The Duggars: #18 On The Way!
This sort of blows my mind. No one is asking every Catholic family to have 18 children… But the folks who think more than two is a burden… I wish they could meet some of the larger families I have known. The larger families do not have the biggest homes, granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances. They have each other.
I bet their house is fun.
No, they are not Catholic or Mormon, they are Evangelicals who are involved (very much so, obviously!) with the Quiverful movement. That being said, if they ever did decide to come into the Catholic Church, they would be a boon for any parish.
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Woman pregnant with 18th child
By JILL ZEMAN, Associated Press WriterFri May 9, 5:25 PM ET
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.”
The other Duggar children, in between Joshua and Jennifer, are Jana, 18; John-David, 18; Jill, 16; Jessa, 15; Jinger, 14; Joseph, 13; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 10; Jeremiah, 9; Jedidiah, 9; Jason, 7; James, 6; Justin, 5; Jackson, 3; and Johannah, 2.
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On the Net:
Duggar family Web site: http://www.duggarfamily.com
Discovery Health site: http://health.discovery.com/convergence/duggars/duggarfamily.html
Stop at their website and wish them well!
asimplesinner
bfhu
Fr. J.
aboriente
bounaantonio
Joel
doctoreric
Robert
May 11, 2008 at 1:03 am
I’ll never get to 18. But, number 4 is due in June. Our only regret was waiting to get started - we might be at 5 or 6.
May 11, 2008 at 9:41 am
Great story! May they be blessed!
May 11, 2008 at 11:38 am
I had not heard of the “Quiverfull” movement. Interestingly, the American South is one region of the “western” world where the modern fashion of only one or two children has given way to families routinely having three or more.
May 17, 2008 at 11:01 am
They have built a new home, by themselves. Mom also home schools the children and they probably have the most organized life one could imagine. What an inspiration. What love is shown by their daily lives.