Saturday, February 7, 2009

"All I Wanted Was Children" The California Octuplet Tragedy


The Octuplet Fiasco: The Mother Speaks, “All I Wanted Was Children”

Friday morning gave the world its first glimpse of the irresponsible, deranged, and stupid woman, Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets while already having six children none of whom have a known father all produced by a sperm donor through invitro implantation.

Watch this shocking interview from the Today Show at the following link:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29038814/

The accompanying article is also worth reading as it gives significant background on this walking disaster.

Her interview with NBC personality, Ann Curry, plays out as a sickly soap opera. It was hard not to think of the mother-zombies of the Texas cult were young girls were rounded up as breeding stock for the pleasures of the male compound members, who looked glassy-eyed and robotic as they spoke in a soft monotone justifying their behavior as they too were engaged in a bizarre and disturbing mutation of motherhood. From her first words, the world saw a woman who did not have the emotional composure of a rational thirty three year old adult. A unifying theme that is not uncommon in today’s world is that she only sees the world through her own terms, her own needs, her own wants, and her own ability to twist the rational and moral to fit her sickly desires.

Ms. Suleman’s reasoning goes something like this. Describing her choice as “unconventional,” she felt neglected as a child being a single child she did not have the companionship of other siblings and that made her feel bad. In her own words speaking to Ann Curry of NBC News:

“Feeling of self and identity,” Suleman replied. “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?”

Should we take that as a confession she’s too crazy to be a responsible mother? Why not?

While we might be quick to stereotype this idiot, she is thirty three years old and is college educated! This is not something that can be blamed on youthful immaturity. In her own demented way, this was her plan. This is what she wanted. She feels she is capable of being a good mother and her amazing compassion will work miracles for all fourteen children!

Consider this directly from the NBC interview:

“People feel, you know, this woman is being completely irresponsible and selfish to bring these children in the world without a clear source of income and enough help to raise them,” Curry told Nadya Suleman in a segment that aired Friday on TODAY. “The world outside is saying, ‘What are you doing?’ ”

“I know I'll be able to afford them when I'm done with my schooling,” the 33-year-old single mom replied. Calm, poised and articulate in the glare of the media spotlight, Suleman added: “If I was just sitting down watching TV and not being as determined as I am to succeed and provide a better future for my children, I believe that would be considered, to a certain degree, selfish.”

How clear her egocentric point-of-view and inability to see the consequences of her behavior are in these words. She thinks that she alone, her own feelings, is what will make life good for these doomed children. She doesn’t see the obvious cruel and horrible conditions that these children will have forced upon them with no escape. Not a single one of these kids will have his or her own living space. None of these kids will have the guidance of a father and will receive only a fraction of the attention a normal child would receive from his or her mom, but we question what quality of attention such a delusional mother could provide in the first place?

What kind of moral and personal guidance will be available for these retched kids? Who can attend to them in a substantial way in their moment of need? How can they develop any sense of individuality? For any of these poor children to have the nurturing environment allowing them to become well-adjusted responsible adults does not exist. Maybe a couple of them will turn out okay. There’s no denying the power of the human spirit, but the deck is stacked against them in ways we can hardly begin to understand.

Also lost in all the hoopla is this sickly, depraved idiot is living off disability income from the State of California! If she’s not well enough to work, she can handle the duties of fourteen children. This is a sick woman. Fourteen children all under the age of eight years old, how can anyone think that is acceptable.

As her background and quotes add up, the pure insanity of her situation explodes before the viewer’s eyes.

Her background was being employed at a state mental health facility from 1997-2006 injuring her back in a 2006 riot there. Hmm, doesn’t lifting and dealing with children put a lot of additional sprain on one’s back? How disabled is she? We can’t help but asking as she has such a deeply ingrained sense of entitlement to begin with.

Insisting she is a good mother she affirmed with pride:

All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children.”

She added: (again from the Curry interview)

“I'm providing myself to my children. I'm loving them unconditionally, accepting them unconditionally,” she told Curry. “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.”

Talk about the “audacity of hope,” she sets herself up as more dedicated than most parents. WHOA!

She thinks the good will of her church and her community will come forward to help her. What kind of retched sense of entitlement is that? Her value system is the “Me” generation played out to its worst extreme coupled with the ethos of a victim’s society and sense of entitlement.

What’s lost in this whole mess are two things: the children and the medical professionals who enabled this to happen. The children are doomed. They have a mother without a job living with her parents who don’t have the means to support their daughter and six children much less fourteen. Any responsible family with just one or two children knows the challenges of parenthood even in traditional two parent families juggling careers, budgets, and other commitments to give their kids the best upbringing to prepare them for a successful future in the world. Taking care of children is not cheap. We’ve documented the work of Diane Auer Jones, for instance, who has thoroughly laid out the challenges families face trying to help pay their kids through college. For starters, support for a college education will not be an option for any of these fourteen kids. Under the best circumstances, if only three or four of them would be college bound, the ability to borrow money to assist in their expenses would be out of reach. Parents being able to provide for their kids’ college education is the optimal degree of parental support. However, fourteen children, think of that. Think of what kind of living environment even parents with significant wealth could provide. How many kids would have to share bedrooms, bathrooms, and living space? Even a mansion on a farm might seem too cramped!

More importantly, each child is his or her own individual with his or her own needs, challenges, problems, and conflicts. Each child needs to be properly washed, dressed, and fed, prepared for school, and adequately supervised. Ask any teacher how much attention it takes just to supervise a group of children for the duration of one class period much less the amount of time elementary school teachers spend with their students where teachers have the resources and support of an entire school behind them.

Even with a staff of nannies and care providers, these poor children’s lives will be living hell starved for adequate attention and growing space. To think that they will be able to grow up as well adjusted, emotionally stable human beings is all but an impossible proposition.

Where’s the money going to come from to provide even minimal support? Right now, the mother is attempting to exploit the media through exclusive interviews, book deals, and any other means she can sell her story asking for millions. Let’s be real, while this story brings forth a lot of attention for how shameful and irresponsible it is and our natural compassion for the kids, how much more does the public need or want to know beyond what she has already presented in her Today Show interview? How much beyond the morbid sensation of passing by the scene of an accident does the public have for a person no one in his or her right mind could possibly identify with or feel any sympathy for the situation she has brought on herself?

This is a case about responsibility and justice. We’ve illustrated the mother’s irresponsibility, but how will she be held accountable for the millions of dollars it will cost to provide for her children. Yes, millions, as they say, “You do the math!” We believe while no criminal statutes apply to her behavior, she is intellectually, morally, and psychologically unfit to care for children. The children must be removed from her care. Foster care is living hell for children as there is an extreme lack of appropriate parents who can provide such help. We must deal with a very somber reality check here. These poor children would be much better provided for in an orphanage than with an insane mother leaching off her parents in a tiny dwelling. We’d pray that these kids are healthy and could be adopted by responsible loving parents.

The other obvious truth about this tragedy is that no matter how insane this horrible woman is, she could not have brought this situation upon herself without the support and efforts of grotesquely irresponsible medical professionals who have created a public health tragedy as fourteen children living together under one house all so close in age without the ability for responsible support cannot be justified on any moral or professional grounds. The State of California must investigate all aspects of this case to the fullest. They and the medical profession must take appropriate legal and disciplinary action against everyone involved in the decision making process that caused this horrible situation.

There is a final answer to this problem. One that we have heard many times before and have often laughed at as it has been the far reaching explanation for everything that’s wrong with our world today. Society is to blame!

Before we laugh this off, what kind of social environment, what lack of proper education, upbringing, and moral guidance could make a situation like this even thinkable. While we hold the idiot mother responsible for her stupid and evil behavior, lots of things happened that allowed her to become the walking disaster she is. Between the doctors who worked with her, any social service agents who attended to her and her parents, so many have played enabler in this situation the responsibility falls on many hands, but none of this takes away the blame that must fall on Nadya Suleman and the primary care physicians who enabled this horrible human tragedy to become reality.

Finally, once again, we challenge those who approach this immoral and disgusting tragedy with their, “Who are we to judge?” amorality. There is no responsible justification for what has happened here. Any person who does not feel intense revulsion over a situation as horrible as the Suleman litter reveals has some serious issues of his or her own that helps feed the kind of social conditions that make such moral catastrophes possible. We extend the blame to each and every person who harbors that kind of lack of conviction and cowardice responsible as well as surely people like this are the architects of the moral-free environment where a disturbed and idiotic person can find reinforcement for such horrible decisions.

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