I watch 19 Kids and Counting on TLC quite often.  I don't know if you know the show, but it follows the Duggar family of Tonitown, Arkansas.  As the title of the show would imply, the Duggars have 19 children.  The clan's matriarch, a sweet-faced, curly haired woman named Michelle has given birth to all 19 of them.  The children are all home-schooled and styled to gender-appropriate norms--girls have long hair and wear dresses.  All 19 of the kids have names that start with "J."

Michelle and her husband Jim Bob used birth control when they were first married to wait for three years before they had their first son, Josh. They used it again after Josh's birth.  When Michelle became pregnant, she miscarried.  The Duggars felt that her miscarriage was caused by God punishing her and her husband for using protection.   

I started watching the show because I was so shocked and horrified by it.  Fundamentalist Christians raising their children without any outside influence? So many children--can their parents coudn't even remember all their names, let alone watch their baseball games? How can they afford all of that cereal, tennis shoes, textbooks, button-down shirts?

And now that I'm hooked on the show, I still sometimes ask those questions.  I wonder if the kids are getting a good education being taught by their older brothers and sisters at a long, wooden table.  I wonder if they ever feel neglected by their parents.  Sometimes, the kids light up whenever they get to perform a simple task like going to the grocery store of doctors office with mom or a trip with dad.

But somehow, more than anything else, more than their religion or the audacity of having that many children, I watch because of the nuts-and-bolts of their daily operations.  TLC often puts little pop-ups of how much of everything the Duggar kids need--a gallon of ice cream or 10 large pizzas, say. Now, I watch mostly to see how this family operates, not to pass my liberal, secular judgment on them. 

Still, I find it strange that the family wants to be on cable TV at all.  They seem to be acting as some sort of beacon for not using birth control--God will give us as many children as he sees fit--but I can't believe they would advocate for any other family to be in their situation.  They have to see that their ability to afford 19 children is unique--they are on a television program after all. It's unfair to anyone who doesn't have the extraordinary measures that they do. Michelle and Jim Bob are smarter, I think, than to say that God should bless poor families, which are so plentiful in the South where they live, with that many offspring.

 Most families, even affluent families, could not afford 19 children--and having that many is simply irresponsible.  If the Duggars feel that God punishes anyone who uses birth control, they should not be so ignorant to think that God himself is the birth control.  If you choose not to use birth control and cannot afford as many children as the Duggars have, you should not be having sex.