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A couple of months ago, Jinger Duggar and Joy-Anna Duggar discussed their latest family disgrace.
But they have more in common than, unfortunately, sharing both Josh and Joseph as brothers.
It was not always so.
Now, the sisters described being kept apart as children. They could only really bond as adults.
‘The bond was not really there’
On the Wednesday, July 29 episode of the Jinger & Jeremy podcast, Jinger chatted with Joy-Anna about their friendship — and how, as children, they weren’t close.
“I would say we were close in proximity but not like relationally,” Joy-Anna characterized.
She added: “The bond was not really there.”
“There was an age gap, and I felt like the age gap was segregated by sections,” Jinger assessed. Both women are about 4 years apart.
She added: “[Our family was] separated by an age gap of the older kids, the middle kids, the younger kids. I was, kind of, in the older section for many years [of] the six oldest.”
So, even though Jinger is 32 and Joy is 28, their 4-year age gap had their notorious parents sorting them differently.
“I was in the older half, and then I just felt like you were one of the little kids and you were sandwiched between, you know, a lot of boys or whatever,” Jinger described.
“We also [have] different personalities,” she continued.
“But I’m saying when you were little, that’s what I remember,” Jinger said. “Like, you’re much younger than me. It’s crazy ‘cause you’re not.”
In an ordinary household, they might have been free to spend more time together. But, in the Duggar cult, they might as well have been neighbors rather than sisters.
‘I feel like I do talk to you the most’
“[We were] very, very different as kids,” Joy recalled.
“I think part of it is because I was so, like, ‘I will not be a girly girl. I will not wear nice clothes,’” she said of her childhood.
Joy elaborated: “We just had very different interests and I was like, ‘I will never understand why they like shopping so much.’”
Being an adult has changed things, as she admitted: “But, it’s grown on me.”
It is very common for people to enjoy certain things — including but not limited to clothing — more when they are adults who are able to choose things for themselves. An outfit that you like at 28 is very different from an outfit that your famously poorly dressed mother likes when you’re 10.
These days, as adult women, both Jinger and Joy feel closer than they were as kids. Even though Jinger is in California.
“We live so far away, but out of all the sisters, I feel like I do talk to you the most,” Joy-Anna told her older sister.
“We are very, maybe, just chill and we are who we are,” she added. “I feel like we’re in the same season of life.”
As we have explained in the past, “season” is a peculiar evangelical expression to refer to eras, chapters, or other segments of one’s life.
“At least for me on my side, I feel like I can just pick the phone up, and there’s no pressure to talk to you,” she continued. “But also when we do it’s, like, there’s been no time between our conversations.”