Andrea Findley
Prairie Editor
As an avid TV watcher, I, like many others, watched the first interview with new octuplet mom Nadya Suleman gave to the press.
In disbelief I sat there and tried to understand what kind of awfully lonely childhood she must have had to assume it was okay to fill her loneliness with oodles of children.
All throughout the interview with Ann Curry, Suleman kept making references to how she wanted a large family and needed love.
She told Curry, “That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family, and I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up. I didn’t feel as though, when I was a child, I had much control of my environment. I felt powerless. And that gave me a sense of predictability. Reflecting back on my childhood, I know it wasn’t functional. It was pretty dysfunctional, and whose isn’t?”
I’m 98 percent sure the rest of us that have childhood issues learn to deal with them, not pump our uteruses full of children.
Though I am not a mother yet, I firmly believe that parents should seriously contemplate the consequences of their actions in the bedroom (or in the in vitro fertilization clinic) before bringing a child into the world.
Children are vulnerable and needy human beings and no matter what kind of “love” Suleman thinks she’s capable of, I don’t ever see all of her children getting the love they need.
She told Curry, “I’m providing myself to my children. I’m loving them unconditionally, accepting them unconditionally. Everything I do, I’ll stop my life for them and be present with them. And hold them. And be with them. And how many parents do that? I’m sure there are many that do, but many don’t. And that’s unfortunate. That is selfish.”
As much as she can say it, its different to hold 14 children each day for as long as the child desires.
Anyone can provide the basics for a child: food, clothing and shelter, but when it comes to providing time, effort and unconditional love — that’s where most parents fall short.
Besides lacking the adequate emotional support, Suleman apparently isn’t even capable of providing food, clothing and shelter by herself.
When the infants leave the hospital with a big dent already in Suleman’s purse, the bills will continue piling up.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Cost of Raising a Child Calculator, a new tool the department has developed to help parents prepare for expenses and life insurance, a middle-class family living in the western United States can expect to spend at least $9,171 on year’s worth of housing, food, transportation, clothing, health, education and other expenses for a single child under the age of 1.
For eight children under the age of 1, that number mushrooms to $73,368.
Suleman receives $490 a month in food stamps and three of her other six children are disabled and receiving federal assistance, but hold on: she doesn’t consider food stamps and SSI to be welfare.
Well, I do.
And, honestly I don’t mind my tax dollars going to underprivileged children, what I do mind is having my money go towards their ignorant parents.
All the time in the grocery store, I see dirty kids in grocery carts being pushed through the line as their mom pays out with her Lone Star card.
What’s even more depressing is that the grocery bags are full of Doritos and canned Cokes.
I don’t know when the government approved junk food for food stamps, but it was a bad decision.
Not that $490 can fill the tummies of 14 growing children, anyway.
Besides just providing the necessities of raising a child, what’s going to happen when one of her children ask where their dad is?
I don’t know about Suleman, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to have to answer that question.
What does she tell her child, “Well, honey I figured I could be both: mom and dad. Who needs a dad?”
Well, all of her children need a dad.
I have friends that weren’t raised with a two parents, and it has an impact.
Plus, who wouldn’t want the help of a second parent?
Oh, that’s right — she has her mother, whom she lives with. Good luck, grandma.
After watching the interview I felt sorry for Suleman, not happy.
Maybe it’s because I’m not the motherly type, but after watching my brother and sister-in-law raise five children, Suleman is in for more than just a sunny day at the beach.
After she gets all her children through diapers and bottles, adolescence will creep up like an angry alien to slap her hard in the face.
But, maybe, there will be some kind of miracle to make her life easier, like a paid lifetime nanny service.
But as of now, she seems so out of touch with her reality.
Instead of feeling the least bit of overwhelmed, she’s still floating in a dream world. Her immaturity is striking and after all the cameras leave and the endorsements stop, I hope she handles the struggle ahead. Because it won’t be gumdrops and lollipops.
