For a Taste of Real Freedom, Check Out the Duggar Kids — All 19 of Them

by Charlie Richards
Aug 31st 2010

Excerpt:
You won’t find a television in their giant living room. The Internet is greatly restricted. The girls’ room (9 of 10 sleep in 1 room – the only exception is temporary, newborn Josie) didn’t have Hanna Montana or boy band or vampire posters or anything like it.

Lady Gaga did not make the cut.

The most prevalent thing on the walls of the Duggar house are family pictures and scripture. So, yes, you could say quite accurately popular culture was shielded by the walls literally built by the Duggar family.

Funny thing is, people tend to assume a child not immersed in popular culture is a child missing from reality. In some cases, that is true. Not the Duggars...

...My wife and I spent considerable time talking to the three teenage girls, Jill, Jessa and Jinger. They are sharp, fun and informed. They know what’s going on out there. But it isn’t at all a part of their every day life. And, to the shock and dismay of so many, they’re okay with that.

While, admittedly, I admire the Duggars for much of what they do, I didn’t expect what I saw in these three girls. The world has yet to beat them into submission. They don’t watch the Disney Channel, so they’ve yet to learn that adults are buffoons and parents are embarrassing. They don’t listen to the local rock station, so they’ve yet do discover life is supposed to be one promiscuous event followed by another. They don’t attend public school, so they’ve yet to learn teenage girls are required to be filled with angst and riddled with insecurities.

As we spoke to the three of them, one word kept jumping out at me: Freedom. These girls were experiencing freedom teenagers rarely taste. Completely free to be themselves. The exact opposite of the words so often used by media folk to describe the 19 kids. the rest image