Nadya Suleman, Octuplets' Mom: Is Her Quest For Kids A Compulsion?

Q: I can't stop thinking about the woman who now has fourteen children. In fact, you could say that I am obsessed about the woman who is obsessed. I just don't get it.

I have five children, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 10, and I am busy from morning until night. Wait, let me amend that last statement. I am busy 24 hours a day. I love my kids, but believe me, and certainly don't quote me, sometimes I just want to throw them out the window. I am tired. I am disheveled. Would you believe that I am sometimes even lonely? And I believe I could not carry on a conversation with an adult anymore.

Of course I love my children and yes, even though we are not religious, my husband and I did want them. We always wanted a large family. We are lucky that we can afford help and lucky, too, that we have involved families. Of course, most of all, we are lucky enough to have each other. But all of this support does not diminish the reality that each child requires attention and time. It is a joy to parent, to help our kids learn about life, and to be the best adults that they can be. But it is also a joy to spend some romantic time with my husband. And, it is also a joy to grow intellectually on my own.

I don't know how this woman whose name is Nadia now has 14 children -and no husband - plans to cope. Obviously she has something wrong with her. I also think there has to be something "wrong"--unethical or something - with whoever helped her to have even more than a single child. Where were the doctors? Where were the social workers while she had all those impregnations?

But beyond all of the articles that we have all read about the cost to the public and about her obvious obsession, I really want to understand what an obsession like this means. She is obsessed with being a mother? How can that be? A mother wants to care for her children. That's her focus, her primary obligation. At the same time, this particular mother wanted to be a child care expert. How can you want to be both a mother and a child care expert and not know that you can't possibly care for 14 young children at the same time?

Now, supposedly, there is the chance that she will get book contracts and that will help her some. (Of course, if she had another six kids, she'll get even more contracts.) Still, though, she has almost no means of support. I could go on and on. You can see I am obsessed about her obsession and, it seems, so is the rest of us. We can't take our eyes off this woman. Why?

Also, while I am at it, I am wondering what it means when outside experts suggest that this woman is compensating for a lack of identity and self-esteem? Are they saying that she has a low self-esteem and so giving birth gives you an identity? Let me tell you that having five children feels sometimes like I have no identity.

I don't understand what anyone is thinking. Do you have any answers?

A: I certainly don't have a ready explanation of why this woman had an additional eight children after she already has six -- and all, apparently, by in vitro fertilization. Everyone is speculating, but as of yet, we haven't heard from her or from her doctors. However, what I think you are actually looking for is a short psychology lesson on obsessions and on identity. I think you are also looking for an affirmation of your own parenting skills and knowledge.

As you said, it appears that we are obsessed about this woman who is obsessed about having kids. It is, as you suggest, like looking at a train wreck. When we watch someone else in trouble, we distance ourselves from that possibility. It is the other person who is experiencing the tragedy. We have been spared this time. We experience a vicarious sense of relief.

I also think that, like the Bernie Madoff scandal, we are trying to understand people who set no limits for themselves. The vast majority of us are too responsible to destroy our lives, not to mention the lives of others. How do these people get by with being so irresponsible? Where is their censor, their super-ego? Why don't they have the parental voices we all hear inside our heads -- the ones inculcated since childhood? Of, if they hear them, why are that able to ignore them -- or incapable of obeying them?

Most of us would be fearful of taking steps that we had thought through and had deemed dangerous or inappropriate. So we watch with both amazement and curiosity--not to mention relief that it isn't us - as one car of the train slams into another. We watch the train wreck.

However, a person who is obsessed usually cannot control their thoughts. They have the same thought over and over again. They only way they can control this never-ending loop of an obsession is with a compulsion. The compulsion is the action that deals with the consuming thought that interferes with their life. It is the effect. The incessant idea is the cause.

However, the compulsion itself interferes with life. We have all heard about compulsive rituals like washing hands or continually returning to check if a light switch is off.

But if we believe that this mother of 14 is obsessed with being a parent, then the having a child is the compulsion. It is both irrational and unavoidable. That does seem to be an incredibly exaggerated way of dealing with the obsessive desire to be a parent, but the obsession itself implies a clear irrationality. At the same time -- as if to show the extent of her obsession and also her awareness of it -she is getting a master's degree in child development. So her obsession has taken her down some productive and well thought out paths. This just confuses the picture even more, and makes us more fascinated. She seems in some ways quite normal or understandable and in other ways just plain out of touch. You don't have to be a shrink to know that the human mind is not a series of one-way streets. Traffic flows all over the place.

You also questioned the suggestion in many articles that her obsession has something to do with either her lack of identity or self-esteem, or both. Is the love she gets from a child or the proud label "mother" enough to resolve identity and self-esteem issues? Yes. That can work. But does it require so many children to ensure one's identity and the self-esteem? No. Then maybe there is something else at work.

Pregnant teenagers are seen sometimes as being so lonely or so insecure about themselves and so uncertain about their identity that the baby inside is like a friend or a sister. The teenager doesn't think beyond the pregnancy itself. It is the pregnancy itself that comforts a teenager, not the prospect of being a mother or of being part of a large family.

So, returning to the theory of self-esteem and identity, it is possible that our obsessive mother, Nadya, is on a constant search for identity. But beware the obvious! It may not be a perpetual mother that she wants to be, but a perpetual daughter instead -- a daughter to her own mother. As she continues to have children, the grandmother -- her own mother -- continues to play a huge role in her daughter's life. We have some hints that the grandmother is aware of this. She is now threatening to leave. She stated that a psychologist had told her to tell her daughter to leave the family home. That sounds less like an attempt at eviction and more like a course of treatment. But the grandmother was incapable of such stern measures. She felt her daughter needed so much help.

But even this explanation does not fully explain what is motivating this woman to continue having children. It just could be that she is addicted to pregnancy - a condition we find in women who repeatedly become surrogate mothers. They do so not because they want children of their own - or additional children of their own - but because they enjoy carrying a baby and helping others to achieve happiness.

This, of course, is not the case with Nadya. She keeps her babies. In her case, whatever her other problems -- compulsion, obsession, etc, -- she is also burdened with an extremely idealized view of the role of the parent. She does not live in the real world.

This brings us back to you. You are no Nadya. You wanted a big family but you have the financial and emotional support that's necessary. Being exhausted sometimes or being able to express desire and a need for something other than parenting sounds to me like a very well-rounded, honest and loving parent. You may be an obsessive parent who worries a lot about her kids and spends as much time with them as possible, but that's hardly life-threatening. The worst you could become is a helicopter mom, or a mom who hovers over their children. But you yourself said that you find pleasure in giving them all the tools that they will need for adulthood. So your chopper is grounded.

You sound like you have your parenting under control. You may be a good, obsessive parent. You are certainly not a mom obsessed with parenting or a woman who cannot see herself as anything other than a mom. You're not the mystery. Nadya is.

Comments

[Tugar]

Monday, February 9, 2009.

I just viewed a short TV interview, showing Nadya’s mother this am, the grandmother of Nadya’s kids. The grandmother said she is the primary care giver for the 6 older children presently at home, (all under age 7 years), and she and her husband tried to tell the “Doctor” who inseminated Nadya with each of her pregnancies that Nadya already has 6 kids and did not need anymore, but somehow the Doctor went ahead anyway. Grandmom also said: “Nadya doesn’t always think straight, and Nadya had gotten over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, from a settlement, but she never got any money from Nadya to help her with the children.

Grandmom went on to say, that when she and her husband found out about the new coming babies, which they were told was 7, they tried to talk Nadya into putting them up for adoption, to let some deserving parents have them, who could take care of the new babies and give them a better life then Nadya could.

This is a very sad situation, and my heart goes out to the Grandmother, who loves her daughter, but knows something is desperately wrong (mentally) with her. None of us know what will be the end to this story, but whatever happens, I don’t believe it would be good to release the Octuplets to Nadya, unless she can provide a proper place for them to at least lie down and sleep in.

[dustsceawung]

Angela Suleman seems to have suffered from her own share of issues, has no trouble blaming her daughter for her own (mother's) troubles, or trashing her in the press. No matter what my opinion of my daughter's actions, I would not, I repeat, NOT, drag her through the mud on national TV. If Nadya has mental health issues, that is a private family affair. I have been appalled at the way Angela Suleman has aired her family's dirty laundry in the public sphere. No wonder Nadya complained of a dysfunctional childhood. And speaking of dirty laundry, Angela Suleman let it pile up all over the house while her daughter was in the hospital and she was supposed to be watching her grandchildren, and then blamed her daughter for the mess while she was recovering from major surgery. She doesn't seem like much of a martyr/mother to me.

[jozinha]

I believe Ms. Suleman is a perfect storm of women's issues.

1. Postpartum depression is a known problem, but some women also have a difficult time with a large part of pregnancy itself. There are some women who absolutely ADORE being pregnant -- are VERY happy every moment of it.
Could Suleman be both? Could she experience ecstatic hormones while carrying but crash into powerless misery afterward? Has she been self-medicating with getting pregnant again and again and again?

2. Nature has programmed us to reproduce. It has been reported that some women who, knowing they have frozen embryos somewhere, WANT those embryos in their wombs. This is part of a dangerous game fertility technology is playing with MOTHER nature.

3. Women's lib. I am a feminist and it makes me sick that what I fought for has been translated by one woman to allow her to birth 14 people who will not get healthy attention. It makes me sick. An abuse I never thought I'd live to see. Never.

[Giada]

This issue raises so many red flags ....

The woman's desire for IVF with the same man. Where does a father male figure place in this living situation? Her need to work in child care. Who cares for the children, and how does she expect to devote time to them. It's my understanding she's working on a degree. She filed bankruptcy. How are these children going to be supported?

I'm eager to hear her story as well as the pysch evals. Her behavior does not appear to fall in a healthy range.

[benne]

Don't make this entirely about the woman. After all, this wasn't a woman, who got pregnant naturally. We need to look a bit more at the fertility doctors and their practices. Do they routinely put in 8 fertilized embryos? If so, they should stop. Notice how I haven't even said anything about them selecting out fit and unfit parents -- only about the practices they use to impregnate their clients (can't call them patients, somehow). What are their motivations? Good ol' mammon, which is somehow acceptable in our society. That we understand.

[milo h minderbinder]

You're right, both the fertility doctor and the mother should both be looked at.

She finally admitted that six were implanted (two split), still a dangerously irresponsible number.

[CR46]

I hope someone steps in to help these children, before something terrible happens.

[darnsannity]

Gosselin's family [Jon and Kate+ 8 ] -The kids were conceived not naturally but via assisted techs. But they were showered with TV offers and freebies. But why not for California's octomom..B­ecause she doesnot belong here ?? Just curious :-(

[darnsannity]

Listen :

Gosselin's family [Jon and Kate+ 8 ] -The kids were conceived not naturally but via assisted techs. But they were showered with TV offers and freebies. But why not for California's octomom..B­ecause she doesnot belong here ?? Just curious :-(

[eri 68]

The Gosselin's are married, John has a job aside from the money their TV show brings in. Even the Duggars (don't get me started) has an income earning parent.

The issue with this woman isn't that she doesn't belong, it's that she is irresponsible and unequipped to properly take care of and raise 14 kids. Even her own mother has said "I'm outta there" when it comes to the new brood, and who can blame her. It isn't the responsibility of the grandparents to raise the children of their own children.

This issue isn't just about the mother and her irresponsible decisions, it goes much deeper to the clinic/doctor who went along with this insanity 14 times!!! Questions remain, who paid for it, who fathered them, who approved this procedure over and over again.

I don't agree with any of these shows that promote turning women into animals who have litters instead of children. To an extent they are all serving a higher power (and it isn't God), the Michelle Duggar has barely squeezed out one child before she's ready to make the next, it's disgusting. Older children end up raising the younger siblings there does come a point when even two parents don't have the time to properly spend with their children and that is wrong.

[milo h minderbinder]

Frankly, that family shouldn't be getting freebies and whoring out their kids on TV to make money either.

[CR46]

I just hope someone steps in to protect these children before they end up like Angela Yates' children.

[x273687x]

Wow, when you think you've seen every kind of reckless parenting- there is always someone out there to remind the world that there are other forms of reckless parenting. This story is disturbing in many ways: from this woman hoarding children, poor medical practice from her fertility doctor, and the people who are donating money to this woman. Where is social services in this matter? Are there no laws for boarding 14 children in a three bedroom house, I mean even a daycare has to meet child/adult ratios for obvious reasons. Where is the medical board and why are they not questioning the doctor who helped impregnate this woman? And, what is going to happen to any money this woman receives? How do those who are donating money know that she is not going to use it to have more children? This woman lives at home with her parents, she's filed workers comp claims, her mother has filed bankruptcy within the last year, and so on. How was she supporting 6 children to begin with? Don't get me wrong- its wonderful and miraculous that all 8 babies survived, but what kind of life can she provide 14 children?

[Lois Calzone]

The girl is totally irresponsible and I hope, for the sake of the children, that she is monitored by children's services. Actually, I hope that she ends up losing the children so that they can be given a chance to lead normal lives. There is no way that she can take care of 14 children even with the help of her parents! They already seem overwhelmed and fed up.

If she works, who takes care of the kids? And why have the kids if you have to work? How many baby sitters do you hire to sit 14 kids?

I keep hearing that she can handle it financially. No way! I don't care if she was making $100,000 a year! Regardless of how much her earning ability is, she will have to pay more than a couple of people to mind the kids while she works.

She's clearly delusional and her publicist should be ashamed to promote this kind of insanity.

[ChaiKat]

My grandmother had 14 kids. However, she did not have 8 of them at once, and she and my grandfather were farmers. Back in the day, it was the norm for rural families to have a lot of kids. The kids helped on the farm and in time took over the duties when the parents got too old and died. They also supported themselves. There were no handouts, and they didn't need any.

What this woman has done is showing her mental instability. She has no husband, no job, is living with her parents and other than books and movie offers has no visible means of support for the future other than taxpayer funds.

[67bug]

Was she given a mental health evaluation before she carried this out? Also, where is CPS in all of this? There are still many unanswered questions.­...

[BADRALDUJA]

yes in the west that is weird 14 cildren.
in my country it is very normal and beautifull to have a big family,i happen to be from a family of 14,each child 1 to 2 years older..all adults now,all love each other unconditio­nally,supp­ort each other and live close buy..and their kids grow up together..­..lovely.
i really dont kn ow why people are trying to make out nadia as being crazy of obsessed..
i say this again she is not single,her husband is working in iraq.

[cobraxus]

her father is working in Iraq(he and the mother are divorced.N­adya is unmarried and living with her mother.BTW­:in vitro fertilization costs about $10,000 a pop.the real question is "Who The Hell Is Paying For This And Why?"

[lucca2004]

I don’t care whether Nadya Suleman has “only child syndrome” or not. I care that she’s a single 33 year old unemployed woman with six fatherless children (one of whom has autism) who lives with her bankrupt parents and intentionally had 8 more children who will probably have long term medical problems themselves due to her stupid decisions. Who's going to pay for these 14 children? The bankrupt grandparents???

Though public records show that Nadya Suleman was on the payroll at Metropolitan State Hospital until last year, it appears that she did little work (if any) after September 1999 due to a workman's compensation injury (back injury and psychiatric condition) in which she's received up to $165,000 in compensation. She filed an additional claim for worker’s compensation for a separate car accident in which she argued that this car accident wouldn’t have occurred had she not been going for medical treatment for the earlier worker’s comp. injury.

Currently Nadya Suleman is single, unemployed and has 14 fatherless children that will need to be supported by taxpayers for at least the next 18 years. Given her “history”, I’m sure she knows full well how to fund her large family and her stupid decisions.

[AZBunny]

That can NOT be the truth, 14 different people who all love each other unconditionally, support each other and live close by and kids grow up together . You are fantasizing I come from a family of 12 and there are very few of us that get along with one another. We mostly avoid each other.

Growing up in that large of a family guarantees that you are NEVER paid attention to and rarely get get parental guidance. Parenting becomes reactionary rather than proactive as one child or another requires the MOST attention and the parents become overwhelmed dealing with one BIG issue at a time.

I was number 10 in that lineup and my older sister was the one who went to parent teacher conferences for me reporting back to our parents. My dad was too overworked to care what the teacher said. My sister was also the one who told me the facts of life and growing up. My mom was too busy to notice I'd entered maturity.

My youngest bro will tell you that he really had 11 parents to deal wiht-- all his older siblings!

Large families are a cruel joke. You only end resenting the lose of your childhood because you are raising your siblings.

[TheBlackCat]

It is her father who went to Iraq,not her husband. Her mother has said she has no husband, and conceived all her children through fertility treatment, not with a father.

This woman lost her home, went bankrupt, and THEN got IVF immediately AFTER declaring bankrupcy.

Obviously there is something wrong with this woman to respond to a bankrupcy and foreclosure by deciding to have more children when she couldn't care for the 6 she did have.

[TheBlackCat]

That sure is a rosy view of things. And I'm not saying there are NO cases of perfectly happy, huge families.

But I used to live in Mexico. In the city. And the city is crawling with children. Children in factories, children as maids, children as street sweepers..­.and those are the better off ones. The worse ones are simply prostitutes or drug runners or beggars. And where do these children come from? The rural areas, where families have no access to family planning education. They simply cannot afford all the children they have, so the second a kid hits 9 years old, they are sent to the city to work. Most of these parents don't do this out of malice or greed. They just see no other option. They cannot care for their children, so the oldest ones are sent off to work, and send money back home.

Even the large families that were able to remain in tact who I encountered hardly had such a positive view as you do. They were always lamenting how they simply don't have the time and resources to take care of all their children. Did they love all their children? Of course. But they were very aware of the lack of opportunities and parental care these children had

Don't try and make it seem like only ignorant Americans think having too many kids is a problem.

[jozinha]

HER FATHER has to go back to Iraq, and into the line of fire, to earn the money for his daughter's insanity. He knows she's crazy.

By the way, he's divorced from his wife, so Nadya has brought 14 children into the world to be cared for by her divorced parents.!!­!!!!!