Octuplet Mom Gives Big Families A Bad Rap

Octuplet Mom Nadya Suleman is helping to re-enforce the stigma that big families are a drain on tax-payers, putting big families on the defensive and making this mom-of-many wonder what will happen to her children.

I know the choice we made to have a big family isn’t the most popular one. I’m not sure when society started frowning upon the idea of a big family, or viewing children as loud heathens over-populating the earth, but today when someone sees a woman with more than a couple children, their first instincts are to generally steer clear, as though the family is diseased with the plague of children being children. Or looks are given to the mother, as if having kids warrants sympathy or something. You can only imagine what we, parents-of-many, must endure while out and about in today’s society. Children are blessings, our futures, and should be seen as such, with respect and guidance, yet they’re viewed as an almost-parasite if they aren’t well-behaved ‘yes men’, overly medicated to conform to this unrealistic view on who or what they should be.

Enter “Octomom”.

With six already at home, Octuplet Mom Nadya Suleman gives birth to eight more, and now she’s all over, everywhere, and being lumped with other big families like Angelina Jolie and the Duggars, as if we’re all in a cult to pollute the earth by breeding. Newsflash – Angelina and the Duggars are successful and responsible. “Octomom” is no success, not a successful mother, anyway, because it takes more than breeding alone to make you one. A mother is one that puts her children’ needs above her own. She’s one that stops the earth’s rotational spin to kiss a boo-boo or to administer to her ailing child. Not giving birth to fame and fortune via octuplets and her self-induced media frenzy, unless you consider her power of wielding the media to her will a success. Successful at grabbing attention? Sure. Success at getting pregnant and birthing? Perhaps. Success as a mother, not so much. But the biggest newsflash of them all -  it should not be only about her.

And please stop lumping Octuplet Mom with all big families in general, because we are nothing like her. In any way. What-so-ever. As if meeting new people isn’t hard enough with the quips, comments, pre-conceived notions and inquisitions we already endure, our big family and others like us don’t need your jokes to now include “are you trying to be ‘Octomom’?” because honestly, that’s the best way to bring this mom-of-many to consider jabbing you with a baby rattle to awaken your adolescent mind.

Why are you so focused on this “Octomom” anyway? About who she is, what she’s doing, what she must be thinking? Her, her, her. I can’t stop seeing the OMGSHEHAS14KIDSSHEMUSTBECRAZY mindset, as if having a lot of kids makes one insane, or something. (No, I’m not twitching in the corner. That’s my evil twin sister. Stop changing the subject). Crazy or not, I don’t want to dignify her actions with the response she oh-so-desperately wants – attention. I want to know more about who this whole commotion should really be about – the kids.

What about them? How are they? Are they clothed? Fed? Are they okay physically and mentally? Where are they while she’s doing interviews, being photographed getting her nails done, shopping for expensive items when she’s admitted she owes thousands and is living off of government assistance? Are Suleman’s children with special-needs making it to their appointments alright, or taking their prescribed medication daily? Are they clean? Do they attend school? Are they played with? Thriving? Most importantly – what’s going to happen to them, all fourteen children? Will they stay with her? Will they be taken away? If so, where will they go?

You always see the Duggars with their children, happy, well-cared for children. You see Angelina proudly caressing her bundles, Brad wearing his babies proudly. On any given day a mother, let alone a mom-to-many or a mom-to-one, will genuinely engage anyone they come across into talks about their child/ren, pictures, milestones, etc. Suleman is well-primped for the camera, nails manicured perfectly, but no children in tow and no talks of their lives, no pictures, no milestones to speak of. Are they afterthoughts to her? They didn’t garner her enough glamour and glitz of the media, so she went bigger and better, is that it? I’m sure someone decided to keep Octuplet Mom’s six children at home under wraps in all of this (not sure if it was her or not), for their sake, which is best, given all the circus she’s brought to the world’s attention, but absolutely no focus on them or their well-being concerns me more than a little.

Heck yeah, Suleman has questionable sanity for having in-vitro fertilization over and over to give herself a big family she can’t care for on her own. But that doesn’t mean that all who choose to have more than the average 2.4 children are crazy, let alone her version of it. It doesn’t mean we all can’t care for our children. Yes, she has questionable sanity to choose to do the inappropriate things she’s doing, such as plastic surgery all-the-while with special needs children at home who need her more than her own need to look like Angelina, more IVF without a job and interviews and exorbitant shopping and the like. But that doesn’t mean that everything big families do is questionable, like you often hear when the Duggar’s are mentioned, or Angelina Jolie for that matter. Like we’re all just a bunch of baby-wearing, homeschooling freaks draining the taxpayers. ParentDish’s article on ‘Octomom’ reinforces this line of thinking. And again, it shouldn’t be all about her, or single women, or people with big families with “more than normal” amount of children.

It needs to be about what happens now, and to them. To the doctor who let all of this happen. To her parents who knew she needed professional help and enabled her anyway. And what will happen to “Octomom,” yes. But not because of talks of a TV show (ew), or her posing nude (double-ew). But of what they will impose upon her, for endangering her children to have more children, for defrauding the government and the issuer of her student loans, and of her over-all lack of judgement in regards to the situation she’s made of these fourteen innocent souls. We shouldn’t empower Octuplet Mom’s need to be a star because she birthed a bazillion kids. She doesn’t deserve it. There are everyday mothers out there with children that work like superheros daily to move heaven and earth to ensure their children are healthy and happy that deserve the spotlight more than this woman.

What Nadya Suleman really needs is to empower herself to be the mother those children need, the right way, not by way of book deals and paid interviews, and for everyone to forget her need to be famous or like Angelina and focus on the kids. Society needs to let her fix the situation by encouraging her to do for herself for a change, or let someone else who will by way of adoption.

Everyone needs to check their fascination with “Octomom” at the door. Her fourteen children need you to.

Image: Creative Commons Big Family.

When she’s not fired up about current events affecting children, Lisa is the editor of the Big Families section here at Type-A Mom and blogs regularly at Crazy Adventures in Parenting about the joys of raising her big brood of six children, and loving every crazy minute of it.

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