Octo-mom Inspires Octo-Rage

Nadya Suleman signed a contract to video her life with 14 kids for television and the world is in an uproar. Hello? You weren't in an uproar when John and Kate signed on with their eight little cuties. Did you just want to see if they were going to be as cute as you expected. There weren't any public outcries when the Roloff family exploited that they were dwarfs, that one of their children was a dwarf and even that three of their children were not.

We all watched and 'awed' at the cute little Gosselin kids while they were originally surviving without federal assistance but not quite living in the lap of luxury. All of a sudden they start spending the money they make, taking advantage of all the extras the network family offers them and realizing like many a thirty something couples with kids that they no longer like each other and the public at large turns ugly. But it's okay, they were already self supporting, they didn't do this for the money.

I can't imagine how the Roloff's have escaped the furor of the public. They had a maiming trebuchet accident and the father often comes off as a slave driver during pumpkin season as he requires his kids to help on the farm. I have to say they live the most opulent farm life I have ever seen especially for a farm that specializes in seasonal tourist trade. Oh wait, they were making money before that. Matt Roloff owns a company that specializes in amenities for hotels so that they will be little people friendly. Still some of their improvements have to be due to the roll of income from their series. They go on an awful lot of trips and had some fairly extravagant home improvements lately. But hey that's okay they were self-supporting when they started.

And then there is Nadya. She's not making a living at anything except financial aid. She shouldn't have had kids she couldn't afford. Oh wait there are a whole bunch of families in this country with kids they can't afford. But let's be honest you can't go around spouting off about everyone who had kids they shouldn't have because you'd never be able to go anywhere and you'd be hoarse all the time. So we can fault Nadya for signing a deal that gets her much needed money BECAUSE she was NOT self sufficient to begin with. Right?

Suppose this contract was given to a woman living in the ghetto near you. A single mother with six kids all with different fathers and one set of twins who is pregnant again. She has never been married and there is no support from any of the dads. In fact the dads not only don't pay none of them have ever seen the kids. The three bedroom third floor apartment they are living in is section 8 and in need of major repair. How would you view her signing a contract that nets her $250, 000 over three years? Would you tune in to the first season to watch her try and stretch her food stamps out over the month and fill out the multiple forms necessary to have her clinic visits covered by state aid?

And before you get involved with thinking about that let's do the math for the Suleman's. 250/3= $83,333 a year for a family of sixteen including Nadya and her mother. Since she doesn't have a job tax payers already pay for her children to have medical care which will disappear after she and they start earning a living. Some of that hardly earned money will have to be spent on medical bills. There will be many because unlike the Gosselins her multiples are already displaying signs of having major life long issues. Before we leave this subject let's not forget taxes at something like 28%. Of course there may be some loopholes that allow her to keep control of more of the money by putting it in the kid's names but honestly it's not like this woman just made herself a mint or the gross national product of a small country. Also look at the number of days they will be filming, this is definitely not a John and Kate or a Roloff filming schedule where they are followed for months at a time.

Is she exploiting her children for profit? If you consider them helping support themselves by a being video taped a few days a year exploitation then yes. For profit? How much do you make a year in order to support your family comfortably without financial aid? I don't see how there can be profit in $84k a year for a family of sixteen. How long will the public want to watch these kinds of shows? They are popular today but like everything else on television they are cyclical and will run their course. Eventually they will be a novelty showing up on reunion and talk shows doing a 'where are they now' segment.

As for comparing them to the multiples from Canada who were taken and exploited by the government, I offer the Dilly's who grew up here with their parents. They seem perfectly fine to me. I've been watching them on television here and there for years. Plus these kids are so young and this will be such a small part of their life that it's hard to believe they will be ruined by it, unless of course the public at large makes it and them larger than life. Oh wait. Too late, they've already done that.

In fact those people screaming the loudest about this being some kind of abuse added to additional abuse they feel is already being inflicted on the kids just because of their sheer numbers should shut up because this whole filming thing is going to give them a first hand look into their house and their lives. What better ammunition are they going to get to pull these kids away from this woman? Isn't that what they are looking for? Take them away and people will take them in, keep them, and care for them out of the sheer goodness of their hearts. Certainly no one would take them in because they get paid to care for them. And of course on one would take them in and use them to showcase their own parenting ability. Once one of them is in your possession it's a piece of cake to forget who and what they are and where they came from and beat down the media coverage too. Right?

By the way if you were so appalled about her signing this agreement why didn't you just keep your mouth shut and your fingers still? If you don't give what she does audience then she doesn't have one and everything you're opposed to will disappear as quickly as it came.

I haven't even touched on the 18 and counting family or the other one that has 12 kids with multiple multiples who recently got their own show. I wonder what their motivation for signing on was. I wonder why no one is screaming their heads off about them. Is it because even before television they were self-supporting? Is it because they have two parents? Is it because they have religion? Is it because everyone thinks they know what is best for everyone else and should be allowed make their decisions for them? Is it because you would never do this to yourself and can't understand the frame of mind that allowed Nadya to do it?