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I can slightly fault them for overbreeding in a time of too many people, but my dad's family had 16 and my mom's had half that, and I have to admit that I fucking LOVE being from a giant family. I LOVE having 60+ cousins and 60+ in the next generation, plus all the add-ins from marriage. It's one of the best parts of my life. There's nothing quite as cool as having family out the ass, that get along well, and that will help anyone who needs it, and who get together for great, wondrous feasts many times a year.
And I can fault them for being Jesus Crispy Christians, though their Jesus Crispyness isn't anywhere near as bad as most, but I imagine in their homeschooling they're learning creation science and not legitimate science, which makes me sad.
But what really makes me cringe is that they've gone through some 60,000 disposable diapers - that's a lot of unnecessary pollution. But on the other hand, they are very resourceful about re-using and recycling things and otherwise not letting things go to waste until they are no longer usable or salvageable.
But I look at the family, and I hear them talk, and they are clearly all loving people, the children are responsible and well behaved, they are all well taken care of, and are growing up in a nurturing home - and in the end, that's the most important thing of all. They take care of each other, and they've never hired a nanny or a maid or anyone else to take work away from the family. While their religious viewpoint isn't quite mine, I also don't get the impression that they are learning the theology of hate and fear that is so prevalent in the Evangelical sphere, nor a theology of hypocrisy. I don't get the impression that Jim Bob is lying, or off whoring (whether with women or men), but is simply a dedicated dad and husband. Sure, they're a huge family, and sure, we're already overpopulated - but at least they're creating hardworking, engaged, responsible kids who will actually be a benefit to society. There's a lot of smaller liberal families that don't do that.
Just a generation ago, they would not have been an anomaly. Where my dad's family grew up (rural farming Wisconsin) were also families with 18, 20, and 21 children. I went to school with a number kids who were from families of 8-11 children.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with their children, since unlike the large families of the past that were farmer families in which very few ever graduated from high school and basically spent their life in manual labor with no real chance to affect the world, I imagine all (or most) of the Duggar kids will go to college and become educated professionals and have a chance to influence the world somehow, whether in business, law, or even politics.
In the realm of "world's greatest sins", having a boatload of children is pretty low on the totem pole.
Of course, your opinion may vary, and that's okay.
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