I Don't Get It

ALV and I were discussing feminism last night and decided that we're "old school" feminists. You know, the kind of feminists that think women should be able to make their own choices about what they do in life - i.e. be focused on career, be a stay-at-home mom or anything in between. This is opposed to the newer face of feminism - the mindset that if a woman doesn't do all that she can to exceed men in power, wealth and all those other areas where The Man (literally) has excelled in the past, then she is the ultimate failure and a disgrace to anyone with girl parts.

But I think that, in general, most women of any feminist or even anti-feminist group can agree on one thing - we're not meant to bear litters. Don't get in a huff. I don't mean that big families are a bad thing. I mean that having six or eight babies AT ONCE is not biologically sound. Human women are not dogs, cats, ducks or any other species that has multiple births on a regular basis. It's not just unnatural - televisions, forks and my comfy jeans aren't natural, and I wouldn't want to live without any of them - it's dangerous. It's dangerous to the babies, the mom and my sanity.

Unless you've been in a coma, solitary confinement or Tahiti, you've seen the hoopla over "Jon & Kate Plus Eight". I'm going to avoid deep analysis (Jon is a hapless bore and Kate is a neurotic control freak), but I have to wonder why we're rewarding these people for spawning like Scottish Terriers. Scottish Terriers do it all the time! And let's take a quick inventory of the damage their TV show has done to this family - exposed possible affair of Jon, exposed possible affair of Kate, taken Kate out of the house for her promotional book tours, left 8 children to live under constant scrutiny (which has worked so well for many child stars of yore) and earned a look from the government for possible violations of child labor laws. That's just the stuff directly attributable to the show. Then there's that whole "life" category of things that normal people have to deal with.

But, you know what? If these people want to destroy their lives with celebrity, that's fine. From what I've gleaned, Jon & Kate at least seemed able to support a household of 10, even if it would have become tight.

Today, however, I read this headline - "Octuplets' Mom Inks Reality TV, Book Deals".

UGH. The woman has serious issues. And a burden on society. While these deals might remove her from welfare, do you really think she's going to stop? She needs *help*, not affirmation.

Tell me that, along with "Twilight" and gladiator-sytle sandals, these multi-kid, multi-exploitation reality shows will go away.