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Couple gives birth to 17th child
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — It's a girl - again - for the Duggars. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed their 17th child and seventh daughter, into the world Thursday.
Jennifer Danielle was born at 10:01 a.m. at Saint Mary's Hospital in Rogers, Ark., the Duggars said in an interview. Jennifer weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and arrived five days after Michelle's due date.
Less than 30 minutes after giving birth, the Duggars already were talking of having more.
"We'd love to have more," Michelle said, adding that the girls are outnumbered seven to 10 in the family. "We love the ruffles and lace."
Jennifer joins the fast-growing Duggar brood, who live in Tontitown in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children - whose names start with the letter J - are home-schooled.
The oldest is 19 and the youngest, before Jennifer, is almost 2 years old.
"We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him," said Jim Bob Duggar, 42, a former state representative. "We are just so thankful to him that everything went just very well."
Jennifer joins siblings Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.
The family includes two sets of twins.
The Duggars have been featured on several programs on cable's Discovery Health Network. The next special, the Duggar Family Album, is scheduled to air next month, Jim Bob Duggar said.
Among the "fun facts" listed on Discovery Health's Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the Duggars have gone through an estimated 90,000 diapers, and Michelle, 40, has been pregnant for 126 months - or 10.5 years - of her life.
The father was once a member of the Arkansas House of Representative. Nothing indicates what he does for a living currently. Now, unless they either come from wealth or he has a really, really good paying job, then they have more children than they can afford to support.
Something tells me that they get a lot of freebies because of the uniqueness of having so many children. I am sure that the Discovery Channel pays them for the specials.
OK, so think about it. There are couples out there that are really having a hard time making ends meet, only have one or two children because that is all they can afford. But nobody gives them any freebies. Something is not right here - providing perks to couples that have lots of children.
These couples who accept these freebies are no better than those women who keep having lots of children and living off of the welfare money they get for these children.
Now, another aspect to be looked at. With that many children and her home-schoolng the children, please tell me who is really raising these children? I am sure they are relying on the older children to do a lot of the parenting. Why? These older children did not give birth to their younger siblings. They did not sign up for the responsibility of raising a child - at least not yet - not until they have their own children.
How can either of the parents give enough quality time to each child? It is not possible.
OK, there has to be a tremendous amount of cooking to be done, clean and laundry to be done. This woman who seems to be always pregnant, is giving her children more than their share of the responsibility for doing these chores.
I believe in giving children responsibility around the house. This helps them to grow up to be responsible adults. But to give all your children the responsibilities so you can be the teacher and constanting bringing more babies into the family is beyond the realm of where your resposibility really lies as a parent.
By the time these children are fully adults and ready for their own family, they will pretty much feel like they have already raised a family.
I have seen it happen time and again in large families, that the eldest children were left with the parenting of their siblings and they may marry, but do not want children of their own - after all, they already raised children.
2 comments:
I grew up in a large family and I took care of my siblings because I was 15 years their senior. It didn't dampen my urge to have a family at all, as a matter of fact I think it prepared me to be good at it.
I watched a program about the duggers and it looks like they made money in real estate and in the sale of the business they owned before the children came along.
I don't necessarily agree with the amount of children but it's not illegal.
I, too, come from a large family, being one of two middle children. And I know my oldest sister carried the burden of raising us. My Dad was a farmer and my Mom helped right along side, in addition to making every piece of clothing we all wore. None if us kids can remember any time that either of our parents spent doing things with us, either as a group or separately.
I take that back, in all the years we were growing up, we only took one vacation and it was with the oldest 4 kids, the youngest two left behind with relatives.
That was the only time any of us can remember our folks actually having time to spend with us.
I think my folks had more time to spend with the two youngest. They were not longer in the farming. So the two youngest benifited the most when they were 14-18.
And it did not help that all six of us were girls! Talk about competition! Plenty of it.
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