Little People, Big World

Over the last three days, my family and I have spent a lot of time watching television. We don’t do this very often, but it was sort of a rainy weekend and we wanted to chill out after a busy Holy Week. By far, the highlight of our television viewing extravaganza was a show called Little People, Big World. We’ve watched this several times before, but I haven’t watched it like we did this weekend. I think we saw three or four episodes.

Well, turns out I love the Roloffs. Matt & Amy Roloff, the parents, are both little people. They have three average sized kids and one who is also a little person. Matt’s dwarfism is caused by diastrophic dysplasia while Amy’s is the result of achondroplasia. They have twins, Zach (who also has achondroplasia) & Jeremy, Molly, and Jacob. This is a great family show, and we feel very comfortable letting our four year old daughter watch.  In fact, I go so far as to say it’s a great show for her to watch. She gets to see a family that seems to be fairly healthy, and she’s also exposed to people who are different than us physically.

As it turns out, the Roloffs are Christians as well. No, you don’t hear holy music as they switch to soft lighting and head off to Church, you simply get the sense that their faith is deeply important to them. For instance, in a recent show the youngest son is hit by a contraption called a trebuchet on their family farm. One of the first things the family does when they find out Jacob is going to be OK is to offer a very heartfelt prayer of thanks to Jesus!

I know there are some serious issues with reality TV in general, but we love having a nice family show that we can watch without having to worry about what they’ll see.