lots o' kids in the post-Pill world
Nov. 15th, 2008 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutWhen I was a child, I lived on a dead end street in then-unincorporated King County, near a Catholic school (grades K-8). What this means: commuting distance to a city, but low property taxes, and the proximity to the Catholic school meant huge families (literally a dozen kids in at least one of the families).
Since then, a town has incorporated (property taxes now somewhat higher) and time has gone by. Catholics remain (the school is still there), but they're having 2-3 kids like everyone else. And yet, judging by the programming on certain cables channels, there are still some big families out there.
Hadn't noticed the massive-family-programming-binge? Jon and Kate Plus 8? 17 Kids and Counting? I got to thinking about this partly because I watch an appalling amount of TV (altho not these shows) right now, and then there's that mother of five who has been in the news so much lately. It seems there are more large families on television now than in real life. Whenever this happens, I start asking questions: why don't _I_ know anyone like this? Alternatively, why would we all be so fascinated by something so utterly bizarre and rare? And which is it?
Between the pregnancy and the followup visits to the midwives, I've been around a fair number of conversations about family planning. I knew (even tho he was my first) that T. was not a normal baby. Plenty healthy, plenty smart and a wonderful person -- but a handful. That has not changed and I doubt it ever will. That's not the only reason we're stopping at 2, but it's certainly part of it. I've talked to a lot of other people now who wanted really big families until they either (a) had a baby and realized how much work a baby is or (b) had an unusually difficult baby, and realized that you just never can tell which kind you're going to get. It's not that we don't love the tough ones -- it's just that they wear you down quicker than the other ones.
This leaves me with a couple of theories about who has big families in the post-Pill world (pre-Pill and the legal changes of that time frame, difficulty of laying hands on safe and effective birth control meant other factors were dominant). The first theory revolves around easy babies: maybe people with big families tend to have easy babies (or easy babies early in the process so they've got built in assistance with the later kids -- the kind that can't quit, leave or say no). The second theory revolves around unusual skill in parenting -- these people know something the rest of us don't (and I suspect this is part of the attraction of these shows. Maybe they can teach us how to survive babies). The third theory is: hey, they _love_ the pain. The attraction of the shows would then be, at least I'm not as bad off as they are.
And the fourth theory, which I like best, is that these are people who basically do not learn. They don't learn by watching other people. They don't learn from personal experience. They are Insensitive to Feedback. And we _love_ watching people who are insensitive to feedback. Addicts. Thrill seekers. Substance abusers. Drama queens. Etc. Reality TV is built on people who are insensitive to feedback. (Also, hooked on attention and never satisfied no matter how much they get.)
I'm at least mildly interested in other opinion on this topic, but I would encourage anyone weighing in to not get into the specific details of the shows, or the morality of the people involved. I don't think either is particularly relevant (lots of people with the same moral system _don't_ have huge families), but if there's internal evidence in the shows regarding the these-folk-don't-learn theory, I would be interested in that (for or against).
Since then, a town has incorporated (property taxes now somewhat higher) and time has gone by. Catholics remain (the school is still there), but they're having 2-3 kids like everyone else. And yet, judging by the programming on certain cables channels, there are still some big families out there.
Hadn't noticed the massive-family-programming-binge? Jon and Kate Plus 8? 17 Kids and Counting? I got to thinking about this partly because I watch an appalling amount of TV (altho not these shows) right now, and then there's that mother of five who has been in the news so much lately. It seems there are more large families on television now than in real life. Whenever this happens, I start asking questions: why don't _I_ know anyone like this? Alternatively, why would we all be so fascinated by something so utterly bizarre and rare? And which is it?
Between the pregnancy and the followup visits to the midwives, I've been around a fair number of conversations about family planning. I knew (even tho he was my first) that T. was not a normal baby. Plenty healthy, plenty smart and a wonderful person -- but a handful. That has not changed and I doubt it ever will. That's not the only reason we're stopping at 2, but it's certainly part of it. I've talked to a lot of other people now who wanted really big families until they either (a) had a baby and realized how much work a baby is or (b) had an unusually difficult baby, and realized that you just never can tell which kind you're going to get. It's not that we don't love the tough ones -- it's just that they wear you down quicker than the other ones.
This leaves me with a couple of theories about who has big families in the post-Pill world (pre-Pill and the legal changes of that time frame, difficulty of laying hands on safe and effective birth control meant other factors were dominant). The first theory revolves around easy babies: maybe people with big families tend to have easy babies (or easy babies early in the process so they've got built in assistance with the later kids -- the kind that can't quit, leave or say no). The second theory revolves around unusual skill in parenting -- these people know something the rest of us don't (and I suspect this is part of the attraction of these shows. Maybe they can teach us how to survive babies). The third theory is: hey, they _love_ the pain. The attraction of the shows would then be, at least I'm not as bad off as they are.
And the fourth theory, which I like best, is that these are people who basically do not learn. They don't learn by watching other people. They don't learn from personal experience. They are Insensitive to Feedback. And we _love_ watching people who are insensitive to feedback. Addicts. Thrill seekers. Substance abusers. Drama queens. Etc. Reality TV is built on people who are insensitive to feedback. (Also, hooked on attention and never satisfied no matter how much they get.)
I'm at least mildly interested in other opinion on this topic, but I would encourage anyone weighing in to not get into the specific details of the shows, or the morality of the people involved. I don't think either is particularly relevant (lots of people with the same moral system _don't_ have huge families), but if there's internal evidence in the shows regarding the these-folk-don't-learn theory, I would be interested in that (for or against).