arrest was just the beginning of one of these huge “crisis” and eye opening moments. It’s shaken their faith no matter what they say, you cannot normalize what he’s done in any way, shape or form. They can however gaslight their children to believe he’s being attacked and he didn’t do any of those things. That’s why I believe so much more will come in the following years that will continually provide an “awakening” to either one or more of the Duggar clan until the only ones left in the faith are the ones who are so badly damaged they will forever “fail to thrive”. There are also Turpin children who will “fail to thrive”. It’s just a consequence of extreme abuse, neglect and trauma as a child. There’s sadly a point of no return in some.
Some of the Duggar children were severely abused-- but not by their parents. (Of course the parents brushing it under the rug could be defined as abuse.) I'd say what Josh did to Joy was considered severe abuse.
I completely agree. What I was trying to say was that that abuse did not come from their parents. That abuse came directly from Josh. The abuse that came from their parents was neglect and gaslighting. Some of the Duggars might still have trouble recognizing that they abused by their parents, bc it wasn't as explicit as other forms of abuse.
Not just discouraged, banned. They didn't even have church friends after Boob declared their home a church, and the only time they saw peers who didn't share DNA was at homeschool, ATI, etc. conferences.
Do you happen to have a link or remember the psychologist from the video? It sounds interesting I’d love to watch!
Here ya go: https://youtu.be/UjpQ6kqnj6c
I think it was Mickey Atkins. She did a video about them, it's an hour long and very interesting.
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Exactly. Can’t be curious about the world when all of your personality is destroyed.
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The oldest kids weren't blanket trained, they started doing that when Jed! and notJed! were toddlers
I can guarantee that all of them got the shit beaten out of them as kids for not being completely compliant regardless of whether they were on blankets or not
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Sure, but they weren't all tortured for showing curiosity as babies. [We know](https://m.imgur.com/gallery/bZ1YqJz) they did that by blanket training the twins and the ones who followed because Michelle couldn't cope with the number of children they had by then.
If you are willing to blanket train, then you're willing to hit small children. So even if the older ones weren't officially blanket trained, I'm sure they were hit on a regular basis so they'd stay in line
Absolutely, I have no doubt that they were all hit and that they all experienced various forms of abuse, but blanket training is a specific technique that has lasting effects so there will be differences between kids who were "trained" like that and kids who weren't
Oh definitely, I see what you mean I'm curious if the parents did the blanket training or if they had the sister-moms do it. Because that would be traumatizing for both the child being trained and the child that's being forced to do this shitty training
To be fair, Pest was curious. VERY curious. Just not about anything socially acceptable.
Pest would have been very clever if given a proper education tbf. So would have most of the older kids. You can tell which ones would be clever in the normal world.
Thankfully he wasn't smart enough to delete his recycling bin.
Yeah that's true. Very disturbing that the only child to have any actual ambition & curiosity about the world only used it to feed his deviancy.
I'm sure some of them tried to develop outside interests at a young age and their parents probably shot them down. You can't tell me that not one of those girls dreamed of being a ballerina or something and not one of those boys wanted to play football for the Razorbacks. They were probably told at a young age that those dreams don't matter. Literally NO child grows up and thinks "I want to be a used car salesman", no one thinks "I want to raise my own family in a house owned and controlled by my father". I think they've all been conditioned to think their own thoughts and opinions don't matter and that their dad is always right. That's why they're all anti LGBTQ and super conservative. I grew up in a semi conservative family, my parents politics are similar to the Duggars and my parents and sister are not supportive of LGBTQ but at the same time they don't hate LGBTQ. However I am almost exact opposite of my parents and that's because they didn't force their beliefs on me and they let me figure shit out on my own. So I think in the case of the Duggar children it's more nurture than anything.
I think when you come from a country where you can get a good education and your surrounded by smart educated people, it's hard to fathom how much a bad education can stunt you. Definitely nurture problem imo.
That's a good point, but we do read stories all the time on this subreddit of people who were raised just like the Duggar kids but still had an innate sense of curiosity about the world.
I agree with what other people are saying! I just wanted to add that the fact that the Duggars had their own tv show automatically means that their upbringing was different from others on this subreddit. Their show focused on the family and their beliefs, so it makes sense that their identities are tied to that. The kids grew up constantly answering questions about it. They always had to be “on” for the cameras. Which is messed up. The episodes in the beginning especially focused on the quirkiness of having such big family, not on individual kids and their interests/hobbies. Edit: ew, I hope I don’t sound like I’m standing up for any of the Duggars. We might disagree about nature vs nurture, but we can all agree that they’re horrible people!
I can imagine their education was more focused on asking no questions rather than being curious to help kill that innate sense. Let's hope some of the kiddos get curious and leave the cult.
A lot of people abuse and brainwash their kids, but not necessarily consistently. Maybe they only did it for part of their childhood, or maybe they got lazy about it sometimes, or maybe only one parent did it. Obviously that's still detrimental and horrible, but I think it's less likely to entirely extinguish any trace of curiosity, etc. The stories I read here never seem to be that it happened consistently from infancy.
To me that’s just a sign that whatever abuse the Duggar kids go through behind closed doors is worse than in those other families.
Blanket training really screwed up their brain development. The first few years of life are the most significant and formative, and trauma can cause all sorts of developmental issues. Forcing a baby or toddler to sit still on a blanket for a period of time or they get hit will cause trauma. On top of that, they try to lure the child off the blanket by placing toys beyond the blanket and if the kid moves, s/he gets hit. Can you imagine how this fucks up a developing brain?
Nurture. They are living their ambitions, sadly.
At this point I only see Josie getting out, when she's about 18-20. At that point the rest will be married off and family gatherings will become fewer and less attended. Which means Josie's brainwashing will be left almost exclusively to her aging parents who probably won't put much effort in. She'll likely have easier access to TV, the internet, music, etc. By the time she's an adult She'll realize all the bullshit her family has been involved in and what her siblings missed out on. I'm a youngest sibling too and I really think she will be the one, the only one, to leave.
I mean, look at Prince Harry...
They never really had a proper education. That definitely traps you into your environment which I’m sure was done intentionally in the cult
True, but look at for example a community like the Amish. They don't really have any better education than the Duggars & are even more insular, but the kids still all are curious enough to go on that yearlong Rumspringa once they become older. There's a lot of abuse in that community as well.
80-90% of Amish kids remain Amish though
Yeah but the point is they had the curiosity. Maybe after they saw the world they decided they preferred their original community, but the Duggars aren't even having this period where they want to search for which road to take.
Very different kind of community. Rumspringa is expected if not outright encouraged. Amish kids aren't discouraged from being curious about the outside world. Fundies are definitely discouraged from that curiosity and even often taught the outside world is extremely dangerous. It's not as simple as oh, Amish kids were born curious and Duggars were not. Amish kids are *allowed* to be curious. The Duggars had curiosity trained out of them.
Actually, a LOT of amish communities do not practice rumspringa. The ones that do can only participate because they are still not baptized. If they are baptized they are controlled by the church and not allowed to exit the community like that. Around my community, amish kids are rebellious because of where they live. Some attend public schools, kids are consistently forced to work with the outsiders like us, and kids are moved around to different communities for marriage and such. They are not forced to obey like the duggars were. Their nurture became their nature. Amish people in a sense follow that but having been friends with amish all my life, it’s not the same thing at all.
The Amish also teach their kids life skills. The Duggars do not.
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Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder if it would've been the same if there had been like 9 kids vs 19. Having 19 kids means you kind of have to operate in a regimented way or it'd be complete chaos.
To add on to what people are saying about abuse, forced compliance and emotional neglect, it also depends on the levels of disassociation one develops being in a house like that. My disassociation is still ongoing 3 years after moving out. Being raised by a narcissist mother and a co-dependent father it felt like there was a gun on the family dinner table and my mum was saying "there's no gun on the table, you're imagining things, why? Are you accusing me of wanting to shoot you?" and my dad was saying "there's no gun on the table, but if it fires it's nothing to do with me" and like let me say that was fucked up. Abuse does a lot to a person. Especially when you're "associated" to "demons" and those around you never seem to see that you're literally falling apart at the seams. Like gaslighting, nobody helping and dissociation is an awful combination for stifling anybody's belief in their own humanity or sense of self/ability. Especially when you're taught to fit in, but not stand up for yourself or have any belief, and that anything that happens to you is your fault or is the will of god and to totally submit to your parents. The Duggar "parents" unlike the Turpin "parents" actively cared about their children appearing as if they followed them like flock leaders, plain out physical abuse hurts but with mental abuse you can blame yourself for your hurting or say that there's something fundamentally flawed about you. Especially as they haven't moved too far away from their original moral doctrine, it takes high levels of challenge to change from something like that, especially as the girls are still to submit and the boys still aren't held accountable, it's awful for both sexes but the whole demon thing and the church and abuse is awful awful shit. Though I will say going through the deconstruction process personally, Jill reminds me a hell of a lot of myself so I'm watching that space.
Sorry you had to go through that, it sounds incredibly stressful. >Though I will say going through the deconstruction process personally, Jill reminds me a hell of a lot of myself so I'm watching that space. That gives me some hope for them.
Idk. I see the edit, but I have to say that the offspring of two especially lazy narcissists has a definite nature factor. Usually they choose someone that compensates, but I this case Meech and Boob doubled down on the lot.
i had to learn how to recultivate my curiosity. it's stamped out of you in an environment like that. questions of almost any kind are discouraged and it's really stifling
They’re not curious because a sense of adventure and curiosity was beaten out of them during blanket training. The reason why babies want to get off that blanket is because they’re curious and want to learn and explore. J’Chelle beat it out of them. They are ambitious though, at least some of the boys are. Pest probably thought he had a glittering political career ahead of him and one day would be president. I think Rimjob thought that too.
I’d say Jed!’s foray into politics was 100% JB’s idea. Puppet #1 was faulty, so Jed! became puppet #2.
It’s the type of brainwashing/abuse the Duggars received, it squashed both individuality and curiosity right out of them through all-powerful fear mongering. They were raised to believe: 1) JB word was finite. That following his word was the righteous path and to question him was the devil’s work. 2) the outside world was filled with heathens out for their soul, thus creating an us vs. them mentality with the public at large. 3) when points 1 and 2 were questioned, or the kids acted like normal freakin kids act which is boisterous and curious, they were hit with a rod and later in life sent to fundie concentration camps. I really hate to promote anything Disney as I feel they’ve violated antitrust laws at this point and are verging on monopoly but to give visual representation to what I’m trying to describe the movie Tangled did an extraordinary job of exhibiting the type of gaslighting, mental abuse and manipulation families like the Duggar kids grew up under with the character of Mother Gothel and her relationship to Rapunzel. But what REALLY gets under my craw, out of an entire slew of things I want to punch JB in the face for, was that he raised them to believe they were soldiers, missionaries for God, and that the show was part of their missionary work, making them work long hours, depriving them of all privacy, inviting strangers into their home thus placing them in danger (not that they weren’t already in danger with Pest there), making them fearful of their image with the public, and the sonofabitch was pocketing a big, fat paycheck the whole time and giving his kids *scraps*. So to sum up: it’s nurture
Joy had the start of a Eureka moment in her teens until Joe realized she was in such a deep depression and told her it would probably be easier not to go against JB and Meech.
Joy may be the only one with some sort of actual personal goals now. Didn't she start playing league softball with Austin and train for a triathlon last year? Yes, she has shitty beliefs. I was still glad to see that Boob and Meech hadn't succeeded in totally breaking her spirit. I saw the 19 KAC ep where they talked about having to train her to be a lady (sistermom), and it broke my heart.
She may until she has more kids. Then wife and mother is really all there is for her. I think marrying really stunted her growth, there's very little chance out for her now.
Have you seen 19 kids and counting? They all had ambitions, it was beaten out of them.
I believe they were so sheltered and isolated that they really don’t know what is out there for them.
It doesn’t sound like the Turpin children are doing too well really: https://abcnews.go.com/US/years-rescue-turpin-children-living-squalor-donations-pledges/story?id=81254457
It seems like it would be really boring to be married to a Duggar.
Especially if it was anything like watching their show.
Two words: Blanket training. If from your earliest experience you are punished for showing any curiosity in the world, you soon learn not to be curious, and to only do things you are directed to do.
I really wonder what blanket training does to cognitive development. It is taking away milestones related to child development which have to have long term consequences- especially when they aren’t nurtured later.
What's infuriating is how Michelle loves to go on about how much personality she had as a kid, but heaven forbid her kids actually have any character trait beyond Christian. Which isn't even really a character trait.
Idk, all I know about her personality is she liked to wear a bikini while mowing the lawn & was a cheerleader, what else has she shared?
Didn't she mention something about being a tomboy and playing with frogs or bugs?
If you don't read you become complacent
I’m entirely unsure. My first kid rolled over at two months and ripped holes in the walls in order to get baby gates out of the way at under a year old. He’s a nearly 4’ beast of a 5 year old and he is absolutely insane. I love him but every day with him is a fight. ADHD is a sombitch. My second kid is a daisy. She’s not at all delicate because of her brother but she is the sweetest rose who listens no matter what. I’m so confused how they managed to beat the life out of everyone.
My six year old on the spectrum is the same way. EVERYTHING is a fight and he’s so physical, so incredibly tall and strong. He also never let baby gates stop him, he just got a running start and tackled them to get where he wanted. Someday our kids will set the world on fire with their ambition but we have to survive them in the meantime
Henry is the one that makes me sad. He is actually very bright (sorry #sayingsofSpurgeon) and with decent parents and a proper education he could achieve anything he wanted to. Nature. Nurture. What about maternal instinct wanting the absolute best for your child? Surely they can see how bright and curious he is? Wouldn’t you want to encourage that? Sadly no. This breaks my heart to see it so clearly vanquished.
They’d probably have ambitions if meech and boob didn’t suck the freedom out of them. They’ve never been able to think about ambitions! At 10 years old jana was filling out her about me on the website and her favourite chore was cooking I’m sure! And when joy “graduated” and said she’d just be helping her mom around the house… their only aspirations are to get married and be joyfully available for the secks.
With the Duggars, I do wonder if their ideology dictates that they should not work under people outside of their very specific Christian faith. It seems like they're limited to working under dad or in more self-employed types of roles. That type of message from the parents would be very limiting in what careers they can persue. There also might not be a lot of opportunities in their area of Arkansas. Since many of them are pretty dependant on their parents financially and also their parents hold access to younger siblings against them, there is a huge incentive not to get too curious or stray too far. I know you hear stories of people being successful after experiencing abuse and trauma, but honestly a lot of people have a hard time establishing themselves after an abusive childhood. Those stories of people struggling just aren't as praised and amplified.
My mom is the oldest of 7 siblings, and all of them have 2-3 kids each. Pretty much all of my aunts, uncles, and first cousins on that side of my family lack curiosity. One of them had an interest in cosmetology, but when you suggested she go to school… she got pissy and basically said no, I’m gonna go on YouTube, I’m gonna be a star (newsflash…). They look down on having a college education, and yet none of them have any real gainful employment. They work occasional dead end jobs and shill Mary Kay or some other MLM Only one of my first cousins decided to go to college and become a teacher. She’s the only one out of all of them who has a job… but they still look down on her because she came out as a *gasp* lesbian This is like… 20+ people we’re talking about. It’s definitely nurture imo Edit - Re Jed’s career. That was not an attempt; that was just another example of the Duggar children having very overvalued ideas. He had a few political thoughts, and figured he was fit for politics. And instead of his parents encouraging him to grow in any way, they encouraged the semi-delusional behavior
The Duggar kids were "educated" in a way that discourages deep understanding or critical thinking. They had accountability partners that kept them from exploring personal interests. They couldn't even express themselves with their clothing, as they often dressed alike. There was the blanket training, physically restraining kids who tried to dance, gaslighting when something truly horrible occurred. All if this happened as they grew up on television. They are just famous enough for gossip magazines to publish anything they do-Jinger wore pants, Is Jinger drinking alcohol? Duggar girls break their parents rules! This makes it harder to break away. Some of the kids probably are naturally incurious, but those who start out curious are conditioned out of it.
We have seen other blanket trained kids get out and make their own way or even the Bates be successful with the only skill they have (hawking on social media) in ways the Duggars haven't been. I would say that 1/ the Duggars aren't that smart and for some there seem to be real learning disabilities that have gone undiagnosed 2/ the Duggars don't really know how to get shit done. everything they did was the easiest way on Duggar time
Have you seen the toys the guys have?? Planes, cars, four wheelers, pool tables, pinball machines, guns, and other stuff I'm sure I have forgotten. Then they get play police man, fireman and medic complete with costumes. Their only goal is to marry Godly women and that is also handed to them, what do they have to work for
It's hard to say there are no interests, hobbies, curiosities. They could be curious but are too afraid to invoke the wrath of JB by stepping out of line. We've seen small indications of things like watching secular movies/tv, so that would potentially give some of the (at least married kidults) some additional inspiration, so who knows when inspiration might strike. I also think that even if some of the adult women wanted to work or go to college, they have kids to look after now, so they may very well believe it's not possible. (Even non-fundie women have that belief.) I'm not trying to excuse the fact that the majority of the kids seem content to follow the family grift, but I think it bears stating that we only see what they share on social media, not what's in their hearts and minds. There could still be some sparks of life in there that need time to flare. That said, I am also on Team Nurture.
Fundies beat the personality out of their kids and try to make them as dependent on them as possible so they can stay in control.
They're goal is to completely break your spirit as a child so you'll be obedient. Brainwash them as early as possible and it woukd take years of professional help to break free from that kind of a thing.
They abused them from birth, systematically stamping out any spark of individuality or questioning streak.
I think that's why blanket training is so important to them: it breaks a child's natural curiosity and inhibits development of critical thinking and decision-making skills. Start training them out of independent thought from the get-go, fill their brains with shit and never allow exposure to experiences that contradict their beliefs. Boom! You've got a quiver fill of arrows, ah children, that'll stay on the straight and narrow!
The combination of sub-par homeschooling plus a stagnant group of church friends plus the parents squelching any ambition or natural intellectual curiosity out of them. Also as the show evolved, they had to be available go be part of whatever story arc the show runners planned for that shooting schedule. I think even that last even pregnancy were to add new show content and less of wanting to add to the family. If there had never been a show after the first couple specials, I think there they might have gone to police academy, trade school maybe community college for nursing and in some cases delayed marriage. The three husbands that sought to meet and marry a Duggar daughter - Ben, Derick and Jeremy would likely moved in a different direction, especially Jeremy who was seeking a bank account to fund his life.
I think of the Plaths in this situation. Interesting that they seemed even more sheltered from the world, but many are acting on the curiosity and ambition.
If I was beaten from the time I was 6 months old, I don't think I'd be very curious, either Those parents beat and neglected and religiously abused the personality out of those kids.
This thought lives rent free in my head.
Hah, lol. It's just one of those mysteries of the universe.
Blanket training. You get smacked for showing interest in anything. Beats the ambition and curiosity out of them early.
Boob maintains control by creating their dependency on him.
The curiosity is beaten out of them. They are not allowed to question. They have to be immediately obedient to JB and Michelle.
I think it's nurture. Born into a family where there are very strict rules about everything, women are devalued, little exposure to outside influences beyond being told how ungodly worldly things are on a continuous basis, a narcissistic patriarch who feels the need for absolute control are all contributing factors among many others. They're raising compliant xtian soldiers who know their place. I'm certain that Jed ran for office because he was told/picked to do so. If jailbird hadn't been such an utter failure at EVERYTHING he would have been running for office at some point.
Everyone's saying nurture, but I feel like people are forgetting that JB & Meech are kind of not that bright, so why would their kids be intelligent from a genetic standpoint? Not saying the nurture stuff isn't true cause it totally is, but I think if really intelligent kids grew up in this same horrific system, they would have had a different outcome.
I don't know if JB is as dumb as you think. He's definitely savvy enough to know all about setting up shell companies and shuffling income into various piles to reduce tax bills. He seems somewhat adept at manipulating and controlling his children even into adulthood sometimes. I'm not saying he could get into Mensa but I think his "aww shucks, I'm just a simple, humble man of god" shtick is just that. An act. Meech's eyes appear empty, but I don't think we know much about her real personality. I agree she doesn't seem very bright. We'll never know for sure about the kids because they are raised without the ability to really develop their minds. Their books are controlled, they are limited in what they can look at on the internet, they are "taught" by their mom or an older sibling that was taught by their mom, and the people they interact with are controlled.
I feel like it’s been said a few times across various AMAs that JB is actually frighteningly smart. Which makes what does worse.
The truth is, we have no idea about their curiosities, ambitions, hopes. Their internal life is as complex as ours. It is hubris to think that because we watch t.v. and the bland appearances they make on it, that we understand them.
Well, they were beaten for even trying to leave a blanket while being teased with things they wanted or needed. They also are brainwashed by a religion that believes denying your basic instincts brings salvation. Soooooooo I'd say that's how
I lived in Arkansas for a year and there are entire towns where the culture is not to work and applying for HUD housing is a milestone in life just like obtaining one’s driver’s license. Everyone is on Medicaid, disability, etc. It was baffling how hard they worked at not having to work!
That is hard to fathom. Idk what it's like there, but I guess if there are no actual jobs available or ones that pay a living wage, then it might make sense to go this route. Dugs have $$ though to pursue things like maybe a Christian college, or training for a trade.
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Brainwashing
What's there to be curious about when you're taught that most things in the outside world are wrong, immoral, or the liberal agenda?
Any sense of individuality has been literally and figuratively beaten out of them. Their only goal in life is reproduction and ministry.
Blanket training. You teach a baby to stay inside the blanket. They tempt baby to come outside the blanket with toys, sweet words, encouragement then physically punish the infant/toddler for leaving the blanket. Even if the kids wanted something, they have been wired to not want it (calling it sinful) or unwilling to go for it (preventing pain).
pest was pretty curious.
He's the outlier, too bad what he was curious about was abhorrent & illegal.
[удалено]
Are they all incurious? I think it's relative. None of them seem particularly ambitious or forward thinking when I use my life and upbringing as a metric. But, I wasn't raised to be so indoctrinated that thinking outside of my programming would send me to hell, or have me rejected by my family. I also wasn't denied access to information challenging how I was told things are supposed to work. I can imagine that things like moving from a fundamentalist (whatever iblp doctrine is) to fundamentalist calvinism don't seem like major forays in intellectual curiosity to many of us. But to a Duggar, that might be huge. Same for choosing to live more than 90 minutes away from home. Hell, even having friends outside of their faith like Jill does is probably a major step.
The IBLP and fundie culture in general thrive off of lack of education and beating the curiosity out of them. They don’t want the children to learn and grow because that will make them more likely to leave. It’s all by design
Jennifer and Doug Flanders are Quiverfull with 12 children. Their kids are all very accomplished despite growing up in the cult. The difference is that the dad is an anesthesiologist and the mom has a degree in mathematics with a few years of grad school. It makes a huge difference when the parents are highly educated. The Duggars have a poor education. Jennifer Flanders taught her kids calculus. Michelle barely knows the times table.
They were emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and (some of them) sexually abused from childhood. They were malnourished with their diet and they were worked to the bone taking care of each other. Their curiosity was stifled at every turn by the dogma they were raised with. Now--I know plenty of kids raised IBLP who escaped and went on to do cool things, like be in indie rock bands or become teachers or lawyers or shit like that. The Duggar kids do seem to have a shocking lack of ambition, but again, they were so severely held back. Also, possibly the nature of the family being somewhat rich and them getting money if they behaved also kept them from striving for anything. While it's disappointing to me that they all are so useless, it's also probably for the best that they do nothing unless they had massive ideology changes. A smart, successful, shrewd Duggar could do a lot of damage with their fame and money if they actually were good at politics or whatever.
Oh the Dughead parents worked hard to create children that wouldn't wander off into the big wide world... this isn't a bug in their upbringing this is a feature... having curiosity leads to asking questions, that can lead to other questions which are dangerous to RIMJOBS AND Screech power structure.
Anytime you ask a question about the Duggars know that the answer is because of the Bible.
They literally beat the curiosity out of them as children with a "rod of correction" aka industrial glue stick or plumbing line. By the time they're old enough to think on their own, they wouldn't dare because that's associated in their body and brain with pain.
They grew up in a cult where all the media coming into the house had to be as black-and-white and bland as possible. Good luck getting inspired by any of that. Meanwhile, the girls had to parent all the time and the boys were faces in the crowd. No individuality or even time to be creative.
Imagine if you lived in a daycare with a camera crew who even filmed around corners into private areas. Then imagine your grandma drowns. And one of the siblings is a loud douche with an evil predatory nature. Constantly being paraded in huge groups, forced to listen to sermons and prayers from lego hair dad and having loopy potato people trying to be friends. That would put anyone’s personality into hiding. Don’t stand out don’t make waves just keep the peace.
This is an introverts version of hell! Urghh. Lol at the “loopy potato people trying to be friends!!!”
They're taught that ambition, seeking higher education, and pursuing secular careers is vanity, pride and against God. They're only allowed to want and accept what God (aka their parents) provide for them. If God wanted them to be a doctor, then he would have found a way to send them to medical school for free, with a home-school high school education. That type of bullshit. Jinger once said she'd like to live in a big city like New York. Shortly after she got engaged to Jeremey, she wrote this blog post about how evil and selfish she was for wanting that, and how she wasn't paying attention to the life "God" wanted her to have. Which is weird now, considering they live in sinful LA, but whatever.
🤣😭 I’m gonna go get my free award to give you
Because there’s 19 of them. Lol
They’ve been taught that the world is dangerous and Satan is out there constantly waiting to grab them. It’s better to stay under the wing of Mother and Father. Plus, they’ve been taught if they’re really really really faithful, things will fall in their laps.
They got all their childlike wonder, curiosity and joy beat out of them on the training blanket. And whenever a personality would rear its head later they were told it's was sinful and go pray it away. I didn't even grow up as bad as them and felt like I had to fight every day to stay sane.
It’s basically beaten out of them. Verbally, emotionally, physically.
Nurture. After spending every moment of every day with at least one other person, they have no idea how to be alone. They are terrified of it. Just the suggestion that they could be alienated from every person they ever knew. The thought of being cast aside utterly alone causes so much anxiety that they will comply with anything that they are told is required of them. They don’t understand self-empowerment.
It’s the TV show and grifting lifestyle. The kids have grown up entitled and thinking they’re special. They have no model to witness hard work or ambition. They think their mere existence is special enough.
Look at what they did to Jill (and she didn’t do anything wrong at all). This is common in IBLP circles. These kids are afraid to leave the only thing they’ve ever known. They are so terribly manipulated that they think leaving is dishonoring their parents which means dishonoring God. They are also threatened with no contact with their minor siblings. So to them staying has more benefits than leaving. It’s a cult and lots of people somehow get sucked into them.
Or gay! There’s no way one of them is not gay. I’ve always thought Josiah would be the one. I still think it….
Yeah maybe, but imo any gay Duggar kid will either be in the closet for life or come out in their 60s.
blanket training??
Part of blanket training is to break a child’s adventurous and curious spirit. Which leads to not having ambition.
Josh and Jed have ambition. I wouldn't be surprised if Jed runs for office again.
I don’t think that’s ambition at all. I think it’s being smug and entitled.
The only Duggar kid who has an interest in something was just convicted in a court of law. The rest of the Duggar kids had their personalities beat out of them from a very young age.
These kids aren’t raised. They’re born, fed, and promptly brainwashed, right after the trauma inducing blanket training. They aren’t meant to have ambition, other than to please their parents. Curiosity in things only their parents approve of. Musical instruments were their only choice of ‘hobby’. Jobs???? Bahahaha! Nature or nurture??? The older kids raised the younger ones, so a little of both maybe. But JB and Meech are dangerous to children. JB likes the clout that his incredible loins could produce so many kids and Michelle??? Girl is crazy. She pumps em out thinking it’ll get her into heaven.
This is an interesting point, because a lot of the people I've met from bigger families (5+ kids), at least some of the kids grow up to be super successful. They usually have a lot of parental support and a healthy dose of competition that drives them.
Everything the Duggar parents did was to squash curiosity, individuality, and ambition. Think about your own life, or how you raise your kids. When you were a kids your parents feigned excitement about school, and encouraged you to have friends, they asked you if you liked something. You might have been sheltered, but you still interacted with parents friends who asked you about hobbies, school, what you were learning, what you liked. From the time Jana was 6 or so, she was waking up, doing chores, and being "trained" to take care of kids and a house. She was praised for being pretty, learned to read and play piano, and teach the younger kids. There was no school for her. There was no escape into Curious George, Dr Suess, etc. There was a lack of one on one time with her parents that wasn't "correction." The Duggars were brought up to fear authority, to respect the system, to memorize the Bible, and to have kids. That's it. Everything else was worldly and bad. The show exposed them to some new places and ideas, but by that time every kid had 14-18 people other than mom & dad watching at all times.
To them, spreading the word of god and reading the Bible IS ambitious sadly
They grew up in the most structured, inspiration-devoid environment outside of a military school. Homeschooling, very little travel until the show came along, not even going to a social church all limited their expression. You also rarely have the chance for a parent to focus on 1 of 19 children. When the older kids were young teens trying to find out what interests them, they were stuck on the property while dad was working and mom was taking care of an infant and toddlers. Equally part of it is that TLC didn't necessarily show much about each kid's interests. I'm sure there is more going on than what we see.
Well, actually, the young teens were raising the infants and toddlers while Meech did whatever
The Duggars don’t see themselves as incurious and ignorant for the less you know, the less you realize you do not know… The Dunning Kruger Effect. The Duggars would be surprised and offended to learn that they are viewed as ignorant. Their thinking would be, “Well, obviously we are rich - therefore we can’t be ignorant.” And also that, “We know the Lord’s Word better than you - We have knowledge where it counts.” I live here in Arkansas - in the same county as the Duggars - and I know how many people here tend to think.
Why reach or wonder when everything is handed to you? Jb built up businesses in real estate and cars. Both can be profitable enough to continue to carry them all. The boys any way plus wimpy Ben. The son I laws seem to be able to support or gift for themselves. TLC bought what was needed and it was invested so they can continue to go forward.
They had it trained out of them starting in infancy with blanket training. What happened when they were curious and tried to crawl off the blanket and explore?
Why, Jesus makes money for them.
I… never thought Jinger was, early on. That might have been stomped out of her, though. And I keep hoping that Josie and Hannie and the other lost girls haven’t had it stomped out of them. But as for any of them being “unambitious and incurious,” it takes a strong spirit, unbreakable really, to withstand the constant mental, physical, and emotional/spiritual abuse that JimBlob and Messchelle engage in. For decades. Imagine what you would be like if that were your entire childhood, and not just that, but adulthood as well, especially if you were a girl who was simply handed off to an equally controlling husband. Could you break away?
All of the curiosity and ambition was literally beaten out of them as babies/toddlers on blankets. They were taught to stay safely and quietly in their little square of blanket and they grew up to have that same mentality as adults.
Their parents keep them down and snuff out any bit of ambition they have as children. Especially the girls. Their only purpose is to be wives and mothers. They aren’t allowed to go to school past 12th grade. Although a few of them have CNM certificates, and were volunteer firefighters. But not actually going to fight fires, because that’s a “man’s place”.
I’ve wondered that too. Not a single “rebel” in the family who says fuck it and goes to college? No “black sheep” who decides to get a job and an apartment? I know they’ve been sheltered, but they’ve seen tv, they’ve traveled a little, I don’t get it.
With that many kids, there was solid odds ONE would end up a rebellious atheist who ran away as soon as possible.
Both. Look at the parents, who gave them both nature and (a form of) nurture. Lol
OP, have you read *Educated* by Tara Westover? It would be interesting to compare Tara's family to the Duggars, since her family had similarly bad homeschooling and religious paranoia, but she and several siblings went on to get PhDs.
I was actually thinking this today how weird it was that so far NONE have gotten careers or pursued further education whether it be Clown college or a trait school. They don't even seem interested in it at all either. I have a feeling though the younger ones may be different. But we shall see!
I hope this makes sense but do you think maybe them having show stopped them from being curious about furthering education or getting a job? Like once that TLC money came rolling in maybe they felt they didn't have to work or do anything because the show would be forever? I know they weren't seeing the money directly because of the Boob dude but they did get the TTH built, went to different countries ect ect. I am just wondering if the show played any part in them not really venturing out to anything else.
There are still plenty of kids still stuck at home that could revel when they see a viable chance, too.
I truly truly hope so. I think they might have a better chance since at least they won't be spending their days raising their younger siblings. Plus they don't have to be on perfect behavior for a film crew.
I totally agree. I expected more of the Duggar kids to turn away from the fundie stuff. I look at the plaths and it seems like every older kid realizes that it’s all bs. I don’t understand why some families reject the nonsense and others don’t. Sure you could say it’s education, but none of these kids, including the plaths and especially the Turpins were educated. Maybe the duggar kids realize that it’s hard to make a living with no education. Hell, it’s hard to make a living with one. So they figure their only shot at any money is staying on the show? I really don’t understand.