With Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar‘s oversized brood of 19 children, it was practically inevitable that some of those kids would want to follow in their footsteps and have big families of their own, and many of them have gotten started immediately after getting married. But now, we know Jason Duggar definitely won’t be one of them, and it sounds like his wife, Maddie, is on the same page.
Jason and Maddie opened up about their plans for starting a family.
After Jason and Maddie tied the knot in October 2024, some fans believed that a pregnancy announcement could come anytime afterward, but as the newlyweds explained in a new video on their recently launched YouTube channel, that was never going to be the case. According to Maddie, they won’t be having kids “for a while.”
“I love kids but I donât want any right now, and I want to savor this and just get to know each other,” she said in the video.
The couple has their own idea of what married life should look like.
For Jason, that doesn’t include having 19 kids â though he said he doesn’t fault his parents for taking that path.
âI think that their calling really was having all 19 kids. I really do believe that,” he said in the video. “Theyâre such incredible parents, but for us, we also want to enjoy every stage that the Lord has us in. We want to be able to travel too, travel around the world, do a bunch of things, and itâs tough to do that when you have kids.â
Jason’s siblings’ experiences have informed his decision.
âEven some of the couples in my family have said, âHey, we wish that we maybe would have maybe waited a little bit, that way we could travel and do different things,â and so thatâs something we both really want to do,â he said.
Hmm … considering that so many of his siblings did jump right into parenthood after marriage, it’s hard to narrow down which person he might be talking to. But regardless, it’s good to hear that his older siblings are having these conversations with the younger ones as they figure life out.
They also don’t plan on having 19 kids of their own.
Maddie said they will “absolutely not” have a family as big as Jason’s, and instead, she said their max would be six children â “and that’s pushing it.”
Still, her feelings on the topic don’t have anything to do with the way she feels about mother-in-law Michelle.
âI think your mom is an absolute angel for being able to do that because I couldnât,” she shared.
