Michelle Duggar: 19 Kids, 19 Different Personalities

This post was written by Michelle Duggar. Photo: Jackson Duggar, age 7, credit DSC.

As the mom of 19 kids I get asked a lot if the kids' personalities began to come out early on, and my answer is always, oh boy, yes! I really think kids become really very expressive as early as nine months, but I think probably around 14 months or so you notice a lot of personality coming out even more. I think when they're tiny, though, you can kind of see their personalities -- they're just kind of not as out there yet.

I can tell my mellow ones, and then I can see my really energetic, busy ones. And you can really tell it from the very beginning. But I think they're able to express it so much more when they get more verbal and when they're able to do more things motor-skills-wise. Some may not be as verbal, but they may be able to do more physical things.

And some of them are earlier bloomers -- Jana [Ed. note: now 21 years old] walked at 9 months, whereas some of the others waited until they were 12 months to walk. So it just depends. Some people say that it depends on the gender, but I think it depends on the size of the child sometimes. And then again, maybe it's their personality.

Some of our kids were a little bit more chunky babies -- they really looked like cute little butterballs -- and they tended to not be early walkers.They kind of rolled around instead of walking around and getting really good at climbing.

And so I noticed it didn't really make much of a difference whether they were a boy or girl in our family. It's whichever one is leaner and more apt to be able to climb, grab and pull, and get a hold of stuff to pull their body weight up; they usually take off faster!

We have a little bitty baby doll stroller that you put little dolls in, but it's open all the way on the front. So our Jordyn, who is 29 months, she sat down in that little baby doll stroller and fit just as tight as a bug. Josie [Ed. note: 16 months old] grabbed a hold of the back of that baby doll stroller and started pushing Jordyn across the room. And we could not believe it.

She has such strong legs and arms. That was quite a load for her to pull and I just had to get that on video because I was like, "Man, she has iron legs, this baby!"

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Visit the 19 Kids and Counting homepage
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