The many, many children of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are no strangers to controversy.
Obviously, the Josh Duggar sex scandals will continue to haunt the family for many years to come, and rightfully so.
But long before those charges came to light, Duggar critics were often in an uproar over the family’s controversial ideas about child-rearing.
That’s a photo of Josh Duggar’s daughter Meredith and Jessa Duggar’s son Spurgeon.
The image was posted on the family’s official Facebook page earlier this week, along with a caption reading:
“Train them young! These little ones love to ‘help."”
Many fans took issue with the Duggars use of the word “train” for a number of reasons.
For one thing, the verb brings to mind the raising of a young animal, not a child, a fact that many fans pointed out in the photo’s comments section:
“You don’t train a child anything. You teach a child,” wrote one follower.
“How dare you say ‘train’ a child. That’s seriously messed up. Next you’ll be training them to lay in bed to repopulate the world the way you think it should be done. You’ll have another josh on your hands sooner than later.”
The word choice is bad enough for that reason, but in the case of the Duggars, “train” is problematic for other reasons, as well.
For many fans, it served as a reminder of Michelle Duggar’s belief in the controversial practice of “blanket training.”
The term refers to an exercise in which a very young child is seated on a blanket and told to remain stll.’
When the child attempts to move from the blanket, he or she is struck with an object.
Needless to say, many former fans were appalled and cut ties with the Duggars when Michelle came out in support of blanket training.
On top of everything else, the Duggars have often been criticized for the amount of time and effort their children are forced to put into household chores.
Sources have claimed that maintenance of the “Duggar compound” is tantamount to a full-time job for many pf the Duggar children, beginning before they even reach their teens.
The so-called “Cinderella Duggar,” Jana, reportedly puts so much time into household chores that she’s given up on the idea of ever getting married and starting a family of her own.
When you factor in the many Duggar scandals related to child-rearing and work around the house, it’s not hard to see how so many could be so upset by a photo of two young children.
Watch Counting On online for more from reality TV’s most controversial family.
