Complaint of the Week: Regarding the Duggars

Writer’s Note: I wrote the initial Duggar piece (which I have kept below in the interest of not sweeping anything under the rug) based on their personal description of what happened. Several people have pointed me to further information about the situation (something CNN did not do in their article on the family’s statement, strangely enough) that casts significant doubts on the Duggars’ version of events. I have therefore reworked the Complaint. Again, the original is below this one, so you can see how it was before the additional information.

Thank you for understanding. Please enjoy my modified Complaint and feel free to compare it to the original if you so choose.

I want to talk about Josh Duggar.

Ok, to be honest, I really do not want to talk about him. I do not want to talk about any of the Duggars on most days. But, I feel compelled to.

Before I dive fully in, knowing how (rightfully) charged this story current is, I want to show all my cards.

I do not agree with the Duggars interpretation of Christianity. I find it entirely too isolating and inflexible. I think the Quiverful movement is weaponized fundamental Christianity in search of a war on Christians that does not work and that confrontational stance turns my stomach. I find the goal of having as many children as possible ill-advised to say the least, and I don’t like the burden it places on the older children to raise the kids that two parents can have but certainly cannot take care of all on their own.

I find their general attitude toward sex and sexuality unrealistic, shaming, and unhealthy. The idea of “no sex until marriage” is one thing (one I think is a personal choice but would recommend against making) but the idea of averting your eyes to avoid looking at a woman to avoid lust or not dating in any way except as a precursor to marriage, and so on is beyond too far.

Additionally, this story has exposed them to be massive hypocrites. They spendt their time, effort, and money misrepresenting individuals who identify as transgender as sexual predators attempting to use their trans status as a means of accessing more victims while having raised an actual offender, a straight identified, cisgender, Christian offender.

That said, while one might be tempted to point to this oppressive and, yes, degrading attitude towards sex and sexuality, and argue something along the lines of “When you attempt to deny normal healthy human desires, especially in an adolescent, is it any wonder that those desires would still end up expressed? Even in terrible ways?”, that’s not this commentary. It may be an interesting thought to consider, but that’s not where my head or my heart are at on this.

Because, the things is, I’ve worked with child sexual offenders. With teen girls and boys who victimized siblings, friends, other kids in the system. They were once victims themselves—something I find myself wondering about Josh—and then they hurt someone else in the same way.

They did horrible things to defenseless children while being basically children themselves. It is a frightening thing to grasp. A shocking one. It can turn your stomach. Often, it turns theirs. It eat them up. It hollows them out. They feel less than human all on their own, without anyone to scream it at them.

So I would hate if, one day, those teens I worked with were outted in the press for those terrible acts they perpetrated as children. If they, as many do, had silenced those dark impulses and moved into adulthood fully formed and healthy peopIe only to find their crimes, their old selves, dragged out for the world to see. I would hate if, after seeking help and learning why what they did was wrong and why they did it and how to heal that part of themselves that made it happen, it was undone by people telling them, “No, this was you and this is all you will ever be.”

I am not here to defend Josh or the Duggars as a whole. From what has been pointed out to me, their statement about how they handled their son when they discovered his crimes seems to be deceptive. They may have chosen to speak to Church elders and a state police officer who was part of their Quiverfull movement over reporting Josh to the police. When police became involved, they may have lied about sending him away for treatment. They misrepresented what they placed Josh and his victims in as therapy. So, to be clear, what Josh did was wrong, how the Duggars sought to treat the crimes was wrong, and lying about it now is wrong.

But, I do not want the stain of the Duggars—their hypocrisy, their deceptions, their use of religion in arenas where the law must take precedence—to touch all underage perpetrators. I’ve also worked with perpetrators up close, teens who would have been the same age Josh was when he did what he did. I’ve worked with them and seen the capacity of empathy, for owning their crimes, for rehabilitating themselves. So I have to stand for them against the kneejerk assumption that Josh and other underage victimizers like him are inherently monstrous. I do not know Josh, I do not want to, but I know plenty of girls and boys who committed very similar acts and had the ability to stop, to realize what they did was wrong, to make amends, and to not commit such acts again.

Josh Duggar may well be the fiend the clichéd and often inaccurate version of a sexual victimizer we see in popular fiction or are told of on the news. Certainly, the multiple victims make that a tempting conclusion to draw. Regardless, however, that does not mean ALL kids who commit acts like this are. Some, perhaps many, are trauma reactive—kids who were abused themselves first and often in prolonged ways. Some part of them knows that perpetrating against other is wrong, but the combination of age, lack of impulse control, and a worldview poisoned by the crimes they have survived has left them confused about what it means to do what they are doing. Some may believe it is how love is shown, since their mother or father or aunt or uncle or family friend did it to them and they know that person loved them. Again, this is not a blank check for Josh or his family, just a….a plea, I suppose, to allow for the possibility that people can become healthy again, that a 14 year old who might have done such a shocking and frightening thing is not lost forever, is not a remorseless monster that can never by right again. There are treatments, there can be rehabilitation.

I do not know if Josh was treated, was rehabilitated. I hope so. But I do know others who have done similar things have been. So please, point out the hypocrisy, point out how a religion that views sex with such negativity could be fertile ground for twisted expressions of sexuality to occur, even enjoy a moment of schadenfreude. Just try not to perpetuate the mistaken belief that there can be no cure.

 

As promised, here is the original.

 

I want to talk about Josh Duggar.

Ok, to be honest, I really do not want to talk about him. I do not want to talk about any of the Duggars on most days. But, I feel compelled to.

Before I dive fully in, knowing how (rightfully) charged this story current is, I want to show all my cards.

I do not agree with the Duggars interpretation of Christianity. I find it entirely too isolating and inflexible. I think the Quiverful movement is weaponized fundamental Christianity in search of a war on Christians that does not work and that confrontational stance turns my stomach. I find the goal of having as many children as possible ill-advised to say the least, and I don’t like the burden it places on the older children to raise the kids that two parents can have but certainly cannot take care of all on their own.

I find their general attitude toward sex and sexuality unrealistic, shaming, and unhealthy. The idea of “no sex until marriage” is one thing (one I think is a personal choice but would recommend against making) but the idea of averting your eyes to avoid looking at a woman to avoid lust or not dating in any way except as a precursor to marriage, and so on is beyond too far.

Additionally, this story has exposed them to be massive hypocrites. They spendt their time, effort, and money misrepresenting individuals who identify as transgender as sexual predators attempting to use their trans status as a means of accessing more victims while having raised an actual offender, a straight identified, cisgender, Christian offender.

That said, while one might be tempted to point to this oppressive and, yes, degrading attitude towards sex and sexuality, and argue something along the lines of “When you attempt to deny normal healthy human desires, especially in an adolescent, is it any wonder that those desires would still end up expressed? Even in terrible ways?”, that’s not this commentary. It may be an interesting thought to consider, but that’s not where my head or my heart are at on this.

Because, the things is, I’ve worked with child sexual offenders. With teen girls and boys who victimized siblings, friends, other kids in the system. They were once victims themselves—something I find myself wondering about Josh—and then they hurt someone else in the same way.

They did horrible things to defenseless children while being basically children themselves. It is a frightening thing to grasp. A shocking one. It can turn your stomach. Often, it turns theirs. It eat them up. It hollows them out. They feel less than human all on their own, without anyone to scream it at them.

So I would hate if, one day, those teens I worked with were outted in the press for those terrible acts they perpetrated as children. If they, as many do, had silenced those dark impulses and moved into adulthood fully formed and healthy peopIe only to find their crimes, their old selves, dragged out for the world to see. I would hate if, after seeking help and learning why what they did was wrong and why they did it and how to heal that part of themselves that made it happen, it was undone by people telling them, “No, this was you and this is all you will ever be.”

Now, I don’t know if Josh Duggar is like the kids I worked with. He may well be as monstrous as the clichéd often inaccurate version of a sexual victimizer we see in popular fiction or are told of on the news. I do not know if, as the family is claiming, his crimes were found out, attention was paid to it, and he never perpetrated again. I hope it is, but of course, I have no way of knowing.

What I do “know” is that the general outline of how the Duggars handled it, if their statement is accurate, is as correct as a family can act when faced with this heartbreaking reality. They discovered Joshua’s actions, they reported them, they followed the choices made by the law, and they got counseling for Josh and the victims. Like the Duggars or not, this is pretty much best practices and I will not tear it down just to tear them down too.

I get that desire though. As noted above, I do not like the Duggars version of Christianity. I do not like how they isolate, how they reject all kinds of diversity from sexuality all the way through thought. I do not like their resistance to scientific facts. I get wanting to see them get theirs. But this is a horrifying thing for any family to go through, even one I so utterly disagree with and who would so utterly judge me and find me wanting.

I should also note that what I think of as therapy and what the Duggars think of as therapy could be—especially if reports are accurate—miles apart. I cannot support any approach to therapy that sweeps Josh’s actions under the rug or does not make their full weight clear nor can I support any therapy that would blame the victim(s) or encourage them to just move like nothing happened. If that is the therapy that the Duggars used then that is where the debate should focus, where the Duggars should be held to account, not in making the decision to get Josh therapy instead locking him in a cold dark hole.

 So, no, I do not stand with Josh Duggar or his family. I am no Mike Huckabee. But I’ve also worked with perpetrators up close, teens who would have been the same age Josh was when he did what he did. I’ve worked with them and seen the capacity of empathy, for owning their crimes, for rehabilitating themselves. So I have to object to the black and white perspective, the easy solutions, the snide “that’s what they gets.” I cannot join in in the gleeful taking apart of the Duggars because I’ve seen too many families try to survive this kind of thing. I do not know Josh, I do not want to, but I know plenty of girls and boys who just aren’t that different. I worked to help them so I can’t, in good conscience, act as though Josh Duggar did not deserve the same opportunities.