The Duggar Family is under fire again. The “19 Kids and Counting” turned “Counting On” clan can’t do much of anything without being under a microscope, and now the family’s seemingly innocent post on their official social media site has come back to bite them.
According to the Hollywood Gossip, some people took offense to a Facebook photo of Josh Duggar and Jessa Duggar Seewald’s young children mopping the kitchen floor, one of them with a bottle in his mouth.
The cringe-worthy caption reads: "Train them young! These little ones love to 'help.'"
You can see the photo of Josh Duggar's daughter Meredith and Jessa Seewald’s son Spurgeon below.
Why are fans are so upset by the photo?
Followers took issue with the word “train” in the caption, which brings to mind the Duggar family’s views on childrearing. Some of the Facebook commenters slammed the family for using the word “train” as they would use for an animal. Others warned that the family will have “another Josh” on their hands if they don’t change their ways. THG points out that the unfortunate use of the word “train” also brings to mind mama Michelle Duggar’s controversial belief in “blanket training” for young kids, in which a child is hit if he or she moves off of a blanket after being instructed to sit still.
Do the Duggar kids follow their parent’s controversial childrearing practices?
Earlier this year, In Touch Weekly revealed that Duggar daughter Jill Dillard, who is currently pregnant with her second child, admitted that she often asks her famous parents for child rearing tips. When Jill’s husband Derick described the couple's two-year-old son Israel as “manipulative,” fans went into a tizzy and blamed the use of the word on the Duggar-approved book “To Train Up a Child-Child Training for the 21st Century.” The book touts blanket training and corporal punishment as parenting methods.
The site also pointed out that Jill posted and deleted photos of her newborn son wrapped up tightly in a blanket.
The baby looked like he was in distress in the tightly bound wrap and some fans believed the daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar was using an alternate form of blanket training when she posted the photo.
As for Jessa Duggar, in an interview with Us Weekly, last year, the mom of two said she “tends to do some things differently” than her mom did when raising her supersized brood. Jessa acknowledged that there will be variations between her parenting style and that of her parents, but that their “foundational goals” would remain the same. Jessa also revealed that her mother gives her no pressure to do things the same way that she did them with her 19 kids.