Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The Duggars : 20 and Counting by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar

Okay, so curiosity got the better of me and I brought this one home from the library and finished it while we are on vacation.

The Duggars have become famous because of their Discovery Channel reality show, "17 and Counting", which after several years of broadcasting eventually was retitled "20 and Counting" for obvious reasons - they had three more kids. For a total of 18 kids. And then they had another one after publishing this book. 19 kids total. Or did I miscount?

Actually, I like the way this family operates. They are Christians, homeschoolers, live completely debt-free, built their own house, and taught all their kids to play the violin. I like that.

I also don't criticize their conviction to never use birth control. I don't like birth control pills either, and when the Duggars were first married, a miscarriage was caused by a pregnancy that occurred while Michelle was on birth control (yes, it really can happen). Hence their conviction.

I gained a few ideas from this book, as I do from others about large families, that are helpful for our family. We only have three kids, but we also have an extremely busy lifestyle. All the advice I can get about organization, scheduling, time-saving, and money-saving, can be put into practice for my family.

One of the best things I have learned from books like this is that I need to really rely more on my dishwasher, crock pot and other devices. In fact, I have gone so far as to say that I have three maids: One is named Dish Washer, the other is named Crock Pot, and I also have a set of twins that works for me, and their names are Clothes Washer and Clothes Dryer. If you put your 'maids' to work first thing in the morning, they will work for you all day!"  This seems simple, but laundry and cooking and dishes are big deals and can consume your time. If you really concentrate on keeping the maids going, instead of getting distracted with other things, you will have time to do stuff while they're working.

The only issue I have with the Duggars is that they seem to lean towards a legalistic lifestyle. They are very concerned with being obedient to the teachings they find in the Bible. That's a good thing, but it needs to be in the proper context. It can be dangerous to read a few OT verses and make a rigid lifestyle from them without considering the Bible as a whole, without reading it in the context of the New Covenant, or without being willing to view all of life (apart from sin) as spiritual.





1 comment:

  1. I like the idea of having "maids". The crockpot is probably my favorite maid :)

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