By JILL ZEMANLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman — she's pregnant with her 18th child.
Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.
"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.
The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.
The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.
Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for Discovery Health.
The new show looks at life inside the Duggar home, where chores — or "jurisdictions" — are assigned to each child. One episode of the new show involves a "jurisdiction swap," where the boys do chores traditionally assigned to the girls, and vice versa, Duggar said.
"The girls swapped jurisdictions, changing tires, working in the garages, mowing the grass," she said. "The boys got to cook supper from start to finish, clean the bathrooms," among other chores.
Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.
"The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated," Jim Bob Duggar said. "Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen."
Story comes courtesy of the Associated Press.
10 comments:
o.k. - now I believe that children are gifts from God - and I also believe that man should be fruitful and multiply...but, I seem to remember that God also says to do things in moderation...that includes having babies in my book! SjP
ain't no one messing with that family
I hear ya, SJP. I don't think it's that the older children have to carry so much responsibility for younger sibs. All of the children of course should learn to take care of each other, do chores, etc, but with the number of children I'll wager that the parents can't provide the attention that each child needs and deserves.
But they are doing what they believe God told them to do so who am I to challenge it?
Hello everyone!
This is an interesting story!
This family has a LOT of kids.....
(smile)
She doesn't mention having any nannies but I will assume that she has child-care assistance and that her husband is financially providing for this children. I don't see anything wrong with parents who desire large families as long as they are raising their own children well and that the government is not housing, clothing and feeding their children.
Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa
Wow...that's all I can say.
What's good is that they both appear to want a large family; and they are able to provide for them' and apparently their are no problems with protective services or the judicial syatem.
But I do know that it's got to be rough on her body...to be in a forever state of pregnancy, along with all that goes with that.
Congratulations! I think the family is awesome.. I and doing a better jobs than most american families.. I saw there special on the discovery channel.. I wish more families would emulate how they raise their kids and run there house.. They married and like responsible people waiting 4 years to began a families all the while working and saving and preparing. They are DEBT FREE, builit their own house a, home school their kids and they run thier house well and serve the lord and people are really jealous and have made hateful comments about this family, only because a light has been shown as to how a family should be and it their really pairs in comparison..
It is a cute family and the children are cute and well mannered! But that IS a lot of kids. Is she trying to recreate a tribe? I don't have a problem with it though-and they both want this which makes it good too. But I wonder if a non-white family with this many kids would be celebrated. Even if they got alot going for them like this family. With that said, this IS cute and good! They planned the lifestyle well too!
I intend to blog about this sometime this week. I am just watching to see what the response is. Not surprisingly most support the Duggar family. What bothers me about this is how different the reaction the response would be if the Duggers were black or poor, or even both. Would we still be celebrating her motherhood? I think not. At issue is who is reproducing. When we speak about a declining fertility rate, we are not speaking of women of color rather it is referencing the reduction in white babies being born. The desired race is declining and society is up in arms about this.
In the end. I say to each his own. This reminds me about people complaining about all the kids Eddie Murphy has (5) or Steve Harvey has (7) - heck, Katt Williams adopted 7 kids - if you have the money, the patience, desire and most of all love - I say why not?
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