What to Know
You can always count on an adult Duggar kid to post something totally wacky or ridiculous involving their own kids. In this case, it’s Jessa Duggar, who shared a letter that her oldest child, Spurgeon Seewald, allegedly wrote to her. Except, he addressed the letter to “Jessa” instead of “Mom.” And the contents of the letter are a little strange too. So when a user shared it on Reddit, pretty much everyone pointed that out.
Some people don’t believe that little Spurgy even wrote the letter to Jessa. Others think it might have been part of some kind of homeschooling assignment. But there have long been criticisms of the Duggar family’s homeschool curriculum, so even if that’s the case, Jessa isn’t coming out of this one with some jokes at her expense.
Jessa Duggar’s oldest son called her by her name in the letter.
Jessa’s original post on Instagram includes a collection of photos from the month of May, including a shot of all six of her kids together, some individual photos, and a picture of her husband Ben Seewald loading ice cream into a shopping cart at Walmart. And then, of course, the letter from Spurgeon.
In it, he wrote, “Dear Jessa, Thank you for taking care of me. Also thank you for doing homeschool. I know it’s hard for you. Also your sourdough bread is so good. We should make it again sometime. I wish I could buy you flowers. Love, Spurgeon.”
It kind of reads as a Mother’s Day letter or card, and it’s kind of adorable. But the way he addressed his mom in it made some users on Reddit take pause. Also his mention of homeschool teaching being “hard” for Jessa. If there’s one thing about Redditors, it’s that they don’t miss a single thing, especially when it comes to the Duggars.
“Why is he calling her ‘Jessa’ and not ‘mom’ or something along those lines??” The user who made the Reddit post wrote. “I find it hilarious that Spurgeon is noting that homeschooling is hard for Jessa. I bet it is, seeing as she never learned the basics herself. I bet that 10-year-old Spurgeon has already surpassed his mom in education and Jessa is struggling to keep up.”
Another person wrote, “Yep, first thing that struck me was that he called his mother by her actual name – feels a bit off to me.
“Interesting that he’s noticed the homeschooling is difficult for her, maybe it’s as simple as her struggling to manage teaching her oldest kids while caring for the younger ones?” A Redditor commented. They added, “If he wants to buy flowers, why can’t Ben take him to buy flowers to say they’re from him?”
Some people think it was a school assignment.
Since Jessa does homeschool all of her children, as her mom Michelle Duggar and older siblings did with her, some more generous people on the internet speculated that the letter was part of an assignment. It makes sense for kids of Spurgeon’s age to be assigned a task of writing a formal letter to someone. If Spurgeon chose his mom, he might have thought addressing her by name made the most sense.
Jessa didn’t confirm that herself, but she did respond to someone on Instagram who commented on her post with, “If he’s learning how to write a formal letter, maybe that’s why he put Dear Jessa. [I] seriously doubt tell her I’m sure he calls her Mom.”
In response to that, Jessa wrote, “Spot on. He still calls me Mama.”
He was called a “parentified child.”
Unsurprisingly, there are more comments on Jessa’s Instagram gassing her up than there are critiquing her. Over on Reddit, however, users are more bold with their comments when it comes to the Duggars, including Jessa. There really are no Duggar family members, or in-laws, who are safe from Redditors when there is something to poke fun at or comment on.
So when someone commented that Spurgeon is a “parentified child,” some agreed. One person even wrote, “He’s not just parenting his little siblings, it sounds like he’s gentle parenting Jessa in this letter lmao.”
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