How surprising is it that the Duggar family did their
darndest to cover up the fact that their eldest son, Josh, molested five girls,
including some of his sisters? Not very, to anyone familiar with the Advanced
Training Institute, the homeschooling method the 19 Kids and Counting family
used for their brood. First, there's the fact that the institute's founder,
Bill Gothard, has himself been accused of molesting four women, and harrassing 34 women.
There's an entire website, called Recovering Grace, devoted to the young people
who suffered abuse while being raised with the ATI's teachings. That site is the source of a document from the late 1990s, which
was sent to ATI families to address sexual abuse in the home, based on the case
of another boy who admitted to molesting his younger siblings, years before Duggar's
2002 incidents. It equates the "tragedy" of that boy's actions with the damage done to
the family's reputation and implies that part of the blame lies in the
immodesty of his baby sisters and the fact that he was asked to change their
diapers. Another document outlines how to counsel victims of sexual abuse. It
asks whether God might have let abuse happen because of the victim's
"immodest dress," "indecent exposure," or even "being
evil with friends." If the victim is not to blame (!!!), he or she should
be taught that being physically abused will lead to having a stronger spirit.
We have no idea if these documents were literally followed by the Duggars themselves. But they have treated this situation as if it's an indiscretion best left in the past. "When
Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes, and we were
shocked," Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar said in a statement to People.
"We had tried to teach him right from wrong. That dark and difficult time
caused us to seek God like never before."
None of their words address the
trauma done to their daughters, and the statements on the family Facebook page only address how this affects the abuser, Josh, who wrote: "I understood that if I continued down this wrong road that I would end up ruining my life." What about the lives of the girls he has admitted to assaulting?
Thankfully, TLC has finally seen the light and pulled 19
Kids and Counting from its schedule. Seeing women treated this way does not
belong in the category of entertainment anymore.
TLC Pulls 19 Kids & Counting From Its Schedule