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I blogged a couple of months ago about Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, a married couple in Arkansas that were expecting their 18th child. They were getting their own reality show on the Discovery Channel, 17 Kids and Counting. At the time I thought they were just incredibly weird. As it turns out, there is an actual name for what they are doing.
It’s called the Quiverful movement.
A quiver is the thing an archer uses to hold all of his arrows. To someone who practices Quiverful, their home is the quiver and their children are the arrows. The idea is to stock their quiver with as many arrows as they can. It’s practiced primarily by conservative Christian evangelicals here in the United States. They almost never use any form of birth control or any other type of family planning.
The Duggars are people living the Quiverful or “QF” life.
I still think it’s pretty weird. They must think very highly of their genes to so heavily overstock the gene pool. Evidently the Duggars can afford the Quiverful lifestyle. I read on the Discovery Channel website that they own their own cellphone tower. I didn’t even know they had cellphones in Arkansas.
Rhonda
/ December 19, 2008Not only do we have cell phones in Arkansas, but on occasion we have been known to put down our corn cob pipies and moonshine jugs and use them!!! To save you from the shock of future revelations we also have universities, libraries, museums, and most of us have all of our teeth and wear shoes. I’ll have to go now so I can wash my husband’s overalls and my cotton dress. Oh, and grandma needs another plug of tobacco.
Rick
/ December 19, 2008@Rhonda: I forget to mention that people in Arkansas don’t understand sarcasm. Oh yeah, and your roads suck.
Rhonda
/ December 19, 2008Apparently you don’t know the meaning of sarcasm. It is a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain or a mode of expression intended to arouse amusement. I thought I did pretty good, I made everybody here in my office laugh. Smile it will be okay!! Our roads suck, is that the best you got?
Rick
/ December 19, 2008@Rhonda: Come on now, you just copied the definition of sarcasm out of the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition. Page 1103 to be exact.
And yes the roads in Arkansas are just awful. When we drove I-40 across your fine state 8 years ago, the bumps and potholes were so bad, I think I broke my pancreas. It’s never been the same since. I filed a complaint with your governor and he responded by sending me $40 in Confederate money and a bottle of moonshine.
Rhonda
/ December 19, 2008Good boy! Now your getting it!!!!
Rhonda
/ December 19, 2008Good boy! Now you’re getting it!!!!
Dawnna
/ December 19, 2008The roads you are talking about are in Oklahoma. Once you cross the Arkansas line, they get much better.
Rhonda
/ December 19, 2008Sorry about that last misuse of grammar, you actually made me laugh and I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Brad
/ December 23, 2008Hey Rhonda… “grammer” is spelled “grammar.” A-R, not E-R. LOL I love people from Arkansas!
Jill
/ December 28, 2008No The roads are definitely in Arkansas. I-40 from West Memphis to Little Rock almost beat my kidneys out a few years back. They are a little better now but honestly it used to be like ski jumps for 300 miles. On the other side coming back it was a little better but nothing to brag about
Ronnie
/ April 17, 2009Im 53,divorced&childless, I look at the Quiverful movement&wish it werearound back in the 60s&70s. In my youth there were always BOYS,BOYS&MORE BOYS. The Church situation was always like this. The girls I remember, many had fertility problems& neither had children or just one.A drug called DES was given to many white baby-boomer moms&it affected the fertility of many white baby-boomer daughters when they came of age in the 60s, 70s&80s. My ex-wife took anti-convulsant medication for 20 years&this messed with her fertility so we never had any children-BUMMER. My hopes are that Christianity coming into its finest hour with the healings&miracles that Jesus did plus the other signs&wonders that happened in the Bible& the restoration of the Garden of Eden coming into the true church with the innocence of Adam&eve&Jesus Christ&that cool of the day communion that they had in the Garden before they fell. I see the Millenium as a time in which there will be no infertle men or women-these meek who will inherit the earth. Another thing I saw in my Christian youth was a LOPSIDED POSTERITY WITH FAMILIES BEING ALL BOY OR JUST ONE GIRL IN A BUNCH OF BOYS IT WAS EVERYWHERE I WENT IN MY YOUTH TO ME THIS IS NOT A BLESSING BUT A CURSE, IT IS AS BAD AS INFERTILITY. I beleive that in the Millenium for every boy born there will be a girl Satan has really attacted the fertility of white women throughout the course of the 20th century, for the black community this has not been so. Birth control&decreasing posterity was first with white women, now many brunette women this is happening, however amoung black people around the world they have always resisted practiceing birth control&lowering their posterity. I find this very interesting&I beleive that there are spiritual influences behind this. I beleive that Satan wants to reduce the human gene-pool to just mostly black genes&no more white or brunette genes& with gender mostly boys& few girls
valerie cowell
/ September 1, 2009This apauls me! Quivervill?????? This is exactly why I dont believe in any kind of organized religion!! 18 children and continueing to have more. Your house is representing a Quiver and your children are representation of arrows and you are supose to fill your quiver with as much arrows as it will hold. You are NUTS!!! Sounds like a form of cult!! There are so many different religions and EVERYONE interpits the Bible the way they want. Theres one God and one way so why not try spirituality without involving a preacher to tell you how to believe, cant you think for yourself? Any form of oganized religion is CRAP!! And your on a friggin reality show that gives you a paycheck because the Mrs. keeps squatin and pushing out babys!!Your “quiver” would have been full up a long time ago if you lived in a one room shack!!!
Tasha
/ November 30, 2009You know, it’s crazy to think that because of where a person lives or how a person looks gives right to how they should live. On Ronnie’s note, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are an older man that has had many different views in your life and that’s fine, but to think that because people are black is reason why they are having so many children is just plain crazy. It doesn’t matter what race you are, if God gives you children, then that’s what it is and nothing more. And if you must know, yes, I’m black with two wonderful children, but I can tell you that the color of my skin has nothing to do with why I had children. But you know, everyone has their right to their own thoughts and I see that the punishment that you have lived is greater than I would want to live; so good luck with that.
As for Valerie, if the lifestyle is not for you, then it’s not for you. Don’t sit there and point fingers at someone that is doing something that they want because there will be fingers pointed back at you for another reason. The bottom line is everyone has a choice; if this is how they chose to live, who are we to pass judgment on them is not our place. Our place is where ever we chose to be and that’s it. If you don’t like something don’t do it, but bashing someone for their chosen lifestyle is crazy.
Good night all