National Freak Family Week (Or “Why I Heart the Duggars”)

I think we’ve established that pastors’ kids are freaks. They are born into freak, in-the-fishbowl families, and they can’t do anything about it. Their lives are the subject of speculation always, fascination sometimes, and ridicule all too often. To some, they are idols to be emulated, carved in cream cheese. To others, they are a sideshow, a family that, like those eyeless fish they find in ocean caves, somehow manages to live and thrive in a strange microcosm that most can’t imagine or understand.

The Obamas, now that they’ve crossed the threshold into that great White/Glass house, are a freak family too. The ultimate, you might say.

And I had to chuckle when I realized their inauguration fell in the same week as the airing of a television special on my favorite freak family of all: “A Very Duggar Wedding” (January 25 on TLC. Set your TiVo.)

Now, and friend of mine will tell you that I have a deep fascination with documentaries of any kind. Maybe it has a little to do with being a PK. I could study all day what makes different people tick; how they could have so many different ways of living, and, in turn, so many different ideas of what makes right and wrong. After years of documentary-watching and a REAL subscription to HBO (yes, I’ve really made it now), I consider myself a quasi-expert on subway mole people, the Amish, snake-handlers, numerous tribal peoples, drug addicts, toddler beauty queens, McDonalds addicts, and numerous prison residents across the United States.

But the Duggars remain my favorite subjects. You’ve heard of them, right? The family from Arkansas that just welcomed their 18th child? Yes, I thought so. They’re getting so large that they’re kind of hard to miss. And lately, more and more people want to hit them. I mean it, do a quick internet search for “Duggar” and your screen will fill with the smoke of a thousand flaming comment threads.

But if you’re like me, once the smoke clears, you may find yourself asking “Why all the vitriol?” They live a nontraditional existence, no question. But the kids are healthy and happy, and the entire family lives debt free (no small accomplishment, even for a family of one).

One of the best pieces I’ve come across regarding Duggar Hate came from J. Phillip Faranda’s Real Estate Blog (of all places). Faranda posted the piece in 2005, and I was please to see that it’s still active, and still received comments more than a year after he wrote it. I encourage you to have a read.

I admit, the Duggars do freak me out a bit. Having had one child (and still whining about it), I’m mildly convinced that mom Michelle Duggar is a government experiment, and was constructed of pure titanium in a secret lab beneath the Mojave Desert. And then there’s the matter of the hair and clothing, all in the name of modesty. Anyone who knows me knows I will maintain until the end that you don’t have to be dowdy to be good. (My first question, in fact, when I saw the previews for the upcoming Duggar Wedding, with its fifty or so bridesmaids, was “Who curled all the bangs?” I hope that person was well-paid, and got an endorsement deal with Aqua Net.)

But taking note of all the “strange but true!” stuff is all in the fun of getting to know a freak family. Growing up, my first experiences with tolerance and difference weren’t through lessons on race and gender, they were though interactions with the families in my community: the one without a Dad; the one that didn’t celebrate Christmas; the one with all the crazy statuary on the lawn; the one whose mother was so terrified of school germs that she made her children wear ziploc bags over their hands when they ate in the cafeteria.

And then there were those poor children who weren’t allowed to go barefoot, even around the public pool, because their parents thought they would get worms absorbed through the soles of their feet.

Oh wait, that was me.

That heaven those jellies were stylish, as well as waterproof.

So, I ask all readers to join me in this latest celebration of diversity. Curl your bangs, put on your Keds, make an octuple portion of tater tot casserole (recipe on the Duggar Family Website), and celebrate the freakiness in someone else’s family.

Cause Lord knows, someone is out there right now criticizing yours.

(P.S.  I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the family also wrote a book.  Yeah. Because they had some extra time in between building their own home from scratch and without debt, and teaching 18 kids both violin and piano. I agree with the haters, someone really should call Social Services.)

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