The stars of 19 Kids and Counting have slowly been increasing their social media presence, and Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar recently got brave enough to share a few Facebook photos that will immediately make fans think of their disgraced son Josh. However, Josh and Anna Duggar are conspicuously missing from the Facebook post in question.
According to the Daily Mail , 19 Kids and Counting stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar recently shared a few cute birthday photos of their grandson Michael on the Duggar Family Facebook page. Four-year-old Michael is Josh and Anna Duggar’s second child, but neither parent appears in his birthday pictures. The photos are Jim Bob and Michelle’s first social media mention of Josh Duggar’s family since the couple issued a response to In Touch Weekly ‘s bombshell report on the Duggars’ dark sexual molestation secret .
“This boy is 4 years old today!” the Duggars captioned the series of Michael photos. “He is clever and he is kind. There was a time we could not imagine anything as amazing than being parents. Now, we are grandparents too and we absolutely love everything about it! Happy, happy birthday Michael! Grandma and Grandpa Duggar love you so much!”
Josh and Anna Duggar’s youngest son Marcus also celebrated a birthday recently, but his grandparents didn’t share any well wishes on Facebook when he turned two years old on June 2 — instead, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar let 19 Kids and Counting fans know that they would be talking to Megyn Kelly about their family’s sexual molestation scandal. After the Fox News interviews were over, it wasn’t long before Jill Duggar was back on Instagram informing her fans that baby Israel had just celebrated his two-month birthday. Jessa Duggar also broke her social media silence by sharing updates on her pregnancy.
While some Duggar fans might be delighted that the family is slowly increasing its social media presence back to pre-scandal levels, there’s still no word on whether 19 Kids and Counting has a future on TLC. As Adweek recently pointed out, things were looking pretty grim when the show’s advertisers started jumping ship, and it certainly didn’t help that the Duggars’ interviews with Megyn Kelly did nothing to improve their family’s image. However, a TLC insider told Adweek that the network isn’t giving up on 19 Kids and Counting just yet. The source compared Duggar critics to bloodthirsty “wolves,” so this is probably a good sign for the family.
“You don’t just throw them to the wolves because the wolves demand you to do that. They’re taking a breath and being respectful of people that they’ve worked with for a long time.”
The TLC insider believes that it’s not hurting the network to stay quiet about the status of 19 Kids , and obviously execs don’t want to lose their top-rated show.
In the meantime, longtime 19 Kids and Counting fans will be interested to see how the family responds to the birth of Josh and Anna Duggar’s next child. According to PEOPLE , the couple is expecting a baby girl who is due to arrive early in July, and usually Duggar births are a very big deal — they get PEOPLE covers, special video announcements, and tons of social media coverage. However, Josh might not want to remind the world that he’s a child molester who is about to become the father of another little girl.
Because of the sexual molestation scandal, Josh stepped down from his position at the Family Research Council, and Anna had to abruptly change her birth plans — she was expecting to give birth in Washington, D.C., but she and Josh moved back to Arkansas after Josh became jobless. Now some of Josh’s sisters/victims may end up helping Anna with her birth.
Do you think 19 Kids and Counting can be saved, and would you keep watching if the network decided not to cancel the show?
[Images via Duggar Family Facebook ]