TLC’s 19 Kids & Counting brought us the Duggars and we learned about a family that has some unconventional rules when it came to raising their children. Michelle and Bob Duggar wanted to raise their children in the church and to teach them lessons about how to be pure and modest. Because the family is strict, there are a ton of rules that the kids must follow on a day-to-day basis, as well as rules when it comes to dating. Some of these rules seem a little out there while others we can understand. The Duggars aren’t looking for anyone’s acceptance however; they are more than fine with doing things their way.
Kate Gosselin was another reality star that got a show because of her family. We met them on TLC as well on Jon and Kate Plus 8, but after the divorce, the show was changed to Kate Plus 8. We see a lot of fun and games when the show is on, but when the cameras stop rolling, the kids have a lot of rules to follow and chores to do. Gosselin is another parent that we might consider to be strict, and the long list of rules the kids have to follow certainly keeps them on a short leash. Check out these 20 rules the Duggar and Gosselin kids must follow.
20 Gosselin: Don’t Bother Mom After 9 PM
For moms, once bedtime rolls around, we can feel pretty fried, so we can’t imagine what it must be like with eight children. Kate Gosselin has a rule in her home, even for the nannies that when 9 pm comes around she doesn’t want to be disturbed. "At nine o'clock, everything was done. Even if I was halfway through dishes, at 9 p.m. you had to stop. She told me her day ended at 9 p.m, no matter what was going on,” said one nanny to Daily Mail. It didn’t matter what was going on in the house, she wanted things shut down by 9.
19 Duggars: No Pants For The Girls
One strict rule that the Duggars have in their home is that the girls are not allowed to wear pants. It’s part of their modesty teachings that a girl should always look like a lady and that means pants are out of the question. It probably had a lot to do with avoiding how tight jeans hug the body. The girls were often pictured in long skirts and it wasn’t until they started getting married that we saw some of them wearing pants. It seemed as if once they were out of the house, they were able to spread their wings a little.
18 Gosselin: Misbehaving Means Weed Pulling
Gosselin always seems to have creative ways of disciplining her children if they misbehave. One form of correction is to have them outside pulling weeds. One nanny told E! News, "When the boys were in trouble, they were made to go outside, in their giant yard, and pull weeds." Some people may think that it’s a harsh punishment while others may think it’s a great way for them to get some fresh air. The one issue the nanny had was it seemed that the boys were sent out a lot to do this chore and the yard was rather big.
17 Duggars: Divorce Is Not An Option
The children were brought up in the church and they follow the teachings of the Bible so they believe that marriage is forever. You really want to make sure that the person that you choose to marry is everything that you want because divorce is not an option. When it was discovered that Josh Duggar was leading a double life in 2015, many people assumed that Anna was going to bail. But by the looks of things, marriage is in fact forever. She’s not willing to discuss it and it’s even been implied that she should “shoulder some of the blame” for his actions.
16 Gosselin: She Pats Them Down For Phones
They are allowed to have very limited access to devices and they are not allowed to be on cell phones at all. If they are coming back from their father’s home, she will pat them down to make sure that they don’t have phones on them. She’s not about to let them sneak in the house with phones from their father’s home. We think patting the children down is a little much but sometimes kids can be sneaky. At some point, we have to trust our kids that they know the rules and they aren’t going to walk around lying to us.
15 Duggars: Boys Have To Avert Their Eyes From Women
The Duggar boys have it just as tough as the ladies do sometimes. They literally have to walk around outside averting their eyes wherever they go. It’s kind of hard to avoid beautiful women, they are everywhere but as long as the boys are averting their eyes, they should be fine. It’s one reason why the Duggars don’t like to go to the beach. Women are typically dressed in swimwear on the beach, and that would be a lot of eye averting. As Michelle explained it, "It's just too hard for the guys to try and keep their eyes averted." Poor guys!
14 Gosselin: Clothing From Jon’s House Is Not Allowed In Her Home
Kate will not allow clothing from Jon’s house to come to her home. We’re not sure what her reasoning is behind this one but she doesn’t want anything of his to be in her home. A source told Daily Mail, “Kate also refuses to let clothing that has been at Jon's house into her house, so the kids 'arrive for visitation [at Jon's] in their school uniforms and change into clothes Jon has for them when they get to his house.” The source continued, “Then they put their uniforms back on before heading to their mom's house.” Jon and Kate have definitely had a lot of issues since they divorced.
13 Duggars: No Fraternizing With Unwed Mothers
The girls are not allowed to hang out with unwed mothers even if they are family members. Maybe Michelle thinks that it will rub off on her children, but it seems a little extreme. The Duggars obviously believe that their children should wait until they are married to be with a man, but it went so far as Michelle not allowing her daughter to help a family member who was pregnant out of wedlock. One of her daughters is a midwife but she was told not to help Susanna Keller who was shamed for getting pregnant in 2012. A source told Daily Mail that, "Michelle and Jim Bob felt Jill shouldn't be [around] an unmarried mother in that condition."
12 Gosselin: Food Is Never Tossed
Most parents would agree that we don’t want our children wasting their food. But Kate Gosselin seems to take things up a notch. Court documents showed that there was talk that Kate was feeding her children food that may have been expired. Maybe she really doesn’t like to waste or maybe she finds it hard to feed a family of nine. Apparently, her daughter at one point had to eat strawberries with mold on them. She would make bagged lunches days in advance to save time, but food doesn’t last forever. Her children complained that they had to eat the same lunches over and over for weeks in a row.
11 Duggars: Babies Get Blanket Training
Blanket Training is something that a lot of parents don’t agree with and the Duggars have received some backlash because of it. Michelle used it on her kids and some of her daughters are carrying on the tradition. With blanket training, you place the baby on a blanket and punish the child every time that she tries to move from the blanket. The idea is that you are “training” your child to stay in one place. We’re not sure how effective that technique is considering babies just move around but, it sure beats buying 19 playpens for your family.
10 Gosselin: She Doesn’t Tolerate Crib Climbing
Kate Gosselin is not a fan of crib climbing. If she puts her children in a crib or in their room, she expects them to stay there. During Robert Hoffman’s coverage, Kate’s journal entries stated, "I heard him getting into drawers. I went up and put him back in the crib. When nap was really over, I left him in his crib til after we had already gone downstairs. I want him to know that I am serious and that I will not tolerate crib climbing!" Some would say that’s just what normal toddlers do and that she should cut the kid some slack.
9 Duggars: No Personal Text Messages
When it comes to their children dating, Michelle and Bib aren’t taking any chances, so they don’t allow their children to have personal text messages with the people they are dating. The parents expect to be included in all messages that their kids send out even if they are in their twenties. Even if the couples are engaged, they are still not allowed to have private conversations until they are married. It’s definitely thought to be extreme, considering that no teen or young adult would want their parents listening in on personal conversations. Jessa Duggar and Ben Seewald apparently broke the rule when they were engaged.
8 Gosselin: She Doesn’t Want The Kids To Get Muddy
For anyone that is a parent, it can be frustrating to have to do constant laundry because your child has mud or grass stains on their clothes. But for the most part, we all just understand that it’s part of having kids and you just do the laundry. On one episode of the show, we saw Kate screaming from the deck that the kids shouldn’t roll in the grass. Her daughter even said to her, "Mommy, can't you just let them have fun?" She had to understand that her kids have to be allowed to be kids as well and be patient if they are playing outside.
7 Duggars: Dates Are Always Chaperoned
We couldn’t even begin to imagine how awkward it would be to have our parents on a date with us and we think that it’s a little overboard. We understand the logic behind it but at what point do Michelle and Bob start trusting their kids to make decisions for themselves? If Michell or Bob cannot attend the date, they make sure that enough siblings are there to change the entire mood of the date. According to Jim Bob, this tactic is there to "keep things from going in the wrong direction." Unfortunately, if kids really want to do something they shouldn’t, they will find a way to do it.
6 Gosselin: She Takes Things Away Because It Gives Her Leverage
During a sneak peek episode on Kate Plus 8, Kate Gosselin gave the audience a few pieces of parenting advice. One of which was the fact that she likes to purchase devices for her kids so that she can take them away. "I got those girls cell phones and iPads so that I could take them away." Sure, it probably works like a charm, but it also seems kind of mean. It sounds worse than it probably is just by the way that she worded it. But it also sounds like she gets some pleasure out of taking things away from her kids.
5 Duggars: There Are Only Side Hugs Allowed
One oddball rule that the Duggars have in the family is that there are to be no front hugs by people who are dating. Honestly, we don’t even know how Michelle and Bob think this stuff up, it’s so bizarre. For their children, if they are unwed, then they can only side hug the person that they are dating. Bob and Michell figure that a front hug would just be too much temptation for their children. They feel that it will encourage more public displays of affection and cause them to do things they shouldn’t. Jeremy and Jinger are always the couple that seems to test rules and when they were just dating, they shared a full-on hug. Gasp!
4 Gosselin: Sometimes Kids Hear Her Booming Voice
Kate Gosselin is not afraid to raise her voice if she has to. We’ve seen her lose her cool a few times on the show, and her son Joel once said, "She screams over everything," after a family Poconos trip. It would be a funny stated except for the fact that it’s completely true. "I was screaming at high decibels," she replied. She doesn’t seem to mind the fact that it happens a lot on the show. "My voice sounds like it is booming to Texas. And the truth is, yes, I was yelling and I’m not proud of that and I’m not excusing it."
3 Duggars: They Don’t Celebrate Halloween
We always find it kind of sad when we hear that some kids don’t celebrate Halloween because we all know it’s just about dressing up in fun costumes and getting lots of candy. But some people still take the old-world view on it as if there is something truly spooky about the day when really we know it’s just a commercialized day. For the Duggars, they believe that there are dark origins behind the holiday. They say it is "part of a demonic realm God wants us to stay away from." Now, seriously, that’s just a little too extreme for knocking on a door and asking for candy.
2 Gosselin: There Are Plenty Of Chores To Do
For someone who has nannies, we have to wonder why she doesn’t just hire a maid to do all the chores in the house. But maybe she figures that she has eight people to do the work of one maid. She does love to hand out chores; that’s for sure. She wants her kids to be pulling their weight around the house and nannies have stated that the kids are always doing chores. The nannies have stated that the kids are under "constant surveillance." If that’s the case, Kate needs to give her kids some room to breathe and certainly some time off to do things that they like.
1 Duggars: No Romance Novels Allowed
There’s nothing better than being a teen and coming across your first romance novel. It’s kind of like the right of passage to discovering stories that are about love and experiencing being in love with a man. But for the Duggars, romance novels are seen as just another form of temptation for the girls. There are more Biblical romance stories out there, and those ones are okay, but mainstream stories are not. They also frown upon modern music and only want their kids listening to gospel music. Jessa Duggar believes that modern music promotes unsavory activities “… all that type of stuff.”
Sources: Daily Mail, Richest, Ranker, Pop Culture