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Jana Duggar is not your typical older sister.

In fact, for her younger siblings, she’s looked at more as a parental figure than as a sibling.

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As you’re probably aware, Jana is still single and still lives at home.

That’s not so unusual for a 30-year-old in 2020, but there are several factors that make Jana’s scenario different from that of your typical millennial.

For starters, Duggar women are raised to believe that procreation is their primary (read: only) reason for being.

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So Jana’s decision not to marry young and crank out a bunch of babies has come under very close scrutiny over the years.

But that doesn’t mean she’s taken the path of least resistance.

No, another thing that makes Jana’s situation atypical is the fact that she essentially functions as a stay-at-home mom to her younger siblings.

Currently, 10 Duggar kids still live with their parents, including Jana.

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Jana shares a bedroom with the youngest four (all girls) and serves as a disciplinarian to all nine.

The Duggars have made no secret of this.

They started out using a "buddy system" under which each older sibling was assigned a younger brother or sister to look after.

Eventually, as Jana showed herself to be the most natural caretaker and the older siblings started to leave the nest, the system developed into the current one, in which Jana is basically the head of the household.

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And some believe she’s taken to her abusing her power.

The latest "evidence" of this came this week when Jana and Jill got together to help brother James celebrate his 19th birthday.

“We had fun celebrating my brother James’ birthday earlier today with some breakfast and mini golf,” Jana captioned some pics from the occasion.

YouTuber Katie Joy examined the photos and concluded that there’s something more sinister going on here.

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According to Joy, the gathering was supposed to consist of only Jill, James, and Jill’s kids.

The problem, it seems, is that Jim Bob doesn’t want Jill spending time alone with his kids.

As you may know, Jim Bob has been feuding with Derick Dillard, Jill’s husband, for several months now.

And there’s reason to believe that he’s worried Jill might poison his other kids against him.

Photo via Instagram

Joy took this a step further and concluded that Jana crashed the mini-golf party so that she could spy on Jim Bob’s behalf.

“Jim Bob has this massive reluctance for Jill to have any influence over her siblings,” Joy said.

Now, that may sound like she’s taking a massive leap — and she is — but we do know that the Duggars spy on their children.

Michelle recently opened up about using an app to monitor all of their internet use, even after they’ve reached adulthood.

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“It will give us a report each day and I can see, at a glance from an email, any questionable things or sites [they visited],” Michelle said at the time.

“It opens up whatever’s been viewed, and so I appreciate that. That has been a real help.”

So it stands to reason that Michelle and Jim Bob would also use Jana in their surveillance efforts.

But that’s not the only reason that fans suspect Jana is being a less-than-perfect sister these days.

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Duggars returned to TV last week with the season premiere of Counting On, and some viewers were upset by what they saw as evidence of Jana mistreating her youngest siblings.

"I have put off posting about the scene between Jana and Josie where Jana was cruel and abusive because i was sickened how she can treat her with such cruelty," one fan wrote on Facebook.

"She treated Josie like she was a fly who she was glad to squash! Please dont allow the Duggars to treat her this way and speak up to TLC."

Jana Duggar on Counting On Photo
(TLC)

Many fans agreed with the assessment and felt that Jana has taken her role as disciplinarian much too far.

Some even suggested that she’s bitter about the fact that she wasn’t allowed to marry and have kids, and she’s taking it out on her siblings.

We don’t know about all that, but it does seem clear that — just like everything else involving the Duggars — Jana isn’t as pristinely wholesome as she’s been made out to be.