The Duggar family can be seen on 19 Kids and Counting on the TLC network.
On July 21, 1984 Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar were married. 27 years later they have 19 children. They didn’t want to have children until 1988 but they lost the first baby due to a miscarriage.
Both Jim and Michelle are successful real estate agents. They built a 7,000 square foot house to accomodate the children. Amazingly they built it debt free which has helped them afford to raise the kids without a huge house note.
Even then, it has to be a huge expense to feed and buy clothes for so many children. It is difficult to comprehend how they can afford the expenses connected with raising children today plus pay the huge utility bills for a 7,000 square foot house.
They do buy used merchandise to save money, shopping at thrift stores.
Besides the financial expense, raising that many young children has to be extremely tiring even though some of the older children assist in the care of their younger brothers and sisters.
It is easy to criticize them for having so many children to raise considering if anything were to happen to the mother and/or father the state and federal government would probably have to spend large sums of money to support them.
So far, I have never seen an episode in which they discussed money problems but not saying that hasn’t happened.
One episode showed Michelle demanding that one of the children look her in the eyes when she was speaking to them. That way she had the undivided attention of that child. We can all learn from the way they raise their children.
The logistics involved in preparing meals for that many children has to be overwhelming but with a schedule for each activity of the day they make good use of their time.
They have raised their children well. If they hadn’t Supernanny would have found out she wasn’t so super if she had 19 misbehaving kids to teach how to behave.
I have the utmost respect for Jim and Michelle Duggar. They have succeeded in raising their kids with Christian values.
May God bless their family as the children grow into adults in the coming years.
