Rockstar Mommy, a blog my wife introduced me to
A short time ago my wife started to read blogs. She had no interest in reading mine at the time so I asked what blogs she was reading. I made a note of the blogs and promptly forgot about them.
Over time she began sending me email snippets from some of these blogs and the best one of the lot has to be Rockstar Mommy.
The blog is currently using Movable Type but she has stated that she plans to move to WordPress soon. The layout is very clean and the advertising goes down the right side. Strangely her Google ads always show PSA for me, was she banned and just left the code in place?
At the top of her blog she runs a flickr plugin that shows recent photographs she has taken. They add a lot of character to the blog and this helps you get right into the mood of her latest posts.
What she posted yesterday was a post about the Duggar family. You may not recognize the name but they are the family that has 17 kids and is still trying to make more. They also profess to be 100% debt free.
Before I talk about that post I'd like to point out that I greatly enjoy her writing style and wit. What I find somewhat confusing is how high her Alexa ranking is. She is not even in the top 100K yet her posts get tons of comments!
Back to the post about the Duggars...
The post is well written and humorous but what surprised me was the comments on the post. At my last check their were 225+ comments on this one post! Some were your basic one sentence comment but many were very long.
And you also know that she home schools these kids right? How can they possibly be getting the right kind of education? It's one thing to be an actual teacher and have 17 4th graders... but for her to not be a teacher and try and teach all those kids who are all different ages and at different levels. There's no way. You know those older kids are stuck teaching the younger ones.
Comment posted by Amber
Some people shared the opinion of Amber above and sadly it shows that some people still think that having a lot of kids somehow means you are stupid or an idiot. I find this rather alarming because nothing could be further from the truth. In fact another reader comments back with the following:
Both Duggars are college educated. I believe Michelle Duggar was an education major, but I could be wrong about that (I can't find a reference to her education on the net.) I live in a place where there are still one room schoolhouses. I don't believe it can't be done.
Comment posted by G.
After reading through more and more of the comments I noticed a trend. The people from the mid-west or "Heartland" states looked at this as something that is not that far out of the norm. While those from the coastal states saw them as freaks.
My opinion is live and let live. If they are doing a good job raising their kids I don't care if she blasts out 17 more! They obviously have a system and it is working for them.
Either way check out the rest of the blog, not all of the posts generate such heated comments as this one did.
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No doubt Rockstar Mommy has a very engaging style of writing and i thoroughly enjoyed her blog posts.
The immense challenges for the parents raising 17 kids is a no-brainer and i will not relish the prospect of putting myself in this situation. RSM raised a few solid points there against this kind of parenting behavior.
However, from the comments on her blog, it is apparent that a lot of people think otherwise. No right or wrong but just goes to show that in life, we have to be open and accomodating, if the family functions well, so be it.
I was surprised by the sheer number of comments! At my last check it was over 250!
Yes, RSM did raise some very good points and quite a few of the readers also raised good points. What bothered me was some of the knee-jerk reactions I was reading in the comments. It brings to mind something a friend of mine once said back when I was in the army, “Southern don’t mean dumb.”
I 100% believe in Live And Let Live. I was really only stating my opinion on a controversial family on my personal blog, I had no idea it would spark SUCH a reaction. And when I wrote it, I had no idea that so many people would take it SO seriously. Just because I said I disagree with their choice to have so many children does not mean that I think their right to do so should be taken away from them. The children are obviously fine, better than many children of small families. I wrote about them because it was a news story that sparked my interest and curiosity, really nothing more.
Some of the comments surprised me as well. Especially the “Mrs Duggar needs to have her knees sewn shut” comment left, not surprisingly, by a man. For the most part, though, the comments were pretty civil. A few rotten apples, but such is life, right?
Anyway, thanks for the nod. :) I’ll be back.
The only problem with having that many children is that most of them will end up being ignored. If the family is getting by without going on the public dole, I don’t have a problem with their lifestyle, but, if they are like some polygamists in Utah that are playing the system, they need to stop.
I know this is really old news, but I just got started in the Blog world. I remembered reading a post about Rockstar Mommy (I enjoyed her blog very much) and wrote my own little entry about something I found truly fascinatin and sad.
You know, I just got more hate mail from someone who read this, tracked me down, and let me have it for “hating on the Duggars”. This quote was NOT made by me.