Arkansas Mom Prepares for Birth of 17th Child

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Rob’s Wife. I’ve sat out of the conversation because I didn’t want to keep fanning the flames. But, I have to say, that neither AnnaTherese, nor I said anything about how people should not have big families. I stated in one of my first posts, that I think big families are great. I think that if you decide to have one, more power to you, however, I think that you when discerning whether or not to have more children have to say to yourself, how many of these kids am I actively parenting? Now, you might be taking care of each of your kids, sometimes as a group, sometimes as an individual. The Duggars, from what appears on tv (which again, is what I am going by) seem to cease actively parenting each child at 6 months, at which point the bulk of child rearing gets passed on to the older buddy. That to me is not ok. If only because a 13 year old, heck, even an 18 year old doesn’t always have the best judgement. My parents did put some responsibility on my older sibling for my care. Babysitting, changing a diaper etc. But they were not responsible for my education, which on TLC they discuss how the older kids are teaching the younger kids.

They may “love” all of their children, and I have no doubt that they do, but to me, it seems as they are passing off their responsibilities onto children and that’s not ok with me.

And yes, when they are 18 they might fly the coop never to return, but here’s something I’ve learned. Kids who are raised in very tight, repressive enviornments, don’t always make good decisions in their first years of being independent adults. They suddenly see how much is out there, and what they can do now that they don’t have to answer to anyone, and make really bad decisions. This doesn’t happen to everyone, but to enough of them.
If the Duggars really are shirking ther parental duties onto their other kids, then no, of course, that is not o.k. but thats the problem, we only see one hour of their lives, we haven’t any idea of what it is really like in their home, I guess, I’m just giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are indeed doing the majority of the parenting as well they should be and I hope they are.
 
I’m just giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are indeed doing the majority of the parenting
Yes, indeed. That’s the charitable way, imo. One may not be able to imagine a certain choice, but we should give the benefit of the doubt.

I have to say, that neither AnnaTherese, nor I said anything about how people should not have big families. I stated in one of my first posts, that I think big families are great. I think that if you decide to have one, more power to you
:banghead: ARGH!!! I did not say you actually said people should not have big families. No indeed, that is not what was said.

just that they are often ignorant, thoughtless, possibly irresponsible and God might not really will those children to be.

THOSE sentiments are the point of my irritation! You may not be saying a big family of closely spaced children is precisely wrong or sinful, but those sentiments sure don’t express a charitable or accepting view or even a very friendly one for that matter.

**As for passing responsiblitly to the older children, or more specificly what I refer to as creating a second set of parents for the younger siblings, I’m not for that either. However, every parent is different in where that line between “helpers/united family” and a “third parent.” **

I’ve never seen the Duggar shows or met them, so I don’t know about them. I can’t decide from what there is online.

I don’t think we do it. For example, my oldest has changed a grand total of about 4 diapers in his life, all within the last 7 months. Yet, I know people who think I demand too much of him and others who think I don’t require nearly enough. It’s not a moral right/wrong. It’s one of many different parenting choices parents are free to choose for themselves.
 
I really wish we could all stop arguing about this. This thread has completely been derailed from it’s original topic.

Can we get back to discussing the Duggers, please?

I happen to think they’re a great family and a great example of the benefits and blessings of being open to life. There are, of course, things they do that I disagree with. But that’s their business, not mine.

I do admire their organization. Wow! If anybody can handle so many children, that woman definitely was made for it. 👍
 
**By all means, keep charting away if anyone wants to… I see nothing wrong with it, just don’t really get the purpose of it…🤷 **
Just to shed some light on why some people may do NFP charting when they’re not trying to avoid or achieve a pregnancy–I am just charting temps because I want to know early on when I ovulate and/or become pregnant. I’m just curious and have not had a period in over 3 years 🙂 Doing the temps gives me some idea of what’s going on in this body of mine since I have no menstrual cycle. If I were having regular periods, it would be easy to just see when I miss one and then I could take a test.

I think of it sort of like hopping on the scale every so often. Just curiosity. In the end, you don’t need a scale to tell you you’re getting fat or thin, and you don’t need a pregnancy test 10 days after ovulation to tell you you’re pregnant. You’ll find out either way. But I just like to know 😃

And it also gives me 2 extra minutes in bed every morning! 😊
 
I really wish we could all stop arguing about this. This thread has completely been derailed from it’s original topic.

Can we get back to discussing the Duggers, please?
**i thought we were discussing them, or at least large closely made families in general, but okie-dokie. what about the duggers would you like to discuss?😃 👍 **
 
:banghead: ARGH!!! I did not say you actually said people should not have big families. No indeed, that is not what was said.

**just that they are often ignorant, thoughtless, possibly irresponsible and God might not really will those children to be.**To be fair I said nothing of them being thoughtless, irresponsible or anything about God’s will, I have stated that have a big family, go for it, I don’t personally care how many kids you have, so long as YOU and your SPOUSE are the one’s raising the children.

**THOSE sentiments are the point of my irritation! You may not be saying a big family of closely spaced children is precisely wrong or sinful, but those sentiments sure don’t express a charitable or accepting view or even a very friendly one for that matter.**Again, I have stated that I don’t think there is anything whatsoever wrong with having 19,756 children if you want (but my goodness, if you had that many go buy some stock in the makers of pampers, you’d be rich! 🙂 ), but I don’t agree with asking older children to raise the younger ones.

**As for passing responsiblitly to the older children, or more specificly what I refer to as creating a second set of parents for the younger siblings, I’m not for that either. However, every parent is different in where that line between “helpers/united family” and a “third parent.” **
**** On this we agree. There is a line between giving your children no responsibility, which I think is a failure of parenting, or too much responsibility, which is another failure, and that it can be a fine line of giving kids just enough.
I’ve never seen the Duggar shows or met them, so I don’t know about them. I can’t decide from what there is online.

I don’t think we do it. For example, my oldest has changed a grand total of about 4 diapers in his life, all within the last 7 months. Yet, I know people who think I demand too much of him and others who think I don’t require nearly enough. It’s not a moral right/wrong. It’s one of many different parenting choices parents are free to choose for themselves. I don’t think asking a child to change a diaper when your trying to make dinner, on an important phone call, cleaning up vomit or something, I know it’s difficult to be a parent, not by experience, but in seeing it. I understand that you have only two hands and limited patience some days. Asking kids to do their own chores, and some things around the house is fine. OOOHHHH that brings up when they were building the house… they were giving the little kids power tools, to help build the house and having some of the slightly older kids in the ditch connecting a gas line (something which is dangerous even for trained professionals.). And by help build I don’t mean sitting in a workshop with dad banging a nail into a piece of leftover particle board, I mean they were physically drilling and powernailing things into the actual house and aiding with construction. Now, I get wanting to help dad, I was a tomboy, I was up in trees and banging a hammer on some wood when I was younger, however, my parents would NEVER have allowed me to be at a construction site and “helping”. There was just toooooo much potential for me and my siblings to be hurt./COLOR]
 
I’m just curious and have not had a period in over 3 years 🙂 Doing the temps gives me some idea of what’s going on in this body of mine since I have no menstrual cycle.
**Okay. Get it. Some. Me? I’d just be doing a happy dance at not having a cycle!😛 **

I think of it sort of like hopping on the scale every so often. Just curiosity.
:eek: I don’t own a scale either! And have zero curiosity about my weight, minor fear of it, but no curiosity. 😃 LOL

And it also gives me 2 extra minutes in bed every morning!
**sigh I’ll admit I’d chart for that alone if that would be the effect. More likely I’d fall back to sleep, with it hanging out, and find the thermometer 2 days later between the pillows and headboard. That, or get poked in the eye with it by B. No way she wouldn’t notice that while nursing and feel a need to explore it. 🙂 **
 
**i thought we were discussing them, or at least large closely made families in general, but okie-dokie. what about the duggers would you like to discuss?😃 👍 **
Urmm…ok, I’ve got one. Let’s take a vote on how many grandchildren they’ll have. 😃

Man, that is going to be one fun family to be a part of when they start having grandkids and big family get-togethers! Can you imagine?

My mom came from a family of 13 (around 50 grandchildren) and I had a blast growing up when we’d go to grandma’s house, especially on holidays.

Her grandparents also had 13 kids and I don’t even know how many grandchildren they had…it has to be around 100 (several of their daughters had 12-13 kids themself. We have family reunions every year that are something else. 👍
 
Urmm…ok, I’ve got one. Let’s take a vote on how many grandchildren they’ll have. 😃
**wow, you just never know. **

My dh was an only and his parents have 8 so far. His dad was the oldest of 2. His mother has 4 grandchildren, 10 great grandchildren. Dh’s mother was the youngest of 5, yet her parents had a total of 6 grandchildren.

My mother was the middle-ish of 12 (8 survived to adulthood). Father was the oldest of 5 surviving children. They had the “first three due to sheer young stupidity and poverty and the fourth due to divine punishment” (my less than dear departed mother’s words, not mine.) Yet he has 16 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.

**For me, I just hope that should they marry they be willing to have and love children. Whether God sends them none, 1 or 10 doesn’t matter as much to me as their willingness to have them and love them. Even just 4 each would be quite a secure line though.😉 That’s 32 for me and 64 for the duggers!🙂 **

 
OOOHHHH that brings up when they were building the house… they were giving the little kids power tools, to help build the house and having some of the slightly older kids in the ditch connecting a gas line (something which is dangerous even for trained professionals.). And by help build I don’t mean sitting in a workshop with dad banging a nail into a piece of leftover particle board, I mean they were physically drilling and powernailing things into the actual house and aiding with construction. Now, I get wanting to help dad, I was a tomboy, I was up in trees and banging a hammer on some wood when I was younger, however, my parents would NEVER have allowed me to be at a construction site and “helping”. There was just toooooo much potential for me and my siblings to be hurt.
I could be wrong, I’d have to go back and re-watch it, but I don’t think the kids were laying gas lines. I thought they were laying water lines or something like that…
 
sigh I’ll admit I’d chart for that alone if that would be the effect. More likely I’d fall back to sleep, with it hanging out, and find the thermometer 2 days later between the pillows and headboard.*
Been there done that!! :rotfl: It was easier to get away with before kids!

And I didn’t own a scale either until my mom convinced me to get one when I was pregnant to make sure I was gaining the right amount of weight. Now when I get on it I say “You liar!!!” But at least it also lies to DH so I don’t feel picked on! 😃
 
Now when I get on it I say “You liar!!!” But at least it also lies to DH so I don’t feel picked on! 😃
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I didn’t have a scale until I got pregnant with my first, too! And I only use it when pregnant and the first 6-8 weeks postpartum (I have a fear of being too thin while growing my babies, since that seems to be nearly everyone else’s opinion).
 
I would like to commend the Duggars on their wonderful, inspired choice of names for this new arrival. Jennifer Danielle is lovely, beautiful, an absolute gem of a name. She will surely be gorgeous, faithful, talented, and a genious with a name like that!

Okay, yes, it’s my name as well. 😃
 
I would like to commend the Duggars on their wonderful, inspired choice of names for this new arrival. Jennifer Danielle is lovely, beautiful, an absolute gem of a name. She will surely be gorgeous, faithful, talented, and a genious with a name like that!

Okay, yes, it’s my name as well. 😃
Just the Jennifer or Jennifer Danielle?
She’s due on July 28. MY birthday. 👍
 
Been there done that!! :rotfl: It was easier to get away with before kids!

And I didn’t own a scale either until my mom convinced me to get one when I was pregnant to make sure I was gaining the right amount of weight. Now when I get on it I say “You liar!!!” But at least it also lies to DH so I don’t feel picked on! 😃
…I know…I had to threaten dd that if she touched or looked at my"pretty purple thermometer" she would not be able to sit for a while!:p…as for the scale~dont think so…that evil piece of machinery stays in dh bathroom…:eek:
 
I would like to commend the Duggars on their wonderful, inspired choice of names for this new arrival. Jennifer Danielle is lovely, beautiful, an absolute gem of a name. She will surely be gorgeous, faithful, talented, and a genious with a name like that!

Okay, yes, it’s my name as well. 😃
😛

That would be neat if you shared birthdays! It could happen! Does anyone know what the chances are of having a baby “late” after 16 children?
 
…I know…I had to threaten dd that if she touched or looked at my"pretty purple thermometer" she would not be able to sit for a while!:p…as for the scale~dont think so…that evil piece of machinery stays in dh bathroom…:eek:
LOL, maybe I need to try that with Jacob. He WILL NOT leave that “pretty purple therm.” alone while it’s in my mouth every morning. :rolleyes: Sometimes it’s a juggling act to get a valid temp in the morning…😃
 
Sanctaparenta, there is a difference btwn modern “underdeveloped” countries and pre-20th century “primitive” cultures. I think the thing you misunderstand is that the whole point of the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration is that people in truly unindustrialized parts of the world, I’m talking about people who have been completely untouched by industry, not people who have been met by “missionaries” or who have received government aid of any kind, those are the people who are healthier than we are. That is what Dr. Price found early in the 20th century when he made his travels. He visited over 20 different communities around the world and no matter where they lived, whether it was in the tropics or in the glaciers, or anywhere in between, people who were untouched by modern processed foods had no or almost no cavities, almost perfect bone structure, little if any tuberculosis, and fertility problems were extremely uncommon. Compared to modern Americans, I think you’d be stunned. How many women do you personally know that are suffering with fertility issues of one kind or another, whether it’s difficulty in conceiving, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies, birth defects, you name it, it’s our problem. How many people do you know who have cavities? Too many to count!! How many people are either obese or too thin? This is a modern phenomenon, not an ancient one. Yes, the third world countries and the “primitive” communities that have been touched by our “help” have become quite worse for it. I’m not knocking missionary work in general. Of course we want to spread the Gospel to them, and if there is a true physical need, help them to provide for themselves, teach them if they have forgotten how to care for themselves, provide temporary medical help if necessary. But when it comes to food and certain ways of living, we really ought to let them be. What we need to do is make sure they have enough of what is locally available to them, teach them how to hunt, fish, farm, etc for themselves of the foods that are available to them. Many of them have forgotten how to do this because they have learned, just as we have, to depend on others for their sustenance. What we do not need to do is give them boxes of Cheerios and such like. Modern American food is not what they need. It’s not local to them. It’s not natural food. It will in many cases addict them chemically to our food and they will give up their own nutrient dense foods in favor of ours, and then they will begin to starve and have health issues. People in third world countries nowadays who are so sick with various diseases, I believe, are not so sick becase no one has come to their aid, but because we have interfered unnecessarily and have not respected their food choices. If they eat whale blubber and fermented milk that sits in the ground for a year before it’s consumed, and they are thriving in terms of their health, then we should leave them alone. It may not seem appetizing to us, but the fact is, they know what is best for themselves, at least they used to. Dr. Price noticed that some in these communities that he studied, who were untouched by industry, some would leave their traditions and start eating some of the food from the industrialized world, and as soon as they did, they developed the very same health problems that everyone else had. Before modern transportation, it wasn’t possible to visit faraway countries so easily and give them so much junk. Yet somehow those people survived (and thrived) for millenia. It is our generation that is slowly dying off, slowly beooming more and more helpless…to the point of not even being able to reproduce properly. When you get to that point, the end of humanity isn’t far in sight.

Don’t confuse malnutrition with starvation. We Americans are far from starving. We eat usually far too much, but we are malnourished. We are not gaining enough nutrients from our food because they’ve been processed so much. The foods we do eat are usually loaded with chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, and have even been manipulated by scientists in labs when they were still in seed form. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg! Many of these plants can’t even reproduce themselves! They have to rely on scientists to reproduce them. They are freak foods that do not impart much of anything to us, except harm. We take synthetically made vitamins to make up for it, but these do little good because they are also not natural sources of nutrition and may even be toxic. These people whom Dr. Price studied on the other hand, did not travel very far, so they had to eat locally, whatever was available to them, whatever that happened to be. God created the world such that people could live a robust life, no matter where they lived. We do not have to travel far distances in order to eat well. But we do travel far, very far, even to the other side of the world. And we are sicker than they are.
 
Sancta, my apologies, but my previous post had to be cut down quite a bit. I tried to quote to show what I was referring to, but couldn’t because it was too many characters. Then I had to cut down my own a little. You and I talk too much! 😉 😃
 
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