Jinger Duggar couldn't learn 'immodest' swimming as a child

Jinger Duggar didn't learn to swim as a child.

And yes, the famous rules of modesty of his family and his sect played a role in depriving him of this experience.

This experience and such others.

Jinger has since started learning to swim. Now, she writes, it’s finally safe. Jim Bob's rules would have put her at risk of drowning.

Jinger Duggar wanted to learn to swim as a child

In his new book, People Pleaser: freeing yourself from the burden of imaginary expectationsJinger Duggar wrote about not being allowed to learn how to swim.

Hijabian Muslims who seek to express their faith through their dress may wear different types of swimwear, such as the burkini. But in the Duggar sect, IBLP rules require women to wear dresses or skirts that fall to their knees or higher. And tight clothing was forbidden.

“Ever since I was little, I wanted to know what it felt like to push myself through the water, swing my arms and kick my legs to keep myself afloat. But I didn’t know how to do it,” Jinger wrote. “Here’s what I knew for sure: long skirts weren’t designed for learning to swim.”

In her book, Jinger added a tongue-in-cheek line that “the laws of physics, gravity, and buoyancy don't work well with long skirts.”

Technically, Duggar's rules didn't specifically prohibit her from learning to swim. However, the rules made this impossible. (This is a great analogy to explain discriminatory laws like voter suppression that do not, on paper, target any demographic group)

“Another way to say ‘swimmer in a long skirt’ is ‘one who sinks,’” she joked. “And because long skirts were the only swimming fashion available to me as a child, and because I had a weakness for not wanting to sink, the skill of swimming was not something I acquired during this period.”

Not learning to swim changed Jinger Duggar's relationship with water

She wrote that being around “all kinds of water” made her “scared” because she knew she couldn't swim if she needed to. Anyone can slip and fall at any time. And a lot surprising places can be flooded without warning.

However, Jinger doesn't want the children in her growing family to feel this way.

“I want (my children) to know how to swim. I want them to know that I can too,” Jinger said. “But I was still so afraid, thinking back to the few times I had tried it as a child, the long skirt enveloping my flailing legs.”

Since welcoming her children, Jinger has started taking swimming lessons. However, she was initially “hesitant” to take the plunge (literally and metaphorically) because she was “afraid of failing.”

This ties in with the central elements of his book about his people-pleasing tendencies. Being overly concerned with other people's perceptions can have many causes, but it is a very common trait among people from toxic and abusive households.

“Here we are, still, my swimming lessons, taking it one step at a time (or maybe I should say baby lap by baby lap),” Jinger continued in her book.

Swimming is just the tip of the iceberg

Somehow the Duggar kids themselves haven't talked about it — not in any vlog post, memoir, or documentary interview — growing up in a fundamentalist sect robbed them of many facets of their personality.

They were incapable of making real choices for themselves. In most cases this lasted until they were married.

And, in Jinger's case, one small element of her story was that it was literally dangerous for her to learn to swim as a child. Usually, mandatory “modesty” policies are simply dehumanizing and oppressive. In this case, it was a security risk.