The burning question is...if these children were not septuplets..but children born in single births and the family had to go on welfare...would they be lauded like the family below?
Crossposted at Preemptive Karma.
Having worked out in my garden for most of the day in the beautiful Oregon sunshine, I found myself quite exhausted last evening. I'm in the process of tearing out an old garden space and replacing it with raised beds and pathways. It will be very nice when it's completed...but it's a lot of work.
With that, I planted my tookus on my cushy sofa...glass of wine in hand...and proceeded to watch last evening's rendition of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It's not my usual Sunday night routine...but being dog tired after a hard day of yardwork, it seemed like the thing to do.
For those unaware, this program follows a team of designers as they demolish and rebuild a home for a needy family. Seems a worthy cause indeed.
On tonight's episode, the selected needy family has SEVEN children. And not just any seven..six were septuplets.
A few years ago, the parents decided they wanted to have more children and were unable to get pregnant. So the woman underwent some sort of hormone therapy (the show wasn't specific). And voila! Six fetuses.
The doctors recommended to her that she selectively abort, but she refused. The show glorified this decision as some great sacrifice being made by this couple. Huh? They got pregnant on purpose through artificial means..causing her to be pregnant with an artificially high number of fetuses. This completely selfish act becomes selfless because they didn't abort some of them? Seems a bit high handed to me.
The babies arrive...all six of them. And the woman has to quit her job to stay home and take care of all of these children. Now they're down to one salary: his. He's a schoolteacher. Nine people on a school teacher's salary. Why did these people deliberately have so many babies when they knew they didn't have the resources to take care of them? If there is a more selfish act...I can't think of one.
I'm sure the folks at ABC television have the best of intentions. But to glorify a couple that would do this is wrong.
They're not the only couple to do something like this either. The McCaughey's did something similar. They created a litter of babies that they couldn't afford. Their community rewarded them with all sorts of new things..including a new van..for their irresponsible decisions.
Our society glorifies and rewards these couples for having massive numbers of children that they can't afford. It's a bizarre practice that I don't think I'll ever fully understand.