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| At some point [ I cannot say when] a family ceases to be real a family and instead becomes a litter. |
The term "sheltered family" probably doesn't even begin to describe the lifestyle and parenting of the Duggar family. I grew up in a "sheltered family," where, other than a few episodes of L & O SUV as well as the L& O mother ship that evaded my parents' censorship radar when I was at an earlier developmental phase than most conservative parents (my parents' politics aren't particularly conservative, but their parenting style would have to have been considered as such) might have allowed a child at my developmental level exposure to something quite so sexually explicit, but even those few episodes I caught were of a very limited number. Otherwise, everything I watched or read was essentially only with parental approval and based on my parents' decisions about was age-appropriate and what was in my best interests at a given maturity level.
My parents allowed my brother and me to visit friends, fully knowing that the friends' parents' standards of what was or was not appropriate might very well not have been identical to their own, but my mom says she felt it was a chance she and my father had to take. Children who are not allowed to play with friends outside the family grow up with limited ability to function in the real world. My mom tried to have other children play at our home more than we played at the homes of our friends, but my mom said that other parents would be offended if my parents had always insisted upon play dates occurring at our home. We weren't allowed, for the most part, to sleep at other children's homes until our late teens except for slumber parties, and even then only after a thorough vetting of the situation. Our friends were allowed to sleep overnight at our house.
I grew up in a controlled environment. The Duggar children, on the other hand, grew up in a veritable giant plastic bubble. The problem with constructing bubbles or walls or anything of the nature around one's children is, of course, that with a large enough group inside that wall or plastic bubble, it's conceivable that one is walling in someone potentially every bit as damaging to the ones a parent desires to protect as those one is attempting to wall out.
My mom was one of those parents who would happily send me to other peoples' houses. From the age of eight, I spent a lot of weekends at my then best friend's house. She, on the other hand, spent few at mine. Her mom was a lot more conservative than my mom was.
ReplyDeleteWhen i see that sort of thing in my parents' neighborhood. sometimes I think it's because of the umbrella thing. other times I think the parents just enjoy not having kids underfoot and love to have the kids always play at someone else's house. i'm sure there's plenty of both.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was way over being a mom. She was happy to have me be someone else's charge for awhile.
DeleteI didn't really do the "play date" thing. My best friend's mother was lackadaisical, probably what they would call a "free range" parent today. The last time I was over at that friend's house, I ended up drenching myself in the creek in her backyard. It was fun, my mom on the other hand was less than thrilled.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there was the time that I was invited to a Christmas party by a new friend in 4th grade; the party ended up being more of an adult party for the faculty at my school (the girl's parents were a big part of the private school fundraising). And there was alcohol served and supposedly there were drunk people (I don't remember that specifically, but I will depend on the memory of those who were other the age of 21 at the time of the incident) and my grandfather was pissed.
I did not have good luck visiting friends outside of school. I was never really into that anyway. Jason is a lot more social than I am. I spent more time with my grandparents on a day to day basis than he has. Different rules, different phases of life.
In regards to the Duggar's and others who share the same philosophy ... I can understand the motivation, however they take it too far. The fact that they are still in control of their grown children is worrisome. If they want to go to college they should be able to choose where they want to go without consulting their church about it. It defeats the philosophy. If they have prepared their children to function in the evil world, they should feel comfortable letting them go as they have "successfully groomed them to handle life in a godly way". They keep them from the real world because they do not want them to see the truth. I've been all over their recent scandal and read some interesting material about the behind the scenes of their show. One of the crew described the atmosphere in their house as very sheltered (obviously), but prior to the world travel and the popularity they had a very minuscule idea of the world. IN regards to some commonly known things, the crew was advised strongly not to upset the talent. They said being around the Duggar's was very much like not revealing the truth about Santa to your little sister. That was a bad description, my brain is mushy this morning ... but there is a lot of interesting conversation on freejinger.org that you would probably enjoy thinking about. The majority of it is speculation, obviously. I try to maintain an open mind when it comes to the Duggar's ... my questions and personal opinions aside, I defend them and mock them equally.
DeleteI think the Santa analogy is most fitting. Can you imagine having to work around such people in a situation where they were the talent or otherwise important and you had to walk on eggshells around them? I can imagine it would involve a lot of smiling and nodding of one's head at all the madness that was stated. I hope the physical abuse of children was minimal; I can't believe it was nonexistent. just the idea of hitting a baby with a switch until a mother instilled enough fear that the poor thing wouldn't venture off a blanket is evidence to me that the environment must have been at least minimally abusive. it would be great to have a 100% compliant baby, or for that matter, a 100% compliant child of any age, but at what cost?
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