I am not a post-call go-getter like some people who I know, nor do I have a real life rescuing HIV afflicted children, thus, the the hardest decision I have when I wake up from my post-call naps is: Law & Order marathon or TLC with my toast and peanut butter? TLC has apparently found their captive audience in me, their target demographic: I don’t enjoy anything that they air, but at the same time, I can’t turn away from anything on it, particularly the wacky medical mystery specials they air, like the one about the Treeman, or the strange Joan Benet Ramsey show, “Toddlers and Tiaras.”

I already ragged on that show about the naggy wife and her husband and their eight children, but the newest and most easy-to-target series about gi-normous families is about a family in Arkansas that has 18 children and adheres to the Quiverfull movement.  They are a conservative Christian family who are refreshingly nice to each other, unlike that other show.  But they also terrify me.  As well as their lifestyle and doctrine work for them, it is not a responsible way of life for the majority of the world.  There is the over-population argument; then, there is the octo-mom argument (i.e. y’alls just plain crazies); of course, there is the obvious feminist argument.  Didn’t the 21st century already happen, and didn’t we already establish that women are more than their reproductive capabilities?

This leads into the subject of multiple births and premies and the ethics and cost-benefit analysis of NICU care, which I’ll get into at a later date…