Courtesy of Joy-Anna Duggar and John David Duggar/Instagram
John David and Joy-Anna Duggar Reunite for Dance Lessons After Being Prohibited As Children
Joy-Anna Duggar and John David Duggar are doing things they never have before!
The Duggar siblings, along with their respective spouses, Austin Forsyth and Abbie Duggar, opted for fun dance lessons after formerly being forbidden as children by their parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.
“Date your spouse. My husband and I never learned to dance so when Austin gifted me with dance lessons I was ecstatic!” Joy-Anna, 26, captioned a video clip of her doing a fancy twirl with her husband. “Only a few lessons in so we’re still pretty stiff… BUT we’re getting it down. This week was the cha-cha!” In the background of the clip, fans were ecstatic to see John and Abbie hitting the same steps.
“Is that John and abbey in the background? What a great gift,” one user wrote. “Love it, glad to see John and Abby dancing too.”
Meanwhile, another observer was happy the couple were breaking down the barriers previously set by the Duggar parents’ strict modesty rules.
“So this made me SMILE!!! Humans were born to dance!!! We were meant to express that joy with each other and ourselves!!!” the user happily gushed under the photo. “I’m so happy that you all are learning this wonderful expression of happiness together!!”
Growing up, the Duggars were taught to live under the strict standards of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a non-denominational Christian organization, by their parents Jim Bob, 58, and Michelle, 57.
The organization, established by controversial figure Bill Gothard in 1961, focuses on “affirming God’s Word and its principles which are vital to one’s daily walk with Christ,” according to its official website. However, the organization has come under fire for its strict rules about the role of men and women. Apart from the limits on dancing and music, Michelle made the executive decision that all her daughters would grow up exclusively wearing long skirts and dresses.
“We do not dress modestly because we are ashamed of the body God has given us; quite the contrary,” the Duggar girls wrote in defense of the decision in their 2014 book Growing Up Duggar. “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.”
However as the women grew up, they started to branch off and make their own decisions. Jinger Duggar was one of the first to start living by her own rules and started wearing pants not long after she tied the knot with Jeremy Vuolo in 2016.
“My mom had always dressed us girls in skirts and dresses, a standard that was taken from Deuteronomy 22:5, which says, ‘A woman shall not wear a man’s garment.’ Modesty was a huge topic in our house, and we believed that wearing skirts instead of pants was a central part of being modest,” she addressed the topic in her 2021 book, The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God. “But I wanted to discover for myself what the Bible had to say.”
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