1.

"Go from seriousness to absurd from one blog post to the next in this strange, yet not harmful, blog." - - Health Expert Blog on Musings

Don’t forget the kid(s)

by Rob on February 1, 2009 · Comments

in Personal Musings, Rants

Vote This Post DownVote This Post Up (+4 rating, 4 votes)
Loading ... Loading ...

picture-1-789683I generally shy away from the sensational stories.  Mrs. Dr. Rob can attest that I immediately walk out of the room when the show on TV is about parents with 30 children (all with names beginning with the letter “J”), people finding livers on YouTube, or dogs giving mouth-to-mouth to squirrels.  I just don’t find that stuff interesting.

The same has been the case with the story of the octuplets born to the woman in California.  I laughed out loud when the woman on the news said that this mother planned on nursing all eight children.  She would be enshrined in the La Leche League hall of fame if she pulled it off.  I think she is confused and thinks that she may be a different mammal that has more than two nipples.

But overall I am uncomfortable when people in sensational situations are paraded around in the media like a freak show in a circus.  It just seems gawking to me.  So I tried to ignore it.

circusfreaks

Then I read Jessica Gottlieb’s post on the subject, which is a plea to Oprah and Dianne Sawyer to not feature the mother of the octuplets on their shows:

Dear Oprah Winfrey and Diane Sawyer,
I implore you both to refrain from giving Nadya Suleman a bigger voice.

The woman is clearly deranged, she’s created 14 new people and subjected them to gross neglect from the moment of conception. Rather than exalt this woman, and give her the attention she so desperately craves, please ignore her. Feeding her illness is akin to telling an anorectic she’s plumped up a little.

Perhaps instead you’ll parade medical ethicists, malpractice attorneys and mothers of multiples in front of the screen.

The article she links to in this post (Octuplets’ mother wants Oprah to turn her into a $2m TV star) talks about the woman’s plans to become a celebrity from the birth of her children.

THE single mother of octuplets born in California last week is seeking $2m (£1.37m) from media interviews and commercial sponsorship to help pay the cost of raising the children.

Nadya Suleman, 33, plans a career as a television childcare expert after it emerged last week that she already had six children before giving birth on Monday. She now has 14 below the age of eight.

This situation reminds me strongly of a dilemma I see in my office on an all too regular basis.  A teenage girl gets pregnant and has a baby.  The father has fled the scene and the girl leans on her parents for help.  The parents are sad at their daughter’s situation, but are in love with the child – offering their daughter help in raising the child.  The daughter sees this as a ticket out of her situation, and either physically flees the scene or gives total responsibility to her parents, knowing that they will bail her out.

This leaves the grandparents a tough decision: do they make their daughter learn a hard lesson by not bailing her out, or do they care for the baby and let their daughter escape responsibility for her decision?  It is a tough situation; either they endanger their grandchild or enable their daughter.  They usually choose the baby’s well-being over their daughter’s, and I agree with this choice.

wreckIn the case of the octuplets, the mother has brought 14 children into the world without anywhere near the resources to handle them.  She sees the public’s fascination with her as an opportunity to further herself.  She sees her fame as something she has earned and her knowledge as something few others have.  But she doesn’t realize that the public fascination is more akin to people slowing down to see an wreck at the side of the road.  They don’t think she is special, they think she is bizarre.  It is a tragic situation that television personalities like Oprah and Dianne Sawyer may be unable to resist taking advantage of.  It’s big money for them.

Lost in all of this are the real needs of the children.  The babies are simply props in this side-show.  Their public display is not for their own benefit, it is for the benefit of shows trying to sell advertising.  It is for the benefit of a mother who couldn’t make good decisions, bailing her out of a sad situation.  The kids may become famous for being such a curiosity, but only famous like the giant pandas at the zoo, Siamese twins, or a turtle with two heads.

I agree with Jessica that the mother probably has a significant mental problem.  I agree with those who question the ethics of the doctor who implanted the embryos in a woman who doesn’t have the resources to have one child, let alone fourteen.  I don’t think the mother deserves fame, she needs help – and not help by selling gawking rights to the highest bidder.

But in all of this talk and debate, please don’t forget the kids.  When the public wearies of this situation, the kids will still be there.  They will still need love that one person can’t possibly provide.  They will need good role models to avoid duplicating the decisions of their mother.  They will need direction and discipline.  They will need parenting.

I don’t think celebrity is the answer to this situation; but simply ignoring the situation is akin to watching someone drown.  The main focus should be like that of the grandparents in my practice.  It isn’t an ideal solution – it would be better if it had never happened.  But there are now 14 lives at stake; 14 living, breathing, needy children.

Don’t forget about them.

Other Blog Posts on This Topic

Fat Doctor – Six and Eight

Medical Quack — Obsessed with Having Babies?  Update on the Octuplets Story

Survive the Journey –Nadya Suleman’s Octuplets — How Many is too Many?

Suture for a Living – Eight too Many

NeoNurseChic – The Ethics of Octuplets

Moof — Ooooopsie

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Share This Post

Related posts:

  1. Perfect Words I had a mother tell me yesterday, "Dr. Rob, I...
  2. Perfect Words I had a mother tell me yesterday, "Dr. Rob, I...
  3. 10 Reasons to NOT Like Pediatrics Obviously I favor the positives against the negatives here, but...
  4. How Not to Call Your Mother’s Doctor Rant sequence activated: 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1…. I got a call today from...
  5. Perilous Parenting A lot of the work I do as a pediatrician...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Nominated For Best Medical Blog

Vote for Musings!

  • Thank you, Dr. Rob, for saying just about exactly what I was thinking. These babies are in some ways a tragedy, because there is no way their mother is going to be able to care for them all in the way they ought to be cared for. I don't even know if a couple with two reasonably paying careers (e.g.., physician, lawyer, business exec, whatever) would be able to afford to raise 14 children under the age of 8. When I read that she already had six children at home, my immediate thought was, "This can't possibly be within the bounds of appropriately ethical behavior for the fertility specialist responsible for this..." .

    They should NOT make a celebrity out of this mother; what they should do is focus their concern on the children. Does anyone really think a single mother living at home can raise 14 children without any help? Nothing has been said about a father; and if the babies all manage to survive, will any of them have lasting effects from their prematurity and incredibly small size? It's truly mind boggling. Ms. Suleman doesn't need a "voice"; she needs a job, a husband, and boatloads of support of the kind that doesn't come from donations or famous people. (Along the lines perhaps of social workers, childcare providers, and perhaps even a good psychiatrist, as some of the stories I've seen suggest this mother has underlying psychiatric issues.) It's just sad all the way around.
  • I agree. Poor babies. I just hope they get taken care of.
  • just say no
    couldn't have said it better myself.
  • Janelle
    I think we truly need to start thinking about medical ethics here. Who was the reproductive endocrinologist that thought it was a great idea to inseminate this person with 8 embryos? Really, I see it as a problem on both sides.
  • The babies (and the other 6 kids) really do end up being the victims here. Being born 9 weeks too soon, into a family that can't be equipped to deal with 8 well babies, let alone 8 babies who need early intervention, Synagis shots, frequent doctor visits, etc., is no way to start out in life.
  • Ken O
    So someone was prepared to implant eight embryos into a woman who already had six children ages 0 to 7 years (at time of implantation) for free!!!? :???: I thought that AI was expensive?
  • Dr. Rob, you've made some excellent points! This is going to be a nine day wonder, and then the world will move on, and forget. I sincerely hope that she gets a load of people willing to help her ... for a long, long time. I don't see how this could possibly have a happy ending.
  • Heck, there's lots of women with 14 kids in Georgia, sure, the Octuplet thing is a little unusual, but I'm thinkin she'll do just fine what with the photo shoots for People, US Weekly, In Style, etc etc....Heck, she'll probably do a better job raisin her brood than your average professional woman...
  • What a despicable situation - despicable of the mother and despicable of the doctor who allowed it. Those kids don't have a snowball's chance in hell. As a mental health clinician, I've worked with many kids born to irresponsible, incompetent parents, kids who will likely not be successful, who are not only taxing the system now, but because they had parents who couldn't adequately provide for their needs (not just financial, but developmental), the kids will likely be saddled with mental health issues and be a burden on the system far into adulthood. It's really too unbearable to consider what those octuplet's lives will be like, probably comparable to the worst of what I've worked with - times eight. Valuing life is all well and good, but when you have life without quality of life, what kind of life is that really? The whole thing is positively sickening.
  • Oh, geez...I am going to agree with Frank. The world will stop turning now. ;)

    Seriously, there are a lot of neglected small-family children out there. Money and love aren't necessarily synonymous.

    Rob, I think this woman loves these children. She may be mentally ill, she may not be. SHe's definitely not the norm. But does that make her crazy?

    I'm going to copy/paste some of what I commented at Moof's site:

    1’ve read several opinions from various doctors (on their blogs) saying it’s possible she was only implanted with a few, but due to the number of fertility drugs she’s obviously been on to have all the IVF children she has, they could have multiplied. Again, I know the chances of 2-4 multiplying to 8 is astronomical, but someone has to come in that 0.000000000001% sometime, somewhere. (Made-up percentage…just making a point.)

    And I have a question or two (with a thought or two interspersed....ok, and an opinion or two):

    I’m not sure how much information a person has to give a fertility doctor. What if Nadya didn’t tell him/her how many children she had? Is she obligated to do that? Is he obligated to believe the patient? I have questions about that and frankly, about his right to know Nadya’s full history if she chose not to inform him. I realize this is a controversial area. I feel, as a patient, I need to inform my doctor of anything medically that might influence my care, but other than that, the rest of my life is none of his business. (Using masculine pronoun for ease here, not as an inclusive gender.) Nor do I think he wants to be judge and jury over a person’s life. If, as doctors, you have to decide that, then do you want to practice? (I know you do have to in some ways, but hopefully for medical reasons only.) Yes, he should have been careful of the number implanted. Beyond that, how obligated was he to choosing whether he implanted any or not?

    And about what is really true??? It will be interesting to see what the truth really is. I’m hearing contradicting information all over the news. What really bums me, is how the media is hung up on the declaration of bankruptcy in these bad economic times, but fail to state the debt was paid and no bankruptcy was actually filed. A debt of almost a million dollars, I believe. I also noticed they’ve quit talking about Nadya being on welfare because it looks like she actually was not. The third thing is some are talking about Nadya’s parents’ statements being taken out of context due to their ethnicity (thus understanding of what they meant) and just taking partial phrases. Who’d a thunk it? ;)

    Frankly (not Drackman), I hope she makes some money now. Not for her, but for the kids. And I hope her father really does have a big house somewhere. Regardless of the intent, the deed is done, and those kids do need to be cared for.
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post:

Next post:

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes