Comment: Sympathy for Kate

In keeping with my recent regimen of watching way too much TV, I managed to spend about half an hour viewing“Jon and Kate Plus Eight”. I’d of course heard about the show in excruciating detail, (Thank you, check out line tabloid headlines and EW) but had never seen the show.

Look, it’s no joke having small children. Having eight will drive the sanest, kindest person right around the bend on some (many) days. I mean, come on, color coordinating eight little outfits for a Fourth of July parade? Over the top? Probably. Enough to make a person irritable? Absolutely.

One of the bits of gossip I’ve heard about the show, is, of course, the alleged infidelity of Jon. It appears that there is trouble in paradise, and of course Schadenfreude-starved America loves that.

And I have also heard that people think Kate is a shrew, or worse. They love to blame her for Jon's potential infidelity. This seems pretty nasty and unfair. Okay, in the short amount of the show I saw, she did get pretty snippy towards her husband, but he rolled his eyes and yelled plenty at her, too. Irritability is equal opportunity, people.

(On a personal note, I recognized myself in Kate a little; and I only have Plus Two. Blimey.)

Does Kate’s stridence and snarkiness make her a bad mother? Of course not. All but the most lobotomized of mothers have moments of snarkiness or uber-bossiness with their kids. I’m pretty sure it’s in the job description.

And I adore my kids. But if I had eight of them, I’d be shrill or snippy more than occasionally and, I’d argue, so would anyone. We Americans are such a judgmental lot, we think we’d be so different and perfect if we were in Kate’s shoes (or show). But we’re full of shit. We’d be caught in a snit about something on camera just as often as Kate. We just like to think we wouldn’t because that makes us feel superior and less jealous of what we perceive to be their massive advantages. (Which, I’d argue are not; I mean, don’t you think those little kids growing up in front of the world are going to each need their own therapy fund? All you have to do is look at child stars and you see, sadly, where it’s going.)

So everyone, please, lay off Kate, will you? She’s working her ass off.