Persistent and well-traveled (on the Internet) and infuriating to some but adored by others commenter Irene has suggested that we each take five minutes to think about what it would be like to be the Gosselin children. I like the idea: Five minutes of walking around our homes while picturing cameras and mikes everywhere. The virtual rally takes place at 7PM tonight, Wednesday May 19, 2010, in your time zone, wherever you are. This can be a great opportunity for family dicussion so get your family to join you if you can. Then come back here and share what it was like for you.
If you are unable to join us at home, take a minute now to picture this life. Imagine cameras in your house, including in your bedroom and bathroom. Some of the cameras and mics are hand-held by cameramen and others are permanently installed. This means cameras can be controlled remotely from a vehicle that is parked in the driveway, and you never know when they will be on or off. Imagine being small, uneducated and unsure of yourself, and having one or more much bigger persons hovering over you while holding cameras, and them not responding if you talk to them because of the invisible wall they're not supposed to break while they're working.
What would that be like for you?
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32 comments:
Please try to stop by
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2010/05/kate_plus_8_tlc_reality_tv_gos.html
Please print out & read Janets post @ 11:25am. It is worth it, insightful, etc. (it was too long to copy/paste for this blogger software)
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Thanks Werny, but tonight is about everyone. Everyone who has ever blogged that felt like they just want to do something. There have been blogs & people talk about the Gosselins ever since the Sextuplets were in the womb of their mother. They are the 2nd set to live in the U.S. if I am not mistaken. Thank gosh they are physically healthy. That is a miracle.
Tonight is about them & other children that will be subject to filming in reality programs with no protections.
The above is from someone involved in the industry. It is a good read and well worth printing out, reading and pondering upon no matter where you stand on children in reality shows.
Take care neighbors.
Your friend in blogging
Irene
As I took my five minute walk around my house, reflecting on the Gosselin children, I opened the door to my 5 year old's room. She was getting dressed for school. She put up her hand- palm out - and said "Excuse me, privacy please!" (this move was learned from her 10 year old sister and 19 year old brother)
That brought tears to my eyes. DO the Gosselin children realize that they have a right to privacy? Or even what the word means? That there are moments like when dressing that SHOULD be private?
The is such a potential for these children to be manipulated and abused by adults. They have not been taught boundaries and they are actively seeking attention and affection from the camera crew (per even their own mother's comments).
I still believe that Kate never bonded or attached to any of the sextuplets. Maybe not even to the twins. She has a few favorites but her actions are of a totally unattached mother.
I wonder if being born as a "group" increases the risk attachment disorders in children- Do you know if this ever been studied in high order multiples?
It's been well-documented that familial abuse increases with increasing numbers of multiples due to the many stressors involved (sleep deprivation, financial strain, etc.) but I don't know if multiples increase the risk of attachment disorders. My guess is it could actually potentially help foster the bonding process because of the kids growing up so close to each other. Hopefully they have had lots of physical closeness, eye contact and the other nonverbal human interactions that promote bonding.
Al's book gives many little examples of interactions betwen the adults and the kids and unfortunately not many of them are warm and fuzzy. I personally think the whole family could benefit from counseling by therapists who are very experienced in family system therapy techniques. This is a large family with complicated family issues and could be many ways to approach working with them. First step: Parents who can admit they need help and who want to make healing and strengthening their family a priority, which would mean turning those damn cameras off. They're obviously not there yet but hopefully they will be in the future.
Irene, your link doesn't work so here is the correct one:
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/
Thanks.
WG
I decided to do it this morning as my evenings are pretty uneventful, so I stumbled out of bed in my ratty old nightie and headed for the bathroom tripping over imaginary wires and fuse boxes on the way, couldn't get in to the bathroom because my way was blocked by imaginary cameramen. One of them stuck an imaginary mic in my face and I snarled something unprintable. They were everywhere I looked. It was horrible. I went to take my vitamins and found my OJ had been replaced by Juicy Juice. My cat was huddled under the kitchen table shaking.Everywhere were bright lights, so bright and hot that I was almost blinded, and an imaginary producer was saying "We need another take, Modo! Start from when you got out of bed!" I still had not been able to get to the bathroom. There were cameras in there as well and I was too afraid to go in.
The camera guys seemed enormous and loomed over me like scary dead trees.To my horror, my mother appeared, grinned fetchingly at the crew and told me I had to do it all over again. (This IS a fantasy, I'm 67 years old.)
I can only begin to imagine what that is like for the Gosselin kids who have to cope with it on a constsnt daily basis. How awful!
WernyGal, is there any word on when Al's book will be coming and where we can order it? I look forward to his take on all this.
Thanks Werny for posting the right link. Lordie bee.
Thanks everyone for committing to the 5 minute rally! I just want to share a slice of what I learned today from my 30 minutes.
I am a mom of 8 kids. In 1998, after being divorced, I met & married a great guy. He had 5 children. I had 2 children. We married & in 2007 had our last children a beautiful boy.
But, Today as I was thinking what life would have been like these past 12 years with cameras following my children (we don't refer to kids as step kids they are all our kids) I looked in the living at Matt. He is the 2nd oldest. Born with CentraL Core Myopathy at birth. (he is not able to raise his hands, do anything the defies gravity) Doctors said Matt wouldn't crawl, he did..Walk...he did...he even was the leader playing the marimba in highschool and his 1st three years of college.
All 8 of our children have different personalities and different opinions. I cannot imagine trying to get all 8 to want to film, give up their activities, friendships, privacy, dreams so that they could WORK for our family.
See life is a journey. You get one childhood. Under the glare of the cameras Matt would have been the one sitting shyly in the corner not wanting the spotlight but wanting to be himself. Matt is now going to finish college in hopes to become a Medical lab technologist. I don't say this to brag or say we did it all right. Because we surely didn't.
But, labels are real and the children in reality programmings work in their home & live in their home.
It was a moment of Klarity for me. There is no money, no opportunity worth giving away a child's journey.
OMG IDM, that was pretty intense. I think I'd crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and never get up again.
I'll keep my readers posted on Al's book. He conducted an interview today that I'm sure he got some good material from, and he's asked someone to contribute a chapter, so he's still working on it. It's not going to be done this week like he thought it would be but it'll probably be better as a result. I'll be reviewing the finished product here and letting you know when it's available, and I'm sure he'll have a notice up about it on his blog too, so if you hang around you'll have a hard time avoiding it. :)
Wow Irene, for some reason your comment didn't show up and now it's snuck in up above. You are full of surprises. That was beautifully said. You helped me appreciate not only the Gosselin children's experience, but also my own family and the wonderful health our children have been blessed with. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. :)
After a divorce, the children need the parent that they live with to provide extra support and love....and what did Kate do? Book tours and TV shows.
Selfish Kate. Never changes.
Hopefully both parents are doing little extras to help the kids feel more secure and loved since the split, and hopefully the nanny staff has provided some consistency and security. Time as a family who can be themselves without the cameras around would also be very healing.
I've often tried to put myself in the Gosselin kids' Crocs regarding living with all of that chaos on a daily basis for so long. I can't even imagine how powerless they must have felt. It's hard enough being so small and unable to articulate your emotions without living like that.
If my house had been Reality TV land for five minutes tonight, it would have been awful:
Tonight on StoryLady!
Hilarity ensues when StoryLady finds herself with a yeast infection brought on by the antibiotics she had to take last week! Her kindly husband volunteers to go to the drugstore to buy her some ointment!
There is no way in hell anybody would be in my house filming THAT little discussion.
By the way, Irene, I've often read your posts on various sites but haven't commented. I really admire your dedication to the children.
Wow, Irene. With you and your husband's love, devotion and attention your son defied the odds. Now, sadly, imagine if that was a Gosselin child with Kate. He'd have no chance because she is such a cold mother.
I enjoyed reading all the comments above!
I especially like the one about the kids yelling "privacy!" My girls just started doing that. I can't imagine them dealing with growing up with cameras around them like the Gosselin kids.
Werny Girl, what about attachment issues with Kate and the six? There is only one of her and the needs of six are still there. Could it be that SHE has never attached to them, or maybe to just a couple like Hannah and Alexis, and MAYBE Aaden>
Irene S said...
...They are the 2nd set to live in the U.S. if I am not mistaken...
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Per wikipedia (US born live sextuplets picked from list):
1) Dilley sextuplets (born on May 25, 1993 in Indianapolis, Indiana)...
2) The Boniello sextuplets (born March 24, 1997 in Stony Brook, New York)...
3) The Headrick sextuplets (born April 6, 2002 in Wichita, Kansas)...
3) The Harris sextuplets (born on July 7, 2002 in Alabama)...
4) The Hanselman sextuplets (born February 26, 2004 in Akron, Ohio)...
5) The Gosselin sextuplets (born May 10, 2004 in Hershey, Pennsylvania)...
Thanks for the great detective work, Zoe. Interesting how we never hear about the other sets. I wonder how their adult lives with compare with the Gosselin two and six?
http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/2010/05/20/jon-gosselin-takes-a-break-from-not-working-and-plays-golf/
It would also be interesting to know if any of the other families with sextuplets are still happily married. As per Khate, she said that she wanted to avoid the high divorce statistics of HOM and thought 'they had made it'. I wonder where she got her info from...out of her a*s like everything else, I'm sure.
NDM, I've tried emailing you and it keeps coming back to me. Hi! :)
NDM, I've tried emailing you and it keeps coming back to me. Hi! :)
Awhile back preesi did some research on some of the homes of other higher order multiples. It's interesting to see the comparisons.
http://preesi.lefora.com/2009/11/05/lets-see-how-other-families-of-multiples-live/
Werny Gal said...
I'll keep my readers posted on Al's book. He conducted an interview today that I'm sure he got some good material from, and he's asked someone to contribute a chapter, so he's still working on it. It's not going to be done this week like he thought it would be but it'll probably be better as a result. I'll be reviewing the finished product here and letting you know when it's available, and I'm sure he'll have a notice up about it on his blog too, so if you hang around you'll have a hard time avoiding it. :)
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Werny Gal,
If Al is still making last minute changes to his book and you still need to edit it, once Al gives his book to a publisher, what is the estimated time it will take before it makes it to the bookstore?
I'd love to know what deal has been worked out between Jon and TLC. Obviously he cannot pay the child support payments; so it seems to me that TLC is paying Kate the child support money in exchange for Jon allowing the kids to be filmed? It has been reported that he is getting $5K a month from TLC just for breathing, but something else is going on here. And how did he pay his attorney fees? He sold out his kids and called Kevin and Jodi liars. The only thing he's got going for him is that the kids really seem to genuinely love him more than their mother.
BTW, that photo that appeared with Jon and Kate at the front door on the tups' b-day was spun two different ways. One rag site said that it showed the two were close and how great it was to see them together; another site (with info from the actual photographer I bet) said that Kate stood at the door the whole time only allowing Jon to drop off the gifts and then shut the door as soon as he left with no interaction between them. Interesting how photos can be spun.
Which brings me to the discussion of Colin covering his face. Excuses are being made, but with consistent behavior photographed, this child is in distress. These kids are getting old enough that some of them will rebel and this will end the branding of them as a pack of dressed alike cutesy kids. And those tween years for Mady and Cara will be a nightmare for TLC as they become more defiant. Privacy is a big deal for girls at that age. Yep, this will be the last season, IMO for Kate and her eight.
Good morning Mickey, Al is self-publishing so when he is done his book will be available almost immediately. It will be only a couple of days for soft cover print copies and electronic copies will be available right away.
GeorgiaMom, several people have asked about Jon seeing the kids on their birthday so I'm going to write a short entry about it.
GKWay said...
It would also be interesting to know if any of the other families with sextuplets are still happily married. As per Khate, she said that she wanted to avoid the high divorce statistics of HOM and thought 'they had made it'. I wonder where she got her info from...out of her a*s like everything else, I'm sure.
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Back when I heard her talk about the high divorce rate of parents with multiples, I found a very good
article and survey about this very thing...and guess what ? Kate was full of it. Surprise, surprise. I'll see if I can find it, if I can, I'll post the link here.
a-ha.... I found it. :)
http://www.twinstalk.com/articles/do-parents-multiples-have-a-higher-divorce-rate
WG,where will Al's book be available? I'm in Canada. Will I be able to get it on Amazon? I don't know how it works with self-printed books.
You're on the ball, PA Mom, thanks for sharing.
IDModo, it works pretty much the same way only self-published authors have a harder time getting their books into large chains like Barnes & Noble. Al's book will have its own bar code like any other book and will be available on amazon.com in soft cover or electronic format. I personally can't wait. I read the first draft but he's made lots of revisions since then and he also asked another writer to contribute a chapter. So there have been lots of changes.
pa mom too, I just read the article and it's very interesting. Maybe the divorce rate is lower for parents with multiples because they are more likely to pull the relationship together and less likely to divorce with all those kids. Couples with even one child are often reluctant to divorce, and prefer to stay together, even if not happy, for the sake of the child, so can you imagine the guilt and other feelings of regrets when getting divorced and having mulitples?
Hi, I've been following your blog. My "interest" in the Gosselin's is based on how our society picks "role models". I think it's sad that a woman that gains fame simply by having 6 kids via IVF and selling them out for her own good. She is idolized for all the wrong reasons and it's discouraging.
I didn't do the 5 minutes in the Gosselin kids shoes, but I always thought those kids, especially the twins, must go thru HELL at school. If the Kate fans think we're mean, then they should be a fly on the wall of Mady and Cara's lunchroom! It's embarrassing enough when your mom sends your baby picture to school for a yearbook. Imagine having your potty training and every other moment of your childhood on DVD for the general public for YEARS to come! Sad.
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