How Many Did You Say?

I really don't like reality TV. I find that I'm embarrassed for the participants, as well as thinking that kind of programming is a poor substitute for the good writing and creativity television offered in the past. It’s as if they figure the general public are routine voyeurs and marginally entertain-able, so why not just send a camera crew in to capture the lives of the most obnoxious people they can find to sign a hold harmless contract and call it a program. Maybe I don't give most of them a chance, but I can't help but "flipping" them off at the first sighting of a 16 year old spoiled brat ranting at her friends for some infraction at her birthday party, or a houseful of people who can't seem to pass an evening at home without degrading each other. There are swaps of wives and hairdressers, monster-bitch brides, and some programs that I have yet to figure out what they revolve around other than meanness and insults.
Somehow...and it was probably because I couldn't find the remote control and was too lazy to get up and change the channel (horrors) manually...I've caught a few episodes of the families with lots of kids. 18 kids, 12 kids, 8 kids. I find myself amazed. Lacking heavy medication or a lobotomy, they must just be perfectly suited to whatever calling having a very large family is. They smile at the kids. They say "please and thank you" when instructing a child to do some chore or another. They never run out of milk or toilet paper. They're organized. They cope without attending a support group. They even have a sense of humor.
How do they keep them all in clothing and shoes? School supplies? Booster shots? I want to know who does a constant head count and who washes the dishes. Last night I watched the 18 children family spend over $1,000.00 in the grocery store, use 11 shopping carts and haul it home in a box truck in a segment on how they save money. They took all 18 kids with them.
Taking two kids to the grocery store is a exercise every adult contemplating parenthood should be required to try. If you succeed in preventing them from diving out of the cart, grabbing all the crap displayed at the checkout counter, and can listen to "but why can't I have it?" 643 times without hurting anyone, you get to go to the next step. Taking 18 to the store is lunacy. But not for those smiling, calm folks. They had it all under control, AND the mom reported that she was pregnant and nauseous...with child number 19. I, on the other hand had my last child long ago, leisurely grocery shop alone, and then have to take a nap.
I watch these things from a reclining position, knocked out from mostly sitting on my rear end in front of a computer all day. By the time an episode runs its credits, I'm usually holding onto wakefulness by an eyelash wondering how any of them get through a day. I know full well that I'd be exhausted halfway through cooking all that breakfast. Not to mention finding everyone's shoes. I don't doubt that any of those families are real though. At some point in every episode I've caught...and I'm keeping a tally.... I see mom and dad yawn.