another trainwreck on TLC
Since we've had TiVo, we don't do a lot of channel surfing. For various reasons, I found myself flipping through live TV. I landed on TLC and a program called "Kids by the Dozen". It turns out it's a serial, focusing on a different huge family each time.
They were profiling the Heppner family. Mom and Dad met at Baptist Camp. A year later, she was knocked up and he had run off to--well, I can't remember where he ran off to, but I think it involved a transatlantic flight. Dad came back, they got married, had a son. Their family was now "perfect" and they decided to stop having kids.
According to the Heppners, they were "trying to do the responsible thing," using two forms of birth control (they didn't state which), but they kept on getting pregnant. The worst forms of birth control (even "periodic abstinence") only has a 30% real-life failure rate. That means that any two, used together, has less than a 10% failure rate. That's one failure in ten years of sex. The chance of two failures is less than 1%, or once in 100 years of sex. The odds of 14 failures is 1 in 1 x 10-14. That's once in 1 x 1014 years of sex. To put that in perspective, the universe is only about 1 x 10 10 years old. Plus, after you've had a couple failures, you might seek out something more reliable (IUDs and surgical methods have a failure rate of less than 1%), especially if, as the mother states, she was so sick with her first six pregnancies that she ended up hospitalized with dehydration. I can't imagine that they were putting any real effort into "trying to do the responsible thing".
As it were, I don't think that having 16 kids is, by definition, an irresponsible thing. If you want 16 children, and have the resources to raise 16 children, I see no reason why you shouldn't have 16 children. The Heppners seem to have failed on both accounts. Mom Heppner was saying that people will often leave boxes of clothing for them, and though sometimes donors are worried that the Heppners may be embarrassed by the charity, they shouldn't, because "that's the way God provides for our family." The show then cut to the kids, who said that it was no big deal to not have the styles and to be wearing cast-offs, because they still dress pretty well. That's when I knew they were home-schooled. I remember middle and secondary school as a constant struggle to keep up with what the cool kids were wearing. I can't imagine how I would have felt showing up in the clothes that those kids had discarded.
This program was probably the first TLC I had watched since I saw the Duggars, and their blatant money grab. The Duggars also have 16 children, and also can't afford them. They started to build a house, but after working on it for three years, and before they finished it, they got evicted from their rental, so they called TLC, who came in and fixed up the house a la "Extreme Home Makeover." (BTW, have you ever noticed that those families ALWAYS have a passel of kids?) Something like 7000 square feet of furnishings, for free. At least the Heppners are making due with their 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 1-kitchen (gasp!) home, and seem to have a legitimate source of income (construction). The primary source of income for the Duggars appears to be selling dvd seminars on how the Bible can make you debt-free. Sure you can be debt free if you're "gifted" everything you need.
Do I even need to say that these children are also homeschooled? And what do I have against homeschooling anyway? Again, I have no problem with it--if it's done because the schools are crappy and the parents are well-educated. What I do have a problem with is homeschooling in the hope that it will prevent their children being exposed to ideas. If those ideas--of which I expect evolution, tolerance, acceptance and contraception are among the most feared--were so horrible, they wouldn't stand up to the light of scrutiny. In fact, one would think that in addition to the obvious benefits of having the kids out of the house, they could become "beacons of the lord" in the schools.
Not that the schools need more beacons. On Friday, I made the mistake of asking my class, all of whom intend to be science teachers, which of them believe in evolution. Not a twitch among them. Not one of them. It made me want to pack up and move somewhere else. Anywhere else.
They were profiling the Heppner family. Mom and Dad met at Baptist Camp. A year later, she was knocked up and he had run off to--well, I can't remember where he ran off to, but I think it involved a transatlantic flight. Dad came back, they got married, had a son. Their family was now "perfect" and they decided to stop having kids.
According to the Heppners, they were "trying to do the responsible thing," using two forms of birth control (they didn't state which), but they kept on getting pregnant. The worst forms of birth control (even "periodic abstinence") only has a 30% real-life failure rate. That means that any two, used together, has less than a 10% failure rate. That's one failure in ten years of sex. The chance of two failures is less than 1%, or once in 100 years of sex. The odds of 14 failures is 1 in 1 x 10-14. That's once in 1 x 1014 years of sex. To put that in perspective, the universe is only about 1 x 10 10 years old. Plus, after you've had a couple failures, you might seek out something more reliable (IUDs and surgical methods have a failure rate of less than 1%), especially if, as the mother states, she was so sick with her first six pregnancies that she ended up hospitalized with dehydration. I can't imagine that they were putting any real effort into "trying to do the responsible thing".
As it were, I don't think that having 16 kids is, by definition, an irresponsible thing. If you want 16 children, and have the resources to raise 16 children, I see no reason why you shouldn't have 16 children. The Heppners seem to have failed on both accounts. Mom Heppner was saying that people will often leave boxes of clothing for them, and though sometimes donors are worried that the Heppners may be embarrassed by the charity, they shouldn't, because "that's the way God provides for our family." The show then cut to the kids, who said that it was no big deal to not have the styles and to be wearing cast-offs, because they still dress pretty well. That's when I knew they were home-schooled. I remember middle and secondary school as a constant struggle to keep up with what the cool kids were wearing. I can't imagine how I would have felt showing up in the clothes that those kids had discarded.
This program was probably the first TLC I had watched since I saw the Duggars, and their blatant money grab. The Duggars also have 16 children, and also can't afford them. They started to build a house, but after working on it for three years, and before they finished it, they got evicted from their rental, so they called TLC, who came in and fixed up the house a la "Extreme Home Makeover." (BTW, have you ever noticed that those families ALWAYS have a passel of kids?) Something like 7000 square feet of furnishings, for free. At least the Heppners are making due with their 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 1-kitchen (gasp!) home, and seem to have a legitimate source of income (construction). The primary source of income for the Duggars appears to be selling dvd seminars on how the Bible can make you debt-free. Sure you can be debt free if you're "gifted" everything you need.
Do I even need to say that these children are also homeschooled? And what do I have against homeschooling anyway? Again, I have no problem with it--if it's done because the schools are crappy and the parents are well-educated. What I do have a problem with is homeschooling in the hope that it will prevent their children being exposed to ideas. If those ideas--of which I expect evolution, tolerance, acceptance and contraception are among the most feared--were so horrible, they wouldn't stand up to the light of scrutiny. In fact, one would think that in addition to the obvious benefits of having the kids out of the house, they could become "beacons of the lord" in the schools.
Not that the schools need more beacons. On Friday, I made the mistake of asking my class, all of whom intend to be science teachers, which of them believe in evolution. Not a twitch among them. Not one of them. It made me want to pack up and move somewhere else. Anywhere else.
