I Introduced The Duggar Family To The World. Am I Responsible For Their Rise To Fame?

(“I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas reserved for women and girls,” she said in the recorded message.)I could ignore the Duggars until May 2015, when In Touch Weekly ran a story, “‘19 Kids and Counting’ Son Named in Underage Sex Probe,” identifying Josh Duggar as the alleged offender. Within a few weeks, Michelle Duggar and her husband, Jim Bob, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that Joshua had molested five girls, including four of his sisters.The Duggar reality show, which had been renamed “19 Kids and Counting” after Michelle had two more children, ended with the network saying its abrupt conclusion was a mutual decision. That is so overboard and a lie, really.” She described what happened as “mild, inappropriate touching on fully clothed victims, most of it while girls were sleeping,” by a boy who was “a little too curious about girls.” “We didn’t even know about it until he went and confessed it to my parents,” Jill said.The sisters were shocked to learn about the incidents from their parents. Jill described feelings of sadness and anger as well.“You had no memory of it?” Kelly asked.“I didn’t understand this is what’s happened until my parents told me,” Jessa replied.She added that Joshua had been “very sly” so the girls didn’t catch on. At the pretrial hearing for Joshua’s recent trial, a family friend said Josh had told her years ago he’d “digitally penetrated” a young girl while she sat on his lap and he read her Bible stories, according to a prosecutors’ supplemental brief filed on Nov. 30 and reported by E! Children in puberty are especially prone to making misjudgments regarding consent, Letourneau told me in an interview.“A family friend said Josh had told her years ago he'd 'digitally penetrated' a young girl while she sat on his lap and he read her Bible stories ... “It was really helpful for us to just kind of close that chapter and move past it,” Jessa told Kelly.Though Jill has said more recently that therapy has been helpful to her, it’s impossible to know if Jill and Jessa ever grappled with the questions that face many young survivors of abuse by a family member, including me: Is this how your loved one is supposed to act?