In Defense of "Octomom?"

Like most mothers across the country, I have railed against octuplets mom Nadya Suleman, both publicly and privately, and have a laundry list of grievances against her. I've asked all the questions: How could she have all these kids? How will she take care of all these kids? Why will we have to help pay for all these kids and how the hell is she going to manage 64 feedings everyday for the next few months once those tiny babies come home from the hospital?

Despite all this, I found myself on national television this week defending her. I shocked myself a bit sitting on the Today Show couch (next to the distractingly attractive Natalie Morales, btw!) listening to the now infamous 911 call hearing myself say: "Well Natalie, I sympathize with Nadya. That could have been me."

It turns out that following a segment Today did last week, mothers were mighty miffed about the seemingly one-sided treatment of the call. In hundreds of angry emails, women wrote in about their disappointment and outrage, accusing Today of simply tossing the call into the cauldron of evidence proving that Natalie is a nut job and unfit for mommy duty. To support their defensive, they confessed their own mothering mishaps of losing kids and losing composure, as well as their genuine empathy for Nadya in her now very public display of hysteria. I know from personal experience as the mother of three that fear is a powerful emotion and can lead to some pretty unflattering behavior. I also know from the hundreds of thousands of posts on the truuMOM confessions website I run where women spill secrets anonymously, that more mothers than anyone might suspect really do have these moments of hysteria. I would argue that these "bad moments" or bad thoughts, alone, don't warrant the singe of the Bad Mother brand.

So, Today brought me in, along with fellow mom, blogger and author, Stefanie Wilder Taylor, to talk more about Octomom and the 911 call specifically, representing the voice of "real moms." They wanted Today Show viewers to feel heard and understood, that they were not subjected to one-sided sensational coverage. The three of us ladies sat politely listening to the tail end of the call and then Natalie started the queries. I jumped in with a self-deprecating, "Well, that could have been me if my child was in jeopardy," but Stefanie pounced on the more popular, "Come on, she's crazy." (Watch the full segment below.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Had our camera time extended beyond a brief 4 minutes, I would've challenged Stefanie on this one, countering with countless examples from the truuMOM confessions site offering up proof that thousands of moms have copped to embarrassing and sometimes shocking moments of "hysteria" and frustration that even led one mom to throw a shoe that accidentally hit her son and gave him a bloody nose. I would have also brought up the fact that whether in the interest of time (or dare I say, exploitation) the tail end of the call does make her sound nuts, and shouldn't be evaluated on its own. The whole call builds to the hysterical "I'm going to kill myself, I'm going to kill myself" and understandably so. Stefanie shrugged this one off, claiming there were no additional incidents warranting the escalation. I wanted to argue that the initial incident - gripping fear over losing your kid - was enough to take a mom to this breaking point in the first place. But to each mom her own breaking point.

I want to be clear that I'm not defending Nadya Suleman and a string of really bad choices or excuse her undeniably shocking and outrageous behavior. To me, she's not of sound mind or bank account to raise a brood like this alone -- but that's another conversation. I'm just going out on a limb here to say that 24/7, women confess to some pretty extreme thoughts and actions that without context might prompt a call to social services. While Nadya has put herself in the middle of a media circus and earned the unfortunate title of "Octomom," the emotions she expressed in that frantic 911 call could have been those of everymom.

Comments

[mitsie]

I know that I was an abused wife and mother of two. People that judge women, more the most part have never been in their shoes. I found out my daugher was pregnant at 17 and when I told my ex he kicked us, the kids and I out of our home. This was one week after he had broken three of my ribs and I was in excruciating pain.

My son was 16 and during this terrible period, stole a $1.50 fishing lure. Now it's not that he needed the lure, and not that we were going fishing. He did it to get attention, and he did. We had to go to court. and the juvenile judge sentenced him to 40 hours of labor. He chose our home town volunteer fire company, and he had to wash all the fire trucks.Today he is a very successful businessman and has two sons of his own.

My daugher did great and I am so proud of her. I told her I would support any decision she made about the baby, but she had to finish high school. She decided to have the baby, and went on and finished in the top 10 of the senior class. She then got grants and loans, and went on to get three college degrees. She now has two more children, a little girl and boy. She's doing great also.

Octomom can't call 911 every time she has to be responsible.

.

[AZBunny]

One of the benchmarks of being a good parent is the ability to retain CONTROL when your kids NEED you to.
If you can not control yourself in an emergency WHO are your children going to rely on?
If you can NOT control yourself in an emergency you shouldn't be a parent.

[Bethab]

Where did truedadconfessions go??? That was the best!!!

[Bethab]

Have to say it again in case Romi is reading...PLEASE bring back truedadconfessions! The moms just aren't funny!!

[Bethab]

And yet...when I tell people I don't want kids at all, they tell me I am crazy!

[LordMoon]

All the anger you describe in your article seems misplaced to me, and I wonder where it really comes from.

After all to me Octomom, is a very smart women. She has a brand new home, 14 children and doesn't even have a job, while the citizens of California, seem facinated by her, and are willing to spend cold hard cash for her story.

I for one am not mad at her, but instead understand where she's coming from.

To me she epitomizes everything wrong with our state, and a recognition of how bad things are.
For one thing, it has become impossible to support yourself here on wages alone, even if she were to have a high paying job, above the poverty line, it is doubtful she could afford a home as a single mother with that many kids.

There are many millions of women just like her, only she has been able to cash in on a much larger scale, having children to live off state welfare, or child support in California has almost become a tradition to those who can't or won't find meaningful work.

The state also profits from this, by getting federal grant money for each dollar they get. So who can blame her? She's just doing what millions of others like herself already do..

[lynninny]

Sure, being a parent can be really stressful. Really, really stressful. I would hate for my worst moments to be recorded and broadcast. And absolutely, I experienced the entire hormonal pregnancy, and post-partum plus sleep-deprivation with twins, thing. At the hardest moments, the twins-with-colic moments, I told myself that it was just stress, or hormones, or that I needed sleep, or my family friend to come over and help, but I needed to do what was necessary to give my children a calm, healthy mother.

My point is not that this sad woman lost it for a few minutes and this makes her a bad mother. My point is that, my own memory of those tougher moments, of what it could be like at times to try to care for two children at once, reminds me: It probably wouldn't be a good idea to impregnate myself with eight more children. Really. It is this act that demonstrates to me that she is unstable, and unfit.

[NoSillyName]

Come on, the operator had to tell her to stop saying she was going to kill herself in front of whatever other child/children were with her at the time of the call.

You do that?

[RadicalSAHM]

Trying to recognize meaninglful commonalities with a crazy person who has decided to share the crazy with 14 children created just for this purpose is well, crazy. This woman should be in a hospital and her doctor should be in jail.

[joebaggadonuts]

To me it seems most like addiction behavior. The whole thing. The call, the 8 babies, her life. Addicted to being a mom.
It reminds me of Groucho Marx' line ( from here http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/grouchocigar.asp ) :

"Why so many children?" Groucho asks.

"Well, I just love my husband!" the woman replies.

"Well, I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!" replies Groucho.

[NoSillyName]

Groucho was great.

[pollyannacowgirl]

I think the main reason evidence of her instability is that she was saying she was going to kill herself in front of the other children. You just don't do that. No one was criticizing her for panicking or being terrified. But the things she says in front of the other children... That's just not normal or healthy behavior.

[camanokat]

That call was just the icing on the cake. She's a kook,