Credit: Amy Duggar/Instagram
December 2025
During a December 2025 appearance on Matt and Abby Howard’s “Unplanned” podcast, Amy described her relationships with her cousins growing up as “surface-level” because of their vastly different lifestyles.
“We never really talked about the things we were struggling with or what God was doing in our life or whatever it would be. It just wasn’t ever talked about. It was more of just like what [the Duggar family’s show 19 Kids and Counting] was doing and just how’s the weather and ‘I like your skirt’ and that kind of stuff,” she said.
As Amy’s relationship with Jill has blossomed in recent years, she’s learned what true “cousinship” is about.
“Cousinship is so much fun. Like, we can joke around and laugh and we have inside jokes,” she explained. “And just to know that, like, our [5-year-old son Daxton] is safe in their presence and that their [sons Israel, 9, Samuel, 7, and Frederick, 2] have spent the night with us. And like, we take care of them and love them and know what they like and the hobbies they have and all of that. It’s such a different way of living compared to really what we had growing up.”
Amy also revealed that she hasn’t seen most of her cousins in “years.”
“I realized I needed to have boundaries set with my family and the situation because of the lies and things that were told. Um, and it’s nothing against my cousins,” she said. “It’s just, it’s one of those things that like, I don’t want to ride a fence, you know? Like, I’m not [someone] that’s going to [be like], ‘Oh, I love you and them and everything’s great,’ ’cause it’s not.”