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The Duggars' moral immaturity


hockeymoo

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I love how the Duggars barely break the most basic understanding of morality according to Kohlberg's stages of moral development. The adult kids are maybe at the stage of "good girl/good boy" in some aspects after all that obedience training. For a family that harps on morals so much, you'd think they'd actually spend more time reflecting on their beliefs...

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Josh, too, sounds like he's still at the most basic stage of obedience-related morality based on his statements about the molestation scandal. He was more concerned with things being made public rather than, y'know, analyzing how messed up his intentions were to begin with to be wanting to touch his little sisters sexually.

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Overall, it is not good parenting. The purpose of parenting is to raise kids that become independent adults capable of making appropriate decisions.

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Also, their lack of maturity explains why they are so hysterical about what other people might do.

Remember that oft used argument: If God is not real, why don't I just go kill someone right now!?!

um because that wouldn't be polite? (snerk)

Michelle was probably not lying when she did those dumb robocalls. She probably really does believe that people are looking for any excuse to go inside a women's bathroom.

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But maturity develops with new life experiences. They might be X age, but nearly all of their close, personal contact is with people who believe like they do. TLC might have sent them all over creation, but it's not like any of the kids could become/remain friends with any of the heathens they met.

It's the old joke about the guy who considers himself an expert horsemen, and in reality he's got one year of experience repeated ten time with the same bombproof horse.

Possibly it's too late at night to articulate what I meant to say.

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I think the reason they are still at the most basic obedience level of moral development is because that is exactly where they were trained to be. That was the entire point of the harsh punishments for anything resembling " defiance" from infancy. And making them fear burning in hell eternally for any deviation from the norm.

Throughout history most people have been relatively insular in their communities and only met people who had similar lives. Until fairly recently that was the norm. But people still developed to different points morally. It doesn't require travel or education to base your morals on compassion or understand shades of gray. But it does require not getting the shit beat out of you every time you question the world around you. It would take a very, very strong individual to grow beyond that.

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But maturity develops with new life experiences. They might be X age, but nearly all of their close, personal contact is with people who believe like they do. TLC might have sent them all over creation, but it's not like any of the kids could become/remain friends with any of the heathens they met.

It's the old joke about the guy who considers himself an expert horsemen, and in reality he's got one year of experience repeated ten time with the same bombproof horse.

Possibly it's too late at night to articulate what I meant to say.

No, that made sense.

Their socialization has been thwarted. They can make it up though. If any of those kids manages to get away and go to a real college they will close a lot of the gap. They need to go out in the world and really experience other ideas and people.

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Personally, I don't think any of the Duggars, have particularly good morals. Their moral compass lost its magnet, because their morals are all over the place. You can't really have something that is morally innocent, be treated as morally reprehensible, and in the next breath, treat something that IS morally reprehensible as no big deal.

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Personally, I don't think any of the Duggars, have particularly good morals. Their moral compass lost its magnet, because their morals are all over the place. You can't really have something that is morally innocent, be treated as morally reprehensible, and in the next breath, treat something that IS morally reprehensible as no big deal.

True.

They also lie by omission and skirt moral responsibility by "technically" doing what is required. For example when they reported to the police--but not really.

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They really do their children a disservice by isolating them from the world, as fundies do. Yes, as parents, many of us steer our children away from "bad influences". But what the Duggars fail to do is to understand that their children will inevitably come face to face with a "bad influence" and they fail to help them navigate such a situation..

You can NOT stay that isolated in the world. No, Arntds, you can't. No, Maxwells, you can't. Especially no, Duggars, YOU can't, because you have unleashed the celebrity thing, and there WILL be things that are counter to your culture presented to your children.

This, to me, is the way that fundies fundamentally (sorry, couldn't resist) fail their children.

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They really do their children a disservice by isolating them from the world, as fundies do. Yes, as parents, many of us steer our children away from "bad influences". But what the Duggars fail to do is to understand that their children will inevitably come face to face with a "bad influence" and they fail to help them navigate such a situation..

You can NOT stay that isolated in the world. No, Arntds, you can't. No, Maxwells, you can't. Especially no, Duggars, YOU can't, because you have unleashed the celebrity thing, and there WILL be things that are counter to your culture presented to your children.

This, to me, is the way that fundies fundamentally (sorry, couldn't resist) fail their children.

Same here, fundies fail their children by isolating them from the world, especially with the type of homeschooling they do, and it's worse for females in those families as they're only taught how to raise their younger siblings and submit to first their father, then their new owner, their husband.

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I think the reason they are still at the most basic obedience level of moral development is because that is exactly where they were trained to be. That was the entire point of the harsh punishments for anything resembling " defiance" from infancy. And making them fear burning in hell eternally for any deviation from the norm.

Throughout history most people have been relatively insular in their communities and only met people who had similar lives. Until fairly recently that was the norm. But people still developed to different points morally. It doesn't require travel or education to base your morals on compassion or understand shades of gray. But it does require not getting the shit beat out of you every time you question the world around you. It would take a very, very strong individual to grow beyond that.

I agree! It stymies emotional and social development. They were beaten for showing curiosity (blanket training)! I think people forget this when they criticize the kidult Duggars because they don't break away from their family. I believe it is possible, but their draconian upbringing shaped their worldview and makes it difficult to change.

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I think it's going to be really apparent something is deadly wrong with the family when they have so many unmarrieds maybe into their thirties. I can see Jana, John David, Jinger and maybe Joy not getting married because they are forced to live at home and work at the homestead. Finding future spouses seems limited to the narrow fringe of fundie weirdos in Ark, or the homeschooling conferences.

Who knows? Maybe some of them didn't like the spotlight as Jill did, and were mortified at the thought of courting with television cameras, and getting married with a full camera crew attending and a thousand guests.

I think it IS immoral to force your kids to grow up in front of cameras, and sell their private moments to titillate a television audience for ratings. Jessa seems to be bucking the formula a bit with the private first kiss, not announcing her baby's gender in one of those silly "ginder reveal parties," and making a big deal about home births. I can imagine Jessa delivering at the hospital with an epidural in a private room with no cameras.

I also wonder too if the TLC show actually encouraged them to have more kids than they actually would have had without it. They weren't that well off until the show came along and basically enabled them to keep reproducing. I can't even imagine Boob's bills for heating and electricity for that huge barn of a house.

Glad TLC finally called an end to this freak show. Losing the show is the last hope some of the older kids have to possibly live a relatively normal life.

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I love how the Duggars barely break the most basic understanding of morality according to Kohlberg's stages of moral development. The adult kids are maybe at the stage of "good girl/good boy" in some aspects after all that obedience training. For a family that harps on morals so much, you'd think they'd actually spend more time reflecting on their beliefs...

I think Jim Boob and J-Chelle never grew up. And they never will. They don't have the education or the maturity (moral and emotional) to think and reason like those who actually treasure and seek knowledge. They passed on their distrust and distaste of education to their children. It doesn't matter to them that they have no idea why they believe as they do. After all, Bill Gothard said it, and he's more important than the Christ they claim to serve.

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I think it's going to be really apparent something is deadly wrong with the family when they have so many unmarrieds maybe into their thirties. I can see Jana, John David, Jinger and maybe Joy not getting married because they are forced to live at home and work at the homestead. Finding future spouses seems limited to the narrow fringe of fundie weirdos in Ark, or the homeschooling conferences.

Who knows? Maybe some of them didn't like the spotlight as Jill did, and were mortified at the thought of courting with television cameras, and getting married with a full camera crew attending and a thousand guests.

I think it IS immoral to force your kids to grow up in front of cameras, and sell their private moments to titillate a television audience for ratings. Jessa seems to be bucking the formula a bit with the private first kiss, not announcing her baby's gender in one of those silly "ginder reveal parties," and making a big deal about home births. I can imagine Jessa delivering at the hospital with an epidural in a private room with no cameras.

I also wonder too if the TLC show actually encouraged them to have more kids than they actually would have had without it. They weren't that well off until the show came along and basically enabled them to keep reproducing. I can't even imagine Boob's bills for heating and electricity for that huge barn of a house.

Glad TLC finally called an end to this freak show. Losing the show is the last hope some of the older kids have to possibly live a relatively normal life.

I don't know about that, I wouldn't call Derick, Ben, or Marjorie weirdo fringe fundie. I think they'll be just fine. JB is going to be more worried about money now too so he will be looking to marry them off. I don't see Jana getting married to Tim Tebow or a political family anymore though now that the scandal is out.

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I don't know about that, I wouldn't call Derick, Ben, or Marjorie weirdo fringe fundie. I think they'll be just fine. JB is going to be more worried about money now too so he will be looking to marry them off. I don't see Jana getting married to Tim Tebow or a political family anymore though now that the scandal is out.

Marjorie could be a punk rocker for all I know, but I would call Ben and Derick weirdo fringe fundie. Their mothers and Ben's sisters might wear pants but they believe the same shit their wives do and Ben's anti-Catholic rants show a total intolerance to Christians who may not believe every word in the Bible is literally true.

I do think a few families can live out their days in relative isolation. The Arndts may pull it off, although I feel a little sad thinking about the last elderly manboy living out his days alone with the stuffed penguins. But the Duggars haven't lived in isolation for ages. With the show gone, shit's gonna blow. There was always going to be trouble once the show ended, but the way it ended will compound things.

I think there are deep resentments towards their parents and towards each other that will result in the family splintering. Money tends to do that. Toss in fundie insanity, child molestation, and tabloids, oh my, and the tell-all is practically guaranteed a spot on the NY Times best seller list.

My money has always been on James (with a ghost writer, of course) but maybe now that things have been accelerated a bit, I'll bet on the twins in a few years. Forward written by Jana.

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Marjorie could be a punk rocker for all I know, but I would call Ben and Derick weirdo fringe fundie. Their mothers and Ben's sisters might wear pants but they believe the same shit their wives do and Ben's anti-Catholic rants show a total intolerance to Christians who may not believe every word in the Bible is literally true.

I do think a few families can live out their days in relative isolation. The Arndts may pull it off, although I feel a little sad thinking about the last elderly manboy living out his days alone with the stuffed penguins. But the Duggars haven't lived in isolation for ages. With the show gone, shit's gonna blow. There was always going to be trouble once the show ended, but the way it ended will compound things.

I think there are deep resentments towards their parents and towards each other that will result in the family splintering. Money tends to do that. Toss in fundie insanity, child molestation, and tabloids, oh my, and the tell-all is practically guaranteed a spot on the NY Times best seller list.

My money has always been on James (with a ghost writer, of course) but maybe now that things have been accelerated a bit, I'll bet on the twins in a few years. Forward written by Jana.

I think JB knows that a tell-all would be a best seller since he was shocked in the Kelly interview when he complained about how their name was on every single magazine and news outlet. Unfortunately, because JB knows this, he will be desperate to prevent that from happening so I can only see him becoming 100x more controlling :evil: . He would go as far as paying one of his "rebellious" kids off to keep quiet than have them go and write a tell-all and embarrass him again. He'd probably also threaten said rebel child and have them shunned from everyone else in the family. I don't think any of the kids would want to lose contact with their little brothers are sisters no matter how bad they'd want to write a tell all.

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I think JB knows that a tell-all would be a best seller since he was shocked in the Kelly interview when he complained about how their name was on every single magazine and news outlet. Unfortunately, because JB knows this, he will be desperate to prevent that from happening so I can only see him becoming 100x more controlling :evil: . He would go as far as paying one of his "rebellious" kids off to keep quiet than have them go and write a tell-all and embarrass him again. He'd probably also threaten said rebel child and have them shunned from everyone else in the family. I don't think any of the kids would want to lose contact with their little brothers are sisters no matter how bad they'd want to write a tell all.

Oh, I agree he'll get more controlling, but he has a ton of kids to control and it will just take one them (Hi, James Duggar of the Future :greetings-waveyellow: ) to get pissed off enough to get revenge. In the case of someone like James, his mother Jill is already lost to him and I really don't think most of the siblings will stay close to each other as adults. The dysfunction is very deep.

Normally, I'd say it would be a rebel daughter, but Hannie's too young and Joy's drunk too much of the purple juice, so it will be howler. Not to mention the fact that Boob has probably routinely beaten the shit out of some of them put all kinds of punishments on them.

*edited for translation into Boob-speak

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He'll be more controlling, but the older ones will gradually drift (John is drifting, Jana is close to him and exerts a huge quiet influence). With older ones gradually drifting but in such a way that they don't offend or get kicked out, a younger one could rebel and have a marginally disapproving elder sibling subtly act as a bridge between them and other siblings, easing a the emotional pain of a disowning.

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He'll be more controlling, but the older ones will gradually drift (John is drifting, Jana is close to him and exerts a huge quiet influence). With older ones gradually drifting but in such a way that they don't offend or get kicked out, a younger one could rebel and have a marginally disapproving elder sibling subtly act as a bridge between them and other siblings, easing a the emotional pain of a disowning.

Jana would never abandon her children.

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Huh. I'd love to speculate on who will make a break for it first, except I think it's just as likely to not be who we think it might be. I'm pretty sure all of them, including Jessa Jill and Josh resent mom and dad to some degree, whether they'd admit it to themselves, let alone others, or not.

But the profound educational and emotional neglect has got to be tough on them, so right now I'm even more worried for the Mkids and Izzy as well as Jessa's future child. They're being raised in the second generation of neglect, and by adults who argue and think like children. Granted, what I've seen of Derick lendse to believe he does too, and he was raised relatively normally.

Good luck to whoever untangles the duggar mental gymnastics.

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Huh. I'd love to speculate on who will make a break for it first, except I think it's just as likely to not be who we think it might be. I'm pretty sure all of them, including Jessa Jill and Josh resent mom and dad to some degree, whether they'd admit it to themselves, let alone others, or not.

I don't think we're going to be able to predict it with any level of accuracy because, if they're really working on breaking, they'd do best to not show any signs of it. There's already speculation as to the use of ALERT or JTTH to stop/re-brainwash potential breakers. I can only think that JB and Michelle are going to be even more proactive against possible breakers because their house of cards has already been partially destroyed.

Of course, if a kid actually breaks, the impact of it will largely depend on what the kid does post-break and how JB and Michelle react to it. The kid might not want to go public and in that case, JB and Michelle might just be able to ignore the issue or make up something to satiate the leg humpers. If the kid does go public, I'd like to think that they're smart enough to not go the Lisa Pennington route.

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I vividly remember the last time my mother threatened to hit me. She was coming down the hall with a hanger raised--no, seriously--and I finally snapped. I thought "I'm five inches taller than her and I'm tired of being hit for stupid reasons or her general cussedness," and I reached out, wrestled it away, and started walking towards her. That ended that. She still could ground me and humiliate me, but I didn't get hit any more. It just takes one kid to do that, and there are a lot more kids than parents in that family; if only two or three of them start to tell each other "This is crazy" then Jim Bob will suddenly be like my mother without the hanger: his headship will vanish and he'll just be a blustering fool to them.

But on a totally different tangent: The Duggars, who have a very low level of moral development, think they should convert other people? What a nerve! They see themselves as like a city on a hill, a beacon in the darkness, and they don't mean to hide their religious superiority under a basket. Except they aren't superior to most people over about ten! Their idea of "being good" is nothing like what Kolhberg and many others see as being good people. And yet they're going to go out and try to convert other people? Luckily most other adults, at any rate, have the morals of people over ten and will at best humor them.

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I vividly remember the last time my mother threatened to hit me. She was coming down the hall with a hanger raised--no, seriously--and I finally snapped. I thought "I'm five inches taller than her and I'm tired of being hit for stupid reasons or her general cussedness," and I reached out, wrestled it away, and started walking towards her. That ended that. She still could ground me and humiliate me, but I didn't get hit any more. It just takes one kid to do that, and there are a lot more kids than parents in that family; if only two or three of them start to tell each other "This is crazy" then Jim Bob will suddenly be like my mother without the hanger: his headship will vanish and he'll just be a blustering fool to them.

But on a totally different tangent: The Duggars, who have a very low level of moral development, think they should convert other people? What a nerve! They see themselves as like a city on a hill, a beacon in the darkness, and they don't mean to hide their religious superiority under a basket. Except they aren't superior to most people over about ten! Their idea of "being good" is nothing like what Kolhberg and many others see as being good people. And yet they're going to go out and try to convert other people? Luckily most other adults, at any rate, have the morals of people over ten and will at best humor them.

I'm sorry about your mother. An abusive father is bad enough, but not having your mother in your corner has to be just about the worst thing for a kid.

Some of the Duggar kids will rebel. It's beyond just the law of averages. At some point that smoldering cauldron of abuse, frustrated young men, anger over the loss of the show and all that went with it, along with resentment over money, houses and general favoritism will boil over. It can't not happen.

Had the Duggars stayed in frumpers and general isolation, maybe they could have succeeded in controlling their kids like some other fundie parents we know. But they pimped out the kids for a reality show and we know that reality shows almost always eat families. Just like Lance Loud said.

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