Big families all the rave

There seems to be a new wave of TV viewing these days. I keep hearing discussion of these new programs. What's the topic of conversation? Big families.

What's up with these big families making it even bigger by having their own TV shows. I've heard a lot about Jon and Kate Plus Eight –– one of my granddaughter's favorite programs. (Whatever happened to Hannah Montana?)

Then there's the Duggar family –– the 18 Kids and Counting show.

Jon and Kate Plus Eight features the Gosselin family that includes fraternal twin girls and a mixed-sex set of fraternal sextuplets (three girls and three boys.) The program shows how the couple deals with the stress of having eight children under the age of nine.

The Duggar family welcomed their 18th child last December. All the children's names begin with a J. Isn't that sweet? Are you kidding me? I just can't imagine why anyone would do something like that. I still go through the entire roll call when I'm talking to my children. (Ro, Shar, Na, Bri, Kris, Da, Mi and Ste learned to watch my eyes and answer when I was looking at them.)

As a mother of eight, I decided it would be good for me to watch these programs. I'm not sure what I thought I would learn –– after all, my children are all grown now, so all hope of being a good mother –– if I wasn't –– is gone. Maybe I was hoping I'd discover that I was a better mother than Kate and Michelle are.

From what I can tell, Kate is kind of anal about organizing her home. Jon appears to be fairly laid back, which probably will be the trait that saves the family in the long run. Of course the Gosselins have a BUNCH of very small children which would obviously contribute to an occasional messy room or two.

Michelle is the ever-patient, soft-spoken, always-supportive type of mother. When her kids are swinging from the rafters of their self-built mansion, she simply smiles and tells them to remember to use their inside voices. She wouldn't think to raise her voice at these children because they are special blessings to their family.

I reckon my personality would fall somewhere in between these two mothers. I liked to be organized when my children were small. (Of course the fact that I had one child at a time gave me a bit of an advantage over Kate –– unless you consider the fact that I was obviously pregnant –– with all the side effects of said condition –– eight times. But my children were at varied ages at varied times and probably were easier to keep up with.

Both of these mothers appear to be fantastic cooks. Michelle Duggar has a few of her family's favorite recipes on their website. Kate cooks organically, but admits she  generally doesn't use recipes.

Now my cooking isn't something to necessarily write home about  –– and most definitely it wasn't great enough to create an entire cookbook about. We did eat –– all ten of us –– and everyone appeared to be happy about the meals we had.

It wasn't until my children became adults that I heard a bit of complaining about the meals I had prepared. There have been comments like, "I like ham and beans now, but when we were kids, there wasn't any ham with the beans." or "Why wasn't there ever hamburger in our chili or spaghetti?" And more recently I've heard, "Man Mom, why didn't you make this when we were kids."

I have had to explain to my children the facts of life –– the fact that we were a rather poor family and didn't have money for much meat and when we did buy meat, we separated it into quarter-pound packages to make it stretch through the month.

Of course, I also explained that our family was only poor in money –– not in blessings. (Roger always says, "Broke is a state of the pocketbook –– poor is a state of mind.) That went over like a lead balloon as the kids became teenagers. If you know what I mean.

I don't know what Roger and I were thinking. Why in the world didn't we create a TV program about our family back in the 70s? We could have signed a contract for shows that would last for a number of years and bring in a whole bunch of money just for having a large family.

Wonder what one gets paid to do a show like that? I know one thing, you never hear too much about what Daddy or Mommy do for a living. And Daddy is always home helping Mommy with the children, so money must not be a problem.

Let's see, what would we call a TV show about the Goff family? The Goff Bunch? Nope –– reminds me too much of the Brady Bunch and we were not famous for being that sweet to one another. Plus, they only had six children.

I know –– how about something like Lassie? Nope –– our pets were never as obedient as the famous collie. Sam never comes when we call. Besides, he's too small to save someone from a burning building.

I've got it! Somewhere between the Adams Family and the Munsters. Yeah –– the Madam's Family! We've already got the cobwebs. Now all we need is a really tall, ugly butler!