The impact of media on Me

In my quest to find academic, accredited studies on how representations of big families in the media impact society, I selflessly overlooked one key researcher: myself. After an enlightening phone conversation with a friend yesterday, I realized that if I take a self-centered stroll back through my prepubescent media experiences, I start to notice a remarkable trend.

I watched very little television as little kid, not because it was banned in my household, simply because there were always more engaging things to do -- pull cicada shells off the big Maple tree out front, climb the Magnolia and smell the delicious white blooms, argue with the neighborhood girls about who's Chinese jump roping skills were best, wade deep into the creek and upend rocks in search of a succulent crayfish, or choreograph some memorable interpretive dance performances for tolerant friends and family.

However, when I wasn't launching myself off the deck in my First Communion dress to the tune of Like a Virgin or wrapping myself up in a bolt of fabric from my Mom's sewing station while Material Girl blared in the background, I did sometimes watch the occasional movie. In my family's early VHS collection there were three films: The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, and National Velvet. Somewhere down the line my Dad also taped the original Cheaper by the Dozen from television and it was added to the mix. I watched each of these movies dozens of times plus during my childhood. And now, when I reflect on it, they all had something in common (save for National Velvet where the kid count was three); they all portrayed big families. The Sound of Music, seven kids; Fiddler on the Roof, five daughters; Cheaper by the Dozen, of course, a hearty 12 children).

I don't believe my parents were covertly trying to brainwash me into thinking the bigger the family, the better, but it does bear mentioning that each of these movies no doubt left its impression on me. For those of you who don't have the fortitude (or free time) to wade through my lengthy post on how I came to be a kid counter, the short story is: I am the youngest of five, but my closest sibling is 16 years my senior. I got to experience the best parts of growing up in a big family: the jolly holidays filled with presents, the vacations where we took up a significant swath of the beach, the homecomings and graduations and birthdays. And, as I result, I've always had a fantasy of having a big family; although the rose-colored glasses have slipped down the slope of my nose a little in recent years.

For one, I've got a kid of my own now, and another on the way, so I have a firsthand grasp of what it's like to raise a family; I'm no longer sitting a healthy six feet back from the television, curled up on the couch, keenly observing big family life. Back then, when the dazzling dozen came down with the whooping cough in Cheaper by the Dozen, I coveted the attic room lined with single beds for sick kids. How fun to be crammed together, coughing in unison, swapping germs like a stickers on the playground. The fact that the kids in the Sound of Music were treated like military brats, summoned by their father with a piercing whistle, before Maria came on the scene didn't phase me one bit. I relished in the opportunity to see them shoulder-to-shoulder in formation -- that way I could analyze their personality quirks and take note of how much (or little) they looked like each other. In Fiddler on the Roof, I must sadly admit, the background of the story, the horrors, displacement and travails of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, were lost on me, as I obsessed about how Chava's red hair stood in striking contrast to her sisters and pined for a gaggle of same-aged cohorts like these most fortunate long-haired young women had.

I was blinded by the lure of the big family -- the big meals, the big celebrations, the kibitzing, the camaraderie, the crammed car and horse-drawn carriage rides, the collective conniving capabilities these siblings had. And the message I took away from it all was really quite simple: the more the merrier.