You probably know Jessa Duggar Seewald as one of the 19 kids from TLC’s hit series “19 Kids and Counting.” Now, she’s a cast member on the show Counting Down, which chronicles several of the Duggars in their own journey as parents.
Jessa, 24, is the mom of three adorable kiddos: 4-year-old Spugeon, 2-year-old Henry, and most recent to the crew, 6-month old Ivy. And like every mom of three youngsters, she’s got everything totally together, right?
Of course not! Even though she’s in the limelight fairly often, Jessa always keeps it real. Back before she had Ivy, she posted a carousel of photos on her Instagram with a picture of just how messy her house was at a current moment in time.
The photos showed some pretty real-life moments of a young mom—laundry piled on a guest bed, a dusty side table, dried spit-up in the bed that Jessa says she’s “slept on for who knows how many nights,” handprints on the mirror, piles of dirty diapers, toys strewn all over the floor, a sink full of dirty dishes, oil splatters on the stove, handprints, dust, grime, dirt, the list goes on and on.
“Some of ya’ll may be thinking, ‘C’mon now, it only takes a few minutes to dust or wipe down a mirror,” Jessa writes in her caption. “My reminder today has been that the same is true of the needs of the little people in our lives. I might think ‘I don’t have time right now.’ But it only takes a few minutes…here and there.”
She goes on to talk about the things she prioritizes over a clean home: “A few minutes here, spent cuddling a fussy baby. A few minutes there, signing lullabies as a toddler drifts off to sleep. Five minutes here, to read a book. Ten minutes there, engaging in imaginative play. Not trying to put a clean house against interaction with kids—sometimes both are possible, though often they do seem in opposition to one another.”
We get it—Jessa deems quality time with the youngins more important than having clean sheets. And we love that she’s so real and raw on a platform that’s usually meant to serve as a highlight reel.
However, many of her followers didn’t feel quite the same. In fact, the majority of her comments on the post are mom shaming her about how “gross” her home is, some even going so far as to call her “lazy.”
“Okay, I get it, I really do, but [this is] seriously nasty. The diapers and the piss on the bed? You’re just lazy,” one person wrote to her.
“I know being a parent is exhausting, but I could never let my home get this bad,” another commenter wrote. “It takes a lot of work but getting it to this point would take months.”
“Excuse me while I go vomit,” wrote another.
You get the drift.
Jessa addressed the comments on her photo on an episode of “Counting On,” stating that she was just trying to show more of the “reality” of her life than the perfect stuff.
After welcoming Ivy into the Seewald family, we wonder if the house is even dirtier than before? All we know is this family of five is adorable, no matter how messy! Check out the video below for more on Ivy’s arrival.
What are your thoughts on Jessa’s dirty-home post? Can you relate, or do you think this is *too* messy, even for a mom of young children?