01x02 - Growing up Gothard

[bunniefuu]

(tense music)

[Reporter 1] A bombshell as a dark
family secret explodes out into the open.

[Reporter 2]
Josh Duggar, the family's eldest,

was accused of repeatedly
molesting five underage girls.

[Reporter 3]
Some of them include his own siblings.

[Reporter 2] Trooper Joseph Hutchens
gave Josh a very stern talk.

Hutchens, by the way, is now serving 56
years in prison for child p*rn*graphy.

- It's hard to sweep this under the rug.
- Mhm.

I mean a lot of people are feeling, "Hey,
they weren't being really truthful to us."

[Derick] I honestly
(Jill sniffles)

She called me crying whenever all this
came up. No one knew any of this.

We were engaged, and I had no
idea that this had happened.

Thanks. (sniffles)

[Deanna] When I learned of what happened
with my nieces, I broke down and cried,

and I couldn't even be there for them,

because it was hush hush,
and nobody told me the truth.

[Jill] My dad and the producers
and people, they would talk about it.

There was an urgency to figure out
how the show was gonna be handled

in the wake of 2015 events.

As far as recovery and damage control,

you just feel like the burden, and the
weight falls on you to help,

'cause you're the only one who can.

(tense music continues)

Tonight for the very first time,

the family that became famous
for their conservative Christian values,

and their 19 children, speak out.

Take us back to 2002. How did you first
learn that there was a problem with Josh?

He was just curious about girls,
and he had gone in,

and just basically touched them over
their clothes while they were sleeping.

- They didn't even know he had done it.
- Mhm.

[Jim Holt] I don't remember
that's the way that happened.

He wasn't really honest
totally in that interview.

And that thing about sending Josh
in the IBLP facility wasn't true.

Did you ever worry that
the treatment didn't work,

especially with so many
young children in the house?

No, no. Josh was a changed person.

[Jill] Even after that, me and Jessa just
felt the weight of it fall on us.

In moments, a preview of
what is sure to be the big story,

the sisters, two of them,

who identify themselves as
Josh's victims, for the first time.

[Jen]
After the Megyn Kelly show came out,

there was a huge leak at
the Ashley Madison website.

[Reporter 2]
Another bombshell.

Former reality show star Josh Duggar
again facing public embarrassment

after being outed on Ashley Madison,

the site known for matching
up married cheaters.

[Jim Bob] I guess you've read about it
in the newspapers or seen it on TV,

but we've gone through a lot of trials.

[Deanna] It could have all been taken
care of in a different way.

If my brother had just woke up,
and realized he needed to help his son.

I don't think I need to talk to Josh.
I'm gonna talk to our Heavenly Father.

[Reporter 8] Now, porn star, Danica Dillon
details her alleged sex with Josh Duggar.

Though it was consensual, it more or
less felt like I was being r*ped.

She had sex with Duggar
while his wife was pregnant.

He had paid her thousands to remain quiet.

[Josh Pease] The Duggar family
is not a bizarre fascination.

It is a horrifying glimpse of a story that
was told over, and over, and over again,

in so many different families.

[Amy]
It stirred something in a lot of people,

and they finally got that magnifying
glass out going, wait, what is this?

What's really, really going on?

[Interviewer]
Okay.

So what's it like sitting here?

- Surreal.
- Yeah.

That's definitely the word.
(both laughing)

Okay. (laughs)

(curious music)

This is a lot more than,
like, TikTok selfies.

(indistinct background chatter)

Ooh. (lips fluttering)

At this point, you know, I've pretty much
burned every bridge of my family,

just by being here,
but whatever. (laughs)

(Lindsey clears throat)

[Lindsey] My friend, kind of, gave
me this really wise advice,

and he was like, you need to
step boldly into this moment,

because this is the sacred space
that you manifested years ago

when you said that this needs to stop, and
people need to know what really happened.

And, so, I'm trying to just (exhales)

So, back when the Duggars first
were on TLC, I was so weirded out.

No, no, no. This is not I don't need
to watch this, 'cause I've lived it.

(suspenseful music)

I was introduced to the world of Bill
Gothard when I was eight years old.

It started actually with my
parents attending IBLP seminars.

So, I was taken out of school.

I knew what public school structure was,

and this idea of sitting in the
basement with my two brothers,

with milk cartons
and some plywood for desks.

I was like, "What is this h*nky-tonk
situation going on here?" (laughs)

[Floyd] The Duggars, they
spoke at IBLP conferences

long before I ever heard
of them on television.

When they gained some popularity there,

I was shocked, dismayed.
(Tara laughing)

[Tara]
My parents decided to homeschool.

I know that they wanted to have a hand
in what kind of education we got.

When we first met, when he
said he was homeschooled,

you could have knocked me over.

I'm like, "Oh, then he definitely
understands why I am such a weirdo."

(both laughing)

Being a homeschooled kid,
like, you can spot 'em a mile away.

You just like, "Oh,
they were homeschooled."

We started homeschooling
when I was in second grade.

One of the things that I noticed
when I first started watching the Duggars,

everyone is very meek and mild.

Had you put a video camera
on my family as children,

you would've seen us the same way.

[Chad] I was the first fully
homeschooled child in our family.

You really weren't supposed
to watch TV in the IBLP,

and we certainly didn't most of the time.

If you did have a TV,

it was supposed to be
hooked up just to a VCR,

and you would only watch things that were
approved by IBLP or produced by them.

And I hope that the time we spend together
through these gospel piano lessons

[Chad] And to be quite
honest, it was very boring.

[Pianist]
And experience the joy.

My parents lived in the back woods
of Walker County, Alabama.

There were very few options for them.

You either worked in a coal mine,
you worked at a steel mill,

or you just starved.

When my dad had the
opportunity to become a pastor,

especially in a movement that was
supposed to stand up in the last days,

well, yes, of course he went for it.

I mean it beats working
in a steel mill. (laughs)

(Tia sighing)

My background, well, I started
(laughs), I grew up in Michigan.

I became directly involved
with IBLP as a new mom.

They were looking for new families
to bring into IBLP way of thinking.

I was a young wife looking
for somebody to teach me,

and I'm sure the Duggars had mentors, too,

that taught them how they
should be doing these things.

I never went to public school at all.
I was homeschooled from day one.

My mother's childhood was very, very
traumatic. A lot of abuse happened.

IBLP offered her solace, and
promised her peace and a safe space,

and she bought all in.

She had been going to
Bill Gothard seminars

from the time the basic
seminar became a thing.

(suspenseful music continues)

[Brooke] Bill Gothard was traveling around
playing to huge coliseums of people,

and he's doing one every single week.

[Tia] IBLP spread through my
church when I was a kid.

The Gothard market is churched people.

They were to leave their seminar,
go back to their home churches,

be influences for that
program, and it caught on.

It spread through the
Southern Baptist churches.

It was also spreading
in the national scene.

[Brooke] We typically think of
a cult as having a commune,

or having this, you know,
centered geographic location.

Gothard didn't have that.

Bill Gothard's not a pastor.
There was no specific church.

[Brooke] His teachings became the means

with which he exerted
control over his followers.

[Bill Gothard] Every one of us
has umbrellas of protection.

If we get out from under that umbrella,

we expose ourself to the realm
and the power of Satan's control.

Bill Gothard's main thrust
was authority, authority, authority.

[Brooke] God creates an umbrella
of authority over us.

The kids obey the parents,
the parents obey the pastor,

the pastor obeys Bill Gothard, and
I guess Bill Gothard talks to God himself.

You must always obey
your chain of command,

and that included wives
obeying their husbands.

If you're under your umbrella of authority
nothing bad can happen to you.

[Josh Pease] Gothard's whole vibe was
that he was the good authority.

It's like, "Look, authority's not so bad.

Look how reasonable it is, look how calm I
am. Look at how much sense this makes."

(crowd applauding)
(suspenseful music continues)

[Bill Gothard]
I am thrilled to be able to say

that we can present to
your sons and daughters,

the whole world on a golden platter.

[Josh Pease]
What Gothard was selling was, sort of,

this mythical idea of returning to
a time in which things were better.

Better for who?
It wasn't better for the women,

who were being abused by their husbands,
and it wasn't getting reported.

It wasn't better for black people

who didn't have the same
rights as white people.

It really was better for white
Protestants, is what was meant by that.

(suspenseful music continues)

Two, four, six, eight,
we don't want to integrate.

[Reporter 4] Negroes made inroads towards
integration of schools in the deep south.

[Josh Pease] With Brown versus board
of education in 1954,

the government starts insisting
on the desegregation of schools.

[Reporter 4] For two days,
white crowds gathered at the school.

[Josh Pease]
White evangelical Christians are saying,

"We don't want our kids to be a part of
the public school system anymore."

A part of the homeschooling
movement is in response to that.

What made Gothard so effective
is that he was able to realize

that there is a way to dovetail
all these things he's teaching

that would also capture the momentum
of people who are wanting to say,

"I wanna take back control"
over their kids' education.

Out of that, the Advanced
Training Institute is born.

(suspenseful music continues)

In 1984, Bill Gothard launches
the Advanced Training Institute,

a homeschool curriculum.

[Tara] ATI can be interchangeable
sometimes with IBLP.

The people inside of that program
will refer to it both ways.

[Jill] We were a part of ATI from
as early as I can remember.

We liked to go to the ATI conferences.

At the time they only had
one conference a year.

People who were in ATI, I felt like,

were very concerned about any kind of
public education for their kids,

because their kids would get brainwashed,

which is true, like,
those things can happen.

[Josh Duggar] Well, the purpose of the
Advanced Training Institute

is to train up young men and women
to become leaders of the next century.

Young people need a role
model, someone to look up to.

[Bill Gothard] 20 years ago, 102 families
gathered together in the north woods

and began ATI.

For 10 years, we met
to write the material,

3,000 pages of the Wisdom Booklets.

The Wisdom Booklets, the fundamental
building blocks of our entire education.

Learning to see life
from God's perspective,

because who needs an
actual academic education

when you've got Wisdom Booklets.

[Lindsey]
There were 54 Wisdom Booklets.

There were categories
within the Wisdom Booklet,

and so each week you would
focus on one category.

- At the end of the year you start over.
- That was an entire grade.

In our Wisdom Booklet
on page 20, 23 Please sit down.

[Floyd]
I deeply am sorrowful for anyone

who only had this material as an
education, because it is no such thing.

[Jim Bob] We went to a conference,
and we heard about homeschooling,

and then we met several
families that homeschooled,

and we saw how mature the children were,

and we thought we really want
those character qualities

in our children's lives.

[Jill]
We definitely read the Wisdom Booklets.

I do remember the character qualities.

[Voice]
Orderliness.

Persuasiveness. Obedience.
(bear growls)

[Jill]
We would memorize their definitions.

The entire curriculum, of course,
is based on the Sermon on the Mount.

(curious music)

They would take a passage and
they would purport to teach us

everything that we needed to know
academically, just from that passage.

[Brooke] Bill Gothard promised
that his homeschool program

would be the equivalent
of a high school diploma

with a pre-law degree, and a pre-medical
degree, like, two bachelor's degrees.

"Sign up for the Wisdom Booklets."

We teach our children
that evolution is something

that a lot of people are teaching,
but yet it's totally unscientific.

You can see how the earth was formed
and, with the flood and all of the things,

that science really backs
up what scripture says.

[Danielle]
They were not being very well educated,

and that was largely by design, right?

You're not gonna teach the
kids about dangerous ideas

that exist outside the family's ideology.

A lot of what they taught was
just conjecture from Bill Gothard

and from the other authors that
he brought in to write his books.

(curious music continues)

[Voice] Fossils did not
accumulate over millions of years.

They were all formed
simultaneously in one great flood.

Poorly sourced, just complete
utter made up nonsense.

[Voice] Hands are composed
of non-living atoms.

I have a friend of mine who is in ATI,

and she said that she never
learned math outside of fractions,

because her dad said,

"Well, you use fractions in
baking and that's good enough."

[Lindsey] Through the Wisdom Booklets,
through all the other ATI materials,

and every seminar that we went to,

more and more of my freedoms and my rights
were getting taken away from me.

What I could wear, what I could watch,
what I could listen to.

It really became a world of
all the things I couldn't do.

[Bill Gothard] When a young person listens
to a rock song, even a Christian rock,

they give Satan a little
square in their soul.

[Voice] The characteristic
offbeat in today's rock music

has been traced to the Satanic rituals
in the jungles of West Africa.

[Brooke]
Gothard had all these crazy rules.

He was just, kind of,
this Wizard of Oz-like head,

looming over the whole audience

being like "God thinks you should
homeschool your children,"

and the, you know, "rock beat is evil."

I threw away all of my evil Amy Grant CDs.

♪ Baby, baby, the stars
are shining for you ♪

♪ Be a winner at the game of Life ♪

[Heather] The game of Life,
you could not have the game of Life.

There was not enough seats in
that car to fill your quiver.

They had their own games.

This is the Commands of Christ board game,
which is super fun and traumatic.

Here you have the
venomous pit of bitterness,

the t*rture pit of temporal values,
and then the miry pit of moral impurity.

There's temptation to be bitter, and then
temptation to lust, temptation to worry.

Temptation to worry. How do you
not worry about that? (laughs)

They set you up for failure.

Good afternoon, Piglet.
If it is a good afternoon.

Some people couldn't have Winnie the Pooh.

- Why?
- Because Eeyore glorified depression.

(Eeyore sighs)

And Barbie dolls were just harlots.

[Derick] I've asked Jill
about the cabbage patch thing.

I don't remember if I fully understood.

I don't know if I fully ever understood.

We were never allowed
to have 'em, so (laughs)

[Brooke] Bill Gothard
taught that Xavier Roberts,

the creator of Cabbage
Patch dolls, was a warlock.

That every cabbage patch doll
comes off of the factory line,

he, like, en-curses it with a demon.

[Tara] I remember going to conferences
and coming home, and feeling so afraid.

This stuffed animal has a tag on it
that says the word magic.

- I'm bringing evil into my family's home.
- Devil worship.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

[Michelle] And live happily ever after.
Okay, girls, let's go to bed.

Goodnight girls, I love you.

The way that my aunt is so
soft spoken, meek and mild,

and just really quiet spirit

- Oh, it drives me nuts.
- And then Stop.

The voice is a very
intentional, trained thing.

It's part of what we
were instructed to do.

- She infantilizes herself on purpose.
- She used to be a cheerleader.

I know the woman can yell,
and she does not yell anymore.

Listen, the first time I say it,
what is it? You obey it.

[Heather] They want young,
innocent, sweet girls, not women.

[Jill] My parents wanted all the girls
to wear dresses, like all the time.

[Amy] We got pilgrim collars going on,
big pilgrim collars, and big skirts.

Our goal is to draw
attention to our countenance,

and that helps us to
decide what things we wear.

[Chad] You had to wear your hair a
certain way to frame your face.

[Lindsey] At one point,
Bill Gothard, he took me aside,

because he seemed frustrated
that my hair wasn't curly enough.

That it just, needed more Godly "umph."

[Jill] My dad likes long hair, and so
we've tried to keep our hair long.

[Lindsey] I would curl my hair ad nauseam.
I felt that I had to do this all the time.

We're gonna be talking about clothing.
Why is this such an area of contention?

The problem is that men have
a problem with their eyes.

The solution is to avoid eye traps.

The shorter the skirt,
the more vicious the trap.

[Brooke] In the Wisdom Booklet,
there's these drawings of women,

and they're wearing
various different outfits.

[Voice] Can you identify the
eye traps in these pictures?

(curious music)

[Brooke] The assignment is to figure out
what's slutty about each woman's outfit.

And so you circle, "Oh,
it's the lace right here.

Oh, it's the mid-calf length skirt."

Instead of learning math,
you're learning sl*t shaming.

[Josh Duggar]
What is Joy doing right now?

She's covering up the immodest dress.

[Jana] If we're walking past a girl
that is immodestly dressed,

they'll call out Nike,

and all the boys will immediately put
their heads down, and just walk past.

[Voice] The winking eye.
Those who fall to her whoredom

are stripped of resources
and vibrancy of life.

You are on display for everyone.

[Woman] You could be a trap for anyone,
so if the pastor is molesting you,

it's probably because he's attracted
to the young woman you're becoming,

and it's your fault for seducing him.

[Heather] Don't have older
brothers change girl babies,

because if you have an older
brother change a girl baby,

he'll know what
female anatomy looks like,

and he'll be tempted to touch it.

[Brooke]
There's a very prepubescent sexual subtext

that I think runs throughout
Gothard's teachings,

and I think runs throughout
the Wisdom Booklet.

[Voice] Fornicator, lust, lechery,
perversion. The pubic louse.

[Brooke] It's almost as if there's
this fear of burgeoning sexuality,

and so it must be completely
repressed, controlled, ignored,

and refused at all costs.

This repression definitely
feeds into a hypersexuality.

[Voice] Adulterer, prostitution,
h*m*, incest.

Don't think about your sister's boobs.

What are you gonna do, think
about your sister's boobs?

(tense music continues)

[Bill Gothard] The one who made
p*rn*graphy popular in America

has done more damage in
America than a hundred Hitlers.

A lot of these newspaper
inserts are p*rn*graphy.

Romance novels are like p*rn*graphy.

We said, "You know what, kids, we think
there's a lot of things in our home,

DVDs and all kinds of, you know,
books and all kinds of stuff

that we don't feel like are pleasing the
Lord." I said, "Would you guys help us?"

[Amy] So, my family had a huge bonfire
where they burned everything Disney,

and everything, everything,
literally everything that was worldly.

[Chad] I've heard of Bill Gothard
being personally asked

to cleanse people's houses for them.
That meant going room to room,

praying that any demonic
influence that had ever been in there

would be cleansed by the
power of Jesus Christ.

If we allow a hole in our umbrella, Satan
will come in, and will attack our family.

It was guaranteed destruction,
you know, or something like that.

And, so, as like a
young imaginative kid,

I'm like, "Oh my God," you
know, "I'm gonna be destroyed."

[Floyd] Fear was a a huge component
of what they pushed through the seminar

and through the materials.

♪ Why should I not be put in hell ♪

♪ To suffer for all time? ♪♪

[Lara] In IBLP, you're at high alert all
the time digging into everything,

making sure you're not doing, or thinking,

or feeling anything that's
going to get you sent to hell,

and hell was very vivid for us.
It was not an abstract concept.

I would dream about being burned
alive, because I had thought,

"Ugh, I really hate my brother today."

And I thought (laughs),
"Oh, no, going to hell again."

I realized at a young
age that I was a sinner.

I have done so many bad deeds,
I've sinned against God,

and I cannot save myself from my sins.

[Woman] Within this community,
critical thinking is turned on yourself.

So, you end up, kind of,
cannibalizing your self-confidence

with over analyzing,
"Am I doing it right?"

Rather than criticizing
the system as a whole.

If you are so preoccupied
with self-examination,

you're not gonna have enough energy
to challenge the system itself.

(suspicious music)

[Jim Bob]
Man has his role, woman has her role,

and everyone will just be happy
if they stick to those two things.

Every single one of us will see life
through our particular spiritual gift.

[Chad]
You were taught you had a spiritual gift,

and you were supposed to
determine what your spiritual gift was,

and that spiritual gift
was to be used for the ministry.

[Brooke] Really and truly,
everyone's a prophet or a mercy.

It's kind of a funny little type-casting,

and prophets have carte blanche
to be as big of jerks as they want,

and mercies are just supposed to take it.

And then, of course, all
the men are prophets,

and all the women are mercies. (laughs)

[Bill Gothard]
The gift of mercy.

They have an amazing capacity
to share the burdens of others.

They take them up, they assume them,
they just kind of collect burdens.

[Interviewer] Do you remember
what your spiritual gift was?

(laughs) Yes, mercy giver.

(toddler fussing)

[Bill Gothard]
The older ones must be trained,

because the older ones take
care of the younger ones.

[Jill] In my family, usually the older
kids helped take care of the younger kids.

We had buddy pairs,
and I had a buddy team.

[Jen] There's a lot of parentification
within the Quiverfull movement.

Just the sheer number of children,
it is impossible to parent all of them,

and they usually have the
older children, the daughters,

- take care of the younger kids.
- I think my experience of parentification

is still one of my biggest traumas from
this world that I'm still working through.

My upbringing really looked
a lot like the early years of the Duggars.

(suspicious music continues)

I grew up in a Quiverfull family.
I'm the oldest of nine.

I helped raise approximately
five of my younger siblings.

I was my sibling's surrogate mom.
I had been at the birth,

and done night duty, and done feedings,
and I was so tired, so tired all the time.

[Michelle] When the baby is born,
it's my buddy until it's weaned,

and then from there it
goes to the other buddy,

whoever's turn it is to get a buddy.

[Tia] To a child who is 11
years old raising a baby,

and they just saw on TV it
touted it as the buddy system,

and nobody said, "Is anybody checking
to see if that 11 year old had some needs?

That maybe she shouldn't have
the baby in the bed with her?

That maybe she needs school?"

I cannot emphasize enough
how hurtful that is.

[Jill] Smile, and have a
pleasant look on your face

so you don't look like
you're mad or something.

(strings humming)
[Lara] When I was watching the Duggars,

the attitudes of the children
are what I noticed right off the bat.

My heart broke for them,
because they were so calm,

and they were so peaceful
and well-behaved,

and I knew what it took to get there.

(audience applauding)

[Bill Ligon] So, if I had someone who
would loan me a little boy,

I would show you how to spank a boy,
and bless him at the same time right now.

And you got one coming? Well, bring him
around here, and bring him on up here.

(applause)

- Hi son, what's your name?
- [Jason] Jason.

Jason, wow, that's a fine name.

Well, Jason, I'm gonna pretend
that I'm your dad for a moment, okay?

I want to tell you, Jason, you know,
that daddy is not pleased

with the way you've acted today,
and you know it's wrong, right?

- [Jason] Yes sir.
- And, so, I'm gonna spank you.

So, lean over here right now.

Now, Jason, you're a fine boy. You're
gonna grow up to be an outstanding man.

God's hand is on your life son.

(audience laughing)

Now, okay, let's see. You understand?
Did you understand now?

- Yes, sir.
- Okay, well, give daddy a hug.

I don't think you put
yourself into that hug, son,

so let's spank a little more.

(audience laughing)

Let's see if we can get a good hug out
of this. Let's see, give daddy a hug.

Boy, oh wow, wow!
(audience laughing)

[Chad] They believed in physical
punishment for nearly everything.

It was a fear-based tactic,
and it was very effective.

In my family, my mom
was my primary ab*ser.

She would scream at us,
she would threaten us,

she would beat us mercilessly.

At one point she beat me for an
entire hour in a church bathroom

in an effort to "break my will,"
as she said.

Family friend happened to be there
when the incident occurred, and she said,

"Oh, yes, and the whole time I was saying,
'please stop hurting that sweet boy.'"

And mom said, "Yes, but
I had to break his will."

This was treated as a funny family story.
Everybody laughed except me.

I'm not gonna let you disobey.
What you need to do is honor.

[Jill] Having a voice about what
you think and how you feel,

and being able to voice
and say no about things

was stifled and not encouraged
in the IBLP setting, in my family.

(bells ringing)

[Tara] The show is basically saying,
perfect angel children exist,

but I didn't see calm, happy children.
I saw broken spirits.

[Michelle] It is so sweet.
It goes into all areas of their life,

and so the guys will help
me bring this next one up.

Say it again.

Instant obedience to initial
prompting of God's spirit.

Our eighth born just resisted every
bit of training I tried to give him,

and when he was about 14 months old,
I just didn't know what to do with him,

and he was really shaming his mother.

And I would spank that child all day long.
And many mothers

[Lara] All children, if they were
following the institute's guidelines,

you're spanked until you stop crying,
which could be hours.

(solemn music)

In the institute, Michael and
Debi Pearl's book "To Train Up a Child"

was the endorsed book by Gothard.

If that child is gonna have authority,

mother, you gotta let that
man be the authority.

Punish him with the rod severely.

If he screams too hard with the
first five, gets hysterical, wait.

You know, a little psychological terror
is sometimes more effective than the pain.

Michael and Debi Pearl
are some mother f*ck.

The rules, the principles, techniques

for training an animal
and a human are the same.

[Tia] His goal is to help you spank your
child with extreme measures

and not get in trouble with the police.

So, how you spank is just as important
as what you spank with.

It can be a switch from a tree,

it can be a length of craft glue,
the long glue stick, it can be PVC pipe.

The rod of reproof.

The real benefit of that is that
when a child sees this neutral object

coming out of the drawer or whatever,
it becomes like a policeman.

[Interviewer] Did you see your cousins
being punished with rods?

They called it encouragement.

They literally said, "You
need to come into the room,

and we need to give you
some encouragement."

But it was in the sweetest tone ever of,
like, "Do you need encouragement?"

"I think you need encouragement."

(tense music)

[Chad] I know that there was
a particular style of child training

called blanket training.

You put the kid on a blanket,
probably six-month old,

and you put something they want just
outside of reach off the blanket,

and when they go to reach
for it, you hit them,

and if they continue to reach
for it, you hit them again.

The idea is you're breaking the
rebellious spirit they are born with.

So, blanket training was also
covered in Michelle Duggar's book.

[Michelle] I would
focus on blanket training,

calling out, "Okay boys, it's blanket
time. Oh, isn't this fun?"

"Come pick a toy so we
can have blanket time."

And we're gonna practice, "obey mama."

Sit really still, and look
at me with a big old smile.

Wanna see that smile now.
No wiggles, be still.

(tense music continues)

[Woman]
When you are told to not resist

when your parents are hitting you as a
child, because it's for your own good,

when you believe that your
body belongs to the church

and to the authorities that be,

it's absolutely designed to groom victims

to be ready for more predators
later on as adults, as young adults.

Like, everything about it sets
you up to be the perfect victim.

(tense music continues)

It's like Gothard franchised spiritual,
physical, emotional, psychological abuse.

[Bill Gothard] The way to be free is to
learn the wishes of your authority.

[Josh Pease]
He figured out how to package it,

and then put it in all these different
places that he never actually went.

It was so entrenched into
the DNA of the message

that it went everywhere.

Gothard turned every father into a cult
leader and every home into an island.

(tense music continues)

[Floyd] My father was very attracted
to the patriarchal teachings of IBLP.

The control and protection
that it would've afforded him

was exceptionally valuable to him,

especially as I would come to
learn later that he was a predator.

When I was 12, he was convicted
for a sexual as*ault against a minor.

So, it destroyed my idea
of what a family was,

and the support that my
mother received through IBLP

to stay with him, to continue,
to bring him back into our home,

was deeply traumatic as well.

This kind of stuff was
swept under the rug.

That's something that
I experienced directly.

(breathing deeply)

When we met, I was very reserved and
rigid, and she was the opposite of that,

and that's one of the reasons
I fell in love with her originally.

(crowd clapping and cheering)
[Tara] I met you when I was 18.

My entire drive, looking back,
was to find my husband.

We're not just dating to have
fun, and go to the movies.

We are on a schedule.
We have to get this done.

We've got babies to make,
and that's the entire focus and purpose.

[Anna] My family had known about the
Duggar family for several years.

Then in 2006, when I
was 17, and Josh was 18,

we met for the first time
at a homeschool conference.

(tense music continues)

[Bill Gothard] Every one of you sons,
every one of you daughters,

upgraded dating to courtship.

Courtship established the parents
as the head of every relationship

between a young man
and young woman in ATI.

The man would approach the woman's
parents, ask for permission to court,

everything else from from there

was essentially handled
like an arranged marriage.

[Derick and Jill]
It's the Duggar Guide to Love.

[Jill] Today we're sharing the Duggar
rules of side hugs, chaperones,

and saving your first kiss for marriage.

[Kristin]
The idea of courtship

It's promoted as a way of
guaranteeing sexual purity.

- [Josh Duggar] Anna, will you marry me?
- Yes.

(laughing)

[Amy]
I hear my uncle in the background go,

"So, who wants to be Josh
and Anna's chaperone?"

So beautiful, oh, Anna!

[Amy]
Yeah, and they're engaged at this point.

They're engaged. I literally was like,

don't you know how to act toward
each other when no one's around?

[TLC Producer]
Did you Google or YouTube how to kiss?

What's that?

[TLC Producer 2]
Google or YouTube how to kiss.

[laughs] No, no, no, no.
Do they have it on there?

(everyone laughing)

[Tia] You would save your
kissing for the wedding.

You would save all experience for
the one person that God had for you.

It really beautified purity culture.

It made it seem like it was
this romantic wonderful concept.

I thought it'd be time to
have a man-to-man talk with you.

- Oh.
- About the birds and the bees.

[Tia] There was this CD.
Jim Bob is giving it to Josh.

Definition of normal (beeping sound).

Yeah. Shh.
(both laughing)

It's supposed to be a Kama Sutra for
Christians. There's one position in it,

and instructions on how to give a good
hand job, and be available at all times.

I think I kind of
understand how it works.

- [Jim Bob] Yeah.
- I think I learned that-

- [Jim Bob] It's kinda like Legos.
- [Tia] In hindsight,

we know that Josh Duggar had already
molested his sisters at this point.

He was already well acquainted
with what was going on with sexuality,

and he'd already been through
their farce of rehabilitation.

But when America saw that,
it's a joke, it's a joke.

This doesn't have pictures
or anything, but it's good.

- Aw, man, no, I'm joking.
- That's good.

No, no, I got enough.
I'll have a working model, right?

Yeah.

[Jessa] I have a feeling it's gonna
be a very short engagement.

[Interviewer 2] Why is that?

Um, I don't think Josh
wants to wait. [laughs]

[Tia] In this culture,
you are not really allowed

to say no to who shows up
and says they want you.

If a man says he wants you,
then he's God's man for you,

and you have to learn how to adjust your
feelings and thoughts around that.

So, by the time I was
an 18 year old woman,

I had fully expected to just be nothing
more than a submissive wife and mother.

And then I met somebody at church.

I didn't have instant
attraction to this person.

I didn't feel safe with this person,

but I had spent my lifetime
praying for the man

God was going to bring me to marry.

(organ music)

And, so, I bent my will around this idea.

(upbeat music)

We're having the wedding today.

[Michael] The way God ordained it all,
Josh becomes the authority at the wedding.

You know, he becomes
her authority, not me.

And that's the way God designed
the transfer of authority.

[Brooke] Women cannot be
in authority over themselves.

They have to have a male
authority figure over them.

The idea is that you're under
the total authority of your father

until he transfers that authority
over to your husband on your wedding day.

[Officiant] Anna, placing yourself
under the leadership of Joshua,

submitting to his authority, following his
direction through Christ in your lives.

Also, do both of you commit to trust
God with the size of your family?

- We do.
- We do.

[Officiant] You may kiss your bride.

[Tia] We had a beautiful wedding.

(wedding goers clapping)

My parents gave me the
wedding of my dreams.

I was on cloud nine. I thought
I was starting my fairytale.

(wedding goers cheering)

[Officiant] I would like to introduce to
you, Mr. And Mrs. Joshua James Duggar.

(crowd cheering and applauding)

[Dr. Edwin] This is Dr. Edwin.
Love involves close bodily contact

and the pleasure of seeing, touching
and enjoying with all the senses.

[Crew Member 1]
We're getting this last shot,

which should be the last shot in the show,
them walking to the hotel room.

(upbeat music)

[Josh Duggar]
Goodbye.

(door slams)

I had successfully remained pure.
I had followed all of the rules,

and I had spent the engagement
fending off physical advances

in trying to save myself
for the wedding night.

On my wedding night I
was r*ped three times,

and after that found out I was pregnant.

Why is marriage like this?
Is this like this for everybody?

Is love supposed to hurt this much?

I didn't have any idea what was normal
or natural. I'd had no sex education.

I was 19, and I was totally in shock.
I had an a*usive husband.

Had my first baby at 20.
My fifth baby was born when I was 30.

I trusted my Gothard mentors,

because I felt I could trust a mother
of 10 whose children all sat in a row,

and clearly had order and structure.

The answers I got back were,

"These are your duties, these
are your responsibilities."

- [Levings] Blow, blow, blow
- [Tia] Blow, baby.

(child blowing)
(all cheering)

[Tia]
If you do better at being a wife,

you will solve the
problems of your marriage.

I needed my baby to
sleep through the night,

because if my baby cried at night,
and my husband didn't sleep,

there was going to be violence.

Michael Pearl talks about child spanking.

A careful reader will realize
there is no age limit to spanking.

Children in homeschooling,
fundamentalist families

are spanked all the way up into adulthood,

and that includes older daughters,
and that includes wives.

And this is something the fundamentalist
husbands do to their wives.

For example, if you
forget to say, yes sir,

or my lord, when you're talking to your
husband, then there's a consequence.

There's an implement that's
agreed upon as part of the contract,

a domestic discipline contract.

There are rules for whether
or not you're allowed to cry.

If there's going to involve what they call
corner time, where you go sit in a corner,

if there will be sex afterward or not

as part of the restoration
of the relationship.

No matter how old you are,
the whole point is inflict pain

until you have the submissive
confession that the oppressor wants.

When the show first premiered,

I instantly recognized their
belief pattern as my own.

My first thought was, "Oh my God,

are they really gonna show
America what my life is like?

What's America gonna say
when they find out how these people live?"

What actually happened
is nothing like that.

It was heavily produced, very shined up.

The audacity of Jim Bob Duggar to say,

"I've got my family
under so much control."

They were that secure they could keep
their secrets with a camera crew,

and that their kids were
not gonna betray the truth.

I cannot believe that
he got away with that,

and that it was a hit show
for as long as it was.

[Megyn] Why would a family with such a
painful secret launch a reality TV show?

It was a very difficult situation.

But as we've talked to other parents
and different ones since then,

a lot of families have said

that they've had similar things
happen in their families, and

[Heather]
Nobody in my circle was surprised

when the allegations
against Josh came out.

It was so prevalent
that nobody was shocked.

That's what happens, brothers do that.

[Jill] We were hiding from paparazzi,

and it's, like, everybody's in
this room, this family meeting.

My dad's PR guy would be there as well.

- [Producer] And who was that?
- Chad Gallagher.

[Jill]
Chad worked with Mike Huckabee as well.

[Derick]
He was an advocate to the extent

that it represented Jim
Bob's goals financially.

[Jill] So, Chad was the one who was
setting up the Megyn Kelly thing

to try and get it to where TLC would be
cool with moving forward with this show.

You are going on the record
as being two of Josh's victims.

As victims we have to come out and
speak. This is something we chose to do.

Nobody asked us to do this.
Jessa and I were talking

[Danielle] The survivors of the abuse
go on the Megyn Kelly show,

and are kind of forced to
kind of relive that trauma,

and kind of downplay it.

[Jill] In hindsight, I wouldn't have
done the Megyn Kelly stuff.

I felt like I was in a place again of
bearing the burden and the weight of just

(thickly) Um Even though you volunteer,
it's, like, you feel obligated to help.

[Megyn] How old were you when Josh
inappropriately touched you?

I was 12.

I do wanna speak up in his defense

against people who are
calling him a child molester,

or a pedophile, or a r*pist
some people are saying.

I'm, like, that is so
overboard and a lie, really.

[Derick] The whole Megyn Kelly thing,
I would not call it voluntary.

Basically being called on to
carry out a suicide mission.

You're gonna destroy yourself,
but we need you to take the fall

so that you can carry the show forward,
because the show cannot fail.

And they were gonna do whatever they could
to get the return on their investment.

If that meant collateral damage,
that meant collateral damage.

And in our case, you know, it's very mild
compared to what happens to some.

[Jessa] I know so many girls go through
things that are way worse.

So, for me, I'm sad, because
this is my older brother who I love a lot,

and I had to make that
choice to forgive him, you know.

It wasn't something that somebody forced,
like, "Oh, you need to do this,"

you know, it was like, you have
to make that decision for yourself.

[Megyn] Did you fight?

- [Jill] (laughs) No.
- [Jessa] No. Girls were sleeping.

We didn't know about it until he went
and confessed it to my parents,

- and they shared it with us. No.
- Neither one of you

No, none of the victims
were aware of what happened.

[Amy]
It did feel a little scripted.

It felt like it was
maybe a little bit forced.

Jill has strength and tenacity.

She is not one to just
keep quiet and silent,

and so she's the one that
really did something about Josh

and hit him the night that he
tried to do something to her.

(tense music continues)

[Andrew]
As a father of three little girls,

this was a brutal hour
of television to watch.

[Reporter 5]
While there's been a lot of backlash,

lots of people are also
coming to his defense,

mostly saying everyone makes mistakes.

[Reporter 6] Their best pal, Mike
Huckabee, came to their defense a well.

[Civilian] When the Duggars came out,
and their son had molested their child,

you more or less said that you
felt sorry for their parents.

[Mike]
Ma'am, let me tell you something.

You have no idea what
you're talking about.

You don't know that family and I do.

(group clapping)
You're done.

[Reporter 7] For months
the family presented a united front.

Sisters Jessa and Jill defending
their brother on Fox News.

But in the wake of the shocking news,
TLC canceled their popular show.

Like, it didn't save everything.
It wasn't enough.

Yeah.

[Derick] Jim Bob's clawing to get the
show back as quick as possible.

TLC was like, well we can't
focus on you and your wife

or any of the kids in the home,

'cause that's too close to
ground zero, basically.

But we're gonna focus on the older kids,
mostly the ones who are outta the house.

Jill, and Jessa, and their families.

We're gonna name it
"Jill and Jessa: Counting On".

[Announcer 2] Counting On, premieres
Tuesday, March 15th at nine on TLC.

We were having all these talks
about this promo sh**t coming up.

We're being pressured to come back.

I didn't want to, but at the same time,
I've never said no to my family before.

It's this whole, like, umbrellas of
authority thing. That was ingrained in me.

I felt like if I said no, I
am not obeying my parents,

and bad things are gonna
happen to me. (laughs)

(tense music continues)

IBLP and the teachings
draw in people like my dad,

who want this control.
It can foster this cult-like environment.

I absolutely think that
people would be drawn to that.

[Tia] Bill Gothard, Jim Bob Duggar,
these are all feathers of a kind,

with a slightly different
outward presentation.

[Lindsey] This was my actual life
that these people f*cked with.

Along with the Duggars.

[Jill] I said, "We cannot do what
you're asking us to do."

Basically, they're like
(baby crying)

Well, you have to.

[Heather]
I don't think our parents realized

that anything terrible was happening
at these training centers.

(tense music continues)

The Gothard teachings take
on more power and more power.

[Josh Pease] Gothard starts building
these different training centers

all over the world.

[Chad]
It was near sl*ve labor

out of young people that he made
work at his training centers.

He built that empire off our backs.

[Lara] They would lock you in the prayer
room for hours up to days, up to weeks.

[Jill]
You have to obey.

Are we gonna get off the plane,
and, like, they're gonna arrest us?

[Danielle] I look at that kind of a thing
as just further exploitation of the girls.

I didn't know how to say,
"I don't want you in my bed."

Whatever was repressed inside
of Gothard was spilling out.

Bill never married, and
he never had any children.

He pointed at me, and he
said, "Don't let this one go."

[Josh Pease]
IBLP modeling the exact opposite

of everything that it claims to represent.

The institute had a
tremendous amount of money,

and if you could get rid of Bill Gothard,

somebody who was left gets
control of all of that cash.

[Jill] You had to sign another deal with
my dad. It would be, like, forever.

(tense music continues)