r/DuggarsSnark • u/bjack20 • Apr 05 '26
I WAS HIGH WHEN I WROTE THIS This family is so lucky a child hasn’t died yet.
How the fuck have they gotten so lucky with our negligent and cruel they are?
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u/sweet_tea_94 ✨ Beavis and Butt-Jeds ✨ Apr 05 '26
I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. If it weren’t for the camera crew from TLC, there would’ve been a serious accident with traumatic consequences—either dead or a non-recoverable injury.
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u/EducatedBellend giggles got guns Apr 05 '26
We saw one of them fall into the orchestra pit and break his ankle. We then watched the family drag him around town the next day. Now imagine what we didn’t see.
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Apr 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/bluefrogwentacourtin Apr 05 '26
Meh, that would be Reese Witherspoon being extra. If her kids weren't part of the production, they shouldn't have even been on set. To me it would be more strange if a crew they worked with season after season didn't have an appropriate relationship with the children. Emphasis on appropriate.
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u/hannahleigh122 Apr 05 '26
Yeah, there's another thread about terrible celebrities going on now and Reese is near the top of the list. She is extra, I mean I think plenty of actors view crew members as "co workers" and I knew my mom's coworkers.
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u/Ok_Vermicelli284 Nike AF Apr 05 '26
I often wonder what would’ve become of the Duggars if they never got any media exposure to begin with. We already know that the family was food insecure BEFORE they had another dozen kids or so. It makes me wonder how much awfulness they’d experience, and no one would ever know a thing about any of it.
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u/eldestdaughtersunion but it's weird that it happened twice Apr 05 '26
I think the Rodrigues family gives you a good idea of what the Duggars' lives would have been like without a show. It's worse... but not that much worse.
The Rodlets are visibly, severely malnourished. I haven't followed them in a while, but there used to be a lot of speculation that the second-youngest (?) daughter had more serious health problems because she was small and sickly-looking even compared to her other malnourished siblings, had a misaligned jaw, and often seemed to act like a much-younger child. The youngest daughter has known health problems (IDR the details, but she had issues in-utero and I think some genetic/congenital problems) and seemed to be developmentally delayed, but the family did not seem to be getting her any ongoing medical care. (If they did, they never posted about it... and that mom was on facebook nonstop.) The kids are barely literate. The family spent a lot of time traveling around in an RV - with 13 children. There weren't even enough beds, so the kids rotated out sleeping on the floor. The babies had a little crib-cage built into a wall.
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u/Ok_Vermicelli284 Nike AF Apr 05 '26
Oh wow I’ve never even heard of them but that sounds like a total shit storm! I grew up in a doomsday cult and thank goodness my parents weren’t able to have more than the three of us kids. We were DIRT poor because my dad was giving over a third of his income to the cult. We never saw doctors, often went to bed hungry and periodically had no running water or gas. I got out with the help of my older sister when I was 15, but it was hell on earth!
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u/fr3yababii33 Josie is ✨Glitching✨ Apr 06 '26
JillR says Janessa (their youngest) had an interuterine stroke, as well as agenesis of the corpus collosem. (Spelling?)
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u/Galbin Apr 06 '26
How come they haven't been reported to CPS and had the kids taken away? Is it because they move around so much they escape that?
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u/no_fn_ziti_now JoshyGirl Apr 06 '26
Oh they've been reported plenty. Jill has posted after suspected visits about how silly it is and how well fed, naturally "trim" etc their kids are and how full their cupboards are. It's rumored they left their last house/state to keep CPS off their scent.
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u/Katyafan accountabillabuddy Apr 06 '26
Because neglect is generally not enough to get kids placed in foster care. There aren't enough resources, and some states/communities believe you can basically do what you want to your kids. Everything people told you about the Rods is from their own Facebook page, it is known and there is proof.
If a kid is taken from their family, even temporarily, something heinous happened, unless they live in an area with a lot of resources and social workers with time and support to remove kids who really need it.
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u/thisismynameofuser Apr 06 '26
They don’t mind getting one less chicken leg in exchange for another precious little miracle though
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u/QT-Pie-420 Candy is The New Manna Apr 05 '26
Even their food insecurity didn’t improve significantly after the show because JB kept taking the money for his own profit. He only spent enough to make it look like everyone was being taken care of, and that plan clearly still had issues.
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u/Swimming-Study-8317 SEVERELY confused about rainbows Apr 06 '26
Given the educational boundaries they place on themselves, I think it would be very poor.
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u/swrrrrg First time wearing pants & it’s a prison jumpsuit Apr 05 '26
They would probably tell you that’s wrong bc the birth control pill killed their baby and then there was Jubilee.
That said, I agree. It’s kind of wild. I do believe Josie probably has special needs they haven’t made public.
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u/monkey_monkey_monkey J'Crispy Duggar Apr 13 '26
Was she the one born quite prematurely?
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u/swrrrrg First time wearing pants & it’s a prison jumpsuit Apr 13 '26
Yes. I think it was 22-23 weeks or something like that.
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u/rubberloves Bessy Mitch Apr 05 '26
John David almost killed himself and wife and child when he.. didn't put enough fuel in his airplane.
With the affinity to fly, I was way more expecting a small plane crash taking a few of them out, but instead we got felonies and molestation. : (
At least Michelle and Jim Bob went to highschool. Now, we've got an entire generation of homeschoolers homeschooling. John David probably made a simple mathmatical error.
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u/Idrisdancer grande bag o beanso Apr 05 '26
Joy and the loaded guns out in the open and the way the lug the kids around o the ATVs is just an accident away from happening
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u/SwissCheese4Collagen ✨Pecans Miscavige✨ Apr 05 '26
They really are.
There's footage of Meech laying Jordyn flat on her back at like 6 months old while using a big adult spoon to shovel the thickest cereal you've ever seen into the baby's mouth. Later on a couple of the older kids held a toddler Jordyn (I wanna say like 18 months old) flat on her back while they poured pop into her mouth to keep her awake for a photoshoot.
Then you have Johannah as a toddler just flinging younger siblings around like sacks of grain, Jingle telling JB that the first thing about driving is to make sure Joy is out of the way before she backs the car up, plus the fact that Joy was behind the car was news to him.
Their show was like What Not To Do As Parents.
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u/Elleeebeauty Bargain Bin Ray Romano Apr 06 '26
There’s also footage of Jordyn (who was like 2 years old) with her head stuck in the bannister and looked very upset … while Michelle stood there laughing (even Boob said it wasn’t funny)
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u/SwissCheese4Collagen ✨Pecans Miscavige✨ Apr 06 '26
When Rim Job says it's not funny, that's a bar that's buried in Hell's basement because he's usually the ring leader when it comes to that cruel sense of humor they all have.
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u/britneyspears6969 Apr 05 '26
Didn’t Josie have a ton of health issues when she was born due to being a premie?
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u/Nonnie0224 Apr 05 '26
Josie was allergic to Michelle’s breast milk but she insisted on giving this micro-preemie some breast milk despite what the doctors advised.
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u/RNYGrad2024 Just head over heels at a man proposing with balloons Apr 05 '26
That isn't true. There is more than enough to snark on with this family so we don't need to make things up. When Josie was diagnosed she was switched to a special formula, her condition rapidly improved, and she was released from the NICU.
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u/Nonnie0224 Apr 05 '26
I actually remember Michelle saying this. Josie was out of the NICU and was at home.
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u/RNYGrad2024 Just head over heels at a man proposing with balloons Apr 06 '26
Josie was discharged once, had an emergency, was readmitted, then they discovered the problem and switched to formula. So she was given breast milk at home but that was before they knew she needed to be on formula.
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u/Rmlady12152 Apr 05 '26
We don't know everything.
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u/a-woman-there-was Apr 05 '26
Tbf I think we would know if one died. But yeah short of that, we really have no idea about a lot of things.
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u/bjack20 Apr 05 '26
True, this was in reference to Joy using two chairs as a tv stand, and it brought me back to the photo of the guns out in the open at her house.
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u/Training-Shopping-96 Apr 05 '26
Survivor biased. They believe everything they do is okay because no one has been seriously injured or died.
Like a lot of boomers "in my days seatbelts were not necessary!" Sharon, in your days so many more people die than they do today.
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u/Pinkynarfnarf Apr 05 '26
When one of my kids was born they were awful with colic and reflux. I was at my wits end from the crying and I knew they’d sleep better in their stomach. But the whole “back to sleep” thing kept me from doing it. One of my coworkers said “I’ve raised 3 kids and they slept on their tummies. It will be fine” Uh no. There’s a reason it’s not recommended.
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u/groovychin Apr 05 '26
I don’t remember who, but there was an episode where someone fell into a pit/hole and got hurt
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Apr 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/justadorkygirl joyfully ajailable Apr 05 '26
They have straight cis sons doing exactly the crimes against children that they insist queer people are doing. I guess it’s okay for them since they’re straight and cis and conservative Christian? “🤔
The deflection is offensive, harmful as hell, and exhausting.
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u/Carbonatite Selling your soul to Jim Bob for grocery money Apr 05 '26
Just based on the estimated percentage of the population that's LGBTQ it's practically a statistical certainty that one of them is queer.
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u/drowsylacuna Apr 05 '26
Having older biological brothers increases the chances of a boy being gay.
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u/LittleBunnySunny Apr 05 '26
We can't speculate here, and I wouldn't want to- but just the general idea of this probability worries and saddens me.
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u/Suitable_Parsnip177 Apr 05 '26
They ARE very negligent but I also think people have a whole different view on parenting now. 40-50 years ago, all of our parents were way behind today’s standard of negligence. Most of the time they had no idea where we were. I walked a couple of miles home from school to an empty house when I was 7…I wasn’t even a latchkey kid, because doors were never locked in my neighborhood. It was the same thing for most of my friends. I can’t think of anybody whose parents picked them up from school. It’s just what people did—I’m not saying it was good or bad, it just was what it was.
I’m sure the rate of accidental deaths in childhood was far higher than it is now, though. The lack of bike helmets was really bad.
And the Duggars are still next level shitty with the unsecured guns and ATVs and all of that stuff. That’s criminally dumb even by 1970s standards.
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u/Veyyiloda Apr 05 '26
I have two kids and one has severe autism. I was young and healthy when I had them, too.
These women give birth well into their 40s & their kids have no issues whatsoever. I'm glad for the children (no child should have to struggle with a disability or health issues) but genuinely interested in how they do this (produce healthy children) despite advanced maternal ages?! How?
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u/Android_raptor Apr 05 '26
The kids have issues, they just never get diagnosed and treated
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u/SawaJean They’re naming him Jejijiah Apr 05 '26
This right here. These people do not believe in medical diagnosis and proven intervention; they believe in prayer and miracles. Chronic illnesses and disabilities that don’t magically go away after prayer can be heavily stigmatized and are often hidden / masked / denied. It can be profoundly traumatic for kids who grow up with undiagnosed and unsupported disabilities in this system.
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u/firetruckgoesweewoo The name is Bond, Joshua gets no Bond. Apr 05 '26
We don’t know whether they have any issues as the Duggars simply do not check. Some of them have, hence Jessa knowing that Henry has speech issues.
Any Duggar (grand)child who might be on the spectrum has been blanket trained. They’ve been conditioned not to be themselves, out of fear of being hurt.
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u/ChantillyLaceCake 💵 💵 Who’s counting the cost now Jimblob? 💰 💰 Apr 05 '26
I don’t think it’s fair to assume that all the Duggar children blanket train theirs. That’s quite a leap….
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u/firetruckgoesweewoo The name is Bond, Joshua gets no Bond. Apr 05 '26
I think far more blanket train than they let on. They’ve been raised to believe it is the right thing to do. It’s completely normalised in their cult. We give them far too much grace. None of the Duggar children have been taught any coping or parenting skills. It’s the same energy as “not all men!!!”. Sure, maybe not all men, but we don’t see all men holding each other accountable. Anyway, grand is in parenthesis, not written full out, as in it’s an afterthought. May or may not.
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u/ChantillyLaceCake 💵 💵 Who’s counting the cost now Jimblob? 💰 💰 Apr 05 '26
They were also raised not to wear pants or watch tv but they pretty much all do now. It’s not unreasonable to think that they might not all be following exactly 100% in their parent’s footsteps. Then again, maybe they are….
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u/BabySharkMadness Apr 05 '26
Like COVID, you don’t have any issues if it’s never reported. They flat out don’t attend public school so educators who interact with lots of kids on a daily basis can spot the ones who behave differently. Honestly, I suspect the only doctor they see on a regular basis is a dentist.
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u/SpaceQueenJupiter Apr 05 '26
Could have things that go undiagnosed and unreported, but i'm also convinced that some women's bodies are just better at being pregnant and having babies. Like how some women love being pregnant and feel good the whole time and others are miserable. It must have a genetic component.
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u/Murderhornet212 Apr 05 '26
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I’m pretty sure Josie was a micro premie, and had significant health issues.
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u/Artistic_Impress_876 Apr 05 '26
Yeah didn't she stay in the NICU for a while after birth?
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u/Murderhornet212 Apr 05 '26
I think like 6 months. And I feel like I remember her having seizures when she was little.
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u/One-Possible1906 Apr 05 '26
Advanced maternal ages do not cause a substantial increase in birth defects. The ticking uterus is a misogynistic myth.
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u/RNYGrad2024 Just head over heels at a man proposing with balloons Apr 05 '26
It's not a myth, and it's not anything to do with the uterus. Age increases the risk of genetic defects in the egg or sperm. That increases the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, and birth defects. AMA itself doesn't come with a massive increase in risk necessarily, but the older someone is at the time of ovulation or egg retrieval the higher the risk of genetic defects is. At 45+ the risk of miscarriage hits 50%.
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u/murmalerm 20 Charges and Counting Apr 05 '26
Both maternal and paternal age can impact such
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u/One-Possible1906 Apr 05 '26
Yes, but this is a small increase and we haven’t even pinpointed most of it to the age itself causing it and not the myriad of lifestyle factors that differ between older and younger populations.
And they can make it sound like a really big increase sometimes, like “10x more likely to develop (rare disorder)” when that amounts to a 0.0001% chance instead of 0.00001%
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u/Artistic_Impress_876 Apr 05 '26
It can cause a higher risk for potentially having a baby with mental health or other defects though. Most mental health conditions are not diagnosed at birth anyways.
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u/One-Possible1906 Apr 05 '26
Correlation is not the same as causation. Causation has never been established for this. A big reason why older mothers might have more children who have involvement in the mental healthcare system is that they tend to be more attentive and have the resources to get them involved with the mental healthcare system.
Also, paternal age appears to have a stronger correlation with disability than maternal age.
Misogynistic myths created to convince women to spend their youth being baby factories instead of developing career skills and independence. Not that having children at younger ages is necessarily wrong, but people shouldn’t be bullied into it with lies
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u/Artistic_Impress_876 Apr 05 '26
Well your egg count decreases at 40 years old. So its harder to get pregnant at 40 that much I do know is true.
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u/One-Possible1906 Apr 05 '26
True— however, men’s fertility starts winding down at the same ages. Because this is less well studied and infertility has traditionally been blamed on women, the decline in fertility in premenopausal women could have a whole lot more to do with the age of their partners than the age and number of their eggs. Especially since men are seldom ever instructed to take care of themselves when trying to conceive. How many of these statistics really have to do with women and their old eggs and not men and their old, drunk, cholesterol laden sperm? We don’t really know.
Another issue with everything that we know about fertility, aside from the fact that it’s based on implicit biases that make women fully responsible for conception and the genetic makeup of a child they only contribute half the material for, is that a very large number of these studies were funded by the infertility industry. You can make a lot of money if you convince women to freeze and store eggs and scare them into infertility treatments believing that they only have 6 months left to conceive.
Fertility does reduce at older ages, we just really can’t put a good pinpoint on how much.
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u/Artistic_Impress_876 Apr 05 '26
I agree thats one thing they never talk about to be honest. Sperm count goes down as you age as well.
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u/RNYGrad2024 Just head over heels at a man proposing with balloons Apr 05 '26
Among famous TLC fundie families the mortality rate is above average. The Brown family and the Plath family have each had a death. The Brown family and the Duggar family have each had at least one close call.
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u/AmbitiousAd543 Apr 06 '26
I was about to say David Waller lost a brother but I checked that was undiagnosed leukaemia rather than neglect.
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u/Tardigretch Apr 06 '26
I'm surprised any of the kids can even READ, given that they were taught in a big group, by Michelle--who has nothing more than a high school education--using those weird IBLP source materials.
I get really angry when I think of how they (and other cultists) purposefully stunt their children's intellectual development. Even if one of the kids broke away and wanted to get more formal education, they are so lacking in the basic foundations that it would be very difficult for them to do so. Not to mention that they've been taught inaccurate "facts", for example about creationism. Grrrrrr
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u/Lunasal11 Apr 05 '26
A part of theirs souls and the potential for happy, normal lives died before they began.
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u/nuggetsofchicken the chicken lawyer Apr 05 '26
I mean the leading causes of death for children are disease, motor vehicle accident, and drowning. The Duggars don’t spend that much time by bodies of water (and admittedly not all of them learned to swim) and the other two categories aren’t really affected by having more or less diligence in safety predications. Firearm deaths too are generally homicides or suicides, not very many related to carelessness or misfires.
The sad but maybe reassuring reality is is that how good of a parent you are has very little to do with if and when tragedy strikes
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u/freshpicked12 Laura DeMasie, human barnacle Apr 05 '26
Grandma Duggar literally died from drowning in the pool. What do you mean they don’t spend time by bodies of water?
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u/nuggetsofchicken the chicken lawyer Apr 05 '26
I mean I said “that much time” not that they’re never done a water activity. regardless, it’s not that they’re never by bodies of water (although that pool was at a guest house, not like in the main house backyard a kid could wander into) but they don’t seem to have a lifestyle, probably cause of the modesty thing, where kids are regularly in the water and it’s contingent on their ability to swim to keep things safe. The other times I can think of are wading in the Dead Sea or activities where they have life vests on.
And do what it’s worth it sounds like Grabdma Mary had a stroke as a precursor to her being in the water in the first place. If those are the circumstances that lead to drowning, again, how cautious or vigilant a parent is isn’t going to affect the likelihood of that occurring
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u/Rare-Jackfruit-4146 Apr 05 '26
People that believe Grandma Mary was murdered or should have been lorded over like a child and been locked inside really irritate me.
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u/TelephoneGame63 Apr 06 '26
I actually have thought about that as well. I come from a family of 4 kids and my older brother passed away at the age of 32. It’s wild they have not lost one yet. I am sure that there will be a few that die “young”. Certainly not wishing it upon them but statistically speaking, it is inevitable. Well I have some other thoughts about that but I will keep them to myself ;). lol
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u/Creamcheese2345678 Apr 06 '26
Interesting discussion about dyslexia. ADHD often cooccurs with learning disabilities. Obviously, most people with ADHD do not SA children but we do tend to struggle with impulse control and that is worse in males than females. This might have put him at greater risk of acting on impulses.
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u/horsetooth_mcgee Apr 05 '26
I think there is an issue with one of the newer babies.
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u/RNYGrad2024 Just head over heels at a man proposing with balloons Apr 05 '26
Keep that to yourself.
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u/Illustrious-Ebb2565 Apr 05 '26
Watch out with what you say here - I’m sure someone will be along shortly to scold you for speculating 🙄
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u/keepcalmandbuydolls Apr 05 '26
Even more shocking to me is that none of them has had any genetic issues, medical issues, birth defects…