Duggar Family Bans TV, Pets From Household

Duggars Ban TV, Animals

Nineteen kids? No problem. According to Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting," the secret to a successful marriage is pretty simple: ditch your TV and say no to pets.

"I grew up watching TV, but when we got married a doctor friend of ours encouraged us not to have a pet or a TV the first year of marriage. So we did that. For the first year we lived on love," Jim Bob tells me. "And after that someone gave us a TV and for the first three weeks we were both glued to it. Communications dropped off, we weren't talking as much and we couldn't believe the content on TV we didn't think was appropriate. This is detrimental to our marriage. We prayed about it and felt we had to pull it out of our house, which we did. And I would say that is one of the best things we have done for our family."

The couple admits they do now have a television in the house -- not to watch other reality shows, but to watch "wholesome" family programs on DVD.

"We do watch DVDs -- 'The Andy Griffith show,'" Jim Bob tells me. "We are very selective about what we watch. We actually don't watch broadcast TV."

And forget Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. Michelle's favorite actor is Kirk Cameron because he refuses to kiss anyone but his wife.

"I really appreciate what he stands for. He says whenever he plays roles and whatever movie he will not kiss another woman besides his wife," Michelle explains. "Whenever they have to do that they have figured it out that they will bring his wife in and he will kiss his wife and I'm so impressed. That's one of my kids' favorite actors."

Do you think having no TV explains all those kids?

"19 Kids and Counting" airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on TLC.

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