Jessa Duggar Seewald is addressing the “rude” comments she’s received since announcing that she and her husband, Ben Seewald, are expecting their sixth child.
The “19 Kids and Counting” alum says she’s been met with criticism and concern about the size of her growing family.
“Honestly, I have heard a lot of rude and unnecessary comments but generally those like, ‘Oh you’re breeding like rabbits’ … or ‘Are you trying to follow in your mom’s footsteps? Are you going to have 19?’” she said in a YouTube video on Thursday.
While Seewald said she’s “not going to have 19 kids,” she hailed her mom, Michelle Duggar, as her “hero” and “role model.”
“Her patience, her love, her gentleness, her kind speech … She is the golden example of a mother in my opinion,” Seewald said. “So, when people say, ‘Do you want to be like your mother?’ I’m like, ‘Yes please, Lord help me.’”
The 37-year-old admitted that she and her husband have never settled on a specific number of children, but said they have no plans on having more.
“We weren’t really at a place when we got married thinking, ‘Oh we’ll just have one or two,’” she explained. “We were kind of maybe somewhere in the middle range. I think we had thrown out the number seven or something like that.”
Despite the backlash, the soon-to-be mother of six says she’s focused on her health and making sure each child is taken care of.
“We just take it one at a time,” she said. “I always say in pregnancy or the early postpartum phase, I’m not really in a place to make a decision whether we’re going to have another [child] or we’re done. And Ben’s concern is always, first of all, my health. And then also our capacity to care for each one and love them well and help raise them up into adulthood.”
The couple announced in March they were expecting once again, posting photos on Instagram of the sonograms paired with the caption, “Halfway to holding you in our arms!”
