Jinger Duggar didn’t be taught to swim as a baby.
And sure, her household and cult’s notorious modesty guidelines performed a task in robbing her of that have.
That have and so many others.
Jinger has since begun to learn to swim. Now, she writes, it’s lastly secure. Jim Bob’s guidelines would have put her vulnerable to drowning.
Jinger Duggar wished to be taught to swim as a baby
In her new e-book, Folks Pleaser: Breaking Free From the Burden of Imaginary Expectations, Jinger Duggar wrote about how she was not allowed to learn to swim.
Hijabi Muslims who search to specific their religion via their apparel might put on varied kinds of swimwear, just like the burkini. However within the Duggar cult, IBLP guidelines dictate that ladies put on clothes or skirts that fall to their knees or additional. And form-fitting clothes was forbidden.
“Since I was a little girl, I wanted to know what it felt like to push myself through the water, to swing my arms and kick my legs to keep me at the surface. But I didn’t know how,” Jinger penned. “Here’s what I did know for sure: Long skirts were not designed for learning how to swim.”
In her e-book, Jinger added a tongue-in-cheek line that “the laws of physics, gravity and buoyancy don’t play well with long skirts.”
Technically, Duggar guidelines didn’t particularly forbid her from studying to swim. Even so, the foundations made it inconceivable. (That’s an awesome analogy for explaining discriminatory legal guidelines like voter suppression that aren’t, on paper, focusing on anybody demographic)
“Another way of saying ‘long-skirt swimmer’ is ‘one who sinks,’” she quipped. “And because long skirts were the only swimming fashion available to me as a kid, and because I had a thing about not wanting to sink, the skill of swimming was not something I picked up during that time.”
Not studying to swim altered Jinger Duggar’s relationship with water
She wrote that being round “water of all kinds” felt “scary” as a result of she knew that she couldn’t swim if she wanted to. Anybody might slip and fall at any time. And plenty of shocking locations can flood with little warning.
Nonetheless, Jinger doesn’t need the youngsters in her rising household to really feel this fashion.
“I want [my kids] to know how to swim. I want them to know that I can too,” Jinger affirmed. “But I was still so scared, thinking back to the few times I’d tried as a kid, the long skirt encasing my flailing legs.”
Since welcoming her kids, Jinger has begun taking swimming classes. Nonetheless, she was initially “hesitant” to make the leap (actually and metaphorically) as a result of she was “scared to fail.”
This ties into the core parts of her e-book on her people-pleasing tendencies. Being overly involved with different’s perceptions can have many causes, however it’s a quite common trait in individuals who come from poisonous and abusive households.
“We’re still at it, my swimming lessons, taking it baby step by baby step (or maybe I should say baby lap by baby lap),” Jinger continued in her e-book.
Swimming is simply the tip of the iceberg
In some ways in which the Duggar kids themselves haven’t addressed — not in any vlog publish, memoir, or documentary interview — rising up in a fundamentalist cult robbed them of many sides of personhood.
They have been unable to make actual decisions for themselves. Most often, this lasted till they have been married adults.
And, in Jinger’s case, one small piece of her story was that it was actually unsafe for her to be taught to swim as a baby. Often, necessary “modesty” insurance policies are merely dehumanizing and oppressive. On this case, it was a security hazard.
