After watching Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar raise 19 children on 19 Kids & Counting and Counting On, many fans have been wondering which of their children (if any) will follow in their footsteps and have an oversized family of their own. Now we know that Joy-Anna Duggar won’t be one of them –and is it just us, or did she just take a swipe at her parents in her Instagram Stories for having so many kids?
Joy talked about her future family plans this week.
During an Instagram Q&A with fans, one of her followers asked her if she had “any desire to have 19 kids” like her parents did, and for Joy, it seems to be a resounding no.
“No, not 19 … ” she wrote. “I want to be able to effectively & intentionally raise for my kids for Jesus so whatever number that is for us. Maybe 4 or 5.”
Now that Joy is a mom to three children – Gideon, Evelyn, and Gunner – that would mean she’s only going to have one or two more kids before her family with husband Austin Forsyth is complete. That’s a big family in general, but not big at all compared to the environment she grew up in.
Duggar critics seem to believe this was a dig at Michelle.
Though Duggar critics on Reddit typically aren’t big fans of the family’s parenting choices, this time, they’re supportive of Joy deciding against having kids in the double digits, and no one seems too surprised she wouldn’t want her children to have an upbringing like her own.
“It must hit like a truck to see her own kids get to the age where they would’ve started having ‘buddies’ in her childhood home. It’s honestly remarkable to me that all of the older girls speak so highly of Michelle,” one commenter shared.
Another person wrote, “She likely remembers the days before the TLC money came in. 19 children for anyone is not healthy and does not benefit the family.”
She also addressed her decision to wear pants.
Another follower asked Joy about how she decided to wear pants after she and her sister were raised to only wear dresses in the name of “modesty.” According to her, it was a “long & thoughtful decision.”
“It might sound crazy to some of you, but we did put a lot of prayer into our decision (for a couple of years), 1.) because I had never worn pants before 2.) my husband and I were both taught that pants were immodest,” she wrote, adding that she used the bible to help make the choice.
“My decision wasn’t one of rebellion against the way I was raised & I don’t have any bitterness because I wore skirts my whole childhood (it never held me back from doing what I wanted to do),” she continued. “But genuinely I think modesty is an issue of the heart. Why do you dress the way you dress?”
Joy isn’t the only Duggar who has made comments like this about the way she was raised.
More than one of Joy’s siblings has chosen to raise their own children in a very different way from how their parents approached it, but no one has been more outspoken than her big sister, Jill. In her memoir Counting the Cost, Jill opened up about looking back on her childhood as an adult who has walked away from the family’s very conservative religion, the Institute in Basic Life Principles.
“Only now can I look back and see things clearly, like the way IBLP fostered a culture of manipulation and abuse, the fact that Pops eventually put the show above his children, or the toll it took on my own mental health,” she wrote.
