Jinger Duggar Details ‘Crazy’ Routines Her Family Followed amid Reality Show Fame — Including Walking in Line Like Ducks

The reality star opened up about feeling “nervous” to film the Duggars’ first TV show in 2004 as she recalled the unique methods they used to keep order while traveling with 19 kids

Jinger Duggar Vuolo is detailing what went on behind the scenes of her family’s many reality shows.

On a recent episode of The Jinger & Jeremy Podcast, which she hosts with her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, the pair rewatched the 2004 premiere of 14 Children and Pregnant Again!. Marking the beginning of the Duggars’ 17 years on TV, Jinger recalled how they prepared to bring cameras into their lives.

“We cleaned like crazy,” she revealed. “Because like my mom always kept our house pretty clean — we had our chores. Our house was not terribly messy all the time. I mean, it would get messy, but then we’d always clean it up.”

The attention to detail is something Jinger said she will never forget. “I just remember we cleaned the baseboards because we had white baseboards at our house. And I remember we had to scrub them very well, and our white walls, because they would get dirty. We would do that, but before [cameras] came.”

When it came to incentives, she said her parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, would make up games to get her and her siblings to follow their rules of appearing on TV.

“[My dad] realized some of the kids were not wanting to buckle,” she noted of when they would all gather in the family’s 15-passenger van. “Whoever the first person was to say ‘click’ or something like that, I think that is how it goes, you would get a penny. And then that would add up over time, because every time you hopped in the van, it was like a game. It was really a game.”

“They had a little running tally of that too for little chores that we would do, like cleaning out the van,” she added. “We would get however much money they wanted to pay us for cleaning all the junk out of the van.”

Just 10 years old when the Duggars started filming, Jinger admitted she was “nervous” to introduce herself to the world and suddenly have strangers fill her home.

“In that time, having the camera in your face was one thing,” she began. “But then they would say, after that was done, then they were like, ‘Yeah, try not to look at the camera. Just do your thing.’”

“It just would happen,” she continued. “We weren’t used to that concept.”

Over the years, the Duggar family continued to grow, ultimately consisting of 19 children. When it came to assembling in a line for the opening credits in 14 Children and Pregnant Again!, Jinger said that was one thing they all knew exactly how to do.

“We would line up all the time. If we went out, we would get in ‘code O,’ ” she explained. “So that means birth order. It’s ‘code order,’ I guess. I never actually understood what that meant. But they would say, ‘code O!’ And then we’d hop in line, birth order, youngest in the front, oldest in the back, and we would walk around like that, like a pack of ducks.”

When Jeremy asked what would happen if they weren’t in the correct order, Jinger quickly responded, “We’d be like, ‘Hop in line. What are you doing?’ “

The size of the family is what drew attention to the Duggars in the first place, and Jinger shared that it wasn’t until she started became a mother that she truly understand how unusual her life was.

“We did a lot of things differently than even your normal family,” she said. “Whenever we would go out, we would often drive a shuttle bus — for years!”

“So I think that’s the fascination. Also, my mom having all of the kids is huge,” she acknowledged. “And we were all homeschooled. So some of those aspects are very unique.”