The Voltage Gate

I have caught a couple episodes of TLC's nightmare in 43 minutes Kids by the Dozen, a series that chronicles the lives of burgeoning Borg Collectives, a.k.a. nutball Christian families with 12+ kids.

Yesterday I watched a particularly disturbing episode about the Jeub family, who have 13 kids out in Colorado. The oldest two children were the result of teenage pregnancy. One of them was shunned by her mom and step dad for rejecting his beliefs. More below the family portrait.

Before I continue, I want to make something clear: I am criticizing the philosophy of the two Big Jeubs, not the little ones; those children are hapless bystanders of their parent's delusion. Also, it goes without saying that their lifestyle is antithetical to sustainability - supporting exported labor overseas by relying on places like Wal Mart and Sam's to feed their family and relative consumption rates way above average, producing more waste - but I am not a proponent of legislated family size. Intrafamilial decisions like number of children should be guided by philosophical maturity and personal/global responsibility, each of which the Jeubs, and families like them, have little. Public opinion driven by the liberation of women and, generally speaking, higher standards of living has largely changed, looking upon families of this size with distaste and pitying the women involved instead of admiring them for their profound fertility; unfortunately for the Jeubs, this perception will continue to polarize in the future.

Their lifestyle is dated, consumptive and driven by faith. Papa Jeub explains on his blog:

Without God's conviction in our life we would likely have stopped with four children. Likewise, any "condemnation" that we may be dealt by those who feel our convictions are irresponsible or foolish, we can respond with confidence that we are obeying God. Our lives are testimony to how joyful this response is.

As Jeub says, he takes joy in his irresponsibility and ignorance. They can fall back on God, the ubiquitous cosmic excuse, who conveniently and greedily supports mass propagation.

Though he never directly states it, Jeub is part of a recent Evangelical Christian movement called Quiverfull, evidenced by the quote he uses in his About section:

Sons are a heritage from the Lord, Children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior Are sons born in one's youth.

Blessed is the man
Whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
When they contend with their enemies in the gate.

-Psalm 127:3-5

The movement was started in response to the Protestant acceptance of birth control and women's rights, to combat both. Quiverfull is anti-feminist. A woman named Mary Pride wrote a book called The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality back in '85, urging women to return to "traditional values" [subjugation] and, as the psalm says, to build an army for the Lord.

But the oldest child, one of the children born out of wedlock, obviously does not buy into this philosophy. According to Papa Jeub, she stopped going to church, started dating (interracially... *gasp*) and eventually got pregnant. She was ostracized to stop her infectious free thinking and rebellion from spreading to the rest of the children.

I do not understand how the mother can let her husband make the decision to abandon her first daughter. He is obviously a control freak is corrupting and limiting his children's minds under the guise of faithfulness and obedience to God. The only clear thinking one in the bunch is the ostracized daughter, who broke free from his deluded forced philosophy and tried to build a life for herself where at least she is allowed to express her inborn self-determination and freedom of choice. I hope she keeps her distance until mom decides to look beyond their differences and accept that her first born is reacting naturally to a limited existence.

Papa Jeub made a halfhearted attempt to reconcile their differences by meeting the oldest and her two year old son in a coffee shop near the end of the episode. His trepidation and distance was apparent; he brought a video camera with him and taped the encounter from the start. Ask any photographer. Cameras provide a disconnect from reality, an objective barrier between subject and observer.

This is actually the second episode (that I know of) of a Quiverfull family. What are TLC's intentions in broadcasting these people's lives? Is it because families like the Jeubs are social oddities and we love the spectacle or is the network trying to promote some sort of twisted tolerance for these people?

We are nearing a global conservation crisis and TLC is endorsing the lifestyle of careless, deluded isolationists who brainwash their children and blackball the ones who grow up with a brain? I remember when TLC actually showed educational programs about science and history. Will we ever return to those days?