Jinger Duggar responded to online speculation that her children are “disabled” after followers questioned why she does not feature them on social media.
During a Thursday, April 3, Instagram Story Q&A session, Duggar, 31, was asked if one of her daughters was “disabled in some way” in a request to see more family photos.
“I’ve never answered this question, but sadly it’s been a rumor for years,” the Counting On alum wrote. “This is actually why we don’t show our children’s faces and chose to give them privacy.”
Duggar continued, “1) People demand to see them. 2) We don’t want to subject our kids to how cruel some people can be in their judgments. It’s honestly just sad to see these comments come in.”
Duggar and her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, share daughters Felicity, 6, and Evangeline, 4, as well as newborn son Finnegan, who was born late last month.
“We have been blessed with three healthy children,” Jinger, one of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s 19 children, added on Thursday. “But, even if God had chosen to give us a child with a medical condition, that would in NO WAY change the way we share them on socials. Every life is precious and a gift from God!”
Jinger previously gave Us Weekly insight into her and Vuolo’s decision to keep their kids out of the limelight.
“We talked about it for a while even before we had kids and whether or not we wanted them in the public eye,” Jinger exclusively told Us in January 2023. “And we decided just to keep them out of the public eye and let them choose what they want to do. So that’s just been our decision.”
The TLC personality added, “We will sometimes post pictures of the back of their heads or little videos and you can hear their little voices or whatever. But not showing their faces has been something that we’re planning on sticking to.”
While Jinger and Vuolo, 37, have opted to obscure their kids’ faces in social media footage, they have let them watch old episodes of their family on 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On.
“I think because it was such a huge part of my life. I spent most of my life on TV,” Jinger told Us while promoting her memoir Becoming Freed Indeed. “So even in this [book promotion] process, I’ve had a couple crews come in the house and my two-year-old will be playing in her playroom and she’ll see cameras and be scared. … I thought, how interesting. That was my childhood. Like that was all I knew. I play[ed] with the boom mics and all of that, but she’s just so not used to it. So it’s kind of interesting to see.”
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