What to Know
We’ve seen the Duggars bounce back from a crisis before (see: any scandal in the past related to Josh Duggar), but after Joseph was arrested earlier this year, it seemed like the moment could finally be the catalyst for the family to make some big changes.
But now that nothing has happened, critics are questioning why the Duggars are acting like their lives have resumed as normal despite the fact that one of their sons and brothers is awaiting trial while facing accusations of molestation.
Jim Bob and Michelle seem to have remained supportive of Joseph.
And after they supported their oldest son, Josh, through his conviction of possessing and receiving child sexual assault materials (CSAM) that led to the prison sentence he’s currently serving, should we ever have expected anything different?
When news broke in March that Joseph had been arrested after he was accused of molesting a 9-year-old girl on a family vacation, an email that Jim Bob had sent him while he was behind bars became public.
“I am so sorry for what you are going through,” Jim Bob wrote in the email. “Mom & I love you very much! Looks like you have a long road ahead of you, but God will get you through. You have made some terrible decisions, but God has already forgiven you if you have asked him.”
They’re standing by Joseph’s wife Kendra, too. Days after Joseph’s arrest, Kendra turned herself in for unrelated charges of child endangerment, and Michelle was there to pick her up from jail when she was released.
This is leaving the family’s critics with a lot of questions.
One Duggar critic made a post on Reddit pointing out how strange it seemed that the family was “business as usual” in the wake of yet another huge scandal at a time when Jim Bob and Michelle’s kids “have to be questioning the way they were raised or not.”
The Duggars spent many years on TLC reaffirming just how different they are from most people, though — and not necessarily in a good way. “Their baseline is abuse and exploitation. To them it’s no big deal,” one person wrote. “We’re the abnormal ones, thinking all this is wrong.”
Some of the kids — the younger ones and the adults — are likely financially reliant on their dad.
In Jill’s memoir, she didn’t paint a pretty picture of the way her father would hold money over his kids’ heads, so maybe at least some of them are worried about supporting themselves if they were to fall out of line.
“It takes time and privacy to deconstruct your belief system,” one person wrote. “These people are also actually able to be comfortable with the manufactured dependence on Jim Bob. Jim Bob controls the money and most of these people are not able to survive without his financial assistance.”
Besides, the older Duggar kids’ social media activity may not tell the whole story. We didn’t know things were as bad between Jill and her parents as they were until years later.
It could be a while before we find out for sure what’s going on behind the scenes right now… if we ever do.
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