A cult has a leader that tries to hide the truth. Who is the leader of "quiverfull"? (genuine question)
How are they defending their son? I can't remember what they said "last time" back in 2015/2016, but at least this time around, their webpage has their statement as "It is our prayer that the truth, no matter what it is, will come to light, and that this will all be resolved in a timely manner." That is not much of a "defense". I don't know what you mean by victim abuse. As I mentioned, half their kids are over the age of 18 and mostly on their own now. My wife is "friends" with everyone on facebook and instagram and a few of them have youtube pages as well. It just seems to me that if they truly disagreed with how they were raised, that they would put it all out in the open. A great example of this is
heresyintheheartland which is another person raised through the early Bill Gothard movement. That's a good 4 hour read, but is a pretty good example of someone from a similar background but "much worse". It just seems to me if the Duggar kids truly hated their parents, that they'd "come out" in a similar fashion.
I do have a copy of To Train Up a Child but I've only skimmed through it. I didn't see anything too appalling, but haven't read the whole thing. From what I remember there was a lot of distinction between "training" and "discipline". And having to constantly discipline (spank), is due to lack of training (bad parenting). That seems like decent advice to me. I can't remember if this is where "blanket training" came from, but I didn't see that as too shocking either. I mean, telling a 3 year they can play with their favorite toy as long as they stay on a blanket seems like better parenting than throwing a kid in a "playpen" so they can unsupervised eat crayons all day. But I admit, I've practiced very little from the book (thankfully didn't need to).
I can't defend Josh, and I'm not trying to, but I really don't find fault with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. Sure if it was me with 20 kids, I would have did things a bit differently. But I can tell you that they are not the most "conservative" people at the conferences. Their girls all wear dresses yes, but they are not full length and they usually have pants under them. By contrast there are plenty of other families there that are full blown Amish wanna-be.
Jim Bob and Michelle still push people to watch the Bill Gothard "Basic Seminars" which is where we differ. I did not find Bill Gothard's teaching very enlightening. For the most part, I would agree with what he taught. But there are some oddities. For instance, he flat out stated that "if sexual knowledge could pacify sexual desire, then playboy would have only had to print one magazine". He then went on to state things about making sure your children are never exposed to any kind of nudity no matter what the age. This sounds like true wisdom at first hand, but after some thinking, you see how it just doesn't line up with reality. I mean I live on a farm, if I see the neighbor's horses screwing in the field am I supposed to jump and and demand my kids not to look and go to their rooms and hide? And it was with that thought, that I stopped listening to Gothard.
So it's little quotes like this that sound good, but seem to cause certain folks to end up thinking that singing contemporary music will cause their daughters to become "sexually active" (true quote). So "Gothard" in the wrong hands can make a monster full of legalistic dogma and ruin a family, that seems to be the real problem here.
EDIT:
after re-reading what I have written, I'm honestly not sure what I'm trying to say. Maybe I'm just autistic... But as someone on the "Christian right" it is always distressing to see a fellow church family fall (whether or not I agree with everything they do) and the general populace wanting blood. And I'm probably an idiot for trying to show a different side on a forum designed around laughing at people.
