In light of Jessa Duggar’s newly announced nuptials, the blushing bride and her family have been rolling around in my mind.
If you’re unfamiliar, Jessa Duggar is one of 19 children featured on the TLC series “19 Kids and Counting.” The show details the lives of parents Jim Bob and Michele Duggar and their 19 fully blood-related children.
The show has received a lot of skeptical attention since its original airing due to the ultraconservative and sometimes hilarious tendencies of Jim Bob, Michele and their small country of offspring.
They might be ultra-sheltered and extremely strange socially, but these kids are living proof that good parenting apparently does still exist.
I began watching the show my junior year of high school every morning while getting ready for school. At the time, I tended to focus more on their unconventional style of living and how it freaked me out.
They have no credit cards and no debt, neither Jim Bob nor Michele have steady jobs, their daughters aren’t allowed to wear pants, they built their own home from scratch and they don’t believe in television. That’s an irony I still haven’t smoothed out.
They’re unbelievably strange when compared to the average American family today and most hilariously, they don’t seem to notice. However, years later, I must admit that I’m still surprised by the Duggars, but now for much different reasons.
First, I definitely expected one of their kids to go soaring off the deep end by now, but the elder children continue to find equally conservative and religious partners and go on to start their own gargantuan-sized families, all without the slightest bit of controversy or slip-ups.
Not that you have to go as far as they have, but honestly most parents could take some tips from Jim Bob and Michele. I find their lack of fascination with money and fame to be extremely refreshing and equally surprising.
“Jon and Kate: Plus 8” was a very similar show. The parents of both series had many coinciding traits. They had an unusual number of children, they placed a high importance on faith and God in the household and they agreed to their TV shows for a little less financial strain and to get their story out to the public.
I was waiting for the money, attention and newfound resources to break down the Duggar family dynamic until they became another casualty on the road of reality television, just like Jon and Kate.
However, unlike the Gosselins and their sextuplets, the Duggars seem to be totally genuine when stating that they are truly unaffected by material benefits and rewards and have done nothing but prove that over and over again.
Almost three years since my original shock at their strange tendencies, I now look at the Duggar family with unfailing admiration.
They contribute decent people to society and set an example of what positivity and good parenting can produce, even in a very strange and sometimes stressful family setting. For that the Duggars have my total respect, and they deserve yours as well.
cmcelwa@indiana.edu
