In Which The Cake Eater Finally Sounds Off About the Whole "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" Debacle

Never let it be said that I don't enjoy watching a train wreck.

And, I will admit, I have been watching the train wreck that is the Gosselins ever since the tabloids started spewing reports of Jon's supposed infidelity a few months ago.  It's been fascinating, I will admit.  The Gosselin's claim that they deserve privacy, that no one should care what happens to them, that the paparazzi should not be stalking them.  I call bullshit.  They opened their doors to this kind of crap when they let cameras into their home to film their kids' every bowel movement.  Part. And. Parcel. People.  Tough noogies. 

Anyway, if you're one of the five people on the planet who have absolutely no idea who these people are, and why they've been hogging the cover of People for the past couple of months, much to Lindsay Lohan's and Paris Hilton's reported upset, let me briefly explain.  (Yes, Mom, I'm talking to you.)  The Gosselins have two sets of "multiples," meaning they have a set of eight-year-old twins and a set of five-year-old sextuplets, which adds up to eight children.  They have, for a while now, had a show on TLC titled, Jon and Kate Plus Eight.  

I watched this show fairly regularly for a couple of years.  It was required viewing when I was going through chemo (along with 'Dirty Jobs") because it was cute, light, fluffy, and it was the only show with children in it that didn't make me green with envy. I would, on a regular basis, momentarily flare with jealousy when I walked around the lake and saw moms pushing their kids in strollers.  But this show?  Not a single drop of envy pulsed through my veins as I watched.  I mean, after all, who in their right mind would be envious of people who had eight children in four years?  When it comes to my reproductive capacity, I'm as barren as the Russian steppes in January, but I couldn't even manage to work up any envy for their situation.  Who'd want to potty train six kids in one go?  Not me.  Who'd want to be on semi-permanent diaper duty?  Who'd want to give six kids a bath?  Or feed eight children at one shot?  Not me. I want kids, but, damn, I don't want that many. And, unlike most people, I know what I'm speaking of as I am, ahem, from a family comprised of eight children.

When I told the Cake Eater Mother about this show, I could hear her turn pale over the phone.  She said: "I always told Dr. McNamara that, if there was more than one in there, I was to be wheeled over to the Our Lady of Victory wing, and that your father would have to deal with it."  

The Our Lady of Victory wing at St. Joseph's Hospital, at the time, was the loony bin.

So, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, was "safe" viewing for me.  It was entertaining, yet not too taxing for my chemo-addled brain, and I managed to keep some kids in my life.  I was grateful for that.  And I was grateful to the Gosselins for sharing their lives.  Sure, Kate got on my nerves with her insistence on "organic" everything, and her refusal to let her kids walk barefoot across a hotel room floor because she didn't think it was sanitary. I thought she was taking the motherhood "protection" angle too far, looking for threats that weren't there, but that's hardly uncommon; you see it every day, with mothers refusing to let their kids play in the yard unsupervised because of unrealistic fears that some level-three sex offender was going to snatch them.  Yet, it made me uncomfortably itchy how Kate bossed her husband around, and yelled at and slapped him, and then, in a rather blase way, just chalked it up to the stress of having eight children.  I don't, for one minute, buy that excuse.  I thought she was being lazy, because there is always the option of better behavior. How do I know this?  Because of my mom.  My mother never slapped or belittled my father because she had eight kids. If anything, she was incredibly deferential to him, because he brought home the bacon, and we were all instructed to do the same.  Yes, they argued.  That was inevitable, and normal.  But my mom would never use her children as an excuse for being mean, like Kate did. So, yes, I was uncomfortable with that aspect.  I did, however, try to give her the benefit of the doubt.  They were both honest that they weren't perfect.  And, they made up in the end, didn't they?  Somehow, they made it work.  They loved each other, even if they did fight over stupid things.  And it's hard to judge just what goes on in a marriage.  Perhaps they just had a different way of handling things.  Again, I really wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.  

The husband had a different opinon on their dynamic.  Every time he walked into the room when the show was on, he asked, "Has he grown a pair, yet?"  To the husband, Jon was way too passive and was obviously unhappy because he kept letting his wife walk all over him just to keep the peace.  He predicted a mid-life crisis for Jon long before it happened.  I just figured Kate would be beaten-down into lightening up eventually, and Jon would take to the sofa for extended naps before too long. 

But something changed about a year and a half ago.  They actively started pushing this show on TLC.  There was more advertising.  There was a new logo.  There was a new opening segment.  Something had changed.  At first, I just thought the show had received a revamp.  But then it became obvious that a sea change was afoot. Jon no longer had a job. Suddenly, there were bottles of Juicy Juice everywhere.  T-shirts with advertising on them were blocked out with an abundance of pixels---unless some company paid to have them wear their t-shirts, and only then could you see the logo.  A family vacation to Disneyworld seemed normal enough, with friends available to help take care of their children. But then the "nannies" started showing up---straight from "Nannies for Hire," a company, I believe, one of their friends started and they agreed to help promote.  Then came the visit to Oprah.  And the trips to Utah, and North Carolina, with donated snow suits, monster vacation rentals, and, mother of all promotional items, a trip to Hawaii replete with a "marriage vow renewal." Oh, and let's not forget the free hair plugs Jon received.  Their extended family and friends stopped showing up in episodes.  Mady, one half of the older set of twins, completely disappeared at times---and I have to think that's because her behavior was a distraction to filming, rather than a punishment for her erratic, attention-seeking behavior, as her parents claimed.  That's right around when I stopped watching. Sure, I caught bits and pieces when I flipped past, but this show was no longer required viewing. The kids were no longer running around in their driveway, banging their tricycles or squabbling about whose turn it was with the sidewalk chalk, but were rather welcoming some new guest to their household every week who was bringing them a "present." Kate published books, charged for autographs, and began calling their show "her job."  The show no longer was about the daily experiences of an overlarge family in a small house; it was about this overlarge family who had moved to humongous gated estate, and who obviously had made the decision to cash in.

These people went from sharing their lives to pimping their children out for swag. 

And, surprise, surprise, the train went off the rails and the cars started piling up on one another.  First, we see Jon on the cover of some tabloid, being called out for cheating.  And they sound plausible, because, after all, shouldn't a father of eight be home at two a.m. instead of out at the bars? Then there's Kate on another cover, saying she's hurt by Jon's behavior and doesn't know if her marriage is finished.  Then there's allegations that Kate is cheating with her bodyguard.  It bounces back and forth, like a grass stained-tennis ball batted between Nadal and Federer on Centre Court, until this past Monday, when they announced they were getting divorced.  

I don't blame the show for what happened to their marriage.  I blame their decision to start actively pimping out their children for money for what happened to their marriage. They went from being parents who weren't afraid to say "no" to their children, who managed to go out to dinner by themselves every now and again, who put a priority on their marriage, to having their lives be all about their kids.  I had to watch that "announcement" special they had on the other night (and I swear to God, it was because there wasn't anything else on, and I really just wanted to get to "Cake Boss.") and it struck me how many times Kate claimed her children were her top priority; how Jon said he'd do anything for his kids; how often they both said their kids were the most important things in their lives.  Well, sure, of course the kids are the most important things in their lives: the kids are their meal-ticket.  The kids paid for that house, all the new cars, Jon's new 1/2 carat diamond studs, all the color-jobs and the horrendous haircuts Kate gets and her fantabulously horrendous new wardrobe.  In such a situation how could it be any different?  People want to see the kids happy, healthy and, most importantly, cute.  To do that requires a lot of work.  Everything else, of course, would have to go by the wayside, including their marriage. 

Look, I may not have kids, but it's pretty simple to even childless 'ol me: kids grow up and leave, to lead their own lives.  Yes, you need to give children a good foundation to build upon, they need to be cared for, educated, loved, and corrected when they step out of line.  I'm not denying any of that.  But they do leave.  That's the nature of children: they grow up.  If you don't take care of your marriage whilst you're raising your kids, first, how do kids know how to have a successful relationship and second, who the hell are you going to play Parcheesi on the front porch with in your golden years?  It takes two people to raise a child.  I don't care if that's a man and a woman, two men, or two.   women---the magic number is two.  Yes, you can do it with one parent, but that's not ideal, as any single parent will tell you.  Your reward for sticking it out, holding tight over the rough patches, and raising your children together is a relationship that will stand the test of time.  Jon and Kate, in their rush to make a buck off their children by putting their children first, forgot all of this.  Now they're getting divorced. 

Now, I could say a whole lot more about how Kate, with her controlling ways, pretty much drove Jon to seek comfort where and when he could get it (not saying that he did, but if he did, well, he's probably the one guy who deserves a pass in my book.  And we all know I feel about adultery.), or how Jon should have grown a pair much sooner than he did, or how they should have sought counseling to make their marriage work---but to do so would be to miss the point.  These people put their kids first, but they did it in a way where it was pretty much impossible for their marriage to survive.  One has to ask: what kind of lesson is that going to be for their kids?  Because, oh, yes, their kids will struggle because their parents failed---and towards the end, flat-out refused---to work at their marriage.  The kids might not know how to compromise because their mother never does.  They might become extremely passive-aggressive when confronted with an uncomfortable situation because that's what their father does.  But, most importantly, they might find themselves struggling to figure out how to make a relationship work because their parents simply gave up. Sure, the kids come first in the Gosselin household, but, really, how is that going to help these same kids in the long run?  I'm of the opinion that it will hinder them more than any damage wrought by having to witness their parents arguing.