As the oldest of 13 , I am glad to know that you feel this way. At least we don't have to worry about your spoiled brat mentality being reproduced. I am confident that the Dugger family know each of their children quite well. The "buddy system" teaches responsibility at an early age, something that many (some older than I am) who post here have yet to learn.My "spoiled brat mentality?" Please expound, Richard.

Personally, I don't believe that I own - or that I'm entitled to own - anywhere near as much of the world as a family of 20 (or 13) children would have to. There are 6.7 billion people in the world. Care to do the math should everyone share your belief that having children in litter-sized increments is "God's best plan?"
In a world where your God feels that it's perfectly acceptable for 10,000 or so children to starve to death
each day at the
current population, this attitude is reckless and arrogant in the extreme.
As for the Duggars ... I am confident that Jim-Bob and Empress Elasto-Uterus actually
know each of their children approximately one-twentieth (soon to be one-tenth due to the impending arrival of my second son, so kudos to the Duggars, I guess

) as well as I know my own.
Nothing screams "quality time" like having only 5-to-10 percent of the attention (at best!) from your parents as an only child or a child with a single sibling would get.
And for responsibility? How is shirking their own duties as parents by placing the burden of raising their younger children on the shoulders of their other children an example of teaching responsibility in a positive sense? It's not - it's a thinly-veiled cop-out. Besides, stating that "everything that has happened is God's plan for us" is the very antithesis of responsibility.
I laugh at their notion that God wanted the Duggars' eldest spawn to remain so pure for his wedding that he and his equally vapid betrothed
weren't allowed to even kiss each other prior to their nuptuals. For some reason, I wouldn't have thought they believed in gambling ...

[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (edited 2/21/2009).]