Why We All Should Care About the Duggars...

I have fond memories of my grandparents.  When they were alive many years ago when I was a teenager, they would spend winters up north with my family.  My grandparents were from the south, and like many in the rural south, they were agrarian.

My grandparents' lifestyle called on them to have enough children to help them with their farm work.  They had eight.  My grandparents continued to stress to me in my teenage years, that while they loved all their children, they had so many children not out of vanity, or a need for excess, but out of necessity.  I hesitate to speak for my dear grandparents, but I have to believe that if they were raising a family today, they wouldn't have so many children.  It's just unnecessary for many reasons.

Recently, the Duggars, Jim Bob and Michelle, have announced that they are expecting their 20th child.  For the few of you who don't know the Duggars, they are a family of Christian fundamentalists who have a reality TV show on TLC.  For their part, the Duggars appear to be a close family, with solid values, well-mannered children, and a sense of humor.

I cannot do the Duggars' faith full justice in the space that I have, but it is clear that one of the things they believe is that they can become closer to God by having more children.  If this is true, if the Duggars can become closer to God by having more children, then God must live next door to them.  In fact, God should be so close to the Duggar family, they probably need a restraining order against God.

Now, I refuse to belittle the Duggars' faith--it's actually quite admirable that they believe so strongly in something.  But, I also refuse to believe that having 20 children is the pathway to a closer relationship to God.  Mother Teresa, Jesus and the Apostle Paul all seemed to do just fine with the Creator and had no children at all.

Where I'm going with all of this is here:  having 20 children in 2011 is not only not necessary like it was in my grandparents' time and space, it can be seen as an opulent display not afforded to many in this country or many others.  In an age where the earth's population has hit seven billion and many country's have laws governing the amount of the children a family can have, willfully having 20 children against this back drop when its not a necessity, is the equivalent of burning money in a fleet of yachts in front of very poor people.

Having 20 children is perhaps a way to establish a closer relationship with God for the Duggars.  But, the rest of us who know that the earth is overpopulated and has finite resources, should probably stick to the more traditional ways to get closer to the Creator like prayer, meditation and fasting.