Interesting. The same crowd (yes, I’m generalizing) that tells people like me not to impose my beliefs on others (“If you’re opposed to abortion, don’t have one”, they say) are up in arms about Michelle Duggar’s 19th pregnancy. Look at the comments here. A few samples with a warning, some are very crude:
@ xifeng882: They claim that it’s “up to God” to determine how many children they’ll have. I can’t even imagine what kind of toll this has taken on Michelle’s body.
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Does this family recieve any type of social financial assistance, food stamps, child care, health care via our tax dollar ? If so, why ?! There is a local couple here who are “religious” who also have a bunch of kids and they get welfare assistance-why should my tax dollar pay for their choice ? Let their church ‘help’ them if God is leading them to have so many kids !
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Why hasn’t someone sewed her vagina shut yet?
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I still don’t understand why people who love children so much don’t adopt or foster. Why produce so many kids of your own when there are so, so, many children out there who need loving homes? Have one or two of your own, then adopt. It seems so egotistical to have a huge family that is *all* your biological kids . . .
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I dont think these people have to have sex anymore, he just has to jack off in her general direction, her hole should be big enough now.
There’s more – some worse, some better. I don’t know much about the Duggers but as far as I can tell they are happy, debt-free, not on welfare. The kids looks well-cared for.
Their kind of life is not for me. But why should I care? They’re having a load of kids the old-fashioned way, they’re not using all kinds of weird fertility treatments, and they’re certainly not killing unborn babies. Who, exactly, are they hurting – other than, potentially, Mrs. Duggar’s reproductive system? (Although so far it seems remarkably healthy.) What gives other people the right to make crude comments about this woman’s sex life, especially after having spent decades insisting that nobody had any business criticizing other women who’ve had abortions?
Just wondering.
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Véronique adds: I think this large family is good news. I also think it’s none of my business but since they do have a TV show, I guess they de facto made their business everybody else’s business. Why would you judge and heap vitriol on a woman who, even if you don’t share her morals or her views on contraception, deserves to be admired more than condemned?
Two things really get me from that post and its comments. First, isn’t it interesting how “reproductive freedom” is a one way street? As in: you should be free not to reproduce, but if you do, you’re fair game. And these people call us judgmental and close-minded! Secondly, why do pro-whatevers always need to resort to vulgarity and name calling to make their point? Seriously. If you think that global warming has no bigger problem than Michelle Duggar, make an argument. I just don’t get people who think that being rude is being cool, funny or intelligent.
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Rebecca notes: So, we’re not supposed to care about what people do in the privacy of their bedroom … unless they’re a religious married couple. And we’re not supposed to judge other people’s reproductive choices … unless they’re choosing to bear children. And we must never make derogatory remarks about a woman’s sexuality … unless she’s a happily married mother. Got it.
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And you don’t have to be expecting #19 to get those comments. Women expecting a baby after their second are subject to similar comments. I too wonder what makes people think they have the right to comment on the number of children a couple has, when I can never never ask a childless couple why they have none.
I’ll play the devil’s advocate here and say that the more kids you have, the less quality time you have for each one. Having one kid sometimes seems to make that child spoiled (not speaking scientifically here, just from personal observation). After a certain amount, I don’t know whether it’s possible to give each the attention they deserve/need. While older kids certainly help raise the younger ones, the amount of parent-time is going to have to be quite low.
I can’t tell you how many you can have before they start to feel it though. I don’t think we can draw that line, but 19 sounds like an awful lot. It doesn’t deserve the hateful comments you copied above, but 19 kids *will* invite comments of one kind or another.
**”There is a local couple here who are “religious” who also have a bunch of kids and they get welfare assistance-why should my tax dollar pay for their choice ?”**
Seriously? Did they actually use the words “pay for their choice”? Wow… so I suppose MY tax dollars NEVER go to anyone’s choices, especially ones I find appauling?
And, on another note, it’s not just the 19+ set, or the baby-after-baby set that get the side-eye… I’m 29, happily married, and expecting our 3rd child (the others are 5 and 2 1/2) and the most common reaction I’m getting is: “Oh, wow… why?” or “Are you nuts??” or “But, you’re so young!” The comments are generally delivered in a horrified or symapthetic tone, with lowered voice as if I were sick or demented, and with a questioning glance thrown towards my husband…
I was always taught it was rude to comment on the number of children anyone had, whether that number was zero or twenty. My grandmother was one of eight kids, my grandfather was one of twelve kids, and my parents had infertility issues for years before they had me, their only child.
Heather P.: Yes, you’re wasting the years when you could be hooking up in a singles bar…*rolls eyes at those people*
The patronizing nature of some of these anti-Duggar comments reminds me of the part in “Cheaper by the Dozen” (the book about the Gilbreths) when someone sends the woman from the birth control society to the Gilbreth house as a joke. She’s absolutely shocked that they have twelve kids and tells the mother, “oh, you poor child.” The mother’s a college-educated engineer and expert in motion study who decided with her husband that they wanted to have twelve kids, but in the birth control lady’s mind, if you have twelve kids something somewhere is wrong.