访谈录 Interview 2007-08-13&08-15, 大家庭：一家19口的生活

And Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar are at their home in our consult¹ along with their 17 children, including baby Jennifer. Good morning everyone, nice to see you.

Good morning.

First of all, how's Jennifer doing, and mom how are you doing?

Jennifer is doing wonderful. She is sleeping.

-Which is always good for a mom. Hey, Michelle, you have deli(very), have 15 deliveries² because you have 2 sets of twins, does delivering now become somewhat³ hohum for you?

No, I, I honestly can say labor⁴ is called labor for a good reason. It’s hard work.

Yeah, I can't, well, you certainly have more experience than most people, what is with all the "J" names?

It just kinda happened that way, we started out with Joshua, then we had twins, so we named them Jane and John David and after that, we didn't wanna leave any one out, we didn't know if we would just have one more, and so we kinda stuck with the "J" names.

Jim Bob, what's the, what's the question you are most often asked when people find out that you now have 17 children?

Er, well, they always ask don't you know what causes this? Are you Catholic⁵ or Mormon? (Are they all yours.) Yeah, are they all yours? Is this a school group?

Let me, let me just tell people that you are deeply⁶ religious⁷ people. You consider each one of these children to be a gift from God, but I guess (yes.) a lot of people would ask at what point do you have enough gifts?

Well, I've always left that up to Michelle. And I would love more, we will wait and see, take it one at a time, maybe two at a time, in our case.

Can you offer though, Michelle and Jim Bob, can you offer all 17 children, the kind of individual attention, that parents, say, of 2 or 3 children, can I, may I understand there is a chart in the kitchen that allows the children to sign up for one-on-one time with mom. I mean, how do you see that, is that healthy for the children?

You know, we home-school our children and we made that decision years ago, and it's been one of the best decisions we've made for our family. We spend a lot of time together day in and day out, and we have, er, long heart-to-heart talks, with our older children, and so I really think that, um, for our family, it works⁸.

So we,let me just make sure, I've got Josh and Jill and Jinger and Josiah with microphones⁹ on, kid, guy, kid, do you ever feel gypped, Do you ever feel jealous¹⁰ of families with 2 or 3 children in, in fact, in terms of the amount of time those kids get to spend with their parents?

No, no ..
It never comes up?

No, I don't think it ever comes up. I'm, I mean I've been around since, since we started having children, I guess, I've just kind of been used to it, and I've always enjoyed it, and alway thought it was a lot of fun. you've always got somebody to play with, you've always got somebody that you can ,you know, hang out with, that if you ever have, if you ever need anything you can always go to somebody, and it just, it's always a lot of fun, we are like a, just, we're very very close as a family, so we really enjoy that.

Jill, you are the one who is in charge of making lunch...

1 consult   

vi.商讨，商量，协商，会诊；vt.向…请教，查阅，考虑

参考例句：

• I wish to consult you on a few questions.我有几个问题向您领教。
• Parents can consult the teachers on children.家长可以向老师询问孩子们的情况。

2 deliveries   

投递( delivery的名词复数 )； [法律]（正式）交付； 分娩； 表演

参考例句：

• Deliveries of mail could be delayed because of cost-cutting. 由于削减成本，邮件的递送可能会延迟。
• We have developed rapid order processing to expedite deliveries to customers. 我们已创造了快速处理订单的方法以便迅速将货物送达顾客。

3 somewhat   

pron.一些，某物；adv.多少，几分

参考例句：

• The cake we made was somewhat of a failure.我们做的蛋糕不大成功。
• The two office buildings are somewhat alike in appearance.这两座办公楼在外形上有点相似。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 catholic   

adj.天主教的；n.天主教徒

参考例句：

• The Pope is the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church.教皇是罗马天主教的最高领袖。
• She was a devoutly Catholic.她是一个虔诚地天主教徒。

6 deeply   

adv.深刻地，在深处，深沉地

参考例句：

• I do feel deeply the strength of the collective.我确实深深地感到了集体的力量。
• We're deeply honoured that you should agree to join us.您能同意加入我们，我们感到很荣幸。

7 religious   

adj.宗教性的，虔诚的，宗教上的；n.修道士，出家人

参考例句：

• She is very religious person who goes to church every Sunday.她十分虔诚，每个星期天都上教堂。
• It is hard for me to reject religious beliefs.要我抛弃自己的宗教信仰是困难的。

8 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

9 microphones   

n.扩音器，麦克风( microphone的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They descended from the plane into a forest of microphones and cameras. 他们从飞机上走下来，迎接他们的是数不清的麦克风和照相机。 来自辞典例句
• The music was amplified with microphones. 音乐声通过麦克风被放大。 来自辞典例句

10 jealous   

adj.妒忌的，猜忌的；精心守护的

参考例句：

• He was jealous when he discovered that she loved someone else.当他发现她爱别人的时候，他吃醋了。
• An honorable Chinese citizen should be jealous of his own rights.一名光荣的中国公民应当珍惜自己的公民权利。