It's not just who's in the photo that has people talking, but also what some of them are wearing.
Jessa Sewald surprised longtime fans of the Duggar family this week when she shared a rare photo of her mother and sisters to Instagram.
The image showed Sewald alongside mom Michelle Duggar, as well as Jana, Jill, Jinger, Joy-Anna, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn-Grace and Josie — who are all daughters of Jim Bob. “The older everyone gets, the busier life gets— which means it’s always extra special when we manage to get all 9 of us sisters + mom together again in the same place at the same time! Last week was golden,” Sewald captioned the photo.
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The main thing that caught everyone’s eye in the shot? What Michelle was wearing. While the matriarch almost always wears long skirts and dresses as part of her faith, she was instead wearing a shorter skirt with black leggings underneath. She, of course, wasn’t the only one, as the five eldest daughters all rocked pants, something they were strongly encouraged not to wear growing up.
“Is Michelle wearing pants? Did I miss something?” asked one fan. “Wow! Look at all the pants. Times have changed,” commented another.
“Notice all the grown girls wearing pants cause they realized there’s nothing wrong with them but the younger girls still have to wear skirts,” read another comment, a sentiment which was shared by quite a few other people.
Jinger recently shared in her book “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear” that Michelle “always dressed us girls in skirts and dresses, a standard that was taken from Deuteronomy 22:5 (ESV), which says, ‘A woman shall not wear a man’s garment,’ and I never really questioned it.”
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The entire “19 Kids and Counting” family were brought up as followers of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, something Jinger said had “a lot of cult-like tendencies.” She ended up leaving IBLP altogether, though is still a Christian.
Considering her recent book and comments about the family and their religion, it was a surprise to see her smiling alongside her sisters and mother. It was equally surprising to see Jill in the photo as well, since she and husband Derick have also been very outspoken about their ongoing issues with the family.
In 2020, the pair revealed they were “not on the best terms with some of my family,” claiming, “Our control to choose what jobs we were allowed to accept and even where we were allowed to live was taken away from us.” The two said they also battled over compensation for their participation in “19 and Counting” and “Counting On” — and, in 2021, said they hadn’t been to her parents’ home in “a couple years.”
“There’s a lot of triggers there,” said Derick at the time.
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