20 Kids and Counting

I’m sure many of you are familiar with The Duggar Family and their super-sized family featured on 19 Kids and Counting. Just yesterday, they announced that Mama-Duggar was pregnant with their twentieth child, thus sending television producers scrambling to change the name of the reality series once again.


Go to any website or blog about the Duggar Family, and you’ll see thousands of comments from folks weighing in and expressing their opinion about this family. The bottom line is, we love to hate the Duggars.

I’m no different.

A friend of mine and I often watch the program together over the phone (she lives in Tulsa) and I’m usually there making snide comments. Yes, I’ll admit it.

I would love to see one of the older boys go off to Africa to be a missionary and then return with a same-sex partner named Umbutu. I can’t wait for one of the girls to grow up and write a torrid, tell-all best seller, Growing Up Duggar. I secretly want Daddy-Duggar to be caught having an affair with a stripper in Little Rock, get divorced, and be slapped with a fifteen-thousand-dollars-a-month child support order.

I’m bad.

I couldn’t help but to caption this photo of them:

But in reality, I had to take an honest look at why I love to hate the Duggars. The honest truth is, I’m jealous of them.

Yes, the four older girls are adults now, still living at home with no career and most of the child care duties falls on their shoulders. But they also get to tour the country on book tours, meet lots of adoring fans, and let’s face it: Jana, Jessa, Jinger, and Jill are celebrities. What’s not to like?

I’m jealous.

The older boy, John-David, is 22, still lives at home and putters around with a towing business. He's got it easy. When I was that age, I eked out a living as a keypunch operator and had to supplement that paltry salary with another part-time job.

I’m jealous.

I’m sure we see a very sanitized view of their life each week. I’m sure they have their share of dysfunction we never get to see. For one thing, that bedroom with ten boys in it is bound to smell like a rotting weasel.

Yes, all the Duggar kids seem to live in isolation from the real world, aren’t allowed to date or watch TV, and appear to be brainwashed by their parent’s super-conservative religious views.

And didn’t I join a freaking monastery for seven years back in 1994?

So, yes, whenever I find myself criticizing the Duggars for their lifestyle, I usually just have to say two words to myself:

“Glass houses. . .”

Trash TV

Are there some TV programs that you’re ashamed to admit you watch? I’m sure everyone has something that they view in secret, be it a soap opera, an inane sitcom, or NASCAR races.

I was doing some tidying up on my Tivo the other day and I was a little surprised at some of the fluff that comprises my TV viewing pleasure. Here’s a rundown of the worst:

Monsterquest – Each episode finds a group of extremely serious crypto-zoologists (i.e. “Bigfoot-nerds”) discovering the latest sensational evidence for Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, the Loch Ness monster, and the ever-elusive Giant Infuriated Weasel. The viewer (me) is mercilessly strung along for an hour with tidbits of “possible concrete evidence” that these things really exist. At the very end of the program, the iron-clad, scientific evidence is deemed “inconclusive” by scientists.

Dang.

I fall for it every time.

18 Kids and Counting – Have you heard of the Duggar Family in Arkansas? They’re the squeaky-clean, super-religious, saccharin-sweet family who have 18 children, often with one more on the way. In each 30-minute episode, we get to watch them accomplish breathtaking activities like installing new mini-blinds, going to the dentist, or making tater-tot casserole.

I’ll admit that the kids really do seem well-adjusted and genuinely altruistic; a rarity in this day and age. I’m also sure that the viewers are never exposed to the many melt-downs, the shrieking, and the general stench of that many kids under one roof.

The Duggars have been on TV for three or four years. Now that the kids are getting older and there are a number of teenage boys in the house, I can’t help but to wonder how much time Mama Duggar spends trying to track down that elusive JC Penney catalog.

I’ll be anxious to see how they’re all doing in 15 or 20 years from now. I wonder if Mama and Daddy Duggar will continue the program once a little Bristol Palin action arises. With 18 kids, there’s bound to be a little “reality” set in eventually.

Judge Judy – The first thing I do when I get home from work is to watch two daily episodes of my Judy. Yes, there’s a lot to be said for watching stupid people being held accountable.

The Newlywed Game – I enjoyed this game show back in 1967 and I still love it. Although Bob Eubanks no longer hosts it, it remains absolutely the same. Hubby gives a clueless answer about how they “make whoopee” and his wife whomps him over the head with her answer-card. What’s not to like?

That’s just some of the junk TV that I regularly watch.

Okay, I told you mine, now tell me yours. I really want to know. My Tivo needs new stuff to record anyway.