I remember getting the chickenpox when I was four. It itched so bad and my grandma had to come take care of my brother and me as our parents needed to work. There’s a vaccine now but not everyone opts for it (although it’s recommended by the CDC, etc.) since the illness is relatively minor compared to a lot of the other things we get vaccines for. It’s still very uncomfortable and can make you sick as a dog. All of this is an introduction to the fact that the super prolific Duggar family dealt with an outbreak of chickenpox that felled 12 out of the 17 kids then living in their house. The good thing is that premature Josie hadn’t yet left the hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas at that point so the abnormally calm Duggars decided to delay her return home until they recovered.
Here’s the story from Radar, which has the exclusive video of the Duggar kids with chickenpox:
The Duggar family never does anything on a small scale. Jim Bob and Michelle have 19 kids. They have a 7,000 square foot house. And now, 12 of their children have the chicken pox, and RadarOnline.com has the exclusive video clip of the adorable kids suffering from the childhood infection from the next episode of 19 Kids and Counting.
“Johanna broke out with chicken pox a couple weeks ago and now we have 11 more who broke out,” dad Jim Bob says in the video as he leaves a phone message for the doctor.
Jackson, always the family ham, is shown with his little face covered in spots, and one poor kid even has a pox in the eye!
Mom Michelle explained that the timing of the outbreak was right before they were going to bring little baby Josie back home, but they decided she would stay with her in Little Rock until the kids were chicken pox free.
“For the first two years of her life Miss Josie is going to live in a little bubble,” Michelle explained about their 19th child.
Check out the ‘Chicken Pox’ episode of 19 Kids and Counting on TLC on Tuesday, August 24 at 9pm.
[From Radar Online]
If my one kid had chicken pox I would be stressed about it and trying to make sure he was comfortable, but it’s just another day in the Duggar family. Look at that sweet terribly sick-looking kid in the header and tell me you don’t want to get him some juice and a blankie. The mom wasn’t even home to help take care of the kids as she was in Little Rock near her newborn Josie in the hospital, but it’s not like she does a lot of one-on-one nurturing anyway. I doubt that she even came home to make sure everyone was ok. There were five kids left in the house to take care of the other ones, and that works out to about 1 to 2 with some extras left over. I’m sure they made it work. Whenever I watch that show I’m kind of amazed at how chill they all are, but I guess if they seriously cared about major issues like that they would stop popping out kids. Even Josie’s grave medical scare hasn’t deterred them. We’ll see how long Michelle’s fertility holds out. She’s like the conservative Energizer Bunny with a permagrin and vacant stare.
Note – I wanted to bitch that the Duggars don’t pay property taxes after declaring their house a church. That seems to just be heresay, though, as Duggars Without Pity claims they do pay property taxes. They surely get out of other taxes by trying to pass off their family as a religion. It is though in its way.
Thanks to D-Listed for the lead!
Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease tell me that Jim Bob got chickenpox and it rendered him sterile.
Michelle just keeps popping them out because the older kids are the ones that have to take care of the younger ones—cooking, cleaning, laundry, schooling, nurturing…..
Put a sock on it already!!!!
I don’t know how they manage to remember all of those kids names. I’ve never seen the show – do they wear nametags? I know they say that the household is very laidback and calm but I certainly wouldn’t want that kind of life. To each his own I guess.
@hellen: I lol’d at your comment so hard because I had the same reaction when I read this earlier today on DListed.
*Boards the bus bound for hell*
JimBob & Michelle are disgusting. If you’re not willing to take care of your own children do not have them, even if it gets you in the mags.
The older children should be allowed to live their lives & not be the parents these children do not have.
The sad thing is that the older girls will never be allowed to leave that house. They will be there until they are in their late 20’s. Do you really expect Mamma D to take care of all those young kids on her own if these older girls leave tomarrow? No way in hell. Those parents will make sure to guilt their daughters into staying for many more years. Someone has got to take care of Josie and deal with her disabilities for the next how many years and it sure the shit is not going to be Michelle D.
OK, I’m not trying to be a smartass here, swear to God. BUUUUUUUT – I know that they are hardcore Christians who don’t believe in birth control. Do they believe in using medicine for things like this? I’m assuming the answer is yes because they needed modern science to keep baby Josie alive.
Why did the parents not get them the vaccination? That’s really terrible. I guess they would rather see their kids suffer. And what about the sick preemie baby? Chickenpox is a virus and can really jack that baby up and it does stay in the system for a lifetime. I can’t stand these idiots.
you know, sometimes these people make me really upset, but if I take deep breaths, I remind myself that it’s their choice, they aren’t on welfare, the kids are happy, they ARE in fact amazingly calm, etc.
BUT as others have said, what I can’t get over is the neglect/burden upon the older children. I’m sure it makes them very mature and responsible at a young age, but they can’t have a very close relationship with their parents. they just physically CAN’T.
That said, 12 kids with the pox at once is probably punishment enough.
Oh, I clicked on that link and am just now reading about how Michelle wept and pleaded to keep alcohol out of her town. I am fighting the urge to drive to where they live and pelt condoms and airplane bottles of scotch at their house. What a self-righteous lunatic.
I don’t watch the show b/c it makes me angry, but I have seen it, and the fact that they named one kid Jinger just kils me. It looks like it should be pronounced Jing-ger, like jing like a bell sounds. If you want to name your kid Ginger, then fucking spell it normally.
I must say Michelle looks very good (setting aside the ’80’s hairdo and outfit) for a woman that has had 19 kids. Hell, I spend an afternoon with my nieces and nephew and I look like I had been dragged behind a car in a gravel pit for a month… gum in my hair, mud on my face, bite marks on my body, and periodic screams of terror. Don’t ya just love kids.
Meh, if I had to choose between the Duggar family and the Suleman family…I think I’d go for the Duggars..
I would be ecstatic to be part of the Duggar family! They look happy because they are happy. Done correctly, kids that feel a vital part of a family grow up feeling good about themselves and have a healthy sense of responsibility.
WTF? There’s been a chickenpox vaccine out for a decade now. ALL those kids should have been inoculated. If you catch it very young the disease can be mild (I had it when I was five and was itchy for a few days, no after-effects), but if you get it in adolescence or adulthood you will be sick as a dog. I don’t get these parents. Their children’s health should be their first concern. I hope they got the kids vaccinated against the swine flu or that house will be a disaster waiting to happen.
As far as the to-vaccinate-or-not debate, a whole generation of parents — and doctors as well — is growing up without ever having seen a case of what not being vaccinated can do to a child. I remember seeing small children crippled for life from polio before the Salk vaccine came out. I’ve seen a pair of twins born blind and mentally retarded because their mother caught German measles in her first trimester of pregnancy. Boys have been rendered sterile by catching mumps in puberty and children have been left severely hearing and vision impaired by the side effects of measles. All these diseases are preventable by vaccination and there is NO excuse for parents to risk their children’s health and future (and possibly their lives) by refusing to get them vaccinated because of some unsubstantiated internet rumor that vaccination causes autism. There is not a shred of evidence that it does.
Not everyone feels the need to try every vaccination the big pharma companies pop out. Out of all the things to not like the Duggars for, not getting a C-pox vaccintion seems a little lame. Not pulling out – now that I could rant about.
@LolaBella: That bus is honking at the curb in front of my house!
@aenflex: Check this out before you write off not taking your kid for a chickenpox vaccine as “a little lame”.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001592.htm
Hear, hear, Cheyenne! There is a new strain of whooping cough which has actually killed several newborns in Marin County because parents are refusing to vaccinate. (Additionally, my grandmother says you never ever want to hear a child with whooping cough, that it is one of the most horrible things in the world). Fine, it is your choice, but when you start to endanger other people (my soon to be born niece or nephew who will live in Marin) then it stops being about you. And can we once and for all get it through our heads that there is absolutely no link between vaccines and autism!
This is getting on a public health high horse, but vaccination isn’t really a “personal choice” – it’s a community choice. You vaccinate your healthy kids so that the kid in school with leukemia (or whatever) doesn’t get sick. It infuriates me when people choose not to vaccinate their children, because in most cases their children are not the ones at greatest risk.
@alexa
if you read the testimonials of women who left families who practiced the quiverful religion, i think you’d be humming a different tune. as soon as girls in the family are old enough to begin to understand concepts, they teach them JOY (jesus first, others second, yourself last). this sounds like hell to me, especially when it’s a forced obligation, not something the girls willingly choose to do.
nolongerquivering.com
seriously, read a few testimonials. absolutely terrifying.
“As Quiverfull author Rachel Scott writes in her 2004 movement book, “Birthing God’s Mighty Warriors,” “Children are our ammunition in the spiritual realm to whip the enemy! These special arrows were handcrafted by the warrior himself and were carefully fashioned to achieve the purpose of annihilating the enemy.””
http://www.newsweek.com/2009/03/16/extreme-motherhood.html
Understanding Quiverfull, the antifeminist, conservative Christian movement that motivates popular reality-TV families like the Duggars
KellyBrynn got there before I did, but seriously – the Duggars are poster children and missionaries for a movement called QuiverFull (or Christian Patriarchy) which is immensely psychologically damaging to its adherents.
Those poor kids will never be allowed any kind of education, which means they’ll never be able to escape the compound without the strength of will that the Christian Patriarchy movement beats out of kids from the moment they’re born. (no, seriously – that’s not hyperbole:)
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/02/22/no_greater_joy
It’s totally a cult.
/soapbox
That sucks…
*donning my Kevlar* there are reasons other than the fears of autism that keep people from following the pharma company/government vaccination regime. We chose not to immunize until our kids’ immune systems had a chance to develop. The thought of pumping my newborns full of diseases, as well as the stabilizers added to them, made me nauseous.
Well, I hope all those folks who said “a pox on those Duggars!” are feeling really bad about that one now.
@buenavista: You might be even more nauseous if your two year old or three year old came down with a fatal case of whooping cough or became deaf or blind from complications of measles.
Your child has an astronomically larger chance of being negatively affected by complications from these diseases than from the vaccines.
@Gecko, KellyBryn, Anon – I don’t watch the Duggar show (because, ick) but they turned up on Say Yes to the Dress once. Horrifying: Michelle Duggar has NO opinion of her own. Her husband speaks for her. She looked terrified every time the consultant asked her what SHE thought. It was honestly a very freaky thing to watch. Freaky and sad.
I have no problem with people who choose not to immunize/vaccinate, or who choose to delay it…as long as they also choose to live on a commune somewhere & homeschool, where they are not exposing their children to me & my children. Seriously, if it’s your CHOICE, good on ya’-but don’t bring your children to places (playgrounds, grocery stores, school, etc.) where they can come into contact w/other children who aren’t old enough to be vaccinated yet, or who may be immunocompromised.
Andrea and Rusty Yates also belong(ed) to the Quiverfull movement. I think we all know how that turned out…: (
22.Anonymous wrote:
“As Quiverfull author Rachel Scott writes in her 2004 movement book, “Birthing God’s Mighty Warriors,” “Children are our ammunition in the spiritual realm to whip the enemy! These special arrows were handcrafted by the warrior himself and were carefully fashioned to achieve the purpose of annihilating the enemy.””
Wow!?!?!?!? When it comes to things that make me want to barf this comment from Ms. Scott beats out eating a combo of luke warm rotten milk, raw burger, head cheese, haggis, and vinegar.
LMAO @ BillHicks!!
@alarmjaguar: I heard about those whooping cough cases in Marin County and some adults also caught it. These were probably not adults who hadn’t been vaccinated because back in the day you either got your shots or you couldn’t go to school. I think this new strain may be able to beat the standard vaccine and if that is the case, it’s a scary prospect. It could mean they will have to develop a new vaccine and everybody would have to get re-vaccinated.
Also, they are finding out that some vaccines don’t give a lifetime protection, as previously believed. My son had to get a second measles shot in college when there was a measles outbreak on several campuses. His college wouldn’t let anybody register for classes until they brought a doctor’s note saying they had had a second measles shot.
To anyone who thinks you have a right not to vaccinate your children: you have no right to put anyone else’s child in danger because you refuse to protect your own. If my child caught a communicable disease from your child because you failed to have your child vaccinated, and if my child suffered serious side effects, I’d sue you to kingdom come and probably win.
Of course she stayed in Arkansas. She didn’t want to deal with her 12 sick kids. Hell, she didn’t have to deal with one in the hospital…she had the nurses do everything.
She grosses me out.
The trick with vaccines are to make sure that they are of the dead virus not alive. My nephew received the live one years ago and promptly got shingles. As to the Duggers I have heard that he has said he wouldn’t pay for any of the girls to go to college, lost all respect, keeping them for daycare i suppose
“…drive to where they live and pelt condoms and airplane bottles of scotch at their house.”
Awesome. I’ll help.
@Taylor B:
I was eating lunch when I read that! Ewww…lunch will have to wait now…
Why is it anybody’s business how many children the Duggars choose to have? They aren’t hurting anybody and they aren’t costing any taxpayer any money. In fact, they probably earn a lot of money doing their reality show. And, if (and I do mean IF) those older girls are unhappy, they have the opportunity to tell somebody and leave. Perhaps they like taking care of their younger siblings; perhaps they all want to eventually have a ton of babies of their own. Nobody knows and nobody should give a darn!!
As for the chicken pox . . . I grew up with 13 siblings and when one got the chicken pox, my mother put all of us in the same room so that we could get it too. It’s easier to take care of ALL of the children at the same time rather than having one get it and then another gets it weeks later. That’s just practical. Also, there is no need for a vaccination for chicken pox. It is a harmless childhood disease. Why risk vaccination for it when there are so many other scary things, like whooping cough and polio and diptheria, that could be really harmful.
I’m just saying, people need to chill about the Duggars. They are living their lives according to the religion they believe in. There is no need to denigrate them just because it’s something you would not do. Learn to appreciate others who are different. Not everybody can be the same.
@Cheyenne: What do you about vaccines if the kids are allergic to eggs? SOL ?
Awww. I do want to give him a blankie and some juice. It makes me sad thinking that there weren’t enough people taking care of them. It’s not their faults their parents are freaking wackos.
@ mslewis:
The Duggars make it our business by being on a reality show.
If they don’t want people’s opinions on their beliefs, then they shouldn’t be on tv.
day-um jim-bobby!!!
i guess this gives new meaning to the phrase…
wait for it…
‘A POX ON MY HOUSE’
bwahahahahaha!
whateves…’i’ think its funny. 🙂
SUPER: I was just going to say the same thing. They keep having more cus it’s easy with 19 baby sitters at all times. I’m sure baby Josie is already in the training class to watch over her assigned sibling in a year or so
I remember our bout with the pox. My youngest sister got it first and passed it to the other three of us. Four kids with the pox all at once! My grandma ‘cared’ for by stripping us down to our underwear and sitting us in front of a box fan to dry the lotion with she watched her soaps. We got swatted with a fly swatter every time we tried to scratch or moved too far from the fan.
So for all those who b!@#h and moan about the kids not being properly ‘cared’ for, I say ‘HA!’.I m willing to bet a million dollars not a single adult on here could have survived it!
@Bubbles: most vaccines cultivated in eggs contain very little egg material and can be given to children with egg allergies safely. (It’s also mainly MMR, flu, and yellow fever vaccines that are made using eggs.)
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/egg-allergy/DS01021/DSECTION=prevention
@Bubbles: Kids allergic to eggs should not be vaccinated, of course, and should – in theory – be protected by virtue of the fact that OTHER children are vaccinated. Once a certain percentage of parents decline vaccination, those kids with allergies to vaccine components no longer enjoy “herd” protection and are at risk.
Before everyone gets all up in arms about it (oops too late), do we know for a fact that the Duggars DON’T vaccinate for other killer childhood diseases?
The chicken pox vaccine is fairly new, and when I had my baby started on vaccs, the doctor said it was up to me whether or not I wanted to vaccinate her with that particular one. Of course polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus and measles are all no brainers.
I’m definitely in the minority with this one but the Duggars are a good family and aren’t hurting anyone. Their beliefs are their beliefs. If people don’t like them, then they shouldn’t watch their show.
The exponential growth of this family is going to be astounding.
@Taylor B, if you had a make up artist and hair stylist keeping you camera ready, you too would look great.
I just got my child the chicken pox vaccine a few weeks ago. So simple. But they need to stay in the headlines and have plots for their show, so…
You know why I’m allowed to criticize the Duggars?
BECAUSE THEY PUT THEIR LIVES AND THEIR KID’S LIVES IN THE PUBLIC EYE. THAT’S WHY.
Now that we have that out of the way: something is seriously wrong in their HEADS. For real. They’re just baby hoarders. Baby greedy freaks. And now that the fame and money is rolling in, they REALLY can’t stop.
I worry about her mental health once menopause hits. Her entire purpose in life will be done.
@mslewis: Chicken pox is a mild disease in the great majority of cases if you get it in early childhood. If you catch it in adolescence or adulthood it can be very serious. My ex-husband caught it when he was 20 and was sick as a dog for two weeks.
Chicken pox also opens the door for shingles in later life (which I understand is very painful)
http://adam.about.com/reports/Shingles-and-chickenpox-Varicella-zoster-virus.htm
(This article includes immunization and booster schedules)
By skipping the chicken pox vaccine you open the door for two-diseases-in-one, and risk spreading it to others, a fate that is thankfully easily avoided these days.
Am I the only one who remembers Chicken Pox being fun? From what I remember you’re only sick for a day or two but contagious for a few weeks so no school.
“Oh, I clicked on that link and am just now reading about how Michelle wept and pleaded to keep alcohol out of her town. I am fighting the urge to drive to where they live and pelt condoms and airplane bottles of scotch at their house. What a self-righteous lunatic.”
_______
I am getting on this thread late, but I have to spew this anyway. I don’t personally care what the Duggars do. If they want to raise a kid farm, and employ their children to take care of their other children, I don’t care. All of those kids will eventually be old enough to make their own decisions to break free and lead their own lives if they choose to do so. Not my problem, and it impedes my life in no way.
What pisses me off though is that the Duggars sit on their high horse, stating that no one should be able to tell THEM what to do about THEIR family, yet they have NO problem trying to take something away from other people? Because of THEIR belief system? It’s this kind of blatant and blind hypocrisy that completely turns me off from religious sheep. If you don’t expect anyone to trample on your life, then stay the fuck out of mine. Period.
@mln:
When my oldest son had the pox, (no vaccine then) my boss rearranged my work schedule so I had nearly a week off. I rented tons of video games, and played them with my son for that time.
We thought it was great.
But the neighbors’ son had them at the same time, and the poor thing was one solid scab. He didn’t have such a great time.
We lost a family member to the chicken pox vaccine. Think please, before you post so knowingly. It caused a much stronger strain of pox. He was 5.
The vaccine does not guarantee you won’t get shingles.
“For the first two years of her life Miss Josie is going to live in a little bubble,” Michelle explained about their 19th child.
so does that mean they will cancel their show to keep this baby away from the camera crew? no, of course not. this famewhoring family makes me sick.
There is now a shingles vaccine. I got it last year and had no reaction to it whatever.
I can understand the little kids getting chicken pox, I remember getting it when I was like 7, but the teenager?
The older kids should have had it already!
Taylorb your comment is so way majorly hillariously funny – Grandma was laughing so hard her top plate fell out!
@Cheyenne: GREAT posts and I couldn’t agree more. My father is a physician, and, like you, has seen more children than he’d care to count who’d been terribly crippled, sickened, and many times, killed by diseases that these days can so easily be prevented. Needless to say, when I had children, he was on me from day one to ensure they had their shots at the right times. It honestly frightens me to think that there are parents who willingly opt out of vaccinating their children. Yes, there are risks involved, and my heart truly goes out to the poster above who lost a young family member to an allergic reaction, but as a whole, the dangers of NOT inoculating our children far out weigh the risks of having them vaccinated.
Does anyone else remember Pox Parties? One kid would get chicken pox, and then all their friends would come over. We’d watch videos, play games, get read to…oh, and share all our drinks from the same glass. You know, to get the virus over and done with? I think South Park parodied it once.
Don’t know that parents would get away with that nowadays.
“I doubt that she even came home to make sure everyone was ok.”
Like she would do that! That would be the stupidest thing in the world seeing as she would then be returning to her PREEMIE after coming in contact with an infectious illness. Even if Michelle has already had chicken pox it would still be in her system and could possibly be passed on to Josie. All in all, I think she would have done more harm than good in returning home.
JMHO
As with many diseases, it is possible to get whooping cough even if you have been vaccinated, because there is evidence that vaccines do not last a lifetime as originally thought. They now recommend revaccination for it and some others as well.
Having chicken pox leaves the virus in your body which can erupt later in life as shingles. As said earlier, it can make you very, very sick. There is no need to thrust that upon your children.
O.k. This is the kind of ignorant talk that really doesn’t benefit society. It just keeps everyone divided.First of all, everyone that chooses not to vaccinate is not a quack that heard of a “link to autism” article and decided to rebel against society. I happen to be a mom who chose not to vaccinate. It was a long hard road to my choice. I have 5 kids. 3 are vaccinated and 2 are not. I was like every new mother that had 100 percent trust in my pediatrician. But I was an attentive mother. I paid very close attention to the health of my children as they were under the doctor’s care. My children were sick, very often. Ear infections, strange rashes, eczema, asthma, allergies, pneumonia. My daughter had a definite reaction to a vaccine. Her lungs closed up and her fingers turned blue. When I asked the doctor if it was due to vaccine, the doctor would not even consider it and denied it. You see I see this as a big problem. If the doctors won’t even consider that a child’s symptoms could be due to a vaccine, then the side effects are not being accurately reported and so the safety of the vaccine is not accurate. I had a cousin who collapsed this year the day she got the pneumonia vaccine. She became paralyzed along with other very painful symptoms and was hospitalized. The doctors denied it was vaccine related and told her she couldn’t prove it. You see doctors don’t want to be held acountable if your child has a reaction. They are not doing their jobs and really paying attention for vaccine reactions. So parents have to do it. If you don’t believe me then go and have them sign a paper that says that the vaccine is 100 percent safe and proven effective and that they will be accountable if your child is harmed. They won’t do it. It may seem normal to all of you that children are suffering from all these regular childhood illnesses but it is not. My non vaccinated children have never had ear infections, or allergies, or asthma. No eczema or pneumonia. The outbreak of whooping cough in New Jersey happened in mostly vaccinated children. Don’t get angry at mothers who chose not to put their child in front of the gun and hope there is no bullet when it goes off. There is so much information out there about vaccines and what is really in them. There are tons of attentive mothers who did not settle for the doctor’s “I don’t knows” and have gone and done the research themselves. Take your child’s health into your own hands instead of blindly trusting “authority.”
“because there is evidence that vaccines do not last a lifetime as originally thought. They now recommend revaccination for it and some others as well.”
So then you are not getting real immunity. Natural immunity lasts a lifetime. Of course they want us to revaccinate as adults. That means lots more money for pharma. Every child that is born in this country is a cash cow for vaccine manufacturers. Look at the reported bad effects of the gardisil vaccines. And look up how many women had miscarriages after last years flu hoax. There was a website of them. Look for people who have gone through with the shots and the effects that have happened to them. That’s more real than any doctored up statistics.
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