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A major reconnection! All nine of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s daughters reunited with the matriarch for a rare photo.
“How does my mom not age?” Jill Duggar, 33, captioned the Instagram Reel shared on Sunday, December 22. “Also thanks James Duggar for the excellent videography.”
In the footage, the Duggar daughters — Jill, Jana, Jessa, Jinger, Joy–Anna, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn and Josie — lined up for photos to document the momentous occasion. Michelle, 58, dressed in all blue with a black parka, styled her long brown hair in waves as she guided her nine daughters for the cameras. Apart from their nine daughters, Jim Bob, 58, and Michelle share 10 sons: Josh, John-David, Joseph, Josiah, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin and Jackson.
The event was significant for the large family, having faced considerable turmoil over the years. After eldest brother Josh’s 2021 arrest on child pornography charges, several of the siblings have spoken out against the strict religious rules they were made to obey by their parents during their childhood.
Jim Bob and Michelle raised their kids to follow the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), which is a non-denominational Christian organization. Aside from studying the bible, teachings included controversial topics like “male superiority and female obedience,” guidelines on how men and women should dress, homeschooling curriculums and Bible memorization, according to a July 2016 article in The Chicago Magazine.
Jill spoke out about the complex relationship with her parents in her 2023 memoir, Counting the Cost. She said one of the reasons behind their estrangement was her and her husband Derick Dillard’s decision to leave the family reality TV series Counting On, which aired from 2015 to 2021. Jill and Derick, 35, had expressed a desire to keep certain aspects of their lives private, but also stated that they were not compensated for their appearances on the show.
In the book, she estimated her family earned about $8 million for the 10-year reality TV run. The couple eventually received $175,000 of the profits, which they said was “not the reasonable fair amount.”
“It was the principle of the thing, like OK, you say that you’ve changed, you say that you want to make things right, what can you do?” Jill wrote in the pages. “You’re asking us, ‘What can I do to make this right? I feel like there’s a wall between us type thing, like how can I make this right’ and we’re like here’s a tangible, like numbers speak … You can fix this, here’s the error.”
That same year, Jinger, 31, “disentangled” her views on religion in her book, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear. In the memoir, she explained that her older sister Jessa’s husband, Ben Seewald, encouraged her to interpret faith on her terms. “I noticed his church read the Bible in its entirety and preached scripture that way,” the 19 Kids and Counting alum wrote in the memoir. “I feel like now I’m in a much better place. I see God as amazing.”
While the mom of two condemned IBLP’s teachings in her book, she also claimed the organization created an unhealthy “fear of God” in her, which she equated to “more of a terror.”
“I was probably one of the most sensitive people in my family, so I was a rule follower,” she explained on the “Cultish” podcast in March 2023. “If that was an inch on a skirt, I would be like ‘Oh, no. I can’t sit down with this skirt on.’ Because it would barely show like a quarter of my knee. I was a legalist to the extreme because that’s what Bill Gothard said would protect you.”
English (US) ·