TV Families that Ensure Interesting Mondays

If at about, oh, 7pm your Mondays get tedious and uninspired, take remote in hand and turn on TLC. It's two for the price of one--with the real families featured in Little People, Big World and Jon & Kate Plus 8. Allow me to tell you why these families endlessly fascinate me.

First, the Roloffs. This family, first introduced by TLC about 4 years ago on a show intended to feature the life of, well, little people in a big world. From the picture it's clear that Amy and Matt, the parents, are both little people while only Zach (far left) is a little person kid. Their other kids, (from right) Jeremy (Zach's twin brother!), Molly, and Jacob are average height (the Roloffs don't say "normal height" and I say good for them.) Over the past four years viewers have witnessed the way life gets done when you're 4 feet tall. One of the greatest developments I've witnessed as a regular watcher is how truly normal their life is. Don't get me wrong, both Matt and Amy have been incredibly resourceful in making this family work, but in the end, I watch because the people are so interesting and not because they're "little" or average. My love and personal take on each family member will show up in a future post because, truly, Matt Roloff deserves an entire tome devoted to his crazy amazingness. For now, suffice it to say, show up for the height differential, stay for the family life. More to come on this in a moment.

Now for the Gosselin's. I first saw this brood of 10 on a Discovery Chanel special that eventually morphed into a mid-season replacement and now is one of the most fascinating and scary shows on television. Jon and Kate are poster children for the effects of in-vitro: their twins (Cara and Mady) are 7 while their sextuplets (Aaden, Hannah, Alexis, Collin, Leah, and Joel) are 3. The show chronicles their life in both learning how to deal with a family this size but also how to make that life meaningful for the "older" girls and for the "little kids." This show, like America's Next Top Model (sadly), renders me powerless thereby often gluing me to the tv for as long as they continue to show these episodes. I have friends who just had one kid and their life is hectic. I cannot even imagine this life and yet I can sit and watch it unfold in front of me. Amazing.

What I find most interesting about both shows is the ability to watch gender construction rammed into the fertile minds of all of these children. Both families successfully deal with situations that are so possibly debilitating, they amaze me. At the same time, the ways in which they talk to their children, dress them, deal with their problems, etc. are so conventionally "boys are blue and girls are pink" that sometimes I find it hard to breathe. On LPBW, Amy and Molly often do what Matt calls "girls day out:" they go to the spa, have lunch, go shopping, get their nails done. Which is fine, except that Matt, who's the biggest...little...alpha male on television harps so hard on the boys to be "manly men" that I almost pity them. Jeremy and Zach (the oldest children) take it in stride, but poor Jacob. On yesterday's episode, Matt said that Jacob was "whining like a girly man". I often think Jacob would be happier hanging with Amy and Molly. On J&K+8, what's fascinating is that added to the gender mix is the fact that two of the girls are older which changes the dynamics--Cara and Mady are constantly pegged as being overly emotional, whiny, and clingy.

It's just a very interesting process. I probably could not handle the lives of these two families. But I find it interesting that despite these extreme circumstances in which they find themselves, the ways they categorize and socialize their children are very traditional...and boxed in. I'm fascinated. Watch 'em and you will be too.