19 Kids and Counting

 I have watched a few episodes, of 19 Kids and Counting but after last weeks reading and our lecture, I felt more intrigued by the family. I was also interested in the depiction of the family in the reading in comparison to the actual family. As we saw in class there were some disputes about the gender roles and lack of definition of religion that the article outlined in comparison to what we discussed in class.  While it was evident in that women did take on many stereotypical roles (like doing the laundry and cooking) it was also evident that some of the article seemed embellished. To me, at least, I saw the scary underlying issues (such as their child being born premature) that the article discussed, but much of their religious and negative gender roles seemed to be downplayed.  It was also obvious that the family was religious, but did not specify their religion. This was until I saw a question and answer episode, where viewers would write in questions and the Dugger’s would answer them. Some of these questions give further insight to some of the themes of the reading, which we did not see in the episode in class. For example one guy sends in a video asking what would I have to do to date a Dugger daughter? Two of the daughters simply answer that he would have to ask their father. This highlights the point that although they may respect their children, they do not allow them to make their own decisions (even big life decisions, such as who they want to date and marry) especially their female children. Another very interesting question, which points to the Dugger’s religion, was: How do you stay so humble in the lord with all the publicity that a television show gives? This to me was an interesting question because the Dugger’s are a very religious family that follows values that are extremely traditional, however they allow their lives to be filmed and shown to millions of viewers, this seemed like an odd juxtaposition of values. The Dugger daughters answer swiftly and say that they see it as a ministry and as a way to spread their message, while the parents answer that it is to encourage people to enjoy their families.

 Throughout the episode there were many interesting questions asked about the Dugger’s morals, way of life and their religion, these were just two that I decided to focus on. Here is a link to the episode. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4mDkKH0_OA&feature=youtu.be