Review: "Growing Up Duggar" by Jana Duggar, Jill Duggar, Jessa Duggar, and Jinger Duggar

Growing Up Duggar by Jana Duggar, Jill Duggar, Jessa Duggar, and Jinger Duggar
First published 2013
★

I took myself on a tour of the books the Duggar family published before things got...how do I say this delicately...more complicated in the media for them. Unfortunately, Growing Up Duggar—attributed to the four oldest daughters of the family, written when they ranged between 20 and 24—is one of those books.

It is about what you might expect from a group of brainwashed young women who are spouting the things their church leaders and father have taught them to say. Among the lessons: don't ever criticise your father; niceness is more important than auto safety or being able to trust your driver; romance novels and pornography are tools of satan; musicians usually die young (good grief I want to know where they got their data—from a wisdom booklet,* or somewhere else?)...

Everyone wants to be respected, but it’s especially important for fathers. I suggested that to begin improving their relationship, the first thing she needed to work on was being positive. If she felt like she was going to say something critical or negative, I advised her that it would be better, at least for now, to choose not to say anything. Along with this goal, I encouraged her to pray for her dad and ask God to help him have more patience and kindness and to pray that he would be “slow to anger,” a phrase that occurs several times in the Bible describing a characteristic of God. (34)

Mom and Dad have stressed that there’s a distinct line between giving advice and degrading someone as a person. We have had friends overreact with some of our siblings and insinuate that they don’t want to be a passenger in the vehicle the sibling is operating—or even come right out and tell the sibling that he or she is a bad driver. That’s definitely a situation when we will speak up and say, “Aww, that’s not nice to say. He’s actually a very good driver! Probably better than I was at his age.” (79)

We have met some girls who have simply fallen in love with the idea of marriage and are just looking for a guy to fulfill their dreams. They have an image in mind of what marriage is, and they are in love with that image. One girl told us recently, “I was in love with the thought of being in love, and it consumed my every waking hour.” This is one of the greatest dangers of romance novels. They paint a picture of an unrealistic, unobtainable relationship. It’s the same thing pornography does to men. Viewing pornography gives them a distorted view of women that leads them down the path of immorality and guilt. (106)

As we have examined the lives of many of these artists, we have seen the outcome of such living. It was sad to find that on average, the life expectancy for rock artists and musicians is around forty; many of them die at a young age for reasons related to AIDS, drug or alcohol abuse, or suicides. It’s a tragic reality. (153)

Jinger** has since sought to distance herself from this book, and from the messaging in it. I'm not sure if Jill has said anything about it directly, but considering that she recently published a book in which she said that the teachings she was living under at this age constituted a cult (I agree, Jill, I agree), I think it's safe to say that this is not a work that she is proud of these days. What the other two might think is a mystery.

But folks, this book is sad. It's sad that they were taught that their parents setting aside one day a month to talk to their children was going above and beyond: Maybe in your family, there’s no way parents and kids can spend a whole day talking one-on-one. And actually, having a set day for family talk time may be the ideal... (42). It's sad that those conversations included questions about favourite colours or favourite foods or things like 'Who's your best friend?" and 'What projects are you working on right now?' (41)—questions that you wouldn't need to ask if you were only able to set aside a few minutes per child per month. It's sad (and disturbing, and gross) that their oldest brother was interviewed for this book, and his vague account of 'struggles' and 'wrong thoughts' and 'failures' when he was younger seems—now that his actions are public knowledge—like an allusion to the fact that he had abused his sisters. (He's in federal prison now for similar crimes, but at the time all that was secret, so I guess the family was still trying to position him as the Golden Boy.) It's sad that there's pretty much nothing in here that reads like an independent thought rather than something that was suggested and approved by their parents.

I'm torn between one and two stars here. It's not their fault that this is what they were taught and told to write, but...it's pretty bad. Call it 1.5 stars, with the caveat that I hope they have all grown significantly in the past decade and would cringe now to read this.

*Wisdom booklets are 'educational' materials put out by the IBLP, a homeschooling organisation (cult!) that the Duggars were heavily involved in. Suffice it to say that they did not provide a balanced education.

**Normally I'd use last names, but there are a lot of Duggars to go around here, so for the sake of clarity...