Doubting the Duggars

[I post the above video of the Duggar's last month appearance on The View by way of explanation as to who The Duggars are as well as for entertainment value because the comments by View host Joy Behar (far right) are hilarious. 7 mins 25 secs]

Okay, can’t shut-up about it anymore, will somebody please tell me why Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar , stars of TLC's reality show "Seventeen Kids and Counting" keep producing children? For the life of me, I just don’t get it. And their “We took birth control pills and had a miscarriage and then we were traumatized”, in my book at least, does not account for EIGHTEEN CHILDREN. (Two words: barrier method.)

Do the Duggars really think they need to continue to work to ensure their slice of the future genetic pie? Is their desire to mesh REALLY not satisfied by, say, twelve maybe thirteen kids? Are they totally unfulfilled by a mere fifteen children? Are their lives noticeably incomplete with a paltry seventeen children?

And, yes, I’m sorry I’m going to go there (because that’s what I do): Ever pondered the sheer amount of crap produced by the Duggars in a day? Considering the average human produces a pound of poo a day, let’s say the Duggars, a family of 20, produces, conservatively, 15 lbs of crap per day. One-hundred lbs of poo per week. EVERY week. That’s well over two tons per year, people. Definitely? What we need here is another Duggar. Just ask Jim Bob and Michelle. (And the planet.)

Beyond the obvious just plain excessive nature of the Duggar’s need to reproduce is Michelle’s tried-and-true method of raising her brood. She shared this system in one of their many television specials that I seem unable to tear myself away from watching in sort of a train wreck-ish sort of way. What Michelle does, you see, (she cheerfully reported) is to assign each new arrival a “buddy” as she calls them. In this case the term “buddy” refers to an older child that is regularly officially deputized to care for and look after the needs of a younger Duggar, thus freeing up Mom, I imagine, to begin again the important business of whipping up another Duggar.

Is it just me or is this unfair to the older Duggar? Should an older sibling, who didn’t have a voice in the choice to give birth to their assigned “little buddy” be expected, in all fairness, to regularly act as a parent? For that matter, can any two people effectively parent eighteen children?

What is wrong with these people? (And has nobody told Michelle that hair-do is, indeed, a mullet? And why are Jim Bob and Michelle seemingly both wearing the same style of shoe?) Why can't I stop phrasing everything in the form of a question?

Here I’ll pause to explain that, yes I do love John and Kate Plus 8 because while, okay, they had to resort to fertility treatment to have a family, and yes, that is what caused two multiple births (first twins and then sextuplets), they readily admit that HAVING 8 CHILDREN IS PRETTY CRAZY. And they don’t plan on having more. And they didn’t mean to have that many children but when faced with the unusual multiple pregnancy, felt they could not selectively choose to terminate one potential child and not the other. This? I can understand.

The Duggars? Not so much.