Arkansas Couple Welcomes 17th Child

In this age of overcrowding and delpetion of resources, why on earth would you want or even need to have 17 children? having a four year old myself the logistics are simply mind boggling. Both parents need to have thier heads checked IMHO.

sfgate.com.../n/a/2007/08/03/national/a055328D46.DTL&tsp=1

Originally posted by FredT
In this age of overcrowding and delpetion of resources, why on earth would you want or even need to have 17 children? having a four year old myself the logistics are simply mind boggling. Both parents need to have thier heads checked IMHO.

Crazy hormones I guess. If they can afford it which the article mentions they own a 7,000 sq. ft home. Thats their freedom. This country ain't China with its one child policy.

while I agree that I couldn't fathom 17 kids and having two is plenty, I also can see how, if it was affordable, someone might want as many as that. What I can't understand is how any woman would want to spend 17 years of her life carrying kids. It is hell on the body, or so my wife made me believe.

also, with 17 kids, how on earth can you expect to give them all the attention they deserve? there's going to be issues of skipping one kid's event to attend another kid's event etc. that can't bode well for the psyche of a young child.

They built the home themselves while it was customized and furnished by TLC.Because they do shows for them.
Apparently the husband is/was a lucrative real estate agent or something.
The kids are home-schooled.
They have this creepy christian borderline amish thing going on. The older kids take care of the younger kids.
All the kids names being with J.
She must be healthy. I feel like I am still recovering from having 1 kid 20 months ago.
But some people have less issues then others.

Hmm, Duggar... that name sounds kinda familiar. I've known a couple other families in Arkansas to have more than 10 kids. Also there was this one family that had sextuplets. Owch.

Those country folk sure can pop em out!

From what I've seen of other large families, the older kids do as much parenting as the mom. The dad's usually off brining home the bacon.

As you can imagine, they don't live with as many comforts as the rest of us, but the large families I've known have done pretty well considering.

Originally posted by nixie_nox
The kids are home-schooled.
They have this creepy christian borderline amish thing going on. The older kids

Nothing creepy about it. If they've got good genes and can provide a fine christian upbringing, these are the type of people you want to bring into the world. Think about it, would you want a brood of children raised by say, Michael Jackson or by these guys?

I am reminded of the line that got Groucho Marx pulled from TV.

He was interviewing a woman who had something like 16 kids and he asked her how was it that she had so many children?

She responded that she loved her husband to which Groucho replied: (with a wag of his cigar)
"Well I love my cigar but I take it out every now and then!"

He was TV history.... they yanked him so fast that his ashes didn't have a chance to fall.

My mother is in fact one of 17 children. 4 of them died at birth leaving only the 13 there is now. It was superb growing up with 10 uncles and 2 aunties me and my brother were spoilt rotten. My grandparents never once took state benefits and instead worked every hour god sent to raise their large family. Ableit all this i now have 40+ cousins just from my mothers side of the family which must have been hell for my grandparents at christmas but they still bought us all a gift. My poor grandmother died at the young age of 56 from lung cancer god bless her. That poor woman lived in the kitchen with pans and pots on the boil non stop but she loved her family so much. never met a woman like her since

I know several families that have many children. Those kids are the most well-adjusted kids I've ever had the pleasure to meet. They all chip in and do chores and help out with taking care of the little ones. I once had dinner at a family's house that had 10 kids and you wouldn't have even known they had that many kids! They let the parents entertain us in style while the kids were taking care of the younger ones and doing their homework. Anytime they needed help with something, they'd come out and greet us kindly and say please and thank you. Wow.....just wow. Gotta give those parents a lot of credit.

In NJ after a certain number of kids, you receive money from the Government. Grew-up knowing a family of 16 in the late 80's early 90's. Father ended up molesting a daughter.....sad........they were nice people.

While I can not complain coming from a family that happen to be very proliferative when it comes to children. . .

I am after all one of four, my father one of 16 and so on . . .

I was very smart taking into consideration that life now is not the same as my parents and their parents.

I could only raise and support alone with my husband two.

But nerveless when a women is submitted to so many pregnancies is a lot of problems that comes with that.

For my experiences with female family members that have many births. . . is a lot of female problems . . .

I feel sorry for the lady I can only imagine how she may have to have corrective surgeries to alleviate the results of so many pregnancies.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.

There are currently 6.6 billion est. people in the world and our natural resources are being
depleted at an alarming rate, I really have to say there needs to be a limit,
say no more than five kids, I may believe in civil rights and freedom, but in cases like this
the continued existence of humanity outweighs the right to have as many kids as you want.

Originally posted by iori_komei
There are currently 6.6 billion est. people in the world and our natural resources are being
depleted at an alarming rate, I really have to say there needs to be a limit,
say no more than five kids, I may believe in civil rights and freedom, but in cases like this
the continued existence of humanity outweighs the right to have as many kids as you want.

True, our numbers are not sustainable for long, but you can't just pass laws limiting the number of kids without serious public backlash. It would be worse than the prohibition of alcohol.

I'd love to discuss the overpopulation topic further, but it would probably be better to start a new topic.

I work with a wonderful old Mexican man who has 20 children. All I can say is he had the decency to spread them out over six wives. I've met a couple of his children and they seem like really good people.

I couldn't do that, but then again all of my children were drug and alcohol related accidents.

Just kidding.

If the Duggers can make it work, I wish them all the luck in the world.

I have a hard time understanding why you would want 17 children of your own? I find it creepy in this day and age. If your are that big of Christian then why not adopt. There are many children waiting to be adopted. I am sure God would award you more points for adopting needy kids than being selfish and having 17 of your own.

I would like to submit the following, borrowed lyrics from NOFX "the Idiots have taken over"

what are we left with?
a nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists
who feel it's their duty to populate the homeland
pass on traditions
how to get ahead religions
And prosperity via simpleton culture

the idiots are takin over

Originally posted by Kronik98
I would like to submit the following, borrowed lyrics from NOFX "the Idiots have taken over"

what are we left with?
a nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists
who feel it's their duty to populate the homeland
pass on traditions
how to get ahead religions
And prosperity via simpleton culture

the idiots are takin over

If you feel that way you are welcome to start the process by not having any children yourself. If however you find yourself violently disposed towards the idea of having children or those who disagree with you, then please start your population reduction program with yourself. For some reason the do gooder idealists always want to try their ideas on the other guy. Just ask Stalin. Of course you'll have to go to hell to get the interview.

The kids seem well adjusted. None are overweight. They all laugh and play. Adn all seem happy. Even with 7k square feet, they still wanted to share rooms.

My mom was oldest of 9. I made a point to her that all the kids went into very public work. Like PR, surveys, etc. Several got degrees from ivy league schools.

Yes the older kids help a lot, but none seem to resent it. Everyone also became very independent, and capable.

In this day and age, everyone moves away from each other, Immediate families live states apart. people vacation away from each other. Kids get their own rooms and get isolated more then ever. This is happening so much so that people are overtired and overstressed from running homes all by themselves instead of families living together and giving each other a hand. We are meant to live in villages, not groups of three. With the continuuing break down of the social structure, I peg this to that we are not surrounded by family members in which to receive advise and to learn from.

They seriously need to find a new hobby.