Jinger Duggar Once Broke Down in Tears Because Her Friends Were Wearing Pants

Jinger Duggar’s strict religious upbringing set off some emotional moments for her growing up. The Arkansas native’s religion informed many of her decisions in her youth, including how she dressed.

Jinger grew up practicing the teachings of Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a non-denominational ministry closely tied to Christianity. Within the religion, the women in her family were not allowed to wear pants. 

Instead, the women in her family were only allowed to wear long skirts and dresses. She has since made the decision to leave those strict rules behind, but remembers how she felt in comparison to her peers who had more free choices in clothing.

“I remember when a couple close friends started wearing pants,” Jinger said in an April episode of her and husband Jeremy Vuolo’s Jinger & Jeremy podcast, adding “and I was so brokenhearted over it. I remember crying over one friend just thinking, ‘Why are they doing that?’ Without even asking or hearing them out as to why.”

She later began questioning their traditions. “You kind of start to not think twice about it until you are surrounded with other people who are conducting their lives differently,” she explained, adding, “and then that’s something where you start to think more about, ‘OK, why do I do what I do?’”

Her sister, Joy-Anna Duggar, who was a guest on the episode shared similar sentiments, explaining that she felt she was missing out on something when she started to see her friends make the big switch. “To me, it was a big deal when somebody that always wore skirts started wearing pants,” Joy-Anna recalled. “Then I was like, ‘Oh, well they know better.’ That was my attitude behind it.”

Jinger previously expressed her past desire to follow the traditions. “I wanted to follow what the Bible said,” she said, noting, “and as I searched the Scriptures for answers, I never found a passage specifically forbidding women from wearing pants.”