Daily Archive

What is the deal with all the shows with lots of kids?

I grew up in a large family with four older brothers and one younger sister. From my point of view there was never enough of anything; I felt like I didn’t get enough of the foods that I liked because my older brothers would always eat up the good stuff. There wasn’t enough attention because when my mother wasn’t working she was obsessed with keeping the house clean. There was never enough money because being a single mother of six kids my mother had to make a dollar stretch so while some kids were designer down I was lucky to get knock offs of designer knock offs. Basically we were poor.

When it came time to have kids I knew from the jump that I wanted one, maybe two but no more than that. I wanted to be able to raise my children with not a lot of material things but at least be able to give them my attention and love. And it’s so far so good, with one natural child and one step. My husband and I are debating on having one more child which would be odd considering there will be a big age gap between it and the other two. But for me that’s enough: a small family, not a lot of kids.

So tell me why I am obsessed with the TV show Jon and Kate plus 8?

The show is about a couple who had trouble conceiving so turned to aid of a fertility doctor. The first time the wife got pregnant she had twin girls but not content with just the two they decide to go for one more and ended up with sextuplets. I love the show. I love the kids. I make sure I watch the show every Tuesday night on TLC or catch it the next week on Discovery Health. I’ll even watch the marathons. I’m somewhat addicted to the show and I don’t even like reality shows.

J doesn’t get it. He’ll walk into the room and say, “Turn off those whining, bratty kids.” The kids are always whining or crying or screaming on the show and Kate is always having a meltdown about a spot on someone’s clothes or an orchestrated family event not going as smoothly as she planned. Jon is just Jon.

Its one of a few programs that TLC and Discovery Health shows as a permanent series. The other shows in heavy rotation have families with multiple births or just large families like the awe-inspiring Duggar family with 17 children and counting. Sometimes I watch the shows and think how environmentally stressful it is to have all those children. Although they deal a lot with hand-me downs and Kate Gosselin is a stickler for eating organic food and recycling but large families still consume a lot. There’s the water for the clothes and cooking and to cart around a large group of kids most of the families drive big vans. A couple of families use refurbished yellow school buses as their family station wagons. It’s probably safe to assume that have 8+ kids won’t make you a “green” family.

Another family that I like to watch that only has one show but airs every few months has a German wife in a second marriage. The first six children from her first marriage are half black; the second sets are white and within that she has three sets of twins. It was while watching these children, oohing and aaahing over the pudgy fingers, the rosy cheeks and young baby eyes full of wonder that I realized that except for this one all of the families were white. The majority of the families like the Duggars seem to be evangelical Christians and although they aren’t proselytizing with their air time I wonder if there is a hidden agenda among the countless smiles and hugs the families are putting out over the airwaves.

In an age where Americans think the ideal family size has 2.5 children I sit in wonder of these supersized families. They have taken God’s command to be fruitful and multiply to medieval levels. Although the children seem happy and loved on these shows I wonder what happens when the cameras are off. Do they get one on one time with their parents on a regular basis? Are they encouraged to be individuals with their own minds? What educational level have the parents achieved and what do their children aspire to, especially the girls? What if someone would want to marry a person of color or a person of a dissimilar faith? Or, worse, what would happen if one of their children came home to say they were gay?     The problem with growing up in a small community, this one being your own family, is that certain expectations are held, but what happens when they aren’t met? Ostracizing?

I envision these family trees with branches reaching fifty different ways and then those branches doing the same until there is nothing but a big tangle up above like there is below. On one installment of the Duggar family the oldest son expressed an interest in the daughter of a family friend. The daughter comes from a large family, too. A lot of the large families interact with other large families, which seems to insure that this way of life will continue into the future.

And even while watching this I can’t stop watching. I want to see how the mom plans the day for a family of 13. I don’t like housework, but it can be a spectator sport as I watch one mother mop her floor for the second time that day. Their children aren’t lazy internet addicts either. All of them, boys as well as the girls, take part in cleaning the house and watching after their siblings. That is what draws me into the shows; that is what touches me the most. Order, as well as love, rules their households and whatever else critics may say, there are two parents (and a whole bunch of deputized parents) in the home. Everyone is always shooting out the axiom, “It takes a village…” well, these families are their own villages.

I have been longing to see more minority families. The Gosselin family kind of counts as a family of color (Jon is half Korean) but it’s not the same. The Discovery Channel must had heard my inner plea because tonight the show “Then Came Six” debuts. The show is about a black family with seven children, a 12 year old single and toddler sextuplets. There’s probably going to be a lot of crying, sighing, frantic moments and meltdowns. And I will watch them all.