Why Jon & Kate Plus Eight Can Teach Me How NOT to Parent

I’ll admit that I totally used to watch TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus Eight. We don’t have cable, but my grandparents do, and what ELSE is there to do when we visit them but watch the Jon & Kate Plus Eight marathon that it seems is always on?

And sure, I really enjoyed the show at first. The little kids were cute, and it was entertaining to spend an hour seeing two adults tearing their hair out trying to complete the simplest of tasks, like grocery shopping, or getting dressed, with six toddlers and two older kids.

And the parents? They were AWESOME! Kate’s obsessive need to dress the kids identically and keep a fastidious house clashing with her husband’s desire to just chill–now that’s entertainment.

I visited my grandpa at Christmas, though, and again for Spring Break, and I was disturbed to see that the tenor of Jon & Kate Plus Eight has really changed over its few seasons. The show has gone from a documentary about how to parent through the hard times, with integrity and an emphasis on maintaining family connections, to a documentary about a couple of stage parents and all the misery they put their unloved and ill-behaved little kids through in order to bring in the cash. Here’s why I think Jon & Kate Plus Eight has become distinctly family-unfriendly, both for me to watch and for Jon and Kate and their children to live through:

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1. Is it just me, or do Jon and Kate not seem to actually even like each other anymore? Kate’s always sniped at Jon, and we always knew it was rude (HOW many times, exactly, has she bellowed angrily at him from across a crowded public place?), but they’d talk about it later, and Kate would look chagrined and sort of apologize. I could relate. Now, though? They seem to constantly snipe at each other in that painful way that you, the bystander, really and truly don’t want to have to watch. I saw my husband’s cousin and her husband do the same exact thing on a vacation we all took together one time–their divorce was finalized by the same time next year.
2. All they seem to care about is getting more and more free stuff. One of the things I liked best about the show’s early seasons was how they weren’t wealthy. They talked about having to cut costs, and how it was important to them to sacrifice so that they could feed their kids organic foods, and their parenting philosophy behind not providing their kids with an abundance of toys–this is all stuff I can agree with. In these later seasons, however, it seemed as if every episode consisted of one or both of the adults dragging the kids on some trip that I suspected was free (Hawaii? Disney World? Sesame Place?), utilizing a LOT of product placement (Seriously, they will go on and on and on about weird stuff like how much all their kids just love the V-Smile game system, for instance), and being mean to the kids while they’re there (in the Disney World episode, Kate ripped free ice cream away from her hot and tired kids, who then began to scream and cry and hit each other, all because she didn’t want them to get sticky). It would be nice if less emphasis was placed on going places and getting stuff, and more on simpler things that it might actually be more fun for eight small children and two adults to do as a family.
3. This lack of privacy can’t be good for the kids. I’ve seen Jon & Kate’s children in the shower, having a bowel movement, feeling very ill–in all kinds of vulnerable situations that I, personally, would not give permission to be filmed, myself. It was different when the sextuplets were toddlers, because everyone knows that toddlers don’t even want any privacy, but they’re around five years old, now, an age where, no matter what Jon & Kate say, they are too old to just simply be going about their days oblivious to and unaffected by all the camera equipment and production staff that must be following them around. They’re like child actors on a television series, now, and everyone has heard the horror stories of what those kids face when they grow up.
4. I think it’s a bad idea to give birth to large multiples of children. It’s sort of like my “Support the Troops, End the War” stance in that I’ll do my part to support kiddos who are already here–yes, including using my taxes–but I’m becoming increasingly disturbed by the media reports that are becoming more prevalant about other women (some of whom also seem disturbed–hello, Octomom) who are also having these multiples. Is this what I’ve taught the media that I want to see? If so–oops.

I just feel too uncomfortable to watch Jon & Kate Plus Eight now. The last time I watched it at Papa’s house, I felt as if it was inappropriate for me to be watching someone else’s children so closely. I felt as if I was witnessing the downward spiral of a formerly positive and healthy family, corrupted by money and fame. I felt as if I shouldn’t be supporting the actions of these parents, who I no longer believe are acting in the best interests of their children.

And then I turned off the show, and whatever they do next, I won’t have to be a part of it.

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