Even before we reported on Michelle Duggar’s dubious trip to Israel, we shared James Duggar’s travel itinerary.
He has been all over Europe, even visiting places that most members of a fundamentalist cult would not dare to tread.
Michelle resurfaced on Instagram this week instead of hiding herself out of well-deserved shame.
She was there to promote James’ travel vlog. And, in the process, she made it painfully clear how the “mainline” Duggars feel about Jinger.
To start at the beginning, Michelle Duggar is the “duggarfam” Instagram account. This is relatively common knowledge among Duggar fans and critics alike.
“Check out James’ trip to Europe,” she advertised, linking to James Duggar’s YouTube channel and showing screenshots from videos.
The teaser lists that he has visited London, Rome, Venice, and Pompeii.
On the surface, this seems like a sweet post from a mother who is giving her son’s venture a little boost.
To those who are familiar with the Duggars, it’s a disgraced woman and a terrible parent who at least had the decency to promote a potentially lucrative vlog that one of her too-many-to-count adult children is running.
But underneath it all, this has less to do with James and more to do with what Michelle isn’t saying … and which child she isn’t promoting to the family page’s 1.2 million followers.
It’s not like James is the only person who has released anything for public consumption this year.
Just over a month ago, Jinger Duggar’s memoir, Becoming Free Indeed, first hit store shelves.
In the tell-all book, Jinger details the persistent fear that she felt during her “cult-like” upbringing and how she has outgrown that toxic nightmare.
Make no mistake: Jinger is still a conservative Christian. Many of her beliefs are outside of mainstream Christianity’s.
But she no longer believes that women have to drape themselves in frumpy outfits, for example.
As an adult, she is aware that the cult beliefs of her childhood did lasting psychological harm to herself and to her siblings. She has learned new ways to be a Christian.
She might not phrase it as such, but Jinger’s book is a direct attack on Jim Bob and Michelle’s toxic, abysmal parenting.
That household was abusive and harmful long before Josh began to lust after prepubescent girls. There are many forms of abuse, and the Duggar family has no shortage of them.
So it is no surprise that reports say that Jim Bob and Michelle feel “embarrassed” by Jinger’s revelations and are scrambling to hide the book’s contents from their younger children.
So it appears that Michelle will resurface on social media to plug James’ video, but not Jinger’s book.
Most parents would be proud of their child for publishing a memoir, especially one that is so interesting. But the Duggar family is not a normal family in any sense.
That said … we have to consider that part of this is sexism. Misogyny is an intrinsic part of the IBLP cult. Maybe Michelle feels an extra sense of obligation to plug her son’s work.
