A few weeks before Christmas, as my family was still in shock over our pregnancy discovering and then again that it was twins, we were enjoying watching the Christmas episodes and mini movies to all of our favorite shows.
One show we have liked is the Disney Channel's "Good Luck Charlie".
Now this is a modern family that follows many of the silly trends. The dad is portrayed as dill witted, the mom is often over bearing and self serving and the teens have modern teen issues such as dating and kissing. The family is without a known faith life and these things might keep you away from the show. BUT My family LOVES this show for several reasons. One being that they have four children and that is a bunch of kids for a Disney show. We have loved seeing the "big family" dynamics on the TV once a week. For the most part they are a fun living family and we have enjoyed watching the stories develop over the past few years.
We watched the Christmas Movie with such joy. We DVRed it and watched it when we are all together. As the story developed we all guessed that the mom must be pregnant. We KNEW we were wrong because there is NO WAY a TV show would portray baby 5 in a positive manner. The mom was pregnant and at first the oldest daughter was mad at her mom and dad but then she saw what was really important and was very excited. We were all so surprised that Disney went out on such a limb with this traditional family.
What had been equally exciting is that the mom was pregnant this season. All the crazy mood swings and stuff that goes with mom expecting but still having a big family were all on the TV screen. The crazy view of grown children and being pregnant was something that I could relate to, the whole family could. This was not a show about the 17 year old daughter being pregnant but about the 17 year old daughter, 19 year old son and the rest of the group helping as mom prepared for the next baby. We could relate to this so much. We laughed and cried as we watched the episodes this season. I like that at times my kiddo would say, that might be easier if they went to church.
Disney also had a build up to this past episode. They let the fans vote on the name of the new baby. It has been reported that they were even shocked at the number of votes that they received. The siblings on the show were excited about the baby but very real. They worried about silly things but knew the baby would be welcomed and loved. This last episode was all about mom NOT having the baby on Charlie's birthday. Charlie was to be 3 and no one wanted her to have to "share" her big day. I grew sad as the episode went on thinking that was the wrong way to think about it. I was thinking that if they shared a birthday it could be written into the show to be very exciting.
In the end the baby was born on Charlie's birthday. No one had purchased Charlie's gift and the mom apologized to her when she came to visit the new baby. Charlie, the beautiful 3 year old girl, pointed to her new baby brother and said that was all she needed. My whole family sat around the TV cheering, crying and so happy that a Disney show actually got it. For that short time we felt like we were not so far from the main stream. We are also hoping that some will be inspired by this happy portrayal of a bigger family to have more children.
So I must just say Thank You Disney.
