Courtesy of Jill Duggar/Instagram (1); Getty Images (2)
Jill Duggar Will Reveal How Dad Jim Bob Reacted to Her Wearing Pants in Upcoming Book
Jill Dillard (née Duggar) is set to reveal how her father, Jim Bob Duggar, reacted to her decision to wear pants in her upcoming memoir, Counting the Cost, a source familiar with the book exclusively tells In Touch.
Jill, 32, will also discuss how growing up in the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) affected her childhood, and one of the ways was the strict modesty rules that Jim Bob, 58, and Michelle Duggar enforced for their daughters. One of the rules in their modesty dress code included only wearing skirts that went past their knees.
After spending years questioning the IBLP, Jill and her husband, Derick Dillard, started attending a church outside of the organization. Jill noticed women in the congregation wore pants and less conservative clothing, the source tells In Touch. Deciding to incorporate less strict styles into her own wardrobe, Jill wore leggings during a park day with Derick, 34, and their sons. She unexpectedly ran into some of her siblings, who informed Jim Bob that she was wearing pants.
Just days later, Jim Bob confronted Jill about her choice to wear leggings, the insider tells In Touch. While Jill’s sister Jinger Vuolo (née Duggar) had already started her journey with wearing pants, Jim Bob explained that Jinger, 29, called him and Michelle, 56, with arguments from the Bible before she added pants to her wardrobe.
According to the source familiar with Jill’s upcoming book, the Duggar patriarch concluded the conversation by giving Jill a book that explained the importance of dressing modestly. The insider shares that Jill was “embarrassed” and “humiliated” by the interaction, despite the fact that the conversation only took place between her and her father.
Jill’s upcoming book, Counting the Cost, will not mark the first time she has discussed her parents’ modest rules.
In the 2014 book, Growing Up Duggar, Jill, Jinger, Jana Duggar and Jessa Duggar explained the reasoning behind their parents’ rule of forbidding pants. “We do not dress modestly because we are ashamed of the body God has given us; quite the contrary,” they wrote at the time. “We realize that our body is a special gift from God and that He intends for it to be shared only with our future husband.”
By 2020, however, Jill had started to publicly change her tune. Three years after leaving the family’s spinoff show, Counting On, Jill revealed via YouTube that she started wearing pants after setting “healthy boundaries” with her family. For his part, Derick said at the time that not being so closely associated with the Duggar family’s TLC shows gave Jill the confidence she needed to dress how she wanted. “We were able to be ourselves,” he said at the time.
In the same video, Jill confessed that she always thought jeans were cute, “But I think that some of my decisions that we’ve made … even if I liked something before, I wouldn’t have done it because maybe of the backlash I would get or something … from people close to me or something. I just hate confrontation so maybe I would’ve avoided it.”
Jill has come a long way since, and she and Jinger now aren’t the only Duggar girls that have started wearing pants on a regular basis. Over the years, several of the sisters have shocked fans by ditching their long skirts for jeans including Jana, Jessa and Joy-Anna Duggar.
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