Josh Duggar

Not even a little bit surprised. I heard last night he was arrested and guessed straight away. And with his 7th kid on the way and a wife who probably won't divorce him, but she has little education, no job and now has 7 kids to fend for.

What a sick fuck. I hope he gets everything coming to him.

He’s revolting! His wife didn’t leave when the child abuse allegations came out or when he cheated so I can’t see this making her leave. I feel awful for her, and all the women in the family. No education, no power and ruled over by the lowest of the low.

Edited to changes charges to allegations- he wasn’t charged because...of course he wasn’t.

Unspeakable horror......

This is what happens with moronic parents who have religious beliefs that mean more to them than the safety and well being of their children.

Jim Bob and Michelle are complicit here, they need to be charged too.

Unspeakable horror......

This is what happens with moronic parents who have religious beliefs that mean more to them than the safety and well being of their children.

Jim Bob and Michelle are complicit here, they need to be charged too.

100% agree. The lack of consequences when he molested his sisters and that the sisters didn't get support is horrifying.

And the whole Ashley Madison (not sure if the name is right) controversy.

Religion over all else, including the wife not being able to be divorced. He does all these unspeakable horrors and she's the one who would be shunned if she leaves and protects herself and her children.

Omg the Duggars. I wish the whole creepy family would disappear in to obscurity.

Omg the Duggars. I wish the whole creepy family would disappear in to obscurity.

The parents are creeps, Josh is a creep, the boys appear to all be racist, misogynist homophobes but some of the girls are trying to break free. There is no way that at least one of those 19 children is not gay and I just can't imagine their struggles.

I just can't hate them all.

Omg the Duggars. I wish the whole creepy family would disappear in to obscurity.

 

The parents are creeps, Josh is a creep, the boys appear to all be racist, misogynist homophobes but some of the girls are trying to break free. There is no way that at least one of those 19 children is not gay and I just can't imagine their struggles.

I just can't hate them all.

I remember watching their show years ago when it came out on Foxtel. Like 20 years I reckon. When they were in a small house. I just thought they were weird. After they built that huge house the creepy factor just went up a notch. As each year passed you could see more and more cracks.

I confess to having a morbid fascination with the Duggars and regularly hate-read a number of snark sites (so I must not be the only one, at least...!)

I saw yesterday that charges were laid and was hoping against hope that it was for something white collar. I felt ill when I read the details. He has had so much access to children over the years. What are the odds that he hasn't abused (beyond the ones we already know about)? His poor children.

Vile, heinous bastard. His parents are culpable too - that home was an abuse pressure cooker waiting to happen.

I hope this gives some of the remaining siblings the opportunity to break free - their views may be repugnant but they were brainwashed to be this way; it takes a lot of time and support to unlearn a lifetime of conditioning. They're victims too.

Ugh, just vile.

I have been intermittently following the Duggars for years on a couple of sites. I feel very sorry for Josh's wife, who has basically been trained by her parents to put up with patriarchal fundamentalist crap and his children, whom I hope are safe and well.

His parents also have a lot to answer for, secluding their children to the nth degree, teaching them dangerous values, such as females being subservient to males and "sister-mom - ing' their siblings, so that Michelle and Bob can keep having as many children as possible. I hope he ends up in prison with a long sentence and I hope his wife isn't then forced into marriage with another horrible man.

He's so gross..

Oh, I feel sick. I couldn't believe he had no consequences for molesting his sisters

I really hope his children are not victims....

I follow a few of the Duggar daughters on Insta. I enjoy seeing the daughters who have branched out and are finding their own way, Jill and Jinger in particular. Jill is even banned from visiting the “big house” unless her father is home and she has permission.

Jinger and her husband have posted a statement today saying they were disturbed to hear about the allegations, they condemn child abuse and fully support the authorities in their pursuit of justice. Several of the siblings have liked that post!

It’s easy for people to sit back and say Anna should have left him long ago after all the other shit but she is brainwashed and has no education and probably no support if she walks away with her 6 (soon to be 7) children! I feel nothing for empathy for her.

[mention]cardamom[/mention] I haven't really followed them on snark sites but I have followed them and a few other families who get discussed on blogs for women and children exiting the Christian Patirarchy/ Quiverfull lifestyle. I have a close family member who is an exiter,

One of the pioneers of the movement was actually from Australia and marketed it to women of faith in the US. That was Nancy Campbell of Proverbs 31 Woman / Above Rubies magazine fame.

So there are quite a few australian families caught up in the Christian Patriarchy movement. The way back is a very fraught, especially for those raised in it, kept isolated but came out to a society where religion is assumed to be more benign than it actually is in their experience.

I hate that TLC were normalising it as just another religion and a quirky lifestyle, let's look at the weirdos type circus., It makes me furious.

Josh Duggar is actually in quite a long queue of male predators the Quiverfull/ Christian patriarchy movement has created and many of the high profile players have has spectacular but predictable falls from grace, leaving a trail of damaged women and children in their wakes.

There was Bill Gothard of the Advanced Training Insititute, who was found to be a serial abuser of the young women sent by their families to learn about how best to serve God via "biblical submission".

Then there was Doug Philips, one of the self proclaimed Patriarchs who was found to be raping his step daughter. Then Josh Duggar with abusing his sisters.

Then the followers who harm their kids like the Turpin family house of horrors, the Schatzes who beat their adopted daughter to death following the Pearl's adivce....one after the other after the other.. Homeschooling's invisible children is heartbreaking website. I am waiting with baited breath for the other shoe to fall with Debi and Michael Pearl's adult children and grandchildren as well.

By their fruits, ye shall know them indeed.

* edited because I referenced the wrong PP

[mention]Anne Bonny[/mention] Totally; the closed, insular culture must be a predator's dream come true. The Duggars have apparently been followers of Gothard for years. Their attempted version of punishment for teenage Josh when he molested his sisters was to send him away to a family friend for a punishment/sabbatical kind of thing, and a stern talking-to from a police officer friend; both the cop and the family friend were later arrested for child pornography/abuse related charges. Hideous.

Wishing the best to your relative who has left the community; the way back would be very challenging indeed.

I also follow all on Insta. I really enjoy seeing Jill branching out and finding her own normal. Some of the wife’s starting to feel comfortable in their choices to wear pants and other things.

I do feel for Anna. And I am unsure if I can put Michelle in the same category. I go back and forth on this one. She too is a woman, in a cult, having to submit to her husband, not allowed to have her own mind/opinions and was “saved” from her previous sins when she meet Jim bob. But at the same time she is his parent and was it both of their decision to hide it all or just Jim bobs and she had to shut up and submit.

If some reason Josh is released and found not guilty for this and Anna has any more children (after number 7 is born) they should be taken off them.

I also follow Jill and a few other sisters on Instagram.

Many family members have been very low profile since late last year. the lack of activity would coincide with the timing of the raid and the arrest makes their decision to keep a low profile make sense.

Also makes sense that jinger has stopped putting photos of her girls up. Now realising how easy predators can use their images.

Here's my take on Michelle's role. In the CP family system, yes the woman in the wife role is subordinate, submissive and duty bound to procreate. That's the stick.

The carrot for the wives comes in with the role that daughters are cast into. The wife stays constantly pregnant or breastfeeding and the only way this is sustainable is turning the daughters into a child rearing,, cooking, cleaning, laundering slave force. The older daughters raise the children, not the mums. Once a daughter turns 7 or 8, they graduate to being the full time mum of maybe 3 or 4 of those siblings, then the next girls takes on the next 3 or 4 and so on. None of the Duggar girls have fully left, which is actually uncommon.

Many daughters do leave, mostly because very few CP families give girls choices at who they marry and practice betrothal which causes girls to run -, the Duggars are seen as terribly unbiblical and sinful for giving the girls some say over who they marry. Anyway, the girls do run and when they do, they are leaving behind siblings who actually feel like their own children, ones they will be shunned from ever seeing or speaking to until such time as they also get out. The girls get out more than the boys because they're abused so badly in this system.

Everyone who leaves, leaves alone and it requires leaving huge parts of themselves behind - their siblings who to them, are their own kids. So that's my take on the poisonous alienation of mothers from daughters that the CP system is designed to perpetuate.

Michelle's actually seen as a "worldly" woman who doesn't have good control of her adult daughters. They're wearing pants for goodness sake, they're not modelling biblical submission, they're filming blogs and speaking all over the public square

I hope the bastard spends the rest of his life rotting in jail. No doubt his family will still support him just like they did when he molested his sisters.

Warren Jeffs still has the support of his community and is still running the cult from jail. These cults are getting away with so much under the guise of religion.

Derick Dillard was fired from the Counting On series by TLC for his trans and homophobic tweets so whilst he and Jill are distancing themselves from the big family part of the reason would be that they are not to be seen by cameras anywhere they are shooting.

Derek is very vocal on why they left and is adamant they were trying to leave before the tweets and that they weren’t fired. He and Jill sued Jim bob for lying about their contract and not paying them while they were on the show. And tried to force them to sign NDA agreements which they refused. He is apparently writing a book about it. Jill has to get permission to visit.

(Not excusing his tweets.)

I've just read Anna is standing by him and accompanied him to jail.

At what point is she not the victim if she won't protect her children? People don't really see Michelle as a victim and think she should be accountable for the way her children were raised and exploited, so really, Anna should be held to the same standards.

I do partially see Michelle as a victim (and Anna) or any other woman as a victim because it is a cult and it is brainwashing but if people think Michelle should be held accountable for her part in the cult, then so should Anna. She's 33, so not a child.

I think Anna is a victim of her religion and her husband has used that to his advantage their whole relationship.

I don’t think she will ever leave. She’s a lot like Michelle in that I don’t think she has her own thoughts and opinions. Certainly not enough confidence and resilience in herself to leave.

Here is a link for anyone else who has no idea who josh Duggar is.,

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/100109114

I've just read Anna is standing by him and accompanied him to jail.

At what point is she not the victim if she won't protect her children? People don't really see Michelle as a victim and think she should be accountable for the way her children were raised and exploited, so really, Anna should be held to the same standards.

I do partially see Michelle as a victim (and Anna) or any other woman as a victim because it is a cult and it is brainwashing but if people think Michelle should be held accountable for her part in the cult, then so should Anna. She's 33, so not a child.

She's 33 but didn't ever get to be a child and she'll also never get to fully be an adult unless she leaves him. There is an important distinction between first gen QF parents and 2nd gen QF parents in that the first generation like Michelle got to grow up "in the world" and then chose it while the second generation were raised in it.

It's hard to comprehend the level of information control (millieu control) that the second gen have been raised in. As far as I know Anna's family is way more conservative than the Duggars. This means from her end, the marriage was likely a betrothal - she was horse traded to the problem boy of the rich family, hoping for an economic payoff for her father. Marrying them off like prize cows like it's 1582.

Anna has possibly never known anything but being trained from birth for "first time cheerful obedience" and submission to the male Head of household.. The only relief on the horizon from having way too many children to be reponsibile for was for her father to find her a husband. Then she could raise her status from daughter to wife and hope for daughters she can then "train" to finally take her own kids of her hands.

Also, QF kids like Anna are raised to ensure they never have attachment with their mothers -This can lead to some very skewed ideas about what relationships should be like. Below is a more detailed description of what Anna's life was likely like and why she's possibly poorly bonded with her own kids

The traiing for "first time cheerful obedience" often starts from birth, at least with the 2 most commonly used CP/QF "child training" handbooks, Debbi Pearl's To Train Up a Child and Gary Ezzo's On Becoming Babywise,

In To Train Up a Child, Debi explains to mothers that children are born rebellious and must be trained from birth, lest they imperil their immortal souls with their foolishness (foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child). Thus she sets the stage to weaponise mother guilt to make mothers relationships with their kids to be adversarial from day dot in that kid's life.

triggers****************************************************

She dispenses such advice to mothers as keeping a thin greenstick twig from a tree with them during breastfeeding and if the baby bites or hurts them in any way, give them a switch on the leg. I kid you not. Debi's process continues through childhood, where she advises the mothers to switch their kids with plumbing line from the hardware store which they should wear around theirs necks as a necklace as a visual reminder to the kids that when mum says jump the only correct answer is "How high".

The QF concept of "a rebellious heart" is "just smile" on steroids.

So for example, an 9yo girl is changing a baby's nappy. She's got tea on the stove and a load of laundry sitting wet in the washing machine she needs to get hung before dark.. She has three other siblings in the adjoining room, two who are meant to be memorising their Bible verse for home school and a toddler.

Her mother has some ladies from church over doing a Bible study at the kitchen table. This is a dangerous time because she knows her mother will want to present to the other women that she's raising girls "with a servant heart". There is a lot of peer pressure. She's grateful her mother is seated in a way that she can't see that now she's busy with the baby, her brother has started making a paper plane and her sister is pulling faces at the toddler rather than learning their Bible. She's stressed, tired and her head and her face hurts from smiling. Then disaster strikes

The pasta pot boils over and she can't help it, the smile she has plastered on her face drops and her brow wrinkles as she rushes to the stove. Her mother sees this. The mother will jump up from the table and switch her for letting the smile drop, as Debi Pearl advises "correcting at the first sign of a rebellious heart". A girl frowning is one of those signs.. Despite having been trained to bury her feelings, the girl then must cry and make her body look limp, or the switching will continue until she does. Debi Pearl advises that tears and relaxing the body are the sign of submission and mothers should continue swtiching until this occurs. This goes very badly for kids who stiffen their legs for the blow or flinch -also signs of a rebellious heart - so they learn not to. Some kids, particularly those with disabilities don't learn but they end up in the newspapers.

Girls who leave talk about dropping into bed absolutely exhausted some time after midnight, just relieved to be able to relax their face and massage the muscles in the back of their heads which have cramped from smiling.

********************** end triggers

So that's some context on how Anna was possibly raised and why she can't see Josh as a problem. Josh represented a promotion to mother. She also possibly isn't as well bonded with her own children as she was with her younger siblings, if that makes any sense. She was burnt out on motherhood before she got married, I imagine.