Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard may get slammed by critics, but they're easily a step above the way that Jill was raised.
Now, Jill is calling out the abuse and emotional neglect from her own childhood and praising real nurturing.
Jill Duggar raised more than a few eyebrows after showering praise upon a quote that more or less thrashes the way that she was raised.
"You cannot expect to have a close relationship with a teenager who ... is still the same person as the 2-year-old you stuck crying into bed," it begins.
The quote continues: "the 3-year-old you spanked and shoved aside, the 4-year-old you wouldn't listen to."
"The 5-year-old you never shared beauty with," the quote reads.
"The 6-year-old you found boring, or you 'trained' never to butt in," the quote shared on Instagram continues.
The quote adds: "but never gave time to make a cozy and beautiful background out of which you could talk to him or her."
"[G]reat moments of trust and confidence do not spring out of concrete," the statement notes.
"They need a long time of being planted, fertilized, weeded, watered, warmed by sun and cared for lovingly before they become mature 'plants,'" it says.
The metaphor is explained as "plants of understanding communication and loving relationship."
"If you never have time to enhance moments together," the quote notes, "by making some preparation for beauty as well as for meeting necessities."
The statement concludes: "you are apt to miss altogether the spontaneous response and opening up of the personality which this would bring."
"Beautiful!" Jill comments, alongside an emoji indicating tears from being overwhelmed and another emoji depicting a pink heart.
First, for context: this quote that Jill adores so much comes from Edith Schaeffer.
Born to missionaries in 1914, Edith grew up to become an influential Christian author and thinker.
Her writings have -- perhaps unintentionally -- become circulated among women who are advocates of Christian patriarchal gender roles.
Even so, for Edith's time and background, her views were relatively enlightened. This is also true when they are compared to those of the Duggars.
It's no secret that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are just awful parents.
That they were ever allowed to appear on television outside of a chilling documentary is a moral indictment of TLC and of our culture.
The way that they isolate their children from the real world, refusing to expose them to other worldviews, is bad enough.
To make matters worse, the Duggars practice "blanket training" and other forms of child-abuse. Frankly, Jim Bob and Michelle belong in prison.
In fact, we'd normally object to a pair of parents neglecting their children and seemingly paying little attention to them.
But in the case of the Duggar family, it may be a blessing in disguise that Jana has labored as the family's unpaid nanny for years.
There are a lot of children in the Duggar household, but not a lot of love or affection -- just the frightened performance of obedience.
But love -- real love, without abuse -- seems to only come from siblings -- siblings who are not Josh.
No one is saying that Jill -- or especially Derick -- is perfect or even necessarily an especially good parent.
In particular, Derick alarmed Counting On fans with his horrific, transphobic statements about children.
But the least that Jill can do is be better to her children than what was done to her.
Even if it means that Jill and Derick are at odds with Jim Bob and not even allowed to visit the house without his permission.
