Octo-Mom vs Oprah

I've mentioned before how much I love watching Oprah. It's truly one of my favorite guilty pleasures of being a SAHM (along with All My Children {Totally want to see the JR/Annie thing pan out} and General Hospital {I loooooove Dante/Dominic}). 


So when I heard that Oprah was going to have the infamous Octo-Mom on her show I jumped at the chance to view her self-inflicted train wreck.


But I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how she handled dealing with 14 kids and even thrown back a little bit by Oprah's questions.

Yikes! Those stretch marks!!!!!

I guess on one hand I did see that she is was clearly delusional when it came to her decision reasoning to having more kids. I come from a big family. The oldest of 8 with the youngest being 8 so I have a soft spot in my heart for large families. I don't even completely knock her for wanting to have more kids when she was a single mother. But her reason of wanting to create this "village" as she put it made her sound like that 16 year old teen mom that wants a baby so she can have "someone to love her". 


Clearly Nadya has some emotional hurts from her parents that she needs to work on.

And despite all the negative criticism that seems to be hurled her way constantly she had a very clear view on how messed up she was, but how much she wanted to just be a good mother and provide for her kids.


But the thing I was most disappointed about was Oprah's questions.


1. Oprah asked Nadya if she had ever thought about giving any of the children up for adoption or turning them over to foster care.

-How are you supposed to decide which of your kids you want to give away? How can you even fathom that? How does that benefit your child? Doesn't it make that child's life even harder having to wrestle with the fact that he lived with his mom for 6 years and that at 6 she sent him and 4 other siblings to live with someone else....and kept 7 others. Can you imagine the amount of rejection he/she would feel? Someone on Twitter responded to me that only someone without kids could ask that question....


2. The second question and or statement made by both Oprah and Nadya was that with 14 kids (even with 2 parents) you can't possibly give them all of the love and attention that they need and that they would grow up lacking. I can't even begin to tell you how annoyed this statement makes me (I've also heard it said about the Duggars). Both my husband and I come from big families and I think its certainly fair to say that neither of us felt slighted by any love or attention from our parents.


1 Corinthians 10:13 says that God will not give you more then you can handle and if you believe children are from God why would he give my parents, Nadya Suleman, or even the Gosselins tribes of kids that they wouldn't be able to love properly?


Nadya was an only child and she expressed how she didn't get enough love from her parents. 


But I have a hard time believing that if you have more then 2.5 kids or even 4 kids that you won't be able to give them everything they needed. Maybe not financially, but look at celebrity kids who are completely messed up, yet have been handed everything on a silver platter.


And last but not least I'd like to address the fact that Nadya wouldn't do a porn if they offered her a $100 million. I would just like to say to that company....How dare you? Give me a call and I'll do it for 25 million.....and dinner at the Geisha house.

(Gosh and how jealous are you of Jenna Lyons- Executive Creative Designer at JCrew (Featured on Wednesday's Oprah? Ahhhhhhh I want her job! And those fantastic sequence pants she had on)

The birds and the bees

Yesterday was yet again another thought provoking Oprah Show for me. Yesterday's show was about having the sex talk with your children (specifically your daughters). I came in a little late and didn't finish the whole thing, but I got just enough to bother me.

I thought all day about writing this post, but when I was recounting the show to Shawn I was just getting more and more annoyed so I decided to use my personal blog as my soap box.

Dr. Laura Berman was on the show giving tips about how and when to have the talk with your children. They had a mother on who (with the assistance of Dr. Laura Berman) had the sex talk with her 10 year old daughter. It actually was very informative and she seemed to be doing well....Then they get to the whole pleasuring part and how to explain to your freshman's about loving yourself. Her reasoning behind it was that if they learn they can do it themselves they won't feel like the feelings are specific to a boy, thus they may not have sex. They talked about vibrators and the whole thing. I immediately get inwardly outraged and here's why.

I think every child is different, number one. Some children may be ready for the talk at 10 some at 13. It's a maturity thing. I do believe that it is essential that children get this information from their parents and not their peers, television or even (dare I say it) teachers. I believe it's important to give your children all of the facts. I personally intend to teach my children abstinence. Some may think that it's an ideal, unrealistic, religiously driven, or just plain stoopid thing to teach. But nonetheless, abstinence in my opinion is the best. Granted my Phoenix showed up prior to me being married, I still longed to have waited and that's what my children will know. Remember as parents we want the best, better then what we had.

Moving on.

But what really angered me with yesterday's show was the emphasis put on teaching children or pre-teens about masturbation. I think it's wrong. That is an adult act and by teaching our children that we are taking away their innocence. They are children for a reason. They are children only for a certain amount of time. Just like a year or two back when middle schools in Connecticut maybe (I don't remember) wanted to give out birth control to middle school girls. Don't you think that's going to encourage sex between kids even more?! What has happened to this world? It bothers me. It bothers me that these children who are going to be taught this are going to be going to school with my children. Why is it that today's parents feel they need to be their children's friends? Your not supposed to be, you are parents. You are to guide them to make right decision. Correct their paths when they seems to stray. Give them better then what you had make better decisions then you did.

Teaching that particular thing to children awakens something in them way before it's time. Let them be...Just let them be children. Arm them with knowledge, yes. That is paramount in this world we live in. But just like you don't say "Sarah, Becky. Mommy and Daddy are broke. We have no money and we are going to be homeless and have no food if we don't come up with $XXXX by such and such date". Why burden your kids with adult stuff like that, why force them to feel responsible for something like that when they don't have to. Sex is a heavy, heavy responsibility. They have their whole lives ahead of them to experience that. But now they need to be focused on Hannah Montana and those adorable little Jonas Boys.

Stepping down now....