16 Children

[ste_noni]

I'm watching this TLC show on that family with 16 kids. Apparently, before they became well known (when the most recent baby girl was born) they were working on building a 7000 sq. ft. house.

I don't personally understand the desire to have 16 kids, but if you were going to have that many kids, this is the kind of family you would want to be in. The kids all appear to be loved, well-cared-for, clean, and smart. Even the 8 year old is helping build the house!

Comments

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

I believe that anybody who wants to raise a big family can find as many kids as they want already born and in the foster care system who would benefit from a home.

See, I just don't understand this attitude. Why in the world would reproductive choice only include reducing your family size and not increasing it? I mean, there are all sorts of reasons to have a large family, or no family at all, but why is one choice better than the other? (I'm actualy not trying to talk about abortion here, but the "freedom of choice" phrase just keeps popping in my head.)

I guess part of the reason I react so strongly to this is that I had a lot of beliefs about breast feeding toddlers and cloth diapers and so on, and then I had my own baby to think about and some stuff that had seemed weird now made sense. I'm sure some of my friends think I'm weird for choosing, say, cloth diapers, but it made sense to me. I can't help but apply that reasoning to the Duggars.

The gender stuff does skeeve me a bit. I'd nope that if one of the daughters grew up to be a fighter pilot or the son an interior decorater, that he/she would stll be loved and accepted by the family.

[fufaraw]

You're right, of course. Everyone is free to make their own decisions, and reproductive freedom is just that.

It simply bothers me to see children certainly as deserving as any growing up without the love and security and promise of loving families, while some people seem to feel that their genes deserve to be reproduced many times. I'd like to see every child fed, clothed, educated, and raised in the love of a family, not just the ones I gave birth to.

But as I said above, tree-hugging liberal here. Sorry for spamming your journal. It's a hot-button issue for me and I'll try harder to keep it to my own lj.

[aimeejmc.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see every child fed, clothed, educated, and raised in the love of a family, not just the ones I gave birth to.

I couldn't say this any better than you did. I also want to see that and try to support anything that would make that happen.

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

It's not spam! I actually wanted to talk to someone who might disagree with me. You put the issue in an interesting context - that everyone deserves to be loved. The issues of foster/unwanted children - I used to be able to just brush them off as "yeah, that's sad," but having a baby makes me think about all that stuff a lot more. I don't have any answers, but you are right that all children deserve to be loved, etc.