Because well-behaved children just sprawl all over the floor, Jordyn.
One of the Wilsons insists on going down the hill clinging to Jill. The ladies fucking love Jill, man.
Also, JimBob calls everyone over and announces that Michelle is knocked up. I didn’t bother capping it because I really hate when JimBob has that “yup, I got laid” smirk on his face.
Someone should tell him that the internet is 99% sure that Jill gets more pussy than he does.
The unappreciated Duggar?
On the 22nd anniversary of Jill tumbling out of the clown car, I’ve gotten to thinking: is Jill severely underappreciated?
I’m sure the Duggar fangirls all love her - on the surface she’s the ideal baby Gothardite. But the more time I spend watching the show, I become more and more convinced that Jill is, first of all, plotting a life path beyond “baby factory,” and second of all, the only Duggar who’s not kind of a bitch.
Okay, maybe not the only Duggar. Jana, Jer, Jed and Jordyn have yet to make me eyeroll so hard I sprain something. But five out of twenty-one isn’t that great either. (I like them all. Except Josh. In fact, it’s often the less lovely qualities that make me like them. But I’m saying, they can be unbearable at times!)
Jill, as has been discussed many times, might as well be the matriarch of the household. It may also be noticed that Jinger doesn’t do fuck-all when it comes to childrearing, and Jessa does it grudgingly through gritted teeth when she does it at all. In a household where the four oldest daughters are expected to do all of the chores and all of the childcare, how in the fuck do they get away with it?
Simple: the oldest girls enable the fuck out of them. The question is, why? Have they absorbed the put-others-first doctrine the parents claim to live by? Or is there something more afoot? Do Jill and Jana recognize that this is bullshit? Is this their way of aiding a rebellion?
Jill is Jennifer’s mother. Jackson and Hannie belong to Jana, but they’re more independent - Johannah never really clung to a buddy and Jackson seems to have finally outgrown it. Jennifer, however, is 100% dependent on Jill. Jill has somehow managed to avoid punching someone in the face no matter how many times she’s had to face this reality. That is impressive. Even more impressive, however, is how she managed to turn Jenni against JimBob and Michelle. Oh, not intentionally. That’s what makes it so great. By being kind, patient, quiet, gentle and nurturing, she allowed Jennifer to see on her own what fucktrumpets her birth parents are. I’m not even sure Jill sees it herself - she seems to buy the idea that this weird lifestyle is normal, or superior, or whatever - but Jennifer does.
People’s main complaint about Jill is that she’s a brownnoser and a suck-up, intent on brainwashing her sisters. And I get why people think that - I thought they were right, too, until I started watching with capping the little moments in mind. I’m not a body language expert, but I’ve noticed that when Jill jumps in to “save” a sibling who’s accidentally expressing dissatisfaction in life or an opinion of their own, a series of looks crosses her face that can only be interpreted as “FUCK! NO! ABORT! DO YOU WANT TO GET SENT ON ANOTHER RETREAT?!” I guess it’s possible that she just finds it alarming that Jana, Jessa, Joy or Jinger might not believe everything their parents say as Gospel, the fact that she tries to communicate “okay, pull it back!” to her siblings instead of letting them hang themselves, then speaking up, makes me think that’s not the case.
Also, I think Jill gets, at least on some level, how hard her parents suck. She’s actually kind of a master of the subtle burn. She cracks jokes that I suspect would get Jinger and Jessa locked in the prayer closet for days. And of course, Jill is perceived as so harmless that she continues to be the family’s mouthpiece. It’s always the sweet ones.
Jill has an actual life plan in place. Granted, it’s built around volunteer work, but it does involve being on a continent separate from her awful family. As with all the little boys wanting to be professional missionaries, I suspect there’s some appeal in no longer living on the Duggar Compound, being used as free labor until Michelle, JimBob and Josh die off. And she seems genuine about wanting to help people with her abilities. Her mission goals aren’t “go overseas, be a douche, build an unsound living structure, hand out Bibles, be smug about it.” She’s actually learning a valuable service to volunteer - and unlike housebuilding and the like, which could (and probably SHOULD) just as easily be done by using money to hire local builders (but why stimulate the economy when you can give a man a fish instead?), there’s more genuine need for her skills. I’d love to hear that she’s not just delivering babies but training local women in child delivery as well, but we’ll see what happens.
Jill is also the only Duggar who’s actually friendly. I know some of them are just quiet, but some of them just seem snotty and rude. Who was Suze’s BFF while she was visiting? Who was the one who cried to have to leave the friend she’d just made overseas behind? Who was the one who shot Anna death glares every time she entered the house? Hint: two out of three of those answers are “Jill.”
I get why people find Jill annoying. I do. She gets on my nerves at times, too. But I think those who write her off as a moron (and believe me, I get that, too, she does tend to leave that impression!) are missing a lot that goes on when she’s not mumbling about modesty and trusting Jebus.
(I could write posts like this about most of the Duggar kids, but I think most of them are pretty well appreciated in the, er, Duggar fandom? What would you even call us?)
And because I always want to know shit, which Duggar do you think gets the most shit unfairly, or just not enough appreciation by the viewers, and why?
