Thanks to the magic of Netflix, my wife recently got hooked on the cable TV series “Big Love,” and I have to admit that it has been (thus far) a very entertaining show. But with the polygamy and large families and cultish compounds and all that in the show…and the recent news about that Texas LDS compound that got raided…the subject matter of Big Love seems a bit creepier now. And, add to that the Duggar family, whom I somehow have managed to miss in the media all this time, despite them having a reality TV show and making the news/talk circuit and the wife dutifully popping out a kid a year, with 17 out so far and number 18 on the way.

There’s not much more I can say that hasn’t already been said better by Chez at Deus Ex Malcontent in his post Family Units, along with many of the commenters on that thread who had some pithy, snarky and sometimes spot-on things to say about the Duggars. I chimed in myself, with what was probably among the least entertaining responses there. Check it out. Be amazed, be frightened…but hopefully you won’t be rooting for them. I try not to judge, but it seems to me the Duggars lost perspective somewhere along the line, much like a woman who has been trying to lose weight for so long and keep it off that she still thinks she’s fat when she’s a 90-pound walking skeleton. My fear is that when families like this are lifted up in the media and given so much positive attention at a time when our resources are being stretched to the limit globally, and all under the guise of living biblically…well, let’s just say we don’t need too many folks following in their footsteps. (For more on the “Quiverfull” teachings that the Duggars are following, as well as the crticisms of it, click here. I believe myself that children are a blessing, but I also believe that God dislikes excess, particularly when it flies in the face of good stewardship of the planet.)

I’m glad me and Mrs. Blue…and Miz Pink and her husband, Sir Pink…have a little more restraint. At least in actually producing babies. I’m all for going through the motions of making them while stopping the swimmers before they can enter the tunnel of love. And most couples, no matter how faithful to God, have some sense of perspective, instead of actively trying to have baby after baby just to prove something to God.

We married folks should be making love, but we should know when to stop making babies.