For many parents, swimming is an essential life skill that they want their children to learn. In her new book, however, Jinger Duggar revealed that she never learned how to swim as a kid — and her 19 Kids and Counting family’s strict dress code had something to do with it. Growing up, the Duggar daughters were required to dress modestly and that meant they weren’t able to wear pants in public, let alone a swimsuit.
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It's hard to learn to swim in a long skirt, Jinger admitted.
In her new book, People Pleaser: Breaking Free From the Burden of Imaginary Expectations, Jinger, 31, detailed trying to learn how to swim while still following her family’s dress code. “Here’s what I did know for sure: Long skirts were not designed for learning how to swim,” the Counting On alum wrote in her book, per Us Weekly.
“Another way of saying ‘long-skirt swimmer’ is ‘one who sinks,’” she added.
She had to wear long skirts as a kid, so she never learned how to swim.
Though trying to swim in a long skirt was a challenge, Jinger didn’t have any other options at the time. “Because long skirts were the only swimming fashion available to me as a kid, and because I had a thing about not wanting to sink, the skill of swimming was not something I picked up during that time,” she wrote. The fact that she never learned how to swim has made Jinger feel nervous around water.
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Now, as a mom, she's trying to learn.
Jinger admitted that her childhood memories still make learning to swim feel like an intimidating feat. “I was still so scared, thinking back to the few times I’d tried as a kid, the long skirt encasing my flailing legs,” she wrote.
But because she wants her children to learn how to swim, she’s prioritized picking up the skill as an adult.
She's slowly learning how to swim.
At the time of writing her book, Jinger was still taking swimming lessons. However, she’s determined to learn for her kids. “I want them to know that I can [swim], too,” she wrote. She’s currently “taking it baby step by baby step.”
She has spoken about her family's dress code before.
Because of the way she was raised, Jinger “thought [she] had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God,” she explained to People in 2023. She added that when she decided to start wearing pants, she “had conversations with [her parents] about that and let them know, this is what I see in the Bible.”
Jinger and her husband Jeremy Vuolo are expecting their third child together.
Jinger and Jeremy are parents to daughters Felicity and Evangeline. In October 2024, they announced that Jinger is pregnant with their third child. More recently, they shared footage from their intimate gender reveal and revealed that they’re expecting a boy.
