Why did Josh bring Anna and the kiddos along?

[3 is enough]

Seriously, there's absolutely no reason for him to be dragging a 6 month old and a two year old all over the country to boring political rallies, especially during cold and flu season. It borders on child abuse, IMO.

 

Even Jim Bob isn't trotting out all the blessings- only the over 18 bunch.

 

I guess he doesn't trust Anna enough to leave her alone.

[Maude]

It's been discussed here how fundies often use their children as props. I think that's likely the situation with Mackynzie and Michael.

[uber frau]

Street Cred. He cant go to a pro-'family' rally without his family.

JB doesn't need to drag the smaller ones along, he has enough who are of voting age.

[meow139]

Poor kids, being exposed to a disease like Frothy cant be good for them. :cry:

[Witsec7]

At 11:30EST Smugger posts an instagram that they are heading down the campaign trail. WTF he's got a wife and two kids who only get to sleep in a car??? And what the hell are those kids eating, fast food like their parents?

[Deleted06]

At 11:30EST Smugger posts an instagram that they are heading down the campaign trail. WTF he's got a wife and two kids who only get to sleep in a car??? And what the hell are those kids eating, fast food like their parents?

Those poor M-kids will probably have high cholesterol before they are 5 years old.

[virginmojito]

Never too early to indoctrinate and stoop down two innocent kids and turn the girl into a slave, and the boy into a mini-josh, because these two things are what our world really neeeeedz!

[ophelia]

yes.. absolutely.

:-(

[smores]

My goodness, their routine must be so thrown off that those kids are miserable. I did a two week trip with my 5 month old when she was 3 months and still slept most of the time, and it was still terrible.

[freealljs]

Josh seems quite insecure. In his instagrams, he has this "look who I'm taking a pic of and hence I'm important" vibe going on. Difficult to explain. Plus, he's traveling the country going to universities and being around people his age who have accomplished something with their lives.

Well, that's why I think he drags his young toddlers and possibly pregnant wife around. I think it's important for young children to have routines and sleep in their own beds, and Josh should have told Anna to head back home after Iowa. But Josh would probably accuse me of being too liberal. LOL Besides, he'd probably demand a phone call every hour, just to make sure she's not trying to escape.

[ophelia]

You are right that Smuggar gets in touch with a lot of people of his age that are considered to have achieved much more things than he has so far. I guess that is one of the reasons he brought his brood. The only things he did so far are to get a girls authority unto him and to get her knocked up several times. In fundie-world he did a great job so far and maybe he needs to be reminded of that while meeting all those people that are doing REAL college and someday in the future might pursue HIS dream and become lawyers instead of selling old cars for the rest of their lives.

[apple1]

I am completely confused as to how Josh's endorsement (campaigning?) can help ANY political candidate. Is there actually anyone who cares? JB maybe (that's a big MAYBE), but Josh, no.

Really.

[Deleted07]

Josh seems quite insecure. In his instagrams, he has this "look who I'm taking a pic of and hence I'm important" vibe going on.

Completely agree!!!

And kinda OT; How the heck can someone who runs their own business afford to take SO much time off and be away so much? It seems literally every other month he is going away somewhere, and this campaign is taking up weeks and weeks of valuable time he could be spending actually MAKING money rather than spending it on Motels and shitty fast food. (not to mention what everyone else has said about upsetting two infants home patterns, subjecting them to cold/flu and giving Mommy dearest Anna a further workload being out and about too) He infuriates me.

[Deleted03]

I think that also ensures maximum pregnancy potential.

[Guest Anonymous]

It's possible (though probably unlikely) that he was going to head out on his own & Anna insisted she come along. I'm not sure I'd trust Josh to be unsupervised. I mean, look at the shining ineptitude we get when he *is* supervised. [edited for spelling...twice]

[MckSassy]

I think that also ensures maximum pregnancy potential.

If the bus is rockin, don't come knockin! :lol:

I don't understand why Josh and Anna have to be included on all these trips anyways. They are their own family, ya know, leave and cleave?

[IReallyAmHopewell]

We should thank them for helping end the Santorum candidacy.......

That said:

a. It's time for Anna to get pregnant again and that won't happen if they aren't together

b. Gothard teaches that just about every second of life should be spent together "working" as a family

c. I think Anna got to see her Mom (or will) which is probably good in her book

d. Being cooped up in the house or cooped up in the car? toss a coin--each bad with that age kids

[2xx1xy1JD]

I won't snark too much about traveling with young children, because once upon a time we took our 3 year old and 2 month old on a 6 week trip through Australia and New Zealand. It turned out wonderfully - but I happened to have kids that couldn't stand their own beds or going to sleep at a set time, but who were perfectly happy to travel and have mommy and daddy around 24/7. I was quite happy to hike through their summer instead of being cooped up during our winter.

That said, I wouldn't have wanted to be tied into something like a campaign schedule, and I think my kids would have gone stir-crazy on campaign stops. Are they doing regular playground breaks for Mack? Kids need to nap and let off steam periodically or you end up with meltdowns. Is Anna able to discreetly disappear with the kids when they get overwhelmed, or is normal toddler behavior considered to be a sign of demonic possession and/or sinful disobedience?

[BayLee_10]

Since Priscilla's wedding is February 4th I think Anna came along to spend some time with her family and attend her sister's wedding. If she had stayed at home no doubt she would have been called upon to help Michelle with her youngest brood. Most likely both Kenzie and Michael are quite used to traveling and have only a loosely adhered to schedule. How Josh is making money at his car lots is another question. Perhaps he hopes to be hired by the Santorum campaign. If he is actually interested in political consulting, he needs to go to college, and should not have burned his bridges to other candidates. He insulted Catholics and there are nearly 80 million of them in the USA, and, as a group, Catholics are anti-abortion. Well, no one ever accused Josh of intelligence.

[lilwriter85]

Completely agree!!!

And kinda OT; How the heck can someone who runs their own business afford to take SO much time off and be away so much? It seems literally every other month he is going away somewhere, and this campaign is taking up weeks and weeks of valuable time he could be spending actually MAKING money rather than spending it on Motels and shitty fast food. (not to mention what everyone else has said about upsetting two infants home patterns, subjecting them to cold/flu and giving Mommy dearest Anna a further workload being out and about too) He infuriates me.

A lot of us have been wondering about how Josh and John David can take off a lot of time from their businesses to be traveling around. Someone mentioned that Josh employs a friend who works on the lot, so that guy maybe taking care of things. But there is only so much an employee can do without the manager/owner around. I think the Duggars use their TLC money to travel around for stuff like this. Josh has probably around a few thousand traveling around with this campaign.

[galaxygirl]

I am completely confused as to how Josh's endorsement (campaigning?) can help ANY political candidate. Is there actually anyone who cares? JB maybe (that's a big MAYBE), but Josh, no.

Really.

I'm sure that Smugs ego thinks that since he's on a tv show and kinda famous, people will care about who he endorses :lol:

[IReallyAmHopewell]

A lot of us have been wondering about how Josh and John David can take off a lot of time from their businesses to be traveling around. Someone mentioned that Josh employs a friend who works on the lot, so that guy maybe taking care of things. But there is only so much an employee can do without the manager/owner around. I think the Duggars use their TLC money to travel around for stuff like this. Josh has probably around a few thousand traveling around with this campaign.

Josh has a few employees now so he probably lets them run things, then comes home and throws his weight around for a while.

John David--I wonder if any of Michelle's nephew's (her closest sister, I think, lives not far away) might cover for him or if he also has hired people by now. Or maybe the family that does the mechanical work for Josh covers for him?

[Feberin]

Although I wouldn't want to do it from what we know about their life so far it sounds like they might be on the road about as much as they are at home. It really depends how much Anna sticks with them or if she goes off and does her own thing taking the kids places and such. I would hope they're not just eating fast food but I wouldn't be surprised since they seem to eat a lot of that at home too. My guess is Josh needs his own accomplishments Mac and Mike along. I think the used car buisness is just a front for the show to demonstrate that Josh is a independent buisness man.

[bananacat]

The reason Josh can take so much time off work is that he was never really working in the first place. He couldn't possibly survive on the income he gets from being a used car salesman. His Daddy and Grandma support him almost completely, and the car lot is like a little play thing he has so he can pretend he's a grown-up and pretend he's supporting himself. It doesn't matter if he leaves it because it's not a real living anyway.

[3 is enough]

I'm sure that Smugs ego thinks that since he's on a tv show and kinda famous, people will care about who he endorses

I don't doubt it for a second, but he has some serious delusions about the extent of his "fame" doesn't he?

I have a feeling the "what a jackass" crowd outnumbers the "fans" by at least 2 to 1.