Counting On’s Jill Duggar Rocks Ripped Jeans While Celebrating Son Israel’s 1st Day of Public School
She’s forging her own path — and she’s doing it in denim. Jill Dillard (née Duggar) slipped into a pair of ripped jeans in order to celebrate her son Israel’s first day of public school. On Instagram, the Counting On alum shared an album of photos from the big day as both Izzy and his dad, Derick Dillard, prepared to start the semester off right.
“Happy first day of school for these two!” Jill, 29, captioned the post on Monday, August 24. “[First] day of Kindergarten for Israel, and [first] day of last year of law school for Derick!”
The Dillards announced in February that Israel, 5, would be heading to public school in the fall. Though all of the Duggar children were homeschooled by mom Michelle Duggar using materials like “wisdom booklets,” Derick, 31, went to public school when he was growing up. He and his wife first started hinting they were considering letting their kids follow in his footsteps in 2019 after previously gushing about what a “blessing” it was to have Jill homeschool their sons.
While discussing how she was teaching the toddlers, the mom of two admitted she and her husband would “maybe” send the boys to public school. “[We] probably will at some point for college,” she said in May 2019. However, fans didn’t expect that Israel would actually end up enrolling, especially not as early as Kindergarten.
Some followers weren’t supportive of the decision, but the parents stood their ground. When one commenter tried to warn the couple that public schools are “indoctrination centers for evil” that would teach Izzy “about every kind of sex,” they refused to engage with the sensational claims but promised they’d done their due diligence. “Thank you for your concern,” they wrote in response. “We do try to prayerfully consider each step we take and not just run on autopilot.”
Lately, Jill and Derick are making a point of living by their own rules instead of Jim Bob Duggar’s, especially amid the Dillards’ family feud with the 19 Kids and Counting patriarch. Though it’s taken them a long time to get as comfortable following their own path as they are now — the law school student has been open about the struggles they went through trying to quit the family’s TLC series — they started small. In 2018, Jill began wearing jeans and denim shorts, which went against her parents’ strict dress code. Now, she’s regularly rocking the rebellious style and looking good doing it, and she’s also worked in new daring wardrobe choices like leather leggings and updated bathing suits.
It’s clear the family has come a long way, and Jill donning ripped denim to bring her son to school is the perfect example of all the progress they’ve made.
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