Jinger Duggar Vuolo opens up about what it was REALLY like growing up as one of 19 children

Jinger Duggar Vuolo has opened up about what it was really like for her growing up in a household with 18 siblings.

Throughout her childhood, Jinger, 30, watched as her parents welcomed 13 more kids to the family. 

She was days away from her 16th birthday when her final sibling, Josie, was born in December 2009.

The Duggars rose to national fame on the TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting, with people tuning in to marvel at the dynamics of a 21-person nuclear family.

Jinger Duggar Vuolo, 30, described her upbringing as one of 19 children in the Duggar family as never having a 'dull moment' in an on-camera conversation with her husband, Jeremy, 36

Jinger tied the knot with soccer-player-turned-minister Jeremy in 2016

IBLP's underlying motivations for encouraging families to maximize their offspring is somewhat menacingly political in nature, comparing children to a 'quiverfull' of arrows

But, for parents Jim Bob, 59, and Michelle, 57, the massive brood reflected their religious beliefs as adherents of the Christian fundamentalist cult Institute of Basic Life Principles. 

Core to the organization is the 'quiverfull' concept, which compares children to arrows in a quiver, with the plan being to send all the kids out into the world to convert or otherwise displace nonbelievers from positions of power.

Despite the Duggar family's size stemming from somewhat menacing-sounding politically tinged motivations, in Jinger's telling, there was genuinely a lot of fun and excitement to be had in being part of such a huge family. 

'There was never a dull moment, it was so much fun. I feel like there was always somebody to hang out with,' Jinger said on her family vlog in a conversation with her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, 36.

She went on to explain that her siblings wound up falling into three sections: The older ones, the middles, and the youngest ones, or 'littles.' 

As the sixth born, Jinger described she was the last of the 'older section.'

After her came her brother Joseph, who was born about 13 months later. 

'For a season, I was the youngest child!' Jinger pointed out.

The sixth-oldest of her siblings, Jinger was nearly 16 when her parents welcomed their youngest child, Josie, in December 2009

Her parents, Jim Bob, 59, and Michelle, 57, follow the Christian fundamentalist cult Institute of Basic Life Principles, which explicitly encourages adherents to have as many kids as possible

The 'oldest' group of six kids was mostly dominated by women, with only two boys.

Those roughly in the 'middle' crew who followed Jinger wound up being nearly all boys, with the only girl over the next nine births being Joy-Anna, 26.

The 'littles' however more closely reflected the ratio of the oldest group, with one boy - Jackson, 20 - followed by four girls - Johannah, 18, Jennifer, 16, Jordyn-Grace, 15, and, last but not least, Josie, 14.

In Jinger's mind, the age-based divisions emerged as her parents made decisions about who would get to go to what and when.

Jinger explained that, during her father's two terms in the Arkansas House of Representative from 1999 to 2003, it was generally the older cohort of his kids who would be allowed to accompany him to 'nicer' events.

'They would always say, "The older ones are going to go do this, the younger kids are going to stay home…" It was just how we decided who was going to get to be a part of things,' she elaborated, also adding that the birth order was also what determined the timing of everyone's missions in El Salvador. 

Jeremy asked Jinger's opinion on 'how accurate' stereotypes about firstborn, middle and younger children were for her family, such as the oldest being a 'leader figure' versus the second-born being a 'follower.'

'I think you even see the the personality tendencies, like with the older kids you can have like a really strong leader. Then you'll have one who's more chill, the one who's rambunctious, in that kind of pattern,' she answered.

'It definitely repeats itself. I think, in larger families. You see that there's some sort of a leader personality who just take charges of each of those sections.'

Regardless of the reasons why her parents had so many kids, Jinger described the experience of growing up in such as big family as 'so much fun'

Jinger, pictured with mom Michelle, was the 'baby' of the 'oldest' group

She added that Joy-Anna definitely filled the 'leader' role in the middle section, as the only girl between two boys in front of her and a streak of six boys after her.

Speaking for herself, Jinger characterized herself as a follower: 'I'm like the baby… I just didn't want to get in trouble.

'I'd see everybody else and what they were doing. And so if a couple of the ones above me, who had stronger temperaments, were pushing against something, I'd be like, "Okay, I'm not going to do that." Cause I didn't want to get in trouble.'

Notably, one of Jinger's older sisters, Jill, 33, has publicly distanced herself from IBLP, and also had a falling out with her father over her earnings from 19 Kids and Counting.

More upsettingly, the firstborn of the whole family, Joshua, 36, was embroiled in a series of sexual scandals that culminated in 2022 with a 12.5 year prison sentence for child pornography possession.

Jinger added that she didn't think she was particularly more 'mature' compared to her older siblings while growing up.

She was rather 'just more chill,' so she wound up being 'sandwiched' with her older siblings and therefore 'got to do more.'

The group would get in petty fights as extremely young children - such as Jessa, 31, encouraging their younger brother Joseph, 29, to pull Jinger's hair when he was too young to realize what he was doing, and then getting in trouble.

By the time they were a little older, however, they were all 'inseparable,' Jinger described.

Jinger's older sister Jill, 33, had a serious falling out with their father and has been one of the few Duggar kids to publicly distance herself from her parents' fundamentalist religion

The oldest of all the Duggar siblings, Joshua, 36, was embroiled in a string of sexual scandals, culminating with a child pornography conviction that earned him a 12.5 year sentence in 2022

In the day-to-day dynamics, Jinger recalled 'there's always something happening,' whether it was a backyard game of kickball, a group taking a walk to the pond, a grocery run, someone working on a 'real estate project' or someone 'fixing a car,' and beyond.

'So you could basically go wherever you wanted and just catch a ride with whomever the driver was, whoever was old enough to drive by themselves.' 

Discussing the nitty gritty of everyday life, Jinger shared: 'It depends on what season of life we're talking about.

'Because pre-show, it was a different life. We'd do probably even more things together because we were very young.

'So my parents, if it was in the summer, we would go on bike rides a lot.

'And so my dad would figure out how to get us all bikes and make sure all the tires were aired up and then my mom would drive a 15-passenger van with the trailer attached to it,' Jinger recalled.

Before they started earning money from the TLC series, Jinger and all of her sisters had to share just two bathrooms. 

However, the show allowed them to eventually buy a house better suited to their family size.

Jinger described her little sister Joy-Anna, 26, as the 'leader' of the 'middle' siblings, having been the only girl in the 'middle' group, between two older brothers and six younger brothers

'I think once we moved to the big house, that's probably what we were most excited about, was to have, I think it was nine bathrooms,' she said.

Getting everyone out the door was also a painstaking process in itself, with Jinger joking about 'Duggar time,' because 'we were late, a lot.'

As the family grew, the go-to mode of transport ultimately ended up being a 45-foot long Prevost Entertainer-brand bus outfitted with bunk beds.

Even with all the space, the fit was 'tight,' Jinger admitted.

When it came to mealtimes, Jinger recalled some of her younger siblings' 'disgusting' habit of stowing food in the bathroom out of fear that someone else would take it.

'But usually my mom would make plenty. I don't know what the deal was,' Jinger said with a laugh. 

Given such a big family, paper plates were a must, she added.

'We already had three dishwashers, and the sinks were always full,' Jinger described.

'We had two normal sinks, that were double… That's four sinks. And in the back we had commercial sinks that were three massive drum sinks, that are really low, like the restaurants use.

'We had three of those, and they would always get filled up, but it was only with the dishes that we were using to cook with, and sometimes cups. We would use cups that were not paper or plastic,' she continued.

Jinger and Jeremy share two kids of their own: Felicity, six, and Evangeline, three

The non-disposable cups they used were labeled by each kid's name with masking tape, and her mom would throw them in the dishwasher 'every day or two.'  

They even had one commercial dishwasher that her dad got at a restaurant supply store.

Jim Bob would also frequent auctions and buy any 'restaurant equipment for our house,' said Jinger. 

Consequently, the family enjoyed massive industrial refrigerators as well as three deep freezers in their pantry. 

The pantry itself was also outfitted with restaurant shelving, which was organized meticulously by Jim Bob, who used to work at a grocery store.

Going out to eat as a family at would unsurprisingly result in a massive bill.

One of the family's go-to places was a since-shuttered spot called Taco Tico that offered 10-cent tacos as a Sunday Special.

'And we could eat as many tacos as we wanted,' reminisced Jinger.

Another restaurant the family frequented had initially had a 'Kids eat for free policy' - but, sometime after the Duggars became regulars, the establishment updated the policy to: One kid for every paying adult can eat for free. 

Jinger tied the knot with soccer-player-turned-minister Jeremy in 2016, and the couple now share two kids: Felicity, six, and Evangeline, three.

Like her sister Jill, Jinger grew up to reject IBLP, and chronicled her journey in her 2023 book, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear 

While Jinger remains close to her parents and siblings, she joined sister Jill as another sibling to reject IBLP.

She released a book in 2023 called Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear. 

In it, she chronicled her journey as she committed to 'studying' the Bible herself for the first time - and thereby bypassing the skewed interpretations of Christian leadership she'd grown up with.

In her telling, she eventually came to the realization that IBLP's teachings wildly diverged from those of the Bible and denounced the culture of 'constant fear' fostered within the organization. 

In a June 2024 episode of the Unplanned podcast, Jinger admitted that she was 'afraid' of winding up with as many kids as her parents.

'That was something that I was always kind of a little bit afraid of,' she admitted.

'I was never the one who was like, "Give me your kids. I'm gonna go babysit your kids for you." Some of my siblings are more geared that way. They're all about watching everyone's kids, holding their kids,"' she said, adding she would instead volunteer for other domestic chores, as US Weekly reported.

'I just was really afraid of the thought of having as many [kids] as possible, but that was my destiny. That was gonna be it. I was gonna get married and have a lot of kids... But I was afraid. I was so afraid.'

When she realized she didn't have to take the same path as her parents had, she felt like a 'massive weight' was lifted, she said.