It has been amply established by now that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar perpetrated a massive swindle on this country for the better part of two decades. They held themselves out on television as a wholesome and quirky, if extremely conservative, gigantic Christian family. In truth, we now know that America’s most famous babymakers were also some of America’s most infamous unfit parents. They dragged their feet when their oldest son, Josh, molested a number of girls as a teenager—including his own sisters. It is now clear that their failure to guide Josh to a mature understanding of his misdeeds put him on the path that got him convicted for possession of child sex abuse material. As a result of that conviction, even when he gets out, Josh can’t be alone around any minors for at least the duration of his own kids’ childhoods.
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We also know that the Duggars’ kids spent a large chunk of their childhoods in an unsafe, unsanitary, and unlawful living situation. Before the Duggars built their mansion in Tonitown, Arkansas, they lived in a house in nearby Springdale, where as many as 18 people were crammed into a house designed for six—forcing boys and girls to share the same bedrooms, and even the same beds. Jim Bob and Michelle had the means to provide a safer situation—and their failure to do so was literally the definition of child neglect in Arkansas.
RELATED: Reporter who first introduced Duggars to the nation ignored myriad red flags
This weekend, we got a lovely reminder of why this situation didn’t come to light before In Touch Weekly uncovered it in 2015. One of Josh’s younger sisters, Jinger Duggar Vuolo, recently spoke up about what she now realizes was a hyper-legalistic and borderline cultish upbringing. In response, a leading conservative Christian blogger criticized Jinger for daring to speak out, saying that she “threw her parents under the bus.”
Vuolo, the sixth child and fourth daughter of the Duggar clan, gave a series of exclusive interviews to People Magazine to promote her upcoming book, Becoming Free Indeed. Wednesday, the magazine revealed the 29-year-old’s assertion that she spent most of her childhood in an environment built around fear.
"Fear was a huge part of my childhood. I thought I had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God. Music with drums, places I went or the wrong friendships could all bring harm," she told writer Emily Strohm.
Even when her family went to play a sport called broomball, Vuolo says she felt "terrified" she might be defying God's will. "I thought I could be killed in a car accident on the way, because I didn't know if God wanted me to stay home and read my Bible instead."
Many of her family’s rules came from her parents’ devotion to homeschooling guru Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Among many horrific things, Gothard—whom, Strohm notes, over 30 women have accused of harassment and molestation—is known for teaching that it’s possible for a victim of sexual assault to “defraud” their attacker by stirring up lustful thoughts—even with something as innocent as a toss of the hair. That tenet was a major basis for the Duggars’ ultra-strict dress code, which calls for everything to be covered from the neck down—even in northwest Arkansas’ brutally hot summers.
However, Vuolo now realizes how harmful this was, noting that Gothard's “teachings in a nutshell are based on fear and superstition and leave you in a place where you feel like, 'I don't know what God expects of me.' The fear kept me crippled with anxiety. I was terrified of the outside world."
In 2017, her perspective began to shift. "His teachings were so harmful, and I'm seeing more of the effects of that in the lives of my friends and people who grew up in that community with me," she says. "There are a lot of cult-like tendencies." She ultimately walked away from IBLP altogether. While Vuolo stresses that she's still a strong Christian, her understanding of how to live her faith has changed.
More of Vuolo’s revelations were published by PEOPLE on Thursday: She was taught that if she “step(ped) outside of what I think is expected of me,” that God would be angry with her “and it could bring harm on myself.” However, she hopes sharing her story will “help even just one person to be freed.”
Watch more of Vuolo’s interview with People here.
Christian blogger Lori Alexander had a big problem with Vuolo’s candor. On Friday, she took to her blog, “The Transformed Wife,” in a post that essentially called Jinger an ungrateful brat for not giving “praise and thankfulness” to Jim Bob and Michelle for how they raised her, but only “condemnation.”
Alexander then reamed Vuolo for publicly speaking out about the harm her upbringing did, saying that a child had no right to speak out against her parents in this way.
What disturbs me most about this interview and Jinger’s new book is that she has thrown her parents under the bus in a most public way. The world is rejoicing! They love seeing the downfall of believers. They love that Jinger is now wearing short shorts and “living free” from the constraints her parents put upon her. I am not. It saddens me. Her parents don’t deserve this. They should be honored as God commands us to honor our parents. They weren’t abusive. They were cheerful and fun. I watched every TV show of theirs. Those children had wonderful lives! Yeah, some of Jinger’s thinking was bad. So? Most of us had some bad thinking in our childhoods, but it doesn’t mean we have to expose it publicly and make a mockery of the way we were raised.
Anyone who has followed the Duggar saga would know that Alexander’s take is insensitive at best. For one thing, it was Jim Bob and Michelle who threw their daughters under the bus by forcing them to live in such appalling conditions. The Duggars’ house in Springdale had only two bathrooms, forcing the kids to take showers in shifts. Even then, the water heater wasn’t enough to handle the amount of dishwashing, laundry, and diaper changing needed to care for such a large family. And by forcing their sons and daughters to sleep in the same beds, the Duggar parents created a situation in which improper touching was easily able to happen—if someone was inclined to do so.
They also threw their daughters under the bus by continuing to maintain this situation—as even a temporary solution—after Josh fondled one of his sisters in March 2002. They threw their daughters under the bus by not taking action when Josh fondled a babysitter in July 2002; the third incident, in which Josh fondled yet another of his sisters, should have never been allowed to happen.
Furthermore, Jim Bob abdicated his duties as a husband and a father by believing he should remain in the Arkansas state house, where he served from 1999-2003, giving up his seat only because he was running in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate (he lost—and lost a state Senate election two years later). Money and energy earmarked for those campaigns could have been used to find a better living situation for his family, or counseling for his eldest child. And to pile obscenity on top of insult and injury, he allowed Discovery into his home for the first of several specials that led to them getting their own show.
The Duggar patriarch launched another failed campaign for the Arkansas state Senate in 2021—only to lose again.
No parents with any kind of love for their children would do what Jim Bob and Michelle have done. And yet, Alexander apparently expects us to believe that they are deserving of honor—and that when an abused child realizes what happened, he or she ought to just be quiet about it.
What nerve Alexander has. People like her are exactly why kids whose parents betrayed them don’t speak up. I’m reminded of what happened Herschel Walker’s son, Christian, spoke up about the abuse he and his mother suffered at the failed Senate candidate’s hands. A number of right-wingers essentially told Christian to sit down and shut up.
The worst take that I saw came from Greg Kelly.
The sentiments Alexander expressed are no different—and no less deserving of opprobrium. People like her are why the Duggars’ charade wasn’t exposed sooner. It’s a near-mathematical certainty that any Duggar child who thought about coming forward was afraid of getting attacked for not “honoring” Jim Bob and Michelle in a proper, Gothard-approved way.
People like Alexander, who are no rarity in oppressive faiths, are why so many people bite their tongues when they realize their parents betrayed them, either via crimes of commission or omission. As someone whose father stayed on third shift to facilitate cheating on my mother, this below-the-belt shot from Alexander hit me on a personal level. But while my father committed crimes of omission as opposed to Jim Bob’s crimes of commission, they both forfeit any right to be honored. And if calling out this behavior amounts to throwing our parents “under the bus,” something is very wrong with those driving it.