Sunday, August 05, 2007

How many children do you want?

The Duggar family have 17 and aren't sure that they're through yet. This family from Arkansas (they father's real name is "Jim Bob" - actually James Robert, but he goes by Jim Bob) has had two sets of twins and 13 individual births.

I've seen their website, it's sure to meet the approval of my pro-life friends. In fact, you could almost say that it's pro-life to the extreme. But what impressed me was that it's not in-your-face pro-life. I got the impression that if one of their friends wanted to use birth control (they obviously don't) they would not chastise the friend.

I did some searching and found that their are some people who don't agree with the Duggars. While the Duggars won't get in their face, they will get in the Duggars' face. They argue that there are too many children starving (not these children though), that they will push their ideas on their children (isn't that a parent's job?) or that they're just weird. They also argue that it's not natural or healthy.

While I agree that they are different, I'm not sure weird fits. And as for natural, what's not natural? A child is the natural result of a healthy marriage. Sometimes it doesn't work that way, but when it does, it's a beautiful thing. The fact that they don't want to prevent childbirth just makes it completely natural.

I'm sure there's a lot I don't know, but I think this is great for this family. Congratulations to the Duggars.

* Update *
The Duggars were on NBC's Today show this morning. They consider each of their 17 children a gift from God. The background searching I did said that they own DEBT FREE a 7000 square foot home. I forgot to mention that the kids are home schooled, on the Today show was a clip of the school-teacher mom teaching bankruptcy law. All of the family looked normal, healthy and happy. My wife said "if you are really happy, you can't fake that".

Side note. We have half that many children (if you count sons-in-law and daughter-in-law).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Emily and I saw the Today Show story...well, today...and Emily's response was an elevated heartbeat with a side of panic. Needless to say, we won't be having 17+ kids...sorry grandparents!

Neil said...

Hi Randy,

Good points. Glad to hear something positive about them. I saw some really vicious articles about them by people who typically believe in "choice." I guess that is only a value when eliminating children, not having them!

Randy said...

(Sarcasm on) C'mon Neil, you know "having" a child isn't a choice, only "aborting" a child is a choice. (end sarcasm)

If you read the Duggar's webpage, they decided to stop using birth control when they lost a child while on the pill. They decided that it was their fault and they asked God's forgiveness. They stopped using birth control to prevent future loss of life.

They are very serious about their faith and their pro-life position.