Duggar math

[snarkykitty]

You know, I think it's crazy that with all that industrial cooking and cleaning equipment, that they still resort to "canned cream of ____" for every meal.

Once or twice a month, I usually get a nice-sized fresh roast chicken, 6-8 pounds. These cook up in two hours at 350 degrees. For the two of us, the meal gives us 3 meals each - that's six meals per chicken. We also have a veggie and a bread, so the meal is really satisfying, healthful, balanced, and very yummy. (You can also save the neck and giblets for soup!)

These chickens - both the store brand and Perdue brand, go on sale for $0.99 a pound. Taking into account that boys tend to eat a lot more once in their pre and teen years - let's average 3-4 people per 6-8 pounds chicken. They'd need maybe 6 chickens of that size, or perhaps 2-3 larger roasters. Roasting chicken or turkey is NOT hard. I also believe that they have a rotisserie oven back there. If not, they can put them in conventional ovens. It doesn't need to take all day.

I love to cook, and I know that cooking for two is easy, but I grew up cooking for 6-10 people. We always had people over, so in my mind, you make more than enough. I just can't say enough about roasting whole, fresh chickens, esp bc their in Tyson territory. If they made some extra, they'd also get sandwiches, meat for tacos, stuff to throw into scrambled eggs, even ad-hoc soup (toss in some veggies and potatoes, and it's another yummy meal!), etc. You just can't lose.

[CallmeChaCha]

I do recall an episode where Michelle said their carbon footprint for the whole family is probably less than a normal-sized family :roll: I'm sure she thinks over-filled landfills are also a myth and we can fit trash from the entire world in one state, or some bullshit. She probably also doesn't believe in the breakdown of products - that's too science-y.

[emilymea]

I did an internship with about sixty people. We were devided into six teams of ten people for kitchen cleaning. Each meal four people helped clean the industrial kitchen, two people swept and mopped, two people cleaned the salad bar and tables and two people did dishes in the industrial dish washer. It only took us thirty to fourth five minutes to do everything necessary to clean the industrial kitchen, cafeteria and dishes.

If we could do that six days a week (one day a week we cooked for ourselves in our apartments) then the Duggar family can do it for a family of twenty something.

[lilwriter85]

]I do recall an episode where Michelle said their carbon footprint for the whole family is probably less than a normal-sized family :roll: I'm sure she thinks over-filled landfills are also a myth and we can fit trash from the entire world in one state, or some bullshit. She probably also doesn't believe in the breakdown of products - that's too science-y.

I kind of remember that. Duggar leghumpers also spout that bullshit "about the Duggars have a smaller carbon footprint than smaller families." The Duggars don't have a small carbon footprint. Another thing to add is that Duggars in the past few years travel around quite a bit in their bus. Some smaller families don't go on road trips that often.

[BlueberryBird]

I loved that movie lol.

Squee! Someone actually got my reference. I just love how angry she gets at the refusal to properly recycle.

[silverspoons]

I do recall an episode where Michelle said their carbon footprint for the whole family is probably less than a normal-sized family :roll: I'm sure she thinks over-filled landfills are also a myth and we can fit trash from the entire world in one state, or some bullshit. She probably also doesn't believe in the breakdown of products - that's too science-y.

Michelle's examples were that they buy used clothes, shoes and beds so they have a smaller footprint. I don't think she got the overall question. Just because they buy a some used clothes doesn;t make the footprint smaller. These days I would be surprised it any of the girls clothes are used. I can say that Jenny and Johannah are 100% wearing new clothes because of the patterns and brands in the last 6 episodes.

I would love for them to explain that big dumpster! I haven't seen any recycling bins just that dumpster.

[lilwriter85]

Michelle's examples were that they buy used clothes, shoes and beds so they have a smaller footprint. I don't think she got the overall question. Just because they buy a some used clothes doesn;t make the footprint smaller. These days I would be surprised it any of the girls clothes are used. I can say that Jenny and Johannah are 100% wearing new clothes because of the patterns and brands in the last 6 episodes.

I would love for them to explain that big dumpster! I haven't seen any recycling bins just that dumpster.

I would also be surprised if they are still buying some used clothes. But I think the thrift store days for the Duggars ended a couple of years ago. I agree with you, Mullet doesn't seem to understand the whole question regarding carbon footprints. The Duggars and other fundies don't totally understand the impact that their families have on the environment. I would say that families like the Bateses, Jeubs, and other fundie families might have a smaller footprint than the Duggars. Other fundie families aren't traveling as much as the Duggars do. Some fundie lite, and some Mormon families are big on recycling stuff like plastics, aluminum, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if other large fundie families do use paper or styrofoam plates for all of their meals, but I think most fundie families would at least use real dishes for most of their meals.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Instead of opening a can, maybe the Duggars can get fresh veggies and fruits and use a recycled bag. Saves a lot of resources. These people are just selfish.

This is what I kinda never understand about the Duggars. They live in a rural-ish area, right? Enough land for a pretty decent sized garden?

Usually the hurdle to making and eating food completely from scratch is that it's a LOT of labor. In some ways it's cheap, but in labor terms it can be expensive, so much work for so many meals.

But if you're making food for hordes, you really do save on labor, you can make big batches every time and there are enough people of age to cook that your turn to cook dinner doesn't come round every day. This is the same logic to why people live on communes and in communal boarding houses and join dinner rotation clubs. Good food from scratch daily, with you cooking only every so often, and you really do save $$$ on ingredients. At some certain size of group, it can even start to make sense to make your own detergent and that kinda thing a la the Tightwad Gazette.

Same logic would hold for the various gardening and dishwashing chores, plus if they're homeschooling, you can get a lot of elementary type training in with those household activities, plus you'd think it'd be right up their alley with training for the self-sufficient Christian helpmeet life and all that. Plenty of homesteader types do, after all, and brag about it all over the interwebs.

Plus don't they have a full on commercial sized kitchen?

Anyway it just always surprised me that they don't do more commune style from scratch living. Plenty of stuff that really doesn't make sense for a family of 3 or 4 starts making sense quite a bit before 22, even...

[Inky]

Do they really use paper/plastic plates and disposable dishware that often? :o I've only seen the specials and a few moments from the shows over time, so I'm taking your words for it. I don't want to believe it! With so many kids to help, they really have no excuse.

I watched pretty regularly in the earlier years. It's only the last year that I've gotten away from the show. And I can't think of a single time I've seen that dining room table with real dishes on it. I can excuse using paper plates for a birthday party, or special celebration (although nothing sucks the special out of a celebratory dinner better than a paper plate and plastic utensils), but not for every day eating.

And I really hope that those paper plates are made of paper and not styrofoam.

[Minerva]

I get upset by how they don't have each child responsible for themselves. They should bus their own dishes after each meal and load the dirty dishes into a dishwasher. They should at a minimum fold or hang their own laundry and take turns with the linens. They think with the jurisdictions that they are teaching responsibility, but they are not teaching self-sufficiency. The kids need to be responsible for themselves for the mess that they make and for what they use.

The jurisdictions are also put the majority of the housework on the girls' shoulders. Remember the "lookee we're swapping jender roles for a day" episode? The boys didn't have a clue how to do any of the housework, and they probably haven't tried again since that day (and Smugs and JD got to sit out on that one). And the girls learned how to change oil and a tire, which are things you do maybe once a year. So girl work = keeping the house running, boy work = doing occasional manual labour and accompanying Boob to work once in awhile. I think the girls could be self-sufficient if they had to. They wouldn't know how to cook (like actually cook), and they wouldn't know how to live efficiently, but they could take care of themselves (and really that's how most of us start out when we first leave home). The boys, on the other hand, would be lost.

[Kitty]

I never thought of it before, but yeah, those "jurisdictions" are not teaching the miss to be self-sufficient. It's all about slaving away for others. You have nothing for yourself. Not even responsibility.

Unless those jurisdictions are changed up regularly, but they're not.

Edited because "learned helplessness" refers to something else, but I was sure it applied here. I can't remember what.that something else was, though...

[YPestis]

I wonder if any of the older girls resent the amount of housework they do? Or are they so brainwashed that they don't realize how unfair it is they are their brothers' maids? Do any of the girls wonder why they have to scrub toilets, mop floors and change diapers while their equally capable brothers are lounging around playing? I guess if they are brought up with the idea that girls take care of house and kids and boys work for money, they feel the housework should fall on them. That said, how many of the teenage boys are actually "working" while their sisters are doing housework? You'd think some of the girls are wondering how this system is fair to the girls that it says boys do oil changes (every few months) and yard work (weekly?) while they're stuck with the more intense work of cooking, cleaning and childcare.

[BlueberryBird]

I never thought of it before, but yeah, those "jurisdictions" are not teaching the miss to be self-sufficient. It's all about slaving away for others. You have nothing for yourself. Not even responsibility.

Unless those jurisdictions are changed up regularly, but they're not.

Edited because "learned helplessness" refers to something else, but I was sure it applied here. I can't remember what.that something else was, though...

Learned helplessness is a term used in education, usually when discussing kids who are so used to not being successful, that lack of success becomes their default mode. It's a tough cycle to break.

I think it could be stretched to many fundy women.

[nokoanna]

Is it really that much more work to load a diswasher than to carry out endless bags of garbage?

I think they claimed to have a smaller carbon footprint because they didn't go on lots of plane journeys for their holidays. Can't really claim that anymore can they? :roll:

[Kitty]

Learned helplessness is a term used in education, usually when discussing kids who are so used to not being successful, that lack of success becomes their default mode. It's a tough cycle to break.

I think it could be stretched to many fundy women.

It's used in psychology as well. Its been a while since that intro course, so i thought it referred to knowing how to do something yourself but having others do it out if a conviction that they can do it better. There is a term for that, or something very similar,.that I could not think of. I read the term misused here on FJ more recently and it stuck, so I'm not the only one who got confused.