Wednesday, May 27, 2015

19 Thoughts (and Counting) About the Josh Duggar Scandal

It's been six days since news leaked information about Josh Duggar, now 27, molesting five young girls when he was 14/15 years old.

Anyone who knows me knows my fascination with this family. They had to have known a blog post was coming... and now that I'm home from our mini-vacation and have had time to sort my thoughts through, I present you with...


1. What Josh did is despicable, disgusting, and illegal. He was old enough to know better… if he came from a family that talked openly about abuse.

2. That said, the Duggars don’t provide sex education to their home-schooled children, and while it’s easy for us average, everyday people to agree that we would know better… if we literally had never heard anything about it, would we? Maybe, maybe not.

3. To be a pedophile, one must be 16 years old or older and have sexual contact with children. Josh was 14 / 15 at the time, and while we can all agree that most people would know better at that age, see point number 2.

4. Jim Bob is more to blame than anyone, in my opinion. He knew about the incidences after Josh told him, and he didn’t report it to police for a LONG time (over a year).

5. Maybe Jim Bob didn’t report the assault because he thought it was a family issue that could be resolved without getting authorities involved. I don’t know.

6. I hope the girls who were assaulted (who are presumably Jana, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger, though they obviously haven’t been identified) received professional help/counseling when this took place several years ago.

7. I also hope those girls weren’t shamed for being impure, because let’s face it, sexual contact before marriage is a huge no-no for the Duggars… and I can only hope that Jim Bob and Michelle realized they did nothing wrong, and they were attacked, not vice versa.

8. I wonder why the police officer who did learn about the case from Jim Bob did nothing about it. Is it because he’s a family friend? Or does he actually think Josh did nothing wrong?

9. I’m not sure if I would have been able to marry a man and have children with him knowing what he did, but Anna and her family were both aware of Josh’s past before she agreed to marry him… and that’s totally her prerogative and not my situation to judge.

10. I honestly can’t believe it took so long for this scandal to leak out. Considering how big the Duggar family is and how many people they know and work with on a daily basis… it astounds me.

11. That said, I’m not surprised at all that something *huge* happened at some point. With 19 children, shenanigans are bound to happen.

12. Seeing Mike Huckabee getting attacked and losing backers right before the presidential campaign goes full swing is kind of funny to me. I don’t like him (at all), so it amuses me despite the fact that I sort of agree with him that everyone makes mistakes, especially when they’re young.

13. I don’t like how this scandal was hidden for so long… but when it happened, the Duggars weren’t even famous, so it wouldn’t have even made headlines anyway. Now that they’ve been on TV consistently for several years, they’re well known… but when Josh was 14/15, they certainly weren’t.

14. I am glad that Josh was ready to admit it and talk about it when it did come up. He could have easily denied it, but he chose to take the higher road. While his actions were horrific, at least he can admit it when need be.

15. I feel the need to go back and watch all of the episodes of their show now and re-read their books just because. I wonder if there’s ever a moment that could give this away. I’m guessing no, but you never know.

16. I feel really bad for the girls who were molested, especially now. With it being more than ten years ago, those girls have grown significantly, matured in their beliefs, and presumably moved on. But now? Now, they have to re-live everything because they’re all over the Internet. They have to deal with the questions, the accusations, and the personal attacks on their family. I can’t even imagine.

17. It is peculiar to me that none of the Duggar kids with social media have posted anything on Instagram or Facebook since this came out last Thursday. Really weird.

18. While I do think it would be appropriate for TLC to cancel 19 Kids and Counting… I selfishly hope they don’t. I am fascinated by that family and love watching the girls go through their major life events, like weddings and babies! I may not agree with their politics or extreme views on religion, but I do think they are good, kind-hearted people.

19. Seriously, I am not here to judge anyone, let alone the entire family. The entire family did not commit a crime. The entire family is not full of bad people. They may be extreme Christians, and that may make some people (including myself at times) feel uneasy. But they aren’t all bad all the time. And the kids have no outside experience with a lot of social issues that most people get upset about (like how they are so anti-LGBT, which does make me mad too)… and they do good around them. They’re not perfect, just like you’re not. They have quirks, just like we all do.

(and counting) - Last but not least, I had NO IDEA so many of my friends knew so much about he Duggars and cared about their personal lives… but I’ve seen so many people either sticking up for them ferociously (when they never admitted to liking them before) or dogging them with what seems like threats (again, when they probably didn’t know who they were before). Weird.

Are you a Duggar fan?
Or are you fascinated by them at least?
Do you have a strong opinion either way about this issue?


    

13 comments:

  1. I've never been a Duggar fan and I never will be. While I respect everyone's right to be who they are I just think they are a little odd and this whole situation with Josh just takes it to a whole new level. What he did was deplorable.

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    1. For sure! I do agree with that. It's sickening.

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  2. So many good points here!

    I have been following the Duggars for awhile now, but definitely NOT a fan. I'm keeping an eye on their family because I'm fascinated to see if the kids will continue following these beliefs once they leave the house. I hope they don't.

    The degrees of separation between the Duggars and myself are very small...I know many people who were raised with ATI and I've had a lot of time to think about why I strongly (vehemently) disagree with it. But I don't usually talk about it with people because I've have friends (those who haven't grown up this way) staunchly defend them saying that they're just conservative, but they're really still a good family. The Duggars put such nice packaging (happy! smiling! family friendly!) on some really crazy beliefs, but that doesn't make it okay.

    What happened is AWFUL. On many levels. But, like you, my biggest "beef" is that his parents did nothing for such a long period of time. That is incredibly alarming to me.

    Trying to keep this comment short and civi so I'll end there ;)

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  3. Well said! Such a horrible thing what he did but I think now that it has been leaked the Duggars are handling it well! I thought it was weird too how quiet the girls have been too!

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  4. Ironic how we both had our Duggar posts scheduled for the same day! I think their lack of sex education played a part in it. I agree, I think his parents really should take more of the blame for not protecting their daughters from their son. But then again, if he had been arrested for that (some of the charges would have been felonies) then he would be a convicted sex offender forever.

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  5. I was a Duggar fan until I heard this. I just cannot get on board with Jim Bob waiting a year to report it. I'm hoping maybe they can still film the married kids. But they might not want to do it if their Daddy can't be on. So I guess we'll see.

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  6. I've never really followed the Duggars, but 1-3. I think I agree with those 100%! I obviously don't know enough about them to make assumptions of my own, but I pretty much thought the same thing that you stated. I also believe that I read that the girls involved got counseling.

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  7. I've always loved watching the Duggars. They're good people and I love keeping up with their lives, but their religious views are a bit much for me haha I was always rooting for one of them to grow up with different beliefs and have their own opinions. To me, they all seem a little brainwashed at times.

    As for this situation, I think it's horrible that it was kept quiet for so long. You make a good point though about the fact that the Duggars don't talk about sex or anything along those lines so really, how would he know right from wrong? They don't watch television, they don't talk about sex, they don't go to public school or have "normal" friends. They're pretty clueless when it comes to those things. But at the same time, it's still very wrong of him to do that and I hope the girls had counseling at some point.

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  8. I don't have anything invested in the Duggars one way or the other. I do think most of the concern-trolling is posturing by people who are more gleeful at seeing someone they didn't like anyway dragged trough the mud, than it is genuine concern for past or potential victims. And a lot has been said about them not immediately turning their kid over to he police. A point I saw someone raise somewhere else is, if it was your son, and you legitimately thought that counseling and monitoring would be enough to handle the situation going forward, would you rush to get your 14 year old classified as a registered sex offender for life? I can't honestly say I would, if I believed this was a mistake that could be prevented in the future.

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  9. Wow, I'm out of the loop not having lived in the States for a while...! Who are these people?!?! Hehe

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  10. This whole thing is so crazy. I completely agree in that Jim Bob is a lot to blame. If I were a 14 year old who had just committed a crime and my parents didn't want to report it, I'm sure I would have done exactly what Josh did and stayed silent. They should have held him accountable for his actions. It makes me want to go back and watch episodes of the older girls around Josh and see if they act differently at all.

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  11. I have always been interested in this family just because they are so extreme. And I am always curious how a family can be that big! I am sad about how big this got for the girls involved. That has to be something horrific to live through once, but now to live through the speculation again after so many years and in the public is awful. I agree that it is concerning that Jim Bob waited so long to report it. And I wonder if that was maybe why there was nothing done once he did? Who knows?

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  12. I LOVE the Duggar family, this whole situation makes my heart so sad. I did read that his youngest victim was 5 years old and that just makes me cringe. This was not a boy making a stupid mistake, he was a predator. Also I read that the police officer who the incident was reported to is in jail for child pornography! No wonder the incident went no further! One predator to another. So very sad.

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