Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Duggars
Wendy’s August, 2007 post at Snarky Gossip still gets comments.
The reason why they have so many kids is because they don’t believe in birth control or having surgery to stop getting pregnant. It’s part of their religion. Every child is a gift from God and they should accept it with open arms.
You guys need to think before you comment. Seriously.
As an initial response, I considered picking apart the commenter’s choice of pronoun (accept it with open arms? IT?) That one little word seemed to summarize all that is wrong with the Quiverfull group’s attitude toward children. But maybe “it” was a slip, the sort of error an inexperienced writer makes when he’s eager to avoid the appearance of sexism. Maybe I was getting a little too overheated, once again, about She of the Bottomless Womb. Yeah. Overheated.
And then I had an epiphany:
America needs the Duggars.
We are, or at least we claim to be, a pluralistic society, a nation which thrives on its diversity — but the sword cuts both ways.
We can’t have cybersex extravaganzas without abstinence-obsessed “purity ceremonies.”
Want free access to contraception? Then your neighbor gets to own assault rifles*.
You say you’re a college freshman raised as a fundamentalist who believes the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Meet your roommate.
Arthur Holmes, an undecided freshman, is a satanist and chaos magician. His experience with the occult has been positive, but he said that the public generally misunderstands satanism.
“We don’t worship Satan as a deity. We see him as a representation of the carnal side of man and as a symbol of indulgence,” he said.
We live in a great society, people, a country where the Dominionist father of seventeen, Jim Bob Duggar himself, can give a Mormon Presidential candidate shit about his stance on abortion, and then refuse to have pizza with him.
As long as America remains a place where I can watch — on YouPorn, for free — one woman giving birth to a cell phone while another smokes a Cuban cigar without, um, ever inhaling, then Michelle Duggar can have as many babies as she and Jim Bob like.
Here’s to Freedom: freedom for the Duggars to shoot for two or three dozen children, and the freedom for me to make fun of ’em for it.
D.
*No, he doesn’t get to use them on people. I’m not nuts — jeez!
It seems that God’s policy on Sex has just slipped my mind.
I’ve claimed a simple philosophy of The Almighty for years – there is one, and I’m not it. I cannot conceive (poor pun, none intended) of having 17 children, not with this body.
Haven’t taken the time to read like I used to – woke up early just so I could visit you. Glad I did. I think. – lol
If the Duggars didn’t exist, we would have to invent them.
I wonder when the first Duggar child tell-all book will be out?
Gee, Doug may be turning into a libertarian. 😉
Marta: I think it was, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Or, depending on your religion, perhaps: “Do what thou wilt.”
Hi Lyn! Long time no see! Glad you stopped by.
Dean: I’m banking on the oldest boy. The one who likes theater.
Yeah, Dan, except that I still think government has a responsibility to take care of the less fortunate citizens, and I’m not opposed to paying taxes, lots of them if necessary, to make sure that happens. How Libertarian is that?
I still think government has a responsibility to take care of the less fortunate citizens, and I’m not opposed to paying taxes, lots of them if necessary, to make sure that happens.
Jeez, Doug, you sound like a Canadian!
The only thing that stops us is the hassle factor, believe me.
I’m grammatically challenged. Just so I can stop reading the d**n sentence, can you explain what ‘it’ ought to be?
Or is it just that ‘Every’ should be ‘Each’?
Original: Every child is a gift from God and they should accept it with open arms.
Corrected: Every child is a gift from God and they should accept him with open arms.
Current usage: the masculine pronoun is considered the least objectionable of various imperfect solutions. The other options are: “it,” “him/her,” “her/him,” or varying the pronouns so that you say “him” 50% of the time and “her” 50% of the time.
Also correct (but repetitive with respect to “child”): Every child is a gift from God and they should accept that child with open arms.
I hope the Duggar children grow up to smoke cigars with their genitals!
BTW, thanks for letting me know about that video. Now I know I how to sneak a smoke if I ever start again and don’t want anyone smelling my breath.
LOL. Okay. As I’ve three female children and seven nieces – we don’t seem to do boys – if they had written the comment the least objectionable way, it would have sounded peculiar to my ear. I’d probably have thought it sexist.
Thanks for explaining.
Why is she in bed? I’d have thought by now she could pop them out while barely looking up from her bible reading.
Who is Wendy? I take it the comment is from Wendy?
Hey I saw that youporn phone birth thing. And there was I thinking myself clever for keeping my phone in its leather pouch.
I wonder if she’s voided the warranty…
Keith, it makes it difficult to answer a call at work, though.
And really annoying, too, when your office staff keeps calling themselves.
Holy cow! This woman has a uterus like a clown car.
How can you provide the enough one on one time for these kids? I see some therapy in the future for the Dugger spawn. Really though, seems irresponsible to me.
If all of the kids turn out to be just half as prolific as their parents, 8.5 kids each, they would produce 144.5 grandchildren. At the same 8.5 rate the grandchildren would produce 1156 great grandchildren. The great grandchildren would produce 9826 great great grandchildren. If the gg grandchildren could sustain the 8.5 they would add 83,521 great great great grandchildren.
Most rodents don’t reproduce on this order.
what they need are natural predators. seriously bippy, that’s what the mice have and the Duggars lack. Coyotes and cats keep the rodent numbers down. Who’ll reduce the burgeoning quiverfull population? (and I always have to think of he quivering brethren from Cold Comfort Farm when I read that word)
Moral of the story: God didn’t intend top of the food chainers to be so prolific. It upsets His Balance
Godless heathens are their only natural enemies, and we don’t eat ’em. At least not on purpose.
Great short story, Kate. Write it! Here’s some free dialog for you.
LOL, good dialog!
I too feel 17 is going over and above the call of duty to be fruitful and multiply. But remember back in the olden days (the 40’s was it?) there was the family from Montclair, NJ who had a dozen kids and wrote a book about it that was turned into a movie, “Cheaper by the Dozen?” I wonder what people said about them at the time. Even back then a dozen kids was a lot!
One thing they did that really annoyed me, as I am a proponent of historic preservation – they had the house they grew up in TORN DOWN after they all moved out and the parents died. “Apres moi, le deluge,” I guess…but it’s too bad as it was one of those nice old historic homes…
Yeah Kate, Maybe their neighbors will start raising dingos.
I am wiping tears from my eyes, all seventeen.