Interview with Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar

The Duggars: The Most Wholesome Family on TV

By Dena Ross

Octomom and Jon and Kate have it easy compared to Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar. The Arkansas couple, stars of TLC's "18 Kids and Counting," are parents to Joshua (who recently married and is expecting a daughter of his own in October), Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, and Jordyn-Grace. Michelle gave birth to all of the children and is currently pregnant with baby number 19.

The Duggars, who are conservative Baptists, shun all forms of family planning, believing that God will give them as many "blessings" as He sees fit. Although many reports have associated their family with the Quiverfull movement, in which married couples are encouraged to forgo birth control and have as many children as possible, the Duggars have denied being associated with the movement.

Michelle and Jim Bob didn't originally intend on having such a large family. Early on in their marriage Michelle used the birth control pill. While on it, she wound up getting pregnant and having a miscarriage. This devastated the couple and they decided that from then on they would leave the size of their family in God's hands.

Michelle and Jim Bob, who will be renewing their wedding vows on the TLC special "20 Years, 20 Duggars" on October 8th, recently spoke to Beliefnet Entertainment Editor Dena Ross about possible names for their new baby, how they keep their marriage alive, what they say to their critics, and why they won't allow their faith edited out of the show.

Will Michelle Continue to Have Children?

What do Michelle's doctors say about her having so many children? Is she healthy enough to continue to have children?

Michelle Duggar: The last time we delivered our baby, [my doctor] said my uterus looked wonderful. It was a transverse presentation, so we had to have a C-section. She said everything looked great. I'm just thankful that I have good health. I don't take that for granted. We're grateful for the baby that we're expecting right now.

Jim Bob Duggar: If you saw Michelle, you would think that this was her first pregnancy. She looks so great.

There was a really good article last week in the NY Daily News where they interviewed a doctor at a woman's medical research group and asked her about Michelle having all these children. I was really surprised--it was nothing but positive. The main research doctor said that Michelle probably would have less chance of having breast cancer, ovarian cancer and she went on to talk about how the uterus is a muscle and how quick it bounces back.

Michelle Duggar: She went on to express, too, that genetics have some things to do with it and there could be genetic issues with different individuals. But apparently, genetics are good in my situation to have children. That might not always be the case.

If health was to ever become a factor and you were advised not to have any more children, would you then subscribe to some sort of family planning method?

Michelle Duggar: I don't know. I'm not at that place. I guess we would just cross that bridge when we got there. If there was something that were life threatening for me, that would be a matter of prayer at that point.

Jim Bob Duggar: When Michelle [miscarried] it was just a heart change for both of us. It just broke our hearts. The change took place in our thinking back years ago with our view on children and this whole idea about who's really in charge--letting God be the one to give us life, give us children as He chooses.
And I've always left it up to Michelle, because it's her body and she's the one that's sacrificed to have all these children. But, we both really enjoy them and believe each one's a blessing from God. And each of the children is glad to be here.

The New Baby's Name

Have you decided on a new name for the new baby?

Michelle Duggar: We've got a lot to choose from! We haven't even started voting. As a family we all get together and vote on the [names] that we like best. And at this point, we don't know if it's a girl or a boy, so we're looking at both lists.

Any top contenders?

Michelle Duggar: Daddy likes Julie if it's a girl. I think he's kind of been hoping for a Julie along the way.

Jim Bob Duggar: And boy names, everything from Joel to…

Michelle Duggar: Jerry or Jerry Benjamin we had talked about at one time.

Jim Bob Duggar: But the kids have a list. They've got like 50 boy's names and 50 girl names, I think.

Michelle Duggar: And the older girls have a pretty good pull these days. They've got all these neat newer ideas of names that they like.

Jim Bob Duggar: It used to be Michelle or I would draw out a name and we'd both say, "Hey that sounds good." And we'd just make the decision. But now we have a lot more people that have their input in the decision.

Michelle Duggar: It's a family affair. It's a lot of fun coming up with a name. And the meaning—there's so many rich meanings, the background behind the name that even adds more to that. The older children love to get into this and talk about it.

Jim Bob Duggar: Right. But one thing is about 99 percent sure. It will start with a "J." Unless we start a new theme.

The Family's Response to Critics

Do you come across a lot of negative reactions being such a large family?

Michelle Duggar: Typically when we're out as a group, there's probably more positive response, just the children seem to get along well and move about easily. For the most part, people are like, "Wow, your kids are really well behaved!" That's quite amazing for today's day and time. But, there's always those other ideas and thinking, of overpopulation or whatever.

Everybody's entitled to their opinion. But, some may get very offended by the whole idea of having a large family. There's just different concepts and views on how life really is.

What do you say to those critics?

Jim Bob Duggar: As far as like overpopulation, I mean, there's really a myth of overpopulation. The whole world's population could fit into the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida.

Michelle Duggar: Shoulder to shoulder.

Jim Bob Duggar: Yeah, and have room to spare.

Michelle Duggar: So, it's not like that's a real issue. The issues of food being available in certain places or seeing poverty and different things like that, there's different issues that maybe are spurring that on. But, in reality, every family has to do what they feel they're called to do. We're not out there telling people this is the way everybody else needs to live, because by all means, this is not for everyone. God wouldn't give everybody 19 children. That's just not the way it's gonna happen, and maybe one or two is the number for someone else, or maybe God doesn't allow any children in a family.

And then, others may choose, to adopt or have ministry with children in other ways. That's what makes the world go around. We're willing to realize that and be open that there's a different calling for different people. We're not about to judge anybody and tell them what they ought to do. That same kindness can be extended both directions.

Back when Discovery wanted to do a documentary with our family, we were the first ones to say we are not a perfect family. We feel so inadequate. We're still learning every day. We're not finished raising our family. And yet, as we prayed about it, we really felt like there have been many people, many families, many others that have shared things with us that have encouraged us along the way. And if we can share anything like that with somebody else that will help them to look at life from a brighter side and realize these children really are a blessing and a gift from God and I'm really thankful for them, then we'd be willing to let the cameras come and film our imperfect family, as long as they didn't edit out our faith because the faith was the core of our life. The Bible is the owner's manual for life and in it are contained all the answers to life's questions.

Jim Bob Duggar: All the time, we're running into families or different individuals that come up and say, "I was one of 10 children" or 12 children or 15 children. And of course, they're from the older generation. It's just amazing how many people are from large families. But, a lot of it's the older generation. Up until 50 years ago, almost all the families were six to 12 children.

This is a new thing the last 50 years with birth control and other ways to stop conception and abortion and everything taking place that family sizes have shrank. For a lot of countries, this is really causing a problem with their economic situation. Matter of fact, we've had like reporters from all these different countries come over and saying they're having a crisis in their country because their people are not reproducing.

Michelle Duggar: They don't have people who are marrying age for people, and so they're having to go to other countries to find spouses. And typically, it's mostly females. They don't have enough females. We were shocked because we had television crews coming from other places asking to show with our family in hopes that they could encourage the birth rate to go up. They've already done incentives like giving them $4,000 per birth, giving them a refrigerator.

Living Free of Debt

How do you live debt free with such a large family?

Jim Bob Duggar: About 20 years ago we went through Jim Sammons' Financial Freedom Seminar. That was probably the biggest thing financially that helped us. It's literally saved us thousands of dollars and made us thousands of dollars by just learning Bible principles of finances.

Michelle Duggar: That would be tip number one. The biggest tip of all would give you 20 tips because there's like 20 chapters. The best thing for us is that it got our minds set in the same direction. I think often in a marriage, one of the things that can be one of the greatest struggles is finances. This just pretty much took care of that.

Jim Bob Duggar: One chapter talks about, [how] husbands [need to] listen to the cautions of their wives. A lot of times husbands will just run over their wife and even disregard her cautions about something because they feel like maybe she doesn't know that much about that aspect of a business. We've learned that, a lot of times, God speaks through the wife or sometimes speaks through the husband and doesn't speak to both at the same time. But yet, as both learn to listen to each other--if one has a caution to stop or wait on a project or whatever--God will lead and guide and create unity in a couple as they move forward on major decisions. Because really, all these major decisions affect both people. And so, both need to be in agreement when you move forward.

Michelle Duggar: We don't make anything off of this when we share this. We just share it because we know how much it helped us, and we want to share what really works that could bless other people's lives.

Jim Bob Duggar: It brings out Scriptural principles, like of avoiding business partnerships. That's something that a lot of Christians get involved in. They think, it's okay to go in partnership with another Christian. But, Proverbs 6 [says] if you're in partnership with someone besides your wife, get out of it as quick as you can. And as a matter of fact, when we were going through the Financial Freedom Seminar, we were in a partnership with another person and trying to make decisions. Michelle and I would talk about it and would think we should do one thing, and then we'd talk to our partner and they would want to do something else. There was a lot of conflict there. I realized that the only partnership I should have is with my wife. And so, that's very freeing when you have that mindset.

Jim Bob, Politics, and Fatherhood

Jim Bob, you're a former state legislator. How is being a father like being a politician?

Jim Bob Duggar: There's always some give and take. It's important to be able to listen to your children. A lot of times, I'll make a decision about something, but our children have learned to make appeals and express their opinions. And a lot of times, they have better ideas than I do about things.

So, I've learned before I make a final decision, to get their input, and of course, get my wife's input. And all of us work together on making decisions. They say two heads are better than one. Well, 20 heads are better than one.

Would you ever consider running for office again?

Jim Bob Duggar: Maybe in the future, maybe 10 years or so from now. We're really busy right now with raising our family. We went and helped Governor Mike Huckabee who was running for President last time, went up to Iowa as a family and helped him out some.

Michelle Duggar: We're still pretty active in the political realm, but just not as candidates.

Jim Bob Duggar: Maybe Michelle will run for President one of these days.

Faith on Reality TV

Michelle mentioned you have allowed cameras into your home as long as your faith was not edited out. Do you think reality TV in general has done a good job reflecting the lives of people of faith?

Jim Bob Duggar: We don't watch broadcast TV except for we go to my sister's house and watch our show occasionally.

Michelle Duggar: So we really don't know about the other reality shows. We just know that the one they're making with our family, they will let us kind of preview the rough edits and whatnot. And we've been pleased because the working relationship that we have with [TLC] and our producer is really good. They want to be sensitive to our family and our family values, sensitive about our faith and allowing it to be portrayed and woven through the way that we usually do things around our house.

Jim Bob Duggar: That's one reason the show has been so successful for them is because there's very few shows on secular television that show anybody's [faith], especially Christianity. I think that's one reason it's been so successful. God's blessed it and people are drawn to it because of that.

The Family's Dancing Ban

One thing that has intrigued many of your viewers is your family policy on dancing. Do you not allow your children to dance or listen to music?

Jim Bob Duggar: I used to listen to hard rock music, Michelle did too. Then I went to a Christian seminar, actually church camp, and they talked about getting rid of secular rock music. And so, I did that. Then, I went to another conference and they were talking about how music affects people, and especially music that has a beat. It makes you want to dance. But it's not good on your heart and your mind.

They expressed how classical music really opens up your mind and it causes you to be able to think better when everything's in sync. Different people have different opinions about music. As a family, we listen to a lot of classical music and play a lot of classical music...

Michelle Duggar: And the hymns.

Jim Bob Duggar: And we've just seen benefits for our family doing that. As far as dancing, something that we believe—it's a personal conviction—is that a lot of times, when a guy sees a girl dance, it really can be defrauding to a guy, especially if they're dressed immodestly. The definition of defrauding would be building up sensual desires that you cannot rightfully fulfill. Now, if my wife and I want to dance privately or something, in our room... Between a husband and wife is fine.

Michelle Duggar: Dancing, even in Scripture, everywhere that it's brought up, there's usually a consequence that comes from it. Even when David was dancing for joy before the Lord, there were some consequences that came after that, and probably his wife didn't have the right response. But yet, still, there's just certain cautions you've got to be careful about because if you're gonna cause someone else to stumble by your actions and your behavior, it's something that you really want to be careful not to defraud someone and stir up desires that really cannot be righteously fulfilled.

Jim Bob Duggar: Michelle used to be a cheerleader and used to dance and all that stuff herself.

Michelle Duggar: And my whole mindset was this was cute and this was getting the crowd pepped up for the game. And I had no clue what the boys in the crowd were thinking when I was in my tiny little skimpy cheerleading uniform.

But that's the beauty of God's mercy and grace as He grows us and teaches us, because when I got saved, I wanted to be sensitive to my Lord, I wanted to be careful how I led other people. I began to put on more clothes than I used to wear and just a lot of changes. And I think, praise God, it didn't happen overnight. But, the Lord just is very gracious to teach us and grow us.

Jim Bob Duggar: As Michelle has matured in her relationship with Christ, she realizes that clothing doesn't need to be something that necessarily attracts people to your body, but it attracts people to your face and your countenance. It's a frame for your countenance.

Will Their Kids Continue the Trend?

Do you expect most of your children will go on to have large families or are some of them interested in more career-focused, less family-oriented lives?

Michelle Duggar: That'll be up to each one of them individually. The ones who are older and have been talking about marriage and family, they have expressed a desire to have a large family. But, they might not be able to. You just don't know. And the spouse, that would have to be something they would have to talk about pray about together, the direction that they are going to go.

I guess we'll kind of have to wait and see how it all turns out with grandbabies. But, I know I'd love to have a lot of grandbabies. That would be fun.

Sibling Rivalry

With such a large family have you ever had a problem with sibling rivalry?

Michelle Duggar: As far as siblings, you always have those challenges you'll face daily—a little argument or little disagreement or something like that. Most of the time, it's the little guys. They're just learning that life doesn't revolve around them. And that "It's not all about me." And so, they're having to learn to share and take turns and [learn] that you don't always get the biggest piece or the biggest cookie. You always let your brother go first and pick. Those kind of lessons.

But typically, the older ones get along. And if there is some kind of [situation] where they might not see eye-to-eye on something, we've really tried to teach them from the time they were young that you've got to learn to communicate and talk nice and treat the other person the way that you would like to be treated even when you don't always agree. And be willing to agree that maybe you don't agree and move on.

Life is growing up--that's real life, learning to get along with people around you. And you are who you are right here at home. If you can learn to get along with your family, you can learn to get along with anybody.

So thankfully, there's not a lot of sibling--we've never allowed them to be rude to each other or put each other down. That's just been from the beginning.

Jim Bob Duggar: When they're young, a little one will hit the other one over the head with a toy...

Michelle Duggar: And take off with their toy and then we have to work through it.

Jim Bob Duggar: It's a training process.

First-Time Grandparents

Are you excited about your upcoming grandchild?

Jim Bob Duggar: Oh, we are!

Michelle Duggar: Oh, thrilled. I'm so happy for Josh and [daughter-in-law] Anna. They are gonna make such great parents, and we're just thrilled about being a grandma and grandpa.

Jim Bob Duggar: Just about a month away.

Michelle Duggar: I've just been dreaming about that for a long time, and it's almost here. We're just so excited.

Have you given Josh and Anna a lot of advice about being first-time parents? What's the one thing that you think first-time parents need to know?

Michelle Duggar: Anna was just asking me about days and nights with the baby, if they get their days and nights mixed up. And I said, when you have your first, just always keep in mind you're learning to live with less sleep than what you've been accustomed to.

So, give yourself that knowledge upfront, and every time that baby sleeps, if you're tired, lay down with that baby and go to sleep because you can at this point in life. When you start having more children, it's going to be a little more challenging to do that. But, your body's got to adapt to nursing a baby and not being able to get the sleep that you are accustomed to getting and all of those things.

That's the learning curve that we get when we become a parent. And so we've talked with our children along the way because they've been in on conversations and heard the things that go along with being a mom, experiencing pregnancy along the way.

With Josh and Anna, we haven't really given them advice unless they've asked for it. When they've come and asked us, we were willing to talk to them about it. But really, they searched out and found information and then asked if they have a question.

Jim Bob Duggar: They both have a lot of experience being the oldest, older brothers and sisters. But we believe that we had 20 years to train Josh, and now he's married. Really, we try not to give them too much advice unless they ask.

Michelle Duggar: Our turn's over. We already did our job. We're hoping they'll just move forward.