LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- It's a girl -- again -- for Jim Bob and Michelle Duggars, the proud parents of 17 children.
And after Jennifer Danielle was born Thursday morning, her parents already were talking about having more children.
"We'd love to have more," Michelle Duggar said, adding that the girls are outnumbered seven to 10 in the family. "We love the ruffles and lace."
The family's home in the northwest Arkansas town of Tontitown includes dormitory-style bedrooms for the boys and girls, nine bathrooms, a commercial kitchen, four washing machines and four dryers.
The children are home-schooled by Michelle Duggar, 40. The oldest is 19 and the youngest, before Jennifer, is almost 2 years old. The family includes two sets of twins.
"We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him," said Jim Bob Duggar, 42, a former state representative who sells real estate. "We are just so thankful to him that everything went just very well."
All of Jennifer's siblings also have names that start with J. They are: Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.
The Duggars have been featured on several programs on cable's Discovery Health Network.
Among the "fun facts" listed on Discovery Health's Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the family has gone through about 90,000 diapers, and Michelle Duggar has been pregnant for 126 months -- or 10.5 years -- of her life.
Two important tidbits:
- home-schooled
- this quote: "We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him"
See, the Duggars are "conservative fundamentalist Christians" and adherents to the Quiverfull movement whose "distinguishing viewpoint is to eagerly receive children as blessings from God, eschewing all forms of contraception, including natural family planning and sterilization." (from Wikipedia).
Apparently, if you cannot create an evangelical Republican majority in America by the strength of your beliefs and the power of persuasion, you can just breed yourself one. It's an unfortunate fact of life - progressives, because of their understanding of the strain we are putting on our planet, are less likely to have a lot of children than are those on the Right. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. Of course, just because children are born into a fundamentalist (or progressive) family doesn't mean that they will always grow up to have their parents' beliefs. But, there is a high probability.
Just as I said in yesterday's post, sometimes the absurdity of your beliefs is the single best argument against their widespread adoption. All hail the Duggars, poster family for sterilization (I'm only half-kidding)!
"Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favor of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life." -- Bertrand Russell
