For several years, Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar kept trying to add to their brood. There was at least one miscarriage that I remember, and there were other family tragedies too. Still, Jim-Bob and Michelle already had 19 kids… and they barely took care of those kids they already had. That’s something that was always said about the way the Duggar family operates, especially since they got their TLC show: the older daughters were expected to “raise” their younger siblings. Jim-Bob and Michelle go off on jaunts for book tours, political functions and speaking engagements and Jana Duggar is left to look after the young kids. Well, long story short… Jim-Bob and Michelle are likely adding to their family… through legal guardianship/adoption.
In Touch magazine has exclusively obtained Benton County, Ark., public legal documents revealing that on Aug. 31, the former 19 Kids and Counting stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, were granted temporary guardianship of an 8-year-old boy – making that their 20th child.
The 8-year-old boy is the son of Michelle’s niece, Rachel Hutchins, who’s been struggling to care for him. Rachel, 23, is homeless, unemployed and has had a slew of financial setbacks and problems with the law.
Public records obtained by In Touch reveal that Rachel — who had the boy as an unmarried teen — is on probation for three years following an April arrest on felony charges for breaking and entering at a Springdale, Ark., tow truck business and stealing a pocket knife and $2 in change.
The documents also confirm that Jim Bob and Michelle are due back in court on Nov. 14 to make the guardianship permanent. “There’s a strong hope that once that happens they will be able to adopt him,” an insider tells In Touch.
Rachel has already signed documents giving the Duggars guardianship. “She gave up custody of her son [in August 2015] to her mother, Michelle’s sister Carolyn. But in July, Carolyn suffered a stroke,” adds the insider. (The boy’s father is not listed on the birth certificate and is undetermined according to court papers.) Jim Bob and Michelle plan to keep their 20th child off of TV, which means fans of Jill & Jessa: Counting On may never get to meet the new addition to the family. (In Touch is not releasing his name or showing his photo.)
Even though I loathe nearly everything about the Duggars, I don’t think this is some child-grab for fame or whatever. It sounds like a difficult family situation and Michelle and Jim-Bob are trying to help a child who is directly related to Michelle. Obviously, any choice being made here is going to be difficult – should the child be put in foster care just because the Duggars covered up Josh’s child molestation? Should the Duggars only be allowed guardianship if they adhere to certain protocols? Is keeping a child within the family always preferable, legally and morally? If I was “in charge” of things, I would not want a child placed with this family, even if the child was related to the Duggars. But… maybe Jana will be a better mother to this kid than Michelle would ever be.
Photos courtesy of the Duggars’ Facebook.
This poor child.
My thoughts exactly.
Yep. I’d ask to be placed in an orphanage.
Exactly. Foster care may (read: probably) would have been the best thing for him. These two blanket-training, molestation-hiding nutcases have no business raising ANY children, let alone one whose life has already been nothing but unstable.
Yeah – I mean, we know there are child molesters in this family. There’s a chance that the foster home would be safer in a lot of ways.
Though, I feel like maybe this is so that the grandmother could still have access to the child? She probably couldn’t care for him post stroke, but maybe wants to still be present? I feel like I’m giving this family a lot of credit, but I’d like to think the grandmother of the child would at least want to still have access to him.
Maybe with some strong restrictions it wouldn’t be bad… but god only knows. As sad as it is, he’ll do better with this family than he would if he had been born a girl.
What Goats said…
Not to be technical, but none of what said above says they are fostering a child. They are applying for guardianship of a child that is related to them with the approval of the mother and the legal guardian. This has very different rules than the foster child program in most states. Also, as far as if they would be better in the Duggar’s house or a foster situation, the reality is the Duggars are probably infinitely better. There are not enough foster families, much less good foster families for all the children that need them. Most likely the child would be shuttled from home or group home regularly and the abuse that happened in the Duggar’s home is mild in comparison to some of the abuse in the group homes. The sad reality is the system is overloaded and when any family member is willing to step up, they are more than willing to work with them to make it work.
Actually, @noway, that isn’t necessarily true. I’m a social worker and I did child welfare work for two years in Washington State. It does vary from state to state, but guardianship is an option for children who are in state custody and is often one that is used when family members are the placement option for a child. The parent(s)’s rights remain intact, which means that at some point, the guardianship could be reversed. A parent must give up or lose their parental rights for a child to be adopted, by anyone.
And can we please stop perpetuating the myth that all foster homes/group homes are bad and kids in foster care are bounced from place to place? It is required actually that families are given priority, part of the American for Safe Families Act, passed during the Clinton years. ASFA also mandates how long a child should remain dependent and encourages permanent placement as soon as possible, minimizing the likelihood of multiple moves. Does this always happen? No, of course not. Are some foster parents less than ideal? Sure. But every foster parent I ever worked with was amazing and the group homes were also totally aboveboard and usually the last result for severely troubled kids.
This isn’t to say that the Duggars are a great placement option, but maybe if people didn’t knock foster parents all the time, more people would be interested in becoming them.
Do kinship carers get paid in the US, like they do in the UK?
Foster parents do receive some money, which is meant to help with the child’s upkeep. Amounts vary based on the child’s age, if the situation is short-term or long, and the state/area where the foster family lives.
Thanks. That’s how it works here, too. Kinship carers get the same allowances as non-related foster carers (also varies, anything from £130 to £400 per week).
Not suggesting even these two twits are doing it for the money: it just occurred to me to wonder how it works stateside.
Where I live you have to become a foster parent to get paid (in the USA). You don’t automatically get paid for taking a child in. My daughter took in a friends 2 boys and had to apply to become foster parents before she would get paid.
Jana already is a better mother than Michelle. All Michelle is interested in is the making babies part, mugging for the camera and pandering to her ‘religion’ and husband. You just need to look at how Josh turned out to see what kind of parents Michelle and Jimbob really are.
So they are adopting the boy for publicity, but to hell with the niece that obviously needs help. Real Christian.
While I loathe the Duggars, I think that’s a bit unfair here. They didn’t advertise this; In Touch got the information via a FOI request, and they’ve only done so after the original guardian suffered a stroke. What’s more, the niece is an adult, and we’ve got no idea if they have helped her or if she even wants the help they would provide. I don’t blame them for putting the child first in their priorities. Having said that, one can only pray that they DO ignore the child and leave it to Jana – we know from the police reports that they smack with paddles and I shudder to think how else they would discipline a boy older than an infant.
Lulu, they didn’t advertise it because as foster parents they are not permitted to do so. And this, “They’re keeping him off camera” is also not their call. My neighbors have been fostering twin toddlers since the day I bought my house (twins moved in the same day I did) and we’ve become quite close in the last sixteen months. Every time I take a pic of the girls I’m reminded that I can’t publish them. And, now even though it looks pretty solid that the adoption will be final in the next few months, I still won’t ever be able to post or publicly share the photos I took of them before the adoption. I understand it. I just can’t stand how it’s being written as if the Duggars keeping this on the DL was their choice. It wasn’t, and I believe they would have been advertising their “altruism” from the rooftops had Social Services permitted.
honeybee, a woman I know if fostering a little girl, and does the same – can’t put any photos showing her face online.
I was thinking the same thing….who is going to help the niece. Actually I think it’s good the little boy has somewhere to go and kids to interact with. Out of 19 kids, only one has had issues that we are aware of….freaky Josh…..but 18 of the kids seem to have done okay in that atmosphere. For whatever reason, I think Jana wants to be there….she is pretty and seems smart and could have found a husband like her younger sisters. I think she is the daughter that is the nurturer and will be a good mother figure to this child. It’s hard to figure out a lifestyle that is so different than ours, but it is what it is and at least the child has a chance, a better one than he would with his mother. Afterthought: all eyes will be on this child so in my heart I believe he will be safe and well cared for.
I am sure Jana will be doing more parenting too. I don’t think Michelle does anything except cuddle babies and Jim Bob only plays competitive games that he knows he’ll win with the the kids. The thing is Jana should be able to choose whether she wants to ” adopt” another child and one that likely comes with some challenges as well. I feel terrible for the child though. He will likely be coming from too much freedom to having basically none. That’s going to be pretty difficult.
If the niece is a drug addict (which, given the whole story here, she probably is) then she could be at a point where it’s not possible to help her.
I’ve seen this in real life. It’s a horror to leave someone you love on the street, and when you’re glad when they are in jail because at least you know where they are that night. But even the most loving family can’t save someone if they aren’t ready.
They are helping her, they’re caring for her child. Whatever their motivations, that cannot be dismissed as “not helping”. It seems very probable that the niece is a drug addict, and may have other problems as well. What exactly are they supposed to do about that? You can’t force people into recovery, throwing money at them does no good, and if they’re not ready to seek help you can’t help them. It’s painful but that’s the truth. They’re doing what they can. We can debate all day about WHY they’re doing this, and if this is the best thing for the boy, but they are helping.
I can’t comprehend how they’re allowed to keep their own kids after all the crap that’s come out. That they were able to take in an already vulnerable child is just appalling.
And can you imagine what the discipline will be like for this poor boy that was not raised from birth with their “blanket training” and religious indoctrination?
That family creeps me out so much, what will Jim-bob do when all of his daughters have been married off and he has no more women to indoctrinate and dominate? That is one seriously disturbed “man”.
He’ll focus on the countless grandchildren buzzing about. I just hope Josh didn’t learn his pedophilic ways from his Dad.
That poor child would be better served in a group home. He’d get more attention, at least. And I think under no circumstances should they be given guardianship of a child after the molestations – in fact, all of their children should have been taken away from them. That was clearly an inability to protect minors. Remember how they wouldn’t let the social worker in their house that one time and she had to call the police? As a judge I would look on that as a really bad sign.
I hope this little boy gets lots of love and comfort from the other young kids in the family, and from the surrogate mother Jana. I hope he actually barely ever sees Michelle and JB. They are so awful .
Given the fact that they covered up the molestation (not to mention all the other issues with that family), I’m pretty appalled that child services placed this poor kid with them. If there are any other family options, I think he’d be better off elsewhere.
If it’s a choice between them and the foster care or group home system…at least with this family a social worker would be aware of their issues and know what to look for. Better the devil you know and all that, I guess. Poor kid.
Don’t think child services was involved in this. Granting custody, and I could be wrong, is not the same as fostering. Maybe one of our many legal experts can chime in.
Are the laws related to adoption and foster care more lax in Arkansas? I live in NC and have watched good people struggle hard to adopt a child.
I think JimBob and Michelle are having it easy with this child because he’s family. Still, I side-eye the hell out of any judge who looks at their records and refusal to cooperate with child molestation investigations and thinks, “Yep! This is the place for him!”
Please please zip it up tight! Your genes have poisoned the pool.
These people are so icky. I now regret clicking on this post
This family creeps me out however I can’t shade them for this. It sounds like they’ve done it all quietly and within the law.
I suggest everyone here saying this child would be better in foster care or a group home take a long look at the reality for kids who grow up in the system. Being in a family, even this family, especially now that the abuse was uncovered, is much preferable.
(Foster parent, adoptive mom to seven here. I also strongly encourage everyone to look in to becoming a CASA or a foster parent if they feel this strongly about it)
Social worker here and I can say foster care is certainly preferable for this kid over Duggars. Yes, foster care is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but the Duggars are worse. They do not provide their children with adequate educations, they have far too many children in the home to give enough attention to (a foster home would not be allowed to have that many children), they have allowed repeated sexual abuse to occur in their home, attempted to cover it up AND impeded the investigation. How can you say it’s a good thing now that the abuse has been uncovered? It’s not like they have seen the light and changed their views on sexuality and victimization. Their offending son did not receive legitimate treatment for his problem and the victims received no treatment at all. I really can’t understand why you would think this was acceptable best care for this child. Foster parents have undergone training in how to help kids like this, a social worker would be making regular checks on the child, the child would be in mainstream school with a chance to receive an education he could actually use as an adult, he would live in a home where he was not having to compete with 19 other children for attention. Not all foster situations are good but not all of them are bad, either. You were/are an amazing foster parent obviously and care deeply about the children that were brought into your home. Why shouldn’t this child have the chance to find someone like you?
THIS ^^^^
Rabbits.
No one with a history of child molestation should be able to adopt. And I don’t even care that it’s a relative. They won’t protect that child much less raise it and if they really wanted to help, they could try and help the niece get on her feet and mother her own child. Just a thought.
So you are saying anyone who had a child molested should be banned from adopting children?! Sorry I don’t agree with that at all. It is bad enough to have that happen to you, your child, a family member, etc and you want to just kept punishing everyone because of a sick pervert. No that is deplorable. I may not like the Duggar at all but I am more offended by the let’s keep punishing the victim and their family mentality. While I am still saddened by all the covering up that was done with their son those saying foster care would be better, go live that life for a few months and see if you still think that way.
It has happened to me.
I also think you misunderstand this situation. The Duggar’s son is a child molester and his own sisters confirmed it. The Duggars will not ensure that he will not have access to this young boy and that is not in the child’s best interest. If everyone knows the child will be exposed to a sexual predator on a regular basis and that they won’t make sure that he is safe at all times, they shouldn’t be allowed to adopt.
If this boy is 8 it is highly likely he has some emotional issues due to his upbringing. Do the Duggars understand how much individualized attention he will need to adjust? Do they understand the importance of therapy? I have a feeling they think their weird religion will “fix him”
I’m not sure what great options are available for this kid. I have read a lot of horrific stuff about some foster homes and group homes, and putting him in a situation where he is living with people he probably already knows and may have frequent access to his grandmother seems good. Now, physical discipline and religious brainwashing are a likelihood in his new house, but I don’t realistically think there was an alternative where he was going to be fostered as an only child in a loving family. This is a temporary situation.
Nice of them to take in a child who is in a difficult situation, but I already dread the education that this kid is going to receive or better yet not receive from this family.
I wish these people would do good OUT of the spotlight. And this will be the last time I click on anything in the way of an article about them.
I am a former CASA volunteer, and I know a bit about the foster care system. Here in Louisiana where I am, the state does any and everything in its power to maintain kinship ties because they do not want to care for children in the system. Reunification is always a goal of the system, followed by adoption. Adoption works differently, but is seemingly slightly easier when kinfolk are involved. The issue with the Duggars is that they do not seem to mind molestation, lying and child labor. Who knows the horrors the Duggar children have faced and are facing? There are amazing foster families that would actually be safer, better trained and more attentive to is needs than the Duggar klan in all likelihood. But I am not well versed enough to know exactly what the logistics of this case would be.
Who the f-ck would approve of this? They raised a chold molestor who violated multiple daughters of theirs, plus god knows who else. Now they want to ruin another innocent life that has already had it rough…I hope not. Please, just ruin your own lives, no need to destroy another…
You should really stop covering this family. In my opinion the I’m only way they will go away is if media outlets stop stop giving them attention. Now People Mag and all the other rags will never do that but I think Celebitchy has proven itself to be socially aware and conscious (and thus my first choice for gossip) and therefore should set the standard when it comes to the harmfulness of this particular family.
No kid should have to live in this pedophilic puppy mill.
God that starbucks sipping picture. Trying to be too wholesome and cutesy.
I just worry that they will somehow look down on this kid for like being a bastard or something like that…
Wow, the mother had the kid when she was 15.
I don’t think keeping the boy with family is the best when the family knowingly let their son molest their daughters, and when the family already has 19 kids. I don’t think that’s in the child’s best interests.
It sounds as though the Duggars are not doing foster care but rather are going the guardianship with potential adoption route, which is easier because they are related to him.
So do kids in that situation have any protection? Are there rules about hitting them as discipline, for instance? Are they allowed to be homeschooled or must they attend an accredited school? Will a social worker actually be assigned who will keep a close eye on the situation? What about contact with Josh? What about bedrooms? Some places have rules about individual bedrooms, for example, at least for foster kids. Do any of the fostering rules apply to guardianship and application for adoption?
They already have a few daughters married and in their own homes and at least one of them has talked about adoption. I wonder why none of them was considered for guardianship. Or did they decide they weren’t ready for a child that age? Or do the Diggars have children close to his age that are already friends with him? If he’s already lived with them a while, probably yes.
The fact that their son molested their Daughters and they really did not do what should have been done to protect them, has anyone ever looked into. Who may have Molested the Brother? Molesters are primarily people. Who have been Molested them selves. He has some severe problems with not only that but pornography. Could it be his own father, or someone else in the Family or CHURCH! When Megan Kelly did her sympathetic and Pitiful interview with them that should have been asked.
Megan appeared to me to be very uneducated about this topic. So the fact that this has not been addressed is very concerning. Unless it is, he will continue to molest unless he knows it is okay to come forward and stop protecting some one or be threaten to keep quite. It will take years of Counseling. But if he was a victim himself this should be Persude. I think this family has been busy making babies for headlines and profit and have not been in touch with what is going on with the Children they have brought into this world. It is disgusting to me.