Or
Raising a family of 10 on less than $3000 per year per person.
Normally, I would put a rant like this on my other blog, saving this one for news about the kids, cute pictures, things like that. But today I've blown a fuse and I've had enough. If I hear one more thing about "The Goslins" or "Ocotomom" and their multi-million dollar reality TV deals (and worse, their whining about how they couldn't survive without it) then I'm going postal.
I have a large family. There are quite a few of us out there that do. There are a very small percentage of us are insane enough to take fertility treatments to have large multiple births - they are the crazy ones, the fringe. The rest of us may or may not have planned to have large families but we do. In our case, we didn't plan. Mind you, none of our kids are unwanted, but we never set out saying "let's have 8 kids and no money". There are others that criticize us for being irresponsible, for overpopulating the world, for using more than our share and so on. And there's something to be said for that. But in our case, even with preventative measures in place, God exercised his sense of humor and blessed us with a large family.
We've always struggled - well, struggle isn't really the right word, maybe "manage" - we've always managed on a fairly small income relative to how many of us there are. Except for a brief time (pre-9/11/01) when the economy was soaring and I was able to secure a computer programming position, we've always ALWAYS lived on about $3000 a year per person. And not just survived, but we've managed to have some luxuries. We've had to ask for help from time to time, sometimes getting by on a prayer and the kindness of others, but we've never gone around with our hand out, demanding from others what we didn't truly deserve.
Enter reality TV.
We don't have cable or satellite TV. That's one thing we do without. Partially out of financial frugality, but mostly because we honestly feel it's not worth it. The cost to our family from the amount of garbage that would be streaming in far outweighs any benefit. Because we only get like three channels, I have never seen Jon & Kate Plus 8 or any of the other reality shows that are out there about large families. But I've heard about them. Too much. In our entertainment saturated society, the break up of Jon and Kate made NATIONAL news. As did reports that Nadya Suleman, known as the "Octomom" was being offered a multi-million dollar reality show. Then came the reports that both shows were in jeapardy. Jon and Kate's show because they broke up and Octomom's show because nobody really cares. THEN came the outcry from both of them whining because "how are we going to take care of our kids!" Seriously. Google them, you can follow the whole shebang of both stories.
I have 8 kids. I know many others who have large families as well, and none of us walk around like the world owes us. One of my good friends from Colorado has 6 kids and they run a pretty successful carpet cleaning business. One of my friends from down here has 5 kids, she doesn't do as well, but she does what she has to to get by. Those of you who follow my blogs know that I am disabled (hopefully not forever) and we survive on disability insurance while my wife goes back to school to make a better life for us in the near future.
$3000 a year per person. Except for a brief time when we lived in Colorado and spent way too much on a rented townhouse, we've always gotten by on that. (Coincidentally, if take out that house payment we got by on about that during that time too!) Never have we felt like we DESERVED more. Never did we go around with our hands out saying "look at us, there's so many of us, we need more more more just to survive!" Yes, we've accepted help when it was offered. Yes, we've made use of public assistance programs that are available, but never, ever did we stomp our feet, clench our fists, and demand that the world take care of us, like just because we have a lot of kids we were somehow more deserving than the rest of the world.
I don't understand the mentality of these reality show "stars". What did they do before they had TV shows? What did they do for money? I'll tell you what they did. They did what the rest of us do: WORK and GET BY WITH LESS. Yes, it can be done, and done comfortably. Sure we go to a lot of garage sales and buy some of our clothes from the Dollar Store. We don't have a big screen TV (but the one in the living room is big enough!), we don't have an Xbox (but we do have a Wii!) we don't have cable or satellite (but we do have Netflix!) we don't order pizza a lot (but we do get take and bake!) we don't go to McDonald's or Sonic very much (but we make some awesome bacon cheeseburgers here at home!) but guess what? We are healthy, comfortable, and happy.
So let's do these reality "stars" a favor and boycott their shows. They will be much happier living in the real world and earning a living like those of us who live in the REAL reality.
