47 pages • 1 hour read
Jill Duggar, Derick Dillard, Craig BorlaseCounting the Cost
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction (Dedication, Family Tree, and Epigraph) Summary
Content Warning: This guide includes discussions of sexual, spiritual, physical, and emotional abuse; rape; sexism and misogyny; miscarriage; child molestation; anti-gay bias; anti-trans bias; racism; school shootings; and gang violence.
Counting the Cost begins with three introductory sections: a dedication, a family tree, and an epigraph. Jill dedicates her book to “those who have been harmed in the name of ‘religion’” (6), especially those who have been silenced. She hopes all victims and survivors like her are able to find their voices. The family tree depicts the Duggar family, including parents Jim Bob and Michelle and their 19 children. There are 10 sons and 9 daughters. Jill is the fourth-eldest child. The tree also includes her husband, Derick, and their three sons. The introduction concludes with a Bible quote: Luke 14:28-29, which advises counting the cost of an undertaking before beginning.
Prologue Summary: “The Sled”
It is February of 2014. Jill and her boyfriend, Derick, are playing in the snow with many of Jill’s siblings. Jill and Derick are soon to be engaged. The rules of their courtship, laid out by Jill’s parents, forbid them from holding hands or from having “in person, one-on-one conversations without another adult or mature chaperone present” (9). These rules are supposed to keep them from falling into “temptation.” When the couple rides a sled down a snowy hill just outside the Duggar family home, Jill’s mother, Michelle, comes outside and reminds them boys and girls are not allowed on the same sled. Jill jumps to obey her mother. Derick is taken aback by this rule, though Jill has never questioned it. She is used to her family’s way of life being met with confusion. Soon, she will be the one feeling bewildered by her parents’ choices.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Sweet Jilly Muffin”
Jill’s childhood is very different from that of many American girls. The Duggars live in Springdale, Arkansas. They are Christian fundamentalists, and they raise their children according to these beliefs. Michelle homeschools all of her children, who are only allowed to listen to a capella hymns, gospel music, and some classical pieces. They are not allowed to dance to music; they can only “jump for joy” (15). Jim Bob and Michelle teach their children that dancing is sinful, using evidence from the Bible. As a child, Jill is desperate for her parents’ approval. Because she is so modest and obedient, she earns the nickname “Sweet Jilly Muffin” (18). Jill looks up to her parents; she admires her mother’s patience and her father’s dedication to providing for his family. Jim Bob is the head of their family, and everyone listens to him.
Because the Duggars have so many children, Michelle introduces “the buddy system” (21), wherein older children are assigned younger siblings to look after. At 10, Jill is honored by this responsibility. She looks after some of her younger siblings from the time that they are about a year old. Despite this responsibility, Jill is happy as a child, feeling that her parents’ rules are protecting her from the outside world. She is grateful that her parents taught her to dress modestly in long dresses and skirts so that she does not cause men or boys to think bad thoughts. Her few interactions with people outside her family are confusing and uncomfortable, but she believes she is setting a good example for others so they can live good Christian lives.
Michelle teaches her children how to avoid sinning through simple role-playing exercises, teaching them to refuse to read books that feature magic, for instance. The Duggars’ beliefs are strongly influenced by the teachings of Bill Gothard, the founder of an organization called the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). The Duggars attend the “Advanced Training Institute (ATI) family conference” (33), an IBLP conference in Tennessee. There they meet other families who also follow a conservative Christian doctrine of strict gender roles, large families, modest clothing, and homeschooling. Gothard showcases families he calls “model families” who perfectly embody the teachings of IBLP. The Duggars are not as polished as these families, though they would like to be. IBLP conferences become regular events for the Duggars. These events shape Jill’s worldview as she grows up. She models her behavior on the young women around her and strives to dress beautifully but modestly, smiling all of the time. Jim Bob gets involved in politics and runs for state legislature. He brings many of his children to work with him at the state capital.
As the older children start puberty, the family finds new ways to avoid temptation. When they see someone (usually a woman) who is immodestly dressed, they will shout “Nike!” and everyone will look at their feet. Jim Bob and Michelle teach their children that “physical intimacy was created by God and reserved for marriage” (41). They should not kiss before marriage. Jill develops anxiety about causing boys and men to sin if she is insufficiently modest. She strives to be pure so she will be worthy of marrying a good Christian man one day. However, these rules do not always protect the Duggar children from exposure to ungodly things. At their church, Jim Bob is horrified when a youth group of young girls performs a dance. The family immediately switches to a new church that is much more closely aligned with IBLP.
When Jill is 11, her life is changed forever when her parents take her aside and tell her about something Josh, her older brother, confessed to them.
Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
The Bible verse that Jill quotes to open her book is part of one of Jesus’s speeches and introduces the challenges of the memoir and Jill’s life. In it, Jesus tells those who wish to be his disciples that dedicating themselves to him and to his cause may have a very high cost. His followers may face scorn and confusion from their family members, and they may even be in physical danger. Anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be fully prepared for what lies ahead, Jill suggests: They must count the cost of their actions to be sure that they have what it takes to follow through. Jill uses the passage to imply that her parents did not fully reckon with the cost that they and their children would have to pay when they chose to devote their lives to Jesus and take part in a reality TV show. The quote also suggests that Jill will follow the path she thinks is right, even if she risks being ostracized from her family and those loyal to them and Christian fundamentalism.
In these introductory sections of the text, Jill has not yet experienced Performing Under the Control and Influence of TV but still lives under patriarchal scrutiny. Her family has not been the subject of any documentaries. Even though she is not famous, and even though she has little contact with people outside her immediate family, Jill still lives under constant scrutiny. She has been taught from an early age to be hyper-aware of her own body and to ensure that none of her behaviors ever has the potential to cause any man or boy (including her father and brothers) to think sexual thoughts about her. Instead of normalizing their children’s bodies and allowing them to express themselves freely through dance and clothing, Jim Bob and Michelle place almost all the responsibility on their daughters to avoid behaving in ways that might cause others to sin. In a Christian fundamentalist context, Jill must perform the role of an obedient daughter, and this prepares her for further performing it under the scrutiny of cameras. She has to perform to such an extent that her parents decide her costuming for her; it must conform to this context and cannot cause sexual thoughts in men.
Jill also feels the pressure of external scrutiny when she meets others whose lives are very different from hers, even before she is famous, underlining her anxiety about others examining and determining her identity for her. She feels the need to be a perfect example of a good Christian, which is a tall order for a child. On a meta-narrative level, this part of the book demonstrates that the present-day Jill who is writing the memoir still has to reckon with what it means to share her life publicly. Sometimes, she makes decisions to omit certain information, even when that information is publicly known. A major theme in this memoir is Gendered Abuse in a Christian Fundamentalist Context, for example, but Jill is intentionally vague about her brother’s “confession” at the end of this section. What she alludes to here is the fact that Josh Duggar molested Jill, several of his other sisters, and one girl who was not related to him when he was 14 years old. At the time, Jim Bob and Michelle kept the abuse a secret within the family, but years later, details became public. By choosing not to describe the abuse in this memoir, Jill attempts to maintain some control over her story after years of having that control stripped away.
Jill experiences other forms of abuse in this part of the book, such as spiritual, intellectual, and emotional abuse. The IBLP’s doctrine, and Jim Bob and Michelle’s use of it when raising their children, constitutes such abuse. The Duggar children’s lives are tightly controlled, and that control is justified using Bible verses and Gothard’s teachings. By isolating their children from the world around them, Jim Bob and Michelle ensure that they have very limited avenues to understand other ways of life or to get context for their parents’ choices, highlighting the theme of Liberating One’s Thinking from a Christian Fundamentalist Worldview. From a young age, Jill knows that it is important to follow her parents’ rules instead of thinking for herself. Disagreeing with her parents is never acceptable under any circumstances and is considered sinful. Her family controls her perspective and worldview, which inhibits her ability to even question the way they control her life. This constitutes a form of intellectual abuse, and the doctrines resemble spiritual abuse, too, in their insistence that certain thoughts, such as ones of independence or sexuality, are “impure.”
One of Gothard’s teachings is called the “umbrella of protection” (75), and this “protection” extends to people’s worldviews as well as their lives: All Christians are under God’s protection; wives are under their husband’s protection; and children are under their mother’s protection (and by extension their father’s and God’s). This hierarchy prevents children from disobeying or from thinking for themselves. By attempting to homeschool 19 children with only a high school diploma, Michelle chooses to foreground religious education over a high-quality academic education. To date, none of the Duggar children have earned college degrees.
