It Isn't Jim Bob Who Keeps Impregnating Mrs. Duggar–It's CAPITALISM

By Lindy West | April 10, 2014 | 10:15pm

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And so it begins. Duggars: TNG. The first of the Duggar girls—Jill, 22—is engaged to be married and says she plans to follow in her parents’ footsteps, “popping out” kids until God decides she’s had enough. Oh, and also she and her husband are waiting until their wedding for their first kiss—which is neither here nor there, of course, but it does heighten the contrast between pre-nuptial chastity and post-nuptial unstoppable human-t-shirt-cannon humpathon.

Via ABC:

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The “19 Kids & Counting” star, 22, and her fiancé, 25, both responded enthusiastically: “Oh yeah!” when asked if they want to have children.

“Both of us want as many kids as God will give us and we’ve talked about adoption,” Jill told ABC News. “My parents have kept popping them out so we’ll see how [our] fertility is!”

…Jill’s mother, Michelle, added that there’s no jealousy between the siblings.

“Our girls are so close… and they’re not going to be disappointed if they’re not in relationships because it’s all God’s timing,” she said. “They’re confident in who they are and where they are in their lives. It’s really sweet!”

Obviously the Duggar women are welcome to do whatever they like with their bodies—women’s reproductive freedom necessarily includes the right to put stuff in there, not just keep stuff out. And while it’s important to acknowledge and address our planet’s current human overpopulation problem/imminent doom, I’m not sure that the Duggars are the correct vehicle for that conversation. One family in Arkansas is hardly going to be the downfall of the human species (after all, they’re enough of a novelty that we hired camera-people to hang out in their house and film them 24/7), and I double-doubt that their particular hairdo-based strain of Baptism is going to take off any time soon. Until their numbers grow to the point that they constitute their own voting bloc, I think we’re safe.

But I do wonder what effect the Duggar brand has had on the Duggar wombs. While I definitely trust the Duggars’ religious sincerity, procreation has become a family business—one that’s already being passed on to the next generation. When your (extremely profitable) living is based on being the matriarch—and, um, casting director?—of a television show called 19 Kids and Counting, how many ways can you really answer the question, “So, do you want more kids?” If you say, “Not really,” you’re undermining the brand and, potentially, losing future income. And 19 is a lot of mouths to feed, man! That is hella hoagies on the daily!!!

So it’s really CAPITALISM THAT KEEPS IMPREGNATING MRS. DUGGAR, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT. Not really, but kind of. Kind of really. Really. (Kind of.)