{"id":5738,"date":"2006-01-06T10:55:50","date_gmt":"2006-01-06T10:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/the-big-family-onscreen.html"},"modified":"2006-01-06T10:55:50","modified_gmt":"2006-01-06T10:55:50","slug":"the-big-family-onscreen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/the-big-family-onscreen.html","title":{"rendered":"The big family onscreen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meghan Cox Gurdon (mother of 5) in the WSJ:<\/a><\/p>\n

She comments on the resurgence of the large family on the big screen, but that the subtheme of these films is chaos, either barely controlled or actual. But in reality:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

The odd thing is that, off the screen, large families are seldom the ones with wildly misbehaving children. In real life, they tend to be the orderly people with the polite children, the families in which older siblings can be seen caring for their little brothers and sisters without griping about it. Indeed, onlookers are so taken in by the popular stereotype that they are often surprised to see a large family acting peacefully. <\/p>\n

The recent return of big families to the screen is both telling and pleasing. It will be more pleasing still when those families are able to appear not solely amid zany pandemonium but also in orderly accommodation with the rest of society. Then reel life will be a whole lot closer to real life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meghan Cox Gurdon (mother of 5) in the WSJ: She comments on the resurgence of the large family on the big screen, but that the subtheme of these films is chaos, either barely controlled or actual. But in reality: The odd thing is that, off the screen, large families are seldom the ones with wildly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe big family onscreen - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/the-big-family-onscreen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The big family onscreen - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Meghan Cox Gurdon (mother of 5) in the WSJ: She comments on the resurgence of the large family on the big screen, but that the subtheme of these films is chaos, either barely controlled or actual. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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