There was a time when it seemed like the strangest thing about the Duggar family was how insanely huge it is.
When Jim Bob, Michelle, and brood were first introduced to American viewers, they were a family of 16 struggling to make ends meet.
As the years passed by, Jim Bob and Michelle added five more kids to their household and about as many zeroes to their bank account.
Just as importantly, viewers realized that the couple's obsession with procreation was just one of many strange things about them.
There were, of course, the religious beliefs that compelled them to have that many kids.
And then there were the strange customs and traditions that arose as a result of running a household with the population of a small village.
One of these unorthodox practices was the so-called buddy system.
This was Jim Bob and Michelle's way of lightening their own workload by passing it off to their kids.
At first, each older child was assigned a younger sibling to look after.
As time went on, some kids proved more adept at caring for others, and they took on greater responsibilities as Michelle's assistants.
When the older children started to move out, get married, and start families of their own, the dynamic shifted again, this time with Jana Duggar essentially assuming control of raising, educating, and disciplining her younger siblings.
It's even been rumored that Jana chose to remain single so that she could fully commit herself to her parental duties to her siblings.
And now, it seems the arrangement may have had a negative impact on Jana's relationship with her brothers and sisters.
Several of her sisters are currently in open rebellion against Jim Bob, and it seems that when the battle lines were drawn, Jinger wound up on the same side as her parents.
It also appears that at some point in their upbringing, Jana's sisters came to look at her as more of a parental/authoritarian figure than a sister.
Additionally, that they may harbor resentment toward Jana as a result of the special role she's been assigned within the family.
For starters, Jana appears to enjoy a much closer relationship with her parents than any of her siblings could imagine.
Surely, this is partially a result of the fact that she still lives at home at the age of 31.
But Jana's especially close bond with her mother and father seemed to develop long before she reached adulthood.
Insisders say it's not that she decided to remain single and stay at home; it's that she chosen for that role by her parents.
It's not hard to see how such a decision might alienate Jana from her siblings.
Not only is she quite literally the chosen one, she entered adulthood with none of the pressures and expectations that have so burdened her siblings
Each of Jim Bob and Michelle's offspring was raised with the explicit command to sire as many children as humanly possible.
The idea of spending a massive chunk of your adult life either pregnant or nursing is no doubt frightening to many young girls, and Jana was never forced to cope with it.
Not that she hasn't faced problems of her own.
Last year, Jana's longtime best friend Laura DeMasie moved away from Arkansas, allegedly at Jim Bob's behest.
Sources claim Jim Bob was concerned by what he saw as signs that the two women were more than friends.
So Jana may have enjoyed some advantages as a result of her unusually tight relationship with her parents.
But when you're dealing with authoritarians like Jim Bob and Michelle, such closeness is bound to carry significant drawbacks, as well.