I can't get NO....satisfaction....

[kyburg]

Let's see.

You don't need to take Jim's word for it anymore. Even down to the names...which he was a good boy about and didn't tell anyone about either.

Hooray! (And so much for Tiajuana Taxi Fertility Hookups.) Note the words 'there is no law against...' - this is a evaluation by peers, and I hope we find out what they decide. But keep in mind - there is no law, and this won't create one. (Consider what the enforcement of one might look like, BTW. Just think about it for a moment, it'll come to you.)

Let me get this straight. When the McCaughey septuplets were born in 1997, President Clinton called to congratulate the parents, who were given a free 12-passenger van, Pampers for life, furniture, food, and a custom built house. Last spring, when Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar got pregnant with their 18th child, they announced it on the Today Show and their reality TV show launched that fall. When Nadya Suleman, 33, gave birth to octuplets on January 26th, she got revulsion, ridicule and death threats. A talk radio host who called her a freak said his listeners were prepared to boycott any company that helped out mother or babies. Jimmy Kimmel declared that "Golden retrievers do not have that many kids."

Uh, yawp. Single, POC and oh mi ghad IRAQI. SPICY.

(You know, I'd almost expect some people to have a little empathy for people who have somewhat toxic parents....but noooooo. Guess not.) And before you hit that comment button - keep in mind. The lady had choices. Since we see more of the grandfather doing childcare publically than the grandmother, you figure it out. Watch the grandkids leave that house Real Soon. As soon as enough money shows up - and it will show up. (Just keep making those death threats on all those sponsored websites, kids!)

Quick quiz.

Who administers 'food stamp' programs?

- Department of the Treasury
- Department of Homeland Security
- The Internal Revenue Service
- Department of Agriculture (*dingdingding*)

Also, the going term is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - not food stamps. Note the key word - there is no intention for this ever to be the sole support for anyone. (I love the fact they've moved it off paper and to electronic ATM card. No, you can't pool the change from buying a candy bar with a coupon until you can buy liquor anymore. Too bad. *snickers*)

Oh yeah, $490 a month is a REAL GOOD incentive to have a kid. (...where do people get this crap...) And of course you top out, regardless of the number of people in the household.

Defend her? Not so much. What I find amazing is the vitriol where in just about every other case I know of, there was nothing but cooes and praise for being 'so absolutely PERFECTLY FEMALE' for being, well - successful at being female. That's it, isn't it? The pastel pinks and blues, the heft of the rewards thrown, the fairy tale twittering. The strokes - oh yes - THE STROKES.

(I'm catching echoes of it adopting right now, and I know it when I see it. It's perceived sainthood and I'm hip. I got much the same when I was the wife of a terminal patient. It's not helpful, except as a signal that they're not going to bitchslap you.)

I'm glad information is getting out. It's making our lives easier not having to keep our mouths shut. (How many times does WE CAN'TALK make sense?)

What I'm watching for? Terminations at the hospital of people who were peeking into health records when they had no reason to. Yeah, it's all electronic, all tagged with who was doing the peeking and we've had plenty of evidence there's a zero tolerance policy for fraud - though I think Kaiser might handle these a bit differently after a whole family died when both parents were fired for it. Remember - same hospital system.

Whatta parade. Can we talk about Sully instead?

Comments

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Can I ask a serious question?

When people hoard animals that they cannot adequately care for, we remove those animals in their best interest.

Can someone explain to me why children deserve less of a standard of care?

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

They don't. There is no evidence as yet of any abuse or neglect of the children.

What we DON'T do is take kids away from parents based on our ASSUMPTION that they may be abused/neglected. Well, except in the case of gay parents in some states, I guess, and I disagree with that.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Well, the numbers don't add. That's why everyone is so upset. As for me, I don't care one way or the other. I don't. I don't care what she does, even a little. But I see that 14 kids on disability, with one bankruptcy, as a single parent, (etc. etc. etc.) is already starting out with a pretty huge set of red flags.

But I don't believe that "love is all you need", either.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Licensed Foster Parent here.

Oh very yes they could be removed. Oh very yes. And with kind of attention? You just haven't heard about the home study yet. She doesn't have to tell and they aren't going to say.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Ok, if that's the case, then let's see how long she gets to *keep* the kids. The problem is not the children. They're already here. They're essentially innocent bystanders in all of this.

The problem is *her*. Oh so very, very clearly, her. With that in mind, let's see how it all plays out.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's another good reason for a PR firm.

With what I know of 'prospective adoptive parents' - there has been more than one or two couples trying to tell her how wonderful they are and how she won't miss just one of them.

Count on it.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Clearly thats untrue given the great lengths she's gone to have them.

However, it's entirely missing the point. What she *WANTS* is not really the current question on the table. We've gotten this far on the what she wants train. However now the kids are here, and their needs take priority.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

But now that they're here and wonderful? HAY. Problem solved! (You won't miss one. Really. And we have SO MUCH MORE MONEY.)

Hon, the stuff that flies around PAP forums is just scary. You remember the whole 'high school pregnancy club' thing? PAPs posting in the newspaper comment areas advertising how wonderful parents they would be. Think of the babies! PLEEEEZE.

I do believe that's the limit the media has taken. They're not reporting on those yet.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I see your point entirely, I just dont think what she WANTS is the issue here. I dont *CARE* what she *wants*. I care about how fourteen children, under those circumstances, with the master plan of "take student loans out" are supposed to be cared for.

I'm sorry, but that's a hell of a flag on the "this person is really not capable of making good choices" play there.

It is both unreasonable and unfair to suggest her parents owe anyone ANYTHING in this situation. They've been through quite enough already based on the actions of their daughter.

I'm not a doctor but there does, IMO, certainly seem to be some kind of pathology at play here. Let's wait and see if the people qualified to make that call agree.

I don't care shit all about the media attention. Im not reading it and I can't imagine why it matters- much like all media attention- it stops when one stops feeding it.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

As long as she remains an adult in her majority and doesn't hurt her kids, doesn't break the law or marry another woman - she can do whatever she wants.

Just like the rest of us. And if we have issues with that, then the issues are with us - not her.

Yup - definitely wait and see. Just like everything in life.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

The question is in what this means:

doesn't hurt her kids. There is a reasonable argument to be made that simply HAVING these eight hurts the six she already had, based on her life circumstances.

But again, we don't get to make that call. Im not suggesting we should. I AM saying it's a reasonable argument.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

POV. Ghads.

Seriously. What kind of good does assumptions like this create?

THINK. It's not about her. What is this doing to you?

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Actually it's not doing anything to me. I don't care- Im not following the story in the news. I'm not posting about it in my lj. I'm not reading about it on parenting/adoption forums. To me this is ultimately meaningless.

A better question is what this is doing to you- since you're doing all of these things. What I think about this is a) irrelevant and b) absolutely not in agreement with you. But my *emotional investment* in this entire topic? Nil.

And that's btw not an indictment- Im just agreeing with someone else who says that the only place in *my* life that this story is appearing *at all*, save for Bet's post today, is here- in your LJ. This "event", such as it is, is simply not part of my life.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

But look how reactive you are - shoot, look around at how reactive *everyone* has gotten over something that will never impact them directly, is nothing to them (except entertainment value) and compared to the REAL economic issues of the day?

Come on.

I'm just rocking back on my heels. There is truth in the old yogis who remind me that life is one big joke and you shouldn't take it seriously - because it's all an illusion anyway. Holy cow. (Pun intended.)

There are some REAL crooks and liars spending my tax dollars - in the hundred of thousands, millions...and nobody has written a word about any of them, directly.

But let one woman get uppity and decide to have too many kids. Wow. People have lost their freaking minds. What's the difference? Women with children are viable targets. The rest has more to do with the person doing the griping than the person being griped about. Really really.

You have the mental gears to get this part - some people, not so much.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

It's a matter of scale. One individual, having children (which is certainly a common enough occurrence) is something that people feel they can grasp and discuss. Complex politics and economic policy? Not so much. There's only so much $thing (money, people, etc) that folks can internally comprehend and grasp. It's why starvation in other nations can be ignored while individual cases of neglect will cause riots. People just don't handle large scale very well.

I suspect I'm less reactive than you think. I find this all an interesting discussion but honestly- believe me when I tell you this topic has never, not once, come up in my house. I find it interesting, and you interesting, but this isn't a news story I'm even remotely following.

For me, btw, the "real economic issues" of the day are irrelevant as well at this point. Not because I can't grasp them, but because I could make no headway even when the economy was significantly better. I already have nothing. Whatever happens at this point is just more nothing. I'm at the point of "so what" over it all.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think that an eye should be kept on the family to make sure the children aren't being neglected - but if they aren't, then who cares.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

They'd be just like the millions of other families in Los Angeles. What a concept.

The economy is bad, and people are tired of scammers

[moropus.livejournal.com]

People do manage to survive on welfare, food stamps and WIC. My parents did it about 25 years with 6 kids and my mom got a free tubal ligation thrown in. When the last child turned 18, my mom had a shouting match with a social worker about why the free money stopped and her going to get a job when she didn't want to and hadn't needed to before. If you don't care about your surroundings or nutrition, you can get by this way. Also, all us kid learned to steal anything not nailed down and we got bags of clothes out of charity bins for drop offs in the middle of the night. We ate a lot of cheap starchy food. That's how you raise 6 kids on relief programs and not lift a finger to help yourself. My parent were perfectly healthy. My dad had a master's degree in education. He never had a job that used that degree. It was all a scam. either of them could have worked and had a grat career.

As an aside, one of my brothers and I quit caring about the middle of high school and only went when we felt like it. I went exactly often enough to not qualify as a drop out, crammed like crazy and managed to graduate. He actually did drop out for the end of one year and the beginning of the next, wandering back in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since both of us did this after we were 16, we could not be held truant, and since we crammed like crazy and passed all the exams, pressure was put on the school board to give us diplomas, so we didn't end up on the welfare tit ASAP, even though neither of us attended enough days to graduate. I was illegally working the midnight shift(lied about my age and they didn't care enough to check) and he was watching TV and playing Atari. Kids raised on relief programs often have find it difficult to get and keep a decent job. I have 2 brothers with college degrees working in fast food because they lack the social skills and the work habits to get along in the corporate world. I'm on disability because my x-rays show I have the amount of arthritis you would expect to see in somebody in their 80s. Sometimes I wonder if that came about from growing up on white bread, white rice, gov. cheese, instant milk and pasta. Nobody knows why I'm like this. I'm also as crazy as they come and have papers to prove it. There's one normal guy from my family, the brother who dropped out to play Atari. He makes decent money and has one kid, no plans for more.

Nadya Suleman collects disability payments for 3 of the older children. She went on workers compensation disability back in 1999 (at age 23) due to a work-related back injury ($168,000). She said on NBC she uses her disability settlement to get IVF treatments. For the past 10 years while she’s been "unable" to work, she’s been healthy enough to have and care for 14 children.

She claims that she was left scarred by a "dysfunctional" childhood, which made her crave attachments. But since she lives with her parents, it's doubtful her childhood was too terrible. I left the second I could, as did most of our litter. Her parents continue to provide for her, help her with her children, and her dad just left retirement and took a job to help her.

The Duggars pay their own way, even if the children's lives sound like pure drudgery since Ma Duggar makes each older child raise a younger child. There's another family with a bazillion kids that has turned their life into a reality show to finance their child collecting fetish.

Right or wrong, people are sick and tired of seeing their taxes used this way and Suleman is becoming the poster child for milking local state and federal programs, especially since California is insolvent and people can't get their income tax returns. People depend on that return money, especially in a year like this. I'm sure there are thousands of people defrauding the system that are just as worthy of public ire, but she drew attention to herself. If the economy were better, they might not care, but people who are trying as hard as they can can't make ends meet and now they have a handy target for their rage.

Re: The economy is bad, and people are tired of scammers

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It's an explanation - but your story is also proof that the kids actually do pretty damn well, knowing where the REAL sources of a good life are.

I've known so many. And no, not many of them repeated the experience with their own kids.

Not many. But some? Yup.

Re: The economy is bad, and people are tired of scammers

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

Suleman is becoming the poster child for milking local state and federal programs,

Which is ironic, since Suleman has NEVER BEEN ON WELFARE or any other federal program, let alone "milked" them. As I understand it, these disability payments were from a lump-sum settlement for an injury, not SSI. That's two different things.


regarding welfare in general, here we go again.

Welfare is a miniscule part of the federal budget. We could cut the whole frikkin program and you wouldn't notice the difference in your tax bill.

If "people are tired" of tax dollars being wasted, why aren't you complaining about Iraq and corporate welfare? One DAY in Iraq costs you monumentally more than this woman ever will, even if she WERE on welfare, which she ISN'T.

Frankly, it sounds like you kids weren't cared for and should have been removed from your parents' care.

Re: The economy is bad, and people are tired of scammers

[moropus.livejournal.com]

There are federal programs besides welfare. I wish people would quit calling them all "welfare" and lumping them together into one big item. There's food stamps, WIC, free medical care, etc.

Suleman has used relief programs. She lied to the LA Times and they later found out and reported it. Who do you think is paying for all this medical care? Three of her older kids get SSI. That's another federal program. One is autistic. I do not know what's up with the others. Children of multiple births and low birth weights have a high rate of medical problems. I'm willing to bet several of these new kids will be handicapped for life. This one family will cost several million to raise. Sure that's less than the military spends in one day just for office supplies, but Suleman raised her head at the exact wrong time.

The real problem people have with her is that she has everything she wants and she doesn't have to pay for it, they do. Give it 2-3 months and nobody will remember who she is, because something more sordid will happen.

Most kids on welfare aren't properly cared for. I was right there with them, I know. You have to just about beat your kid to death before anyone will do anything and sometimes they still won't do anything. With responsibility for 14 kids, there's not enough hours in the day for her to feed them, bathe them, clean up after them and get more than 15 minutes sleep, much less actually love and care for them.

I do complain about all gov. waste, just don't want to get off topic here. Suleman is the latest target right now to blast at for people who are working hard and losing everything. The doctor who did the IVF was irresponsible, the sperm donor was irresponsible and Ms Suleman is like those crazy cat ladies, only she collect babies instead of cats. She's either got mental problems or has figured out how to make the state, local and federal govs. pay for it all, while people in California with jobs can't even get their state income tax returns because the state is broke.

And if my parents bred six times, and only one son has his stuff together, how is that proof that the kids actually do pretty damn well? We learned to lie, cheat and steal, skip school, and how to sign up for relief programs. We did not learn to be responsible, keep a job, or any of those other normal things.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Three disabled children at home already. Mom is theoretically disabled from a back injury (I say theoretically because if she carried all those pregnancies her back can't have been in terrible shape). Ask any disabled person about child-rearing, or about how they have an incredibly hard time adopting because they have to prove they can raise a child despite being crippled.

Grandmother has been quoted as saying that, at home now, she is feeding them in shifts and doesn't know how she can cope.

To me, that's enough to warrant sending in social services in. Let alone the idea that there is obviously not enough money coming in to keep those kids fed and diapered.

How many rooms in that house?

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

you're basically saying that disabled people should be presumed to be unfit parents. I can't agree with that. I think it's very ablist. Many people with disabilities are great parents.

The situation does probably warrant some oversight by social services, because we're talking about 8 special-needs infants all at once (a strain on any family), but I don't think it's appropriate to assume neglect until it's shown.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

...did you really just go there? HAHAHHA.

Score one for the anonymity of the Internet!

Honey, I'm a wheelchair cripple. I am by no means saying we shouldn't be parents, but that it's gonna be more difficult - and that parenting a kid with extra needs due to disabilities is going to be harder than parenting a perfectly healthy kid.

I see 6 kids at home, three of whom are special needs, being fed in shifts according to grandma. That's enough to raise an eyebrow right there.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And while I have *no* idea or information in this matter (but I know I probably would never be able to find out anyway) - there are eyes on this matter already, even if only for discharge planning.

And after that - you may find out. You may never find out.