Too many kids?!

[molucass]

-click here

This is just crazy.

[Cookiebaker]

That poor lady, and those poor kids!

[molucass]

Mom With 14 Kids, One on the Way, Honored
Wed Apr 7, 5:31 PM ET


By CARYN ROUSSEAU, Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - With her 14 children in tow and pregnant with her 15th, Michelle Duggar waddled into Arkansas' Capitol on Wednesday to accept the state's Young Mother award.



"We're going from diapers right up to driver's ed," she said with a smile.


Duggar, 37, who home schools her children and is helping to build a new home from the ground up, started having her babies when she was 21, four years after she married former state Rep. Jim Bob Duggar.


"We're letting the Lord give us the gifts that he wants to give us and I'm open to more gifts," she said. "I'll take them one at a time or two at a time."


The offspring include two sets of twins, and the parents have stuck to the letter "J" when it comes picking names. There is Joshua, 16; Jana and John-David, 14; Jill, 12; Jessa, 11; Jinger, 10; Joseph, 9; Josiah, 7; Joy-Anna, 6; Jeremiah and Jedidiah, 5; Jason, 3; James, 2 and Justin, 1.


The new baby is due in two months and is most likely a boy. They plan to name him Jackson.


That child won't know the sometimes-crowded life his siblings now have in their small home with two bathrooms in Springdale.


"There's usually a pretty good line in front of each one of them," Jim Bob Duggar said.


For the past two years the family has been building their own home in Tontitown, just seven miles from where they now live in northwest Arkansas.


"Our house is like a giant Cracker Barrel," Michelle Duggar said. "It's got this huge porch it goes on forever. We may get lost in the middle of it all."


The 7,000-square-foot family project will have 10 bathrooms, master and guest bedrooms, a laundry room with four washers and eight dryers and two dormitory-style bedrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. Those rooms will have bunk beds, Jim Bob Duggar said, easily added for any new children.


"We've done the work from the foundation up," he said. "We're building it debt- free. We're doing it as we can afford it."


There will be two closets on either side of the laundry, one with boys clothes and one with things for the girls. The children put on whatever clothing fits.


This weekend, Duggar, a real estate businessman, plans to put up the siding and windows with some of his sons. They hope to move in this summer.


Wednesday, the brood drove down from Springdale in the family bus to watch mom receive her award from Gov. Mike Huckabee. The girls and their mother dressed in matching red and blue plaid jumpers. The boys each wore the same navy blue suit with a red bow tie, their hair neatly combed to the side.


When the family approached Huckabee, the governor bent down to shake each child's hand, repeating the names they shyly whispered to him.


"You guys are amazing. You really are," Huckabee told the family.



The clan is very close. During their father's failed U.S. Senate bid, six of the Duggars sang the official campaign theme song: "Won't You Please Vote For My Daddy."

The couple married when Jim Bob was 19 and Michelle was 17 and had no children for the first four years they were together.

"We were using birth-control pills," Jim Bob Duggar said. "Then we ended up giving this area of our life to God."

Duggar said the family stopped the birth control when it came to their understanding that the pills could cause a woman to miscarry.

"I've always left it up to her and she's always wanted more children," Jim Bob Duggar said. "I knew she was a mother of the year all along, but she really deserves wife of the year."




Just thought I would copy and paste this as well, in case someone can't read it for some reason.

[aly]

Boooo, I want to see pictures of the family. They sound cute.

If I were that woman ... geez .. I'd be too tired to even be typing this!

[G.P.girl]

wow! that's alot of kids!

[4 Dog Mother]

I have to say even though I am Catholic that that is just too large of a family. No matter what the parents say there is no way they can give each child the love/attention that he/she needs. The mother alone has to be too tired to take care of each one's emotional needs as well as physical needs.

[Tonya]

That is way to much breeding in my opinion! Someone send them off to a spay and neuter clinic!

[RICHARD]

16 people in a family is-

One football team with 5 subs.

Three basketball teams with 1 sub.

Two volleyball teams with four subs.

Eight beach volleyball teams.

One baseball team with 7 relief pitchers.

One soccer team with 5 subs

two hockey teams with 4 extra goalies.

8 golf pairings.

Two rowing eights or four fours...

One lacrosse team and six subs

One cricket team with 5 subs.

Eight sets of doubles for tennis---

Or a small country.

[slleipnir]

[moosmom]

Boy is SHE brave!!! I'd rather chew aluminum foil that go through childbirth again!!

[Dogz]

That would be a lot of stress.

[popcornbird]

14, with 15 on the way?!?!?! My goodness!!!!

That's a whole TRIBE!!!!

I don't think its something that was unusual in other parts of the word just 1 or 2 generations ago though. It is unusual these days. People normally just have 2 or 3 or 4 nowadays. Even 5 seems too much. I must say, I have met a family with 12 before, so I guess there still are people who like to have lots of kids. They *do* get enough love, care, and attention. From older siblings. When there are that many kids, the younger ones are bound to have siblings in their teens or 20s, and those older siblings usually spoil them. I have a friend who comes from a family of 8 siblings..........with the oldest 21 and the youngest 2. I must say it seems that the older siblings are the ones *raising* the younger ones rather than the parents. I wouldn't EVER want THAT many kids, but if some people like it, then so be it. As long as they are all loved and cared for, and are treated equally. I don't think its right in a 2 bedroom house though. That would be uncomfortable for them.

[guster girl]

I've known families that big, and, I have to tell you.... they are some of the nicest people I've ever known. I mean, they have their problems like everyone else, but, they are some of the most open minded, able to deal with anything, compassionate people. Just in my experience. It seems like they're just more giving in a lot of ways. And, as far as the mom being unable to give them all the attention they need, I've actually talked to my large family friends, and, yes, in some ways, that's true. But, the kids also do it for eachother. Anyway, I think it's nice. I don't know that I'll ever have kids, and, I know for sure I'd never have more than one or two, but, I still think it's nice. If they're fed and housed and educated and loved, then, I say go for it. I've also stuck up for people who think it's nuts to have twenty cats or fifteen rats (one of my vet's assistants has 40!, but, she also rescues, too). I don't think they're lacking at all.

[jazzcat]

Wow! My Dad comes from a family of 8 children and I thought that was a lot. Of course my Dad is almost 82 years old so I also thought that very large families were a thing of the past when you need farm hands.

I don't think I would like having only two bedrooms for 14, so to be 15 children. That sounds absolutely miserable to me if I were one of the children.

[carole]

I am with Tonya on this one, my words exactly.

Yes well they may well be loved, but it is not cheap to feed and clothe children and we are not talking designer wear here, and how would they all get individual time,?so are their needs really being met? I wonder? well just MO, way too many kids.