Anna Duggar

Dang, I love this girl, who married the oldest Duggar son and has a baby with him. She’s got a little spunk in her, which I saw on a recent episode (keep in mind my mom tapes the shows and I watch them who-knows-when, so it might be an oldie). They own a used car lot, so she happened to be driving around a Hummer H2, which she hated because of the gas mileage. At the end of the episode she said something about how she feels better driving it since her baby is in a cloth diaper. She joked that someone in a Honda may be getting better gas mileage but their baby is in a disposable diaper.

Anna, let me point out a few other things you do to offset the environmental damage from temporarily driving the Hummer [I know, because my minivan gets 17 miles to the gallon on a great day].

Sometimes when you do the interviews on the show I can see that when your daughter is tired she goes for your boob. I assume you nurse. This saves formula cans, lids and scoops from the landfills while saving you tons of money.

Also, generally when a woman nurses exclusively she enjoys at least a few months of having no period (for me it’s been about a year per child). This means I’ve personally saved 5 years’ worth of tampons and pads.

Finally, by not using artificial birth control, you are saving birth control pill packaging from landfills, not to mention the packaging from alternate forms of birth control. My birth control never lands in a landfill because it’s simply written on my Natural Family Planning chart and is saved for future perusal. Someday my kids will simply recycle my paper fertility charts. And if you are welcoming kids from God whenever they show up, you don’t even have to worry about charting!

You go, girl! If you’re ever in Overland Park, Kansas, look me up! We can go to the thrift store up the street from my house and … buy used, save the difference!

P.S. When you buy and accept used clothing and other items, that is also a form of recycling. So there.

How to Annoy Your Child

When your child bites into their french fry and accidentally chomps his finger so hard that it bleeds, make sure that as you bandage it up you say something like, "Baby, your finger is not a french fry. I keep telling you that."

You see, I think laughter is the best medicine. My parents taught me that, especially my dad. He's quite the cutup. They annoyed me on a regular basis, like the time I was dating a guy twice my age and they kept paging me (hey, it was the 1990s) with callback numbers to places like seedy motels and old folks' homes. Yeah, they were a regular Laurel and Hardy, my parents. Kinda still are.

The Duggars and What's Really Important

*Please keep in mind I published this post 12/15/10 before many things happened in the Duggar family which I obviously do not agree with.

I love watching the Duggars with my kids. I get opportunities to teach my kids about things like owning your own used car business, owning rental property, and trusting God to help you through any situation (like having a million babies).

I teach them that going to college is not the most important thing AT ALL. Sure, my husband went to college, but he was in his late 20s when he knew what he wanted to do and then paid for it himself and has been an employed engineer for the last 14 years. I didn’t go to college and am a money-making writer and homeschool teacher. Their 3 uncles didn’t go to college and run successful businesses. My dad didn’t go to college and got to retire successfully from the post office at age 55.

Most of all, I love that watching the Duggars teaches them that the road less traveled can be the most amazing and thrilling journey. I don’t get upset thinking of Michelle Duggar having another baby like some people do. While the haters are sitting on their butts reading about the Duggars in People Magazine while getting ready to take their kids to daycare, the Duggars are raising kind, smart, successful human beings on their own while taking NOTHING back from society (like welfare, food stamps, unemployment).

And the argument that those “poor” older kids have to help out around the house and with the younger kids makes me laugh. THOSE particular haters are the ones who can’t fathom getting their kid to do a chore around the house, let alone teaching their kid to care about other, younger human beings.

The Duggars should be applauded. I also watch junk like The Real Housewives of [every single city] and enjoyed the Beverly Hills episode where a 4-year-old child was MIA from most of her $60,000 birthday party because it was so obnoxiously over the top.

Really, Society? We’re supposed to value STUFF and APPEARANCE over people?