Jill Duggar isn’t holding back when it comes to being real about the dynamic between her and her parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.
When asked about their relationship by a follower on Saturday, November 2, Jill, 33, wrote on her Instagram Story, “Complicated.” She shared a pink heart emoji and added, “I feel like we are in a rebuilding phase now with healthy boundaries still in place. We try to hang out whenever it works well and we have the bandwidth to navigate things.”
The Counting On star hasn’t shied away from sharing the truth about her familial relationships following the release of her 2023 book, Counting the Cost, and the docuseries Shiny Happy People, which she appeared in alongside her husband of 10 years, Derick Dillard. The doc dissects the Duggars’ involvement in the controversial Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) religion, while Jill’s memoir shares her own difficult experience growing up as one of the 19 Duggar kids.
She previously revealed she hadn’t seen her parents in over a year on a January episode of the “Unplanned Podcast.”
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“I’ve heard that they did [read it],” Jill told hosts Abby and Matt Howard of her memoir. “I heard they, like, listened to it on audiobook or something. I don’t know. … They’re my parents and I’m gonna tread lightly.”
Jill acknowledged that she didn’t want to “create more controversy” with her extended family. “It’s kind of like when you get together at the holidays, and there are just certain things that you don’t, like, just want to bring up,” she said. “It’s probably a sore subject.”
Jill — the fourth child and second daughter of Christian baptist fundamentalists Jim Bob, 59, and Michelle, 58 — was first featured on TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting before it was canceled in 2015. She and Derick, 35, later starred on a spinoff titled Counting On, but left the series in 2017. (Counting On was eventually canceled in 2021 following her brother Josh Duggar‘s arrest on child pornography charges. He was convicted and is serving more than 12 years in federal prison.)
“In [Counting the Cost], I talk about the shift of going from feeling that pressure, being OK with having a lot of children, in that belief system that I grew up in,” Jill explained on Christy Carlson Romano‘s “Vulnerable” podcast in October 2023. “To then having the shift of being like, ‘Do I trust in God with the number of children that I’m supposed to have?’ could also mean trusting Him if he doesn’t give us 20 kids.”
Derick also mentioned the “toxic” hierarchy in the family’s IBLP religion, where you’re seen as “less if you have less kids.”
“But even your parents have said, ‘Whoever has the most kids gets the house,’” he stated, with Jill chiming in that her mom and dad were “half-joking.”
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Jill and Derick, who share three sons — Israel, 9, Samuel, 6, and Freddy, 2 — have been in mourning after the stillbirth of their daughter, Isla Marie, earlier this year. The couple also experienced a pregnancy loss in 2021.
It appeared the Duggars set any of their differences aside to honor Isla Marie at a memorial in April, as Jim Bob and Michelle could be seen in photos shared by Jill from the baby’s funeral. They were spotted observing pink balloons being released into the air.
“Isla Marie Dillard, ‘planted on earth to bloom in heaven,’” Jill captioned a carousel of photos on April 24, adding a Bible verse, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made… (Psalm 139:13-14).”
