Posted on 09/05/2014 4:16:03 PM PDT by Kaslin
The new season of "19 Kids and Counting" is here. And I'm excited. So what?
Generally speaking, I enjoy the most salacious, violent and depressing television shows I can find. Maybe it's just a perverse form of escapism, maybe it's the high quality of shows being produced these days, but I can't resist "prestige" television -- "The Wire," "Breaking Bad," "Fargo," "The Sopranos," "Game of Thrones," "House Of Cards," "The Walking Dead" and so on. For that matter, I also hung around for four seasons of "The Killing" and watched every episode of the "Halt and Catch Fire." So, apparently, whatever you make, I' y for watching such dreck -- and I never left. I can't remember when it happened exactly, and I don't know if I'll be able shake this bizarre feeling, but I do know that I'm hooked on what has to be the most countercultural show on TV these days.
For the unfamiliar, "19 Kids and Counting" is a reality television show featuring the Duggar family of northwestern Arkansas. The Duggars are devout Independent Baptists, a fundamentalist offshoot of Baptism that, from what I can gather, is a bit cultish and has experienced some rough patches over the past few years. No matter; the Duggars never proselytize as far as I can tell -- unless you count making a pious life with tons of kids seem fulfilling and extraordinarily fun.
What the Duggars do is engage in the reactionary act of producing a large number of offspring -- all of whom are given first names that begin with "J" (though "Jinger" seems like cheating to me). Jim Bob and Michelle have also have gone through two miscarriages (the show deals with the family's grieving process) and have a couple of grandkids. And other comparably enormous families tend to pop in and out of their lives as the Duggars do their mission work and disembark in various cities and tourist sites around the country.
This week, the new season kicked off. It will focus on Jill Duggar, one of the older girls, and her pending marriage to a ridiculously respectful young man named Derek. This relationship blossomed after a courtship -- the Duggar children court prospective mates, they do not date. (As a father of two daughters, this seems far less outrageous than I would have imagined.)
Though it stands to reason that the show is often staged, what I see cuts against many cultural notions we have about family: what children strive for, what parents owe their kids, how a family acts towards one another, what young people are capable of. Considering what we see on TV, it's basically transgressive. A place where homeschooling is treated as a reasonable way to educate your children, where kids talk about "honoring" their parents rather than demanding things from them, and where older kids start successful small businesses without a traditional college education.
I can recall that the shows my children grew up watching almost always featured some bratty kid with an endless supply of snappy comebacks and the ability to outwit all the hapless adults in their lives. Most reality TV I've run across oscillates between depravity and stupidity. "19 Kids and Counting" is basically the most earnest show I've ever watched. And while almost any mainstream show I grew up watching saw social conservatives through a political prism -- irrational and hopeless -- the Duggars' charitable spirit allows people to see the manifestation of religious ideals in real-time. Or so this apostate imagines. In any event, it's almost impossible to not be charmed.
The Duggars lifestyle is completely foreign to me. By any measure, their lives should rub my secular sensibilities the wrong way, and the austerity of their beliefs are still somewhat off-putting. But whether you believe the family's lifestyle is optimal or not -- and I don't -- you can learn from them. What will most impress any parent is the boundless patience Jim Bob and Michelle have towards their many children. They handle situations with calmness and purpose, focusing on preparing capable adults, but also good people. Which all sounds terribly boring, but it's not. I never imagined that I would ever find myself asking the question "What would Jim Bob do?" ... But, well, there it is.
Now, I certainly don't want to be a Duggar, but I have to confess that I want to be more like a Duggar than I am right now. Or maybe I just need a break from all the cynicism. So what?
” Feed a mind CBS, NBC, and ABC, and it receives a steady diet of Democrat propaganda. It’s like junk food for the brain, only worse!”
I blame the idiots whose psyches allow them to be taken in by it rather than have the instinct to reject it off-handedly. It’s a matter of knowing it when you see it.
Yes, thanks.
I agreed with your post. If anyone is upset with the young people’s announcement, it’s either because they don’t want to be reminded that sex causes babies, or because they don’t want to be reminded that he/she is an unborn baby immediately upon conception.
Yes, that was the underlying issue of the article. First there was a snide insinuation that they had premarital sex, then the insinuation that they should wait for the magic 12 weeks to announce because they would be out of the danger zone, which is not always true. But she said she considered that life began at conception so didn’t mind announcing early because if there actually was a loss, she would grieve that an actual child died. I agree and was in no way disparaging the mother or promoting anything other than life is precious and begins at conception. I would know, I have never gotten over my miscarriage at 9.5 weeks. I have no idea why Kaslin made the remark that there is a name for people like me. Perhaps he isn’t pro life?
I think it was just a misunderstanding with Kaslin. She (iirc) posts a lot of articles (very helpfully) and gets a zillion replies; no doubt it’s confusing sometimes, especially trying to sort out sarcasm from straight-up commentary.
I agree with Jill (and you). Whatever happens in the future, she and her husband and all nice people can be happy about the baby who’s alive now. I didn’t tell anyone except my husband and a few FRiends (privately) about my last pregnancy until almost 20 weeks, because I didn’t want my mother to know. Some of my church friends figured it out, but they speak Spanish and my family doesn’t. “Mama, why were the ladies touching your stomach and giggling?” “They just noticed I’m getting fat.” And one of the cats went absolutely nuts over me, before there were any other symptoms. He’d lie on my stomach and gasp and drool.
Thanks. I am just cautious because it seems lately that a lot of posters get snarky/nasty really quickly (not just to me, but in general).
It’s gotten to the point where I look to see what time a post was entered. It seems there are a lot of grumpy people sitting around drinking after the cocktail hour and they have nothing better to do than to post nasty comments on FR.
Thanks for your cogent, kind posts.
(p.s. I think I met you at the last FR convention in DC?)
No, that must have been someone else.
The only thing about listening to Michelle Duggar is that she parrot’s the tired old lines of sex molester Bill Gothard.
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