Eighteen Kids Is Only Half The Story: The Truth Behind The "Quiverfull" Movement

[Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino]

Recently I saw the show "Eighteen Kids...And Counting" for the first time. It has never been a show that particularly interested me and thus I have never watched it although I have heard of it. Personally I think it is disgusting for this family to espouse their so-called "values" and market them on display. If we truly examine the aforementioned show and said family, what we have is a display of convictions that have racked up massive dollars to help afford the Duggars a maintenance of their lifestyle. The cameras are around and the family is dressed up for its adventures, be they going to the grocery store or following the household chores for the day.

I do understand the appeal of the show to modern audiences. It appeals to modern day society's "Little House on the Prairie" fantasy concept where kids are not on their cell phones, families seem to talk to each other, and boys and girls are not having premarital sex (that we are aware of). Children are unrebellious, obedient, and orderly. Girls wear dresses and boys wear pants, and the females do the "female" household things while the males do the "male" rugged work. There is no real technological advancement in their lives; in fact, the Duggars espouse a lifestyle much like people lived pre-industrialization. They live rurally and agriculturally, where the family's life centers on its singular product of itself, and its religious beliefs. It seems quiet, gentle, and simple enough. They do so-called "good deeds" for the world to see as a family. In fact, every time we look at them, they are doing something as a family, almost to the point of being nauseating. The Duggars appear to be happy, well-adjusted, and some semblance of Christian, although I find that debatable. Just because someone can randomly spout off what Jesus said on a television show doesn't convince me they truly know the Word made flesh. Their espoused doctrines and lifestyle, in fact, cause me to believe that they have a semblance of religion but do not truly know God. Having a lot of children isn't a sign that you're holy, it's a sign that you aren't particularly discriminating about breeding. Any creature under the sun can reproduce and therefore multiply, proving it not a particularly holy endeavor. For this reason, the Duggar family is of issue to those in apologetics, theology, women's issues, Christianity, and feminism: for the simple reason that they are representing certain values to the world which they claim to be Biblical, theological, and "true," so to speak.

At the same time of watching for bygone appeal, I believe there is another motive to watching "Eighteen Kids...and Counting." People watch waiting for the "train wreck," so to speak. The other end of such a perfect-seeming family life is the reality that somewhere inside, most people don't believe what they are seeing is real. Watchers tune in waiting for the rebellious Duggar child to emerge, the one that runs out and gets a tattoo or marries a biker who crushes beer cans on his head. Audiences want to see the Duggar family deal with a realistic crisis, one that other families face every day. They want to see the family have to use their so-called "faith" for something other than multiplying. For this reason, we see a true paradox in the appeal of such a show: on the one hand, people want to feel quaint, old-fashioned, and traditional; on the other, people also want to see the modern world infect the quaint, old-fashioned, and traditional.

What we do not see by watching the TV show (without proper knowledge) is the heart behind the Duggar family and its extensive size. The religious movement behind the Duggars is called "Quiverfull," a reference to the belief that "a quiver of children" are taught to be a blessing, and families who are to be truly "godly" will not use any form of birth control or sterilization. Barrenness is still regarded as a curse. While on the surface someone might not look too deeply into this movement as anything other than a Christian child-bearing movement, the truth is that the reason for this push toward procreation is both demonic and unbiblical.

The first questionable issue of Quiverfull is the fact that it was founded by men (not the women actually expected to breed like rabbits) with the intention to be a patriarchal movement. The father is regarded as the highest order in every family, unmovable, undistracted, and unwavering. Everyone within the movement is expected to submit to so-called order: Wives submit unquestioningly to husbands and children submit to their parents. More realistically we should say that females submit to males. It is obvious if we watch shows such as "Eighteen Kids...and Counting" that the children, even at their young ages, are quite aware of the "pecking order" within the family. How can we summarize it? Everyone does what dad says. Dad leads "home church." Most Quiverfull movement adherents hold to home services where the father of the family is the leader. They do not belong to traditional church as this would uproot the order of the male as head of his family in every way, and instead turning over spiritual authority to another individual. The children do not go to school, as a teacher or educational mentor may become a challenge to the father's authority and therefore would become a conflict of who is to influence a child's life. They are not encouraged to pursue careers or higher education. It is obvious from watching the show that the boys are given the traditional preferential treatment. They clearly play more, have more free time, and are more unsupervised than the girls. Girls are expected to clean the house, cook, and take care of younger children. The men on the show strike me as condescending and offensive, as speaking down to both the women in their lives and often their children. The girls file behind the boys in tow, with their long, unkempt hair, and long skirts. One particular moment in the show truly revealed the degradation of the female in the movement: as one younger boy dialogued with the father of another Quiverfull family, two older girls, sitting in proximity to the younger boy and father, put their heads down as they spoke, not to be perceived to be a part of the discussion. This truly shows that these girls and boys alike know no other life, way, or ideal than the purpose of procreation and dominance within a family.

On an ironic note, as this guest family on the show went to the grocery store, I noticed the girls riding around the grocery store on "heelies," the rolling sneakers often prohibited in grocery stores due to safety reasons. It doesn't make sense that denim skirts somehow become the symbol of holiness and yet the girls can wear modern sneakers without a question of femininity. Other families on the show create similar confusion: some kids wear T-shirts, some wear blouses, some boys wear jeans, others do not. Apparently the movement itself cannot decide what is "holy" or what is not. I will say that it doesn't make sense that the boys get to look like human beings while the girls get to look absurd. That's not a godly principle, it is just nonsensical.

Obviously such a dominating attitude creates a prime situation for abuse. While I would never suggest that the Duggar household (or any families featured on their show) have household issues with sexual abuse, such isolation of the family from the general portion of society is known to create situations prime for incest and rape. Girls are already seen as nothing more than sexual objects with the purpose to procreate, subordinate to men with the purpose of meeting male needs. It is very accessible, and not impossible, for this concept of meeting male needs to become sexualized. There is the establishment for other forms of abuse to emerge as well, including physical and spousal abuse. Perhaps the greatest situation for abuse which is never spoken is that of neglect. Two parents cannot reasonably meet the emotional, spiritual, and financial needs of eighteen children under twenty-one with another one on the way without assistance from somewhere. In the creation of such distrust of members outside the family, the Duggars are also creating a situation where their children face the potential to be unsocialized and frightened of others when confronted with the outside world.

Looking at the seemingly picture-perfect Duggars would never illicit memories of Andrea Yates, a woman who a few years back took all five of her children, under the age of seven, into the bathroom and then drowned them. The truth, however, is that Andrea Yates is the darker side of the Quiverfull Movement. As a Quiverfull adherent, her abusive husband mandated she stop taking anti-psychotic medication as part of postpartum depression so she could get pregnant again. While she went on to a mental facility where she is held without possibility of release, her husband went on to marry yet another woman. This classic injustice truly depicts the essence of the movement: the woman who murders her children is the media villain, and no one can figure out why she would do such a thing; and the husband and movement behind it all go on as the victors without question of their veracity or role in what might have happened.

We also see the contradiction of the Gospel command to go and proclaim the Gospel, living incarnate in this family. If we are to live the Gospel, we aren't just to stay among our own family or those who espouse our own viewpoints. A large part of living the Gospel is being out in the world and learning to live with others who may or may not agree with us. In essence, the Duggars are hiding out, living under the guise of the Gospel but really avoiding the very command we are to live through the Gospel. By having so many children, they can in essence have their own little society which functions exclusively by their rules, ideals and concepts. There is therefore no pressure to conform or deal with other ideas, concepts, or accept others differences.

Then we have the issue that not only are Quiverfull women told to have as many children as possible, they are also told how to have their children. Natural childbirth, with a midwife, or a home birth, is pushed and encouraged to the point where medical intervention is seen as a negative. Breastfeeding is taught to be the only "acceptable" way. Spacing of children is discouraged. There is likely no respect given to family financial issues, needs, or to the needs of the mother, who perhaps is discouraged from having many children due to health reasons. They figure that families should be indiscriminate and just "trust it all to God." This is not faith, this is nonsense. God is not going to act against our will, nor is He going to expect us to place ourselves in severely compromising positions for the mere sake of procreation. There is no population shortage in the world to speak of and God does not prohibit knowledge of reproduction and the body in making the decision as to have children or not have children. Such logic is both irresponsible and misleading.

The story behind the Duggars' Quiverfull involvement is in short the story of Michelle Duggar's use of birth control pills which led to miscarriage. Not knowing she was pregnant, Michelle Duggar continued to take birth control pills which resulted in miscarriage. I do not believe, however, that her miscarriage stigmatizes birth control as evil; apparently, she received poor medical advice and improper information. Anyone who takes the pill and reads the insert knows that taking the pill while pregnant is dangerous and can lead to miscarriage. This doesn't make birth control evil or ungodly; what it does do is make it essential that one reads the directions. It's not birth control's fault that she took it incorrectly and such had a negative consequence.

Yet we have the continual twenty-plus years and counting guilt stigma, the obvious inward feeling that Michelle Duggar somehow feels inadequate or a bad mother because taking birth control pills incorrectly somehow led to her miscarriage. This comes forth any time she speaks on the subject. Almost nineteen children later, the guilt drives on. The sad fact is that no matter how many children she has, she will never replace the potential life present in her miscarriage. It would be far more effective to deal with that loss instead of trying to so obviously replace it with as many children as she can push out. It also concerns me that they have found a religious group which has theologized her guilt into a lifestyle.

The truth about birth control is that it didn't start in the 1960s with the creation of "The Pill." Birth control methods drive all the way back to ancient times. It was Cleopatra of ancient Egypt who invented the first diaphragm. Natural herbs were so effective in preventing pregnancy among the ancient Greeks and Romans that the plants are now extinct. The mere fact that natural and artificial agencies served as contraception throughout history make a compelling argument for a pro-contraceptive stance in the battle of indiscriminate breeding. As these substances were around in Bible times, it is unquestionable to note that they are not criticized or prohibited by the Bible. It's also worth noting that the command to "be fruitful and multiply" was never repeated in the New Testament to Christians. And while the Bible does speak of children as a blessing, it also speaks of it as its own reward; childbearing is not spoken of as an eternal reward anywhere in the Bible (Psalm 127:3). We also find numerous passages that speak of being barren as a special blessing as well (Isaiah 54:1, Luke 23:29, Galatians 4:27). It is obvious that a woman rooted in God is blessed by Him, no matter what her station may be in life. Childbearing is not the reward "above and beyond" all others. And in examining the issue of childbearing as a blessing, the Bible does maintain we are to be responsible with blessings. In response to the Quiverfull philosophy, John Piper made the following observation:

"just because something is a gift from the Lord does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether you will come into possession of it. It is wrong to reason that since A is good and a gift from the Lord, then we must pursue as much of it as possible. God has made this a world in which tradeoffs have to be made and we cannot do everything to the fullest extent. For kingdom purposes, it might be wise not to get married. And for kingdom purposes, it might be wise to regulate the size of one's family and to regulate when the new additions to the family will likely arrive. As Wayne Grudem has said, 'it is okay to place less emphasis on some good activities in order to focus on other good activities.'" (Desiring God Ministries)

Birth control is not prohibited anywhere in the Bible; thus, decisions about its use or non-use is the discretion of a couple. It is unbiblical for a movement to come along and make mandatory decisions about this issue which couples must adhere.

Also notable is the reintroduction of agricultural life through Quiverfull. When you have more children than reasonable, it's only feasible you have to do something with them. Since there would be no show if they live cramped in a 3-bedroom apartment in New York City, the Duggars live out in some rural place. Quiverfull adherents are notorious for avoiding cities and encouraging an agricultural lifestyle, as this enhances the ability for family control and isolation. While I have nothing against farming (I truly recognize how indebted I am to farmers every time I eat something), I do take offense to the concept that farming or agriculture is a superior life to industrialization. We should also note that the Duggars themselves are not professional farmers; they just don't live in a city. I also take offense to the concept that while technology seems good enough for the Duggars to showcase their life to the prying eyes of the industrialized world (and make a hefty profit off of it, I will add), it is not good enough for their own work or the education of their children. This is hypocrisy, plain and simple: you want the benefit of it, but it's not good enough for you to actually partake of yourself.

Then there is the far darker side of Quiverfull, or should I say the "whiter" side: the Quiverfull's philosophy doesn't really rest in raising children for God, but in the grounding that the white race is becoming a minority and therefore white families should have as many children as possible to repopulate the white race so the white race can continue in being "superior." Non-white ethnic groups are notably absent from the movement. This means they have subjugated the Bible to a racial tome and they are reproducing out of a sense of racial superiority. Think I'm making this up? Note the absence of non-white races on the Duggars' television show.

I am one who has grown tired of the constant misrepresentation of our Lord and His Word in our culture. It seems to me that every extreme is showcased in our culture to make a buck and yet we seem to forget the truth behind balance in all our issues. Anyone can distort the Word with total nonsense which disregards the needs of children, is bad for women, and is totally against God. Maybe we need to step up and be more vocal as realistic, balanced voices of truth and the Word in our society so people truly come to know Christ and the power of His resurrection in the full expanse of their lives.

From: Go And Tell My Brothers: Christian Women In Feminist Viewpoint by Lee Ann B. Marino, Ph.D., D.D.(C) 2009 Lee Ann B. Marino. All rights reserved.