I first heard of Jon & Kate Plus Eight at Starbucks, where I was eavesdropping on a group of mothers gabbing away about this shrew and her brood. But I didn’t tune in until the Gosselin family started appearing in the tabloids. Call it rubbernecking or trainwreck-watching; I was curious to see how a marriage deteriorates even as film is rolling. How do you pretend all is well when, to whatever degree, it’s obviously not?
I also wanted to judge for myself whether Kate is as horrible as she’s been made out to be. Granted, editing comes into play, and a bitchy alpha-female creates drama on the set and sparks emotion among viewers, who in turn rant about the show at Starbucks and attract potential new viewers who just can’t resist all that drama. I resisted until Monday night’s season premiere.
Kate is controlling, uptight, and passive-aggressive. But I can’t hate her; I was her. In some ways, I still am – minus the tummy tuck and the eight kids, neither of which I’ll ever have.
Watching her makes me uncomfortable. Even though her voice reminds me of Ellen Degeneres’ (try it – close your eyes or look away from the TV; she’s a dead vocal ringer for Ellen), her words remind me of me. It wasn’t that long ago that I employed her same techniques with just as little success. Instead of asking for what she wants, she sniffs and shrugs and lays on the guilt. It’s a losing strategy, guaranteed to make Kate and everyone around her miserable.
I don’t have multiples, let alone two sets of them totaling eight kids. But I do know that effective parenting and a peaceful marriage require flexibility and well-chosen battles. It can’t all go according to plan all the time, especially when you’ve got eight little variables gumming up the works. Kate’s got to ask herself, “Does it really matter?” and then be willing to answer “no” more often than not.
Unfortunately, I think she needed to start about five years ago when the sextuplets were born. Six babies at once makes a certain level of organization essential to the mere survival of the household, but that initial rigidity never abated as the children grew and gained independence. It still constrains the entire family, most especially Jon and Kate themselves. Even in that photo which Kate lamented to the camera might be the last family picture, she reminded Jon to take off his sunglasses.
Not surprisingly, Jon’s had it up to here by now. Over the past five years, what independence and control he once had – which was never much; they got married at 22 and had the twins at 23 – has been whittled down to almost nothing. He quit his job to stay at home with the kids while Kate travels for speaking engagements and a book tour, but his duties at home are scripted and his performance is critiqued by Kate. I can almost understand why he’s (allegedly) been out doing beer bongs with college students; his sense of self-worth is in the toilet.
Almost, but not quite. Jon’s got eight kids who, in spite of how Kate’s harping weighs on him, deserve a father who’s fully engaged in parenting. Beyond his (alleged) extracurricular activities that take him away from the house at night, he doesn’t seem to be mentally present even when he’s physically present with the kids. I don’t know the history of his role as father, but if he abdicates in the face of Kate’s dictatorship, it’s the kids who lose out.
At our house, I’ve definitely played the role of bitchy alpha-female, and Kyle’s easygoing personality enabled him to tolerate my scripting and critiquing, even as he helped me learn to tolerate change and the accompanying chaos. Ironically enough, circumstances now arise in which I’m the one who goes with the flow while he frets. It’s a welcome change that reminds me how far we’ve both come.
Will Jon and Kate get there too? For the kids’ sakes, I hope so. They both need to change, and it ought to start with Jon going back to work. He needs to feel necessary in some capacity. In his current role he can’t do anything right, so he figures, “Why bother?” He claims that he’s devoted to the kids, but he’s got to put aside Kate’s criticisms and make the effort to connect with them in his own way.
For Kate’s part, she’s got to throttle back – not just for the sake of her marriage or her kids, but for her own sanity. I believe she has a sense of humor, albeit a dry and very well-disguised one, but I don’t think even her husband can read her. She needs to soften up and see the fun – the spontaneous, unscripted, downright chaotic fun that I know from experience can be difficult to embrace. Only then will she be prepared to take on the tough stuff with the grace and perspective that will allow her and her family to come through it unscathed.
Perhaps they’re fundamentally incompatible. Perhaps the gaps that existed all along have widened too far. Perhaps they would be genuinely happier (and better parents) apart.
Whether the two of them deem their marriage worth saving or not, it’s actually their family’s happiness that hinges on these prescribed changes. Separate or together, if Jon continues to feel useless or Kate continues her all-or-nothing approach, it’s the kids who will ultimately suffer.
Do you watch Jon & Kate Plus Eight? Whose side are you on? No fair answering “the kids”; we’re all on their side.
I think you nailed it for me. She reminds me of my grandmother, who dominated and verbally abused my grandfather until he was a shell of who he had been. Even before this season, how she spoke to him made me cringe. If it has been him who was talking that way to her, women would have been up in arms about how bad he was.
I keep seeing things about how she’s being demonized because she is strong. There is no strength in belitting another person, just your own insecurities. He isn’t inocent either, and they both need to work on their relationship, not the TV show, or making money, but on their own family.
And for goodness sakes, let the kids get dirty sometimes. It won’t kill them.
I don’t watch the show- I tried before all the drama started and watching them herd that many children seriously gave me anxiety. I can’ hardly handle my two, I don’t find it relaxing or entertaining to watch child-rearing in hyper drive played out on tv.
That said, I feel for her. If she has a controlling personality, I imagine the compulsion to control that amount of chaos has to be totally overwhelming and not eaily turned off.
I imagine this life is not one that either of them expected. I hope they need to hit bottom and almost walk away in order to realize that they need to change it up and rebuild what they have. Even if they don’t, for the love of god, I wish the gossip rags would leave them alone. A marriage breaking up is not interesting or entertaining.
I’ve watched the show for a long time, and I always gave both Jon and Kate and their relationship the benefit of the doubt. I try to think what it would be like if some camera crew caught all of my husband’s and my bad moments and edited out most of the good… what would our relationship look like? I snap at him sometimes, he’s short with me sometimes. Yet, we actually have a fantastic relationship. Although I do not belittle him, and he is not passive-aggressive with me. I have just rolled my eyes at Jon’s and Kate’s behavoir and thought that it was their personalities and at least they know how to deal with each other.
But now I’m thinking they really haven’t been dealing with each other. Having kids just adds so much stress, and I couldn’t imagine having that many kids to drive up the stress exponentially. I thought they were still letting the little bickers go. When watching the show, I just tried to concentrate on how they tried to work together and how they tried to keep things moving forward and on those few beautiful moments when they laughed and looked happy together.
Now, after all this hubbub and crap about them and between them, I have lost all interest in watching their show. I don’t think I can give either of them the benefit of the doubt anymore. I hope this is just a rough point in their marriage that they can learn from and move on from, but I can’t watch the trainwreck. I tried to watch the premiere, and didn’t leave it on for a total of a minute. I absolutely don’t pick sides. Neither person is perfect, but who is? Instead of blaming and flaming them in the media, I just want them to get to therapy and see if they can’t work out what’s going on and move forward. And to take a break from the show until they do.
I think the show hit me so hard was because I saw myself and my husband, at least where we were just a few months back. I was definitely the alpha female and often times, he did what he had to do for the kids, certainly not because of us or our relationship.
But we both decided it wasn’t about doing it for the kids, as much as it was about doing it for us – we deserved each other – happy each “others” – as much as our kids did.
And so we bucked up – I loosened up the reins and let things go (as did he), and he pitched in more not because he wanted to be with the kids or whatever, but for ME as well.
I can see both sides to this, because she gave up a lot to stay home with them, so it does seem fair that it’s “her” time. On the other hand, she needs to check in with him, and if he doesn’t want to stay home with the kids, then maybe he needs to find something to do – write his own book, travel with her, or do something that makes him happy instead of being resentful and then acting out (allegedly).
Truth is, the whole thing probably isn’t that atypical. It’s just that it’s now broadcast for all of us to see.
It’s interesting that you wrote about this because–on the spur of the moment–I posted about this very thing last night. You make a lot of good points here.
I think that she honestly may have diagnosable/treatable OCD, for real.
I think the level of controlling comes off as bitchy and whatever but it’s been a dynamic that’s been in place forever for them, probably. The *organization* and the *germlessness* and all of the rigidity? I don’t know. I don’t think she’s as bad as she’s made to look.
I find it all really sad. I watched the show because I have a fascination with extra-large families. Up until now, it held (for me) a different feel from a lot of other *reality shows.* But the luridness of this whole thing has me turning off. I watched the premiere, too, and I saw two angry, self-centered people there, both yakking on and on about doing what’s best for their kids, without seeming to have a fucking clue what that means…
Sad.
You wrote clearly and kindly which is damn hard. Well done.
I am To-Tal-Ly on HER side (if there were such a thing, but I think we can all agree this is too silly to even take seriously.)
Waaaaayyyy back when they first got on the air, I watched a bit where they talked about her stomach, and how it looked after carrying 8 kids. They called it “the bulldog” or something like that. My husband and I sat in total disgust listening to her HUSBAND talk about how gross she looked. We couldn’t believe he could be that outwardly cruel to his own wife, and she just sat there and took it, because, let’s face it, her stomach was a bit torn up. That’s what happens! My husband would never, ever, EVER say a bad word about my body after I gave him two beautiful children with it – and this guy got 6 beautiful children out of that stomach all at once. And how he’s diddling younger girls because his WIFE is a bitch? The guy has an ego the size of that new mansion they live in.
I can totally understand how Kate is F-E-D up, miserable, and generally crappy toward that man. He’s completely passive aggressive, tries to make her feel like crap all the time, and won’t step up to the plate unless she’s nagging about it. And what kind of a married man puts himself in ANY position that someone could even start a rumor that he’s cheating on his wife. Doesn’t he have enough to deal with at home? Should he be with girls in bars late at night? Totally INappropriate. If he wants to screw other girls, he needs to man up and get a divorce first – not keep a little on the side. Pathetic.
I bet you Kate doesn’t want to be this person. I bet she HATES that she’s turned into this irritable, crabby woman. But Jon is not innocent in this either.
I tell you what, I woulda left his arse the minute he made cruel jokes about my body. I’m surprised she’s put up with him as long as she has.
ITA with Quinn above.
Like the new girl, I’ve watched this show occasionally because I am a sucker for all those lotsa-kids shows (except the Duggars–*shudder*). I never understood how Jon could seem so OK with Kate’s needling. I guess we know now that he wasn’t OK with it. In the few minutes I saw of Monday’s episode, I felt zero sympathy for either of them–they both seemed so defensive in their supposedly apologetic moments.
Hi! I just came across your blog via Design Mom (looking for new reads!). This is a great, well written post! They’re in a tough position, and I hope they can both rise to the challenge. He needs to step up and take more responsibility (on his own, not because he’s been ordered to), and I think if he did, she would be able to feel like she could count on him more and thus be less controlling. They’ve both responded to the stress in very different ways which is too bad. Personally, I’ve never loved the show, and have never thought they really had much chemistry.
I am about to choose sides even though I have NEVER SEEN A SINGLE EPISODE. All I did was read that People interview with Kate. Here’s what I think: Kate gets blamed for everything, because she’s kind of hard to like. Reading the article, I thought, She is expecting her husband to act like a grown-up and do his share, which is reasonable, but unfortunately she is kind of a low-likable person. Our society values laidbackedness, and Jon is laid-back so we approve. But he’s also an ass to bring up this whole “I never experienced my 20s” crap, as if he were somehow victimized and is owed a do-over. He CHOSE Kate, he CHOSE to get married when he did, he CHOSE to have children, and he CHOSE to do the show. Kate does seem a little controlling, but without her my guess is that he’d be sitting around in dirty underpants, the electricity turned off because he didn’t get around to paying the bill.
I watch it occasionally because the kids are cute and there’ nothing else on when I’m doing the laundry. I’m more interested in how the kids interact with each other than the parents for some reason. I’ve long thought Jon should haul off an tell Kate to shut up, but when you are never free of the kids or the cameras, that could be hard. Neither parent ever seems to be enjoying themselves. Even before all this news came out, they both seemed simply resigned to thier fates and making the best of the tsunami they live in by marketing themselves and taking advantage of free tummy tucks and hair plugs and laser eye surgery and second honeymoons to Hawaii.
As I have written elsewhere, I do wish TLC would stop celebrating these mega-families parading around their kids like some kind of sideshow for the free stuff. That said, I applaud the show for attempting to be honest about the hard road ahead of them.
Now I’m just waiting for the tabloids to find Joe-Bob Duggar with another wife and dozen kids in a different state.
I’ve watched theh show a few times – enough to worry about them. Kate does seem controlling and John seems to do nothing. I’m sure it’s not that simple and we only see what the editors choose. I only hope that they get good therapy because like all of us, they can grow and learn through the difficult times.
I feel like the only person in the world that didn’t watch this. Well, me and Swistle. Only I haven’t seen the People article.
In other words, bye! Back for the next post when I actually have something to add here.
Yes, Kate is hard to like. Yes, she snaps and cuts her husbands balls off in public. I can assure you, if I had eight children running every which way, I would do the same thing, with some regularity. Although I did cringe when she would openly criticize him, after seeing the most recent episode, I am firmly on her side. Jon seems completely checked out. He can be sad and resentful all he wants but he has eight children. He can pretend like Kate chose this life, not him, but he was an equal partner in creating those children and he needs to be an equal partner in keeping their lives together. I think he should get a job and Kate should scale back or eliminate the traveling. There needs to be some balance, a chance for Jon to be something other than Mr. Mom. You can say over and over again that you didn’t chose this, but you can’t reap the rewards (house, surgeries, vacations, swag, swag, swag) without paying the consequences.
We watched the show its first two seasons, and generally liked it because our daughter is roughly the same age as the sextuplets. But after awhile, we couldn’t stand to watch the uncomfortable dynamic between Jon and Kate. We’re parents, we’re married, we argue about the same stuff — but I think anyone who knows us would see the love underneath.
You can’t see it with those two.
Probably lots of blame to go around there. Plus, for me? My husband’s parents are divorced and it is really hard to deal with, even 35 years later, my husband still gets hurt in the crossfire. I don’t think I could stand to watch two parents hurt their eight kids in that way, as entertainment.
Well said, Julie, as always.
I think this is a hard one. You laid it out well. I haven’t watched many episodes lately. I think there are faults on both sides. She does what she thinks in the right thing, to support her kids. She also seems to believe he is a kid and needs to be told what to do. He thinks she is never home and is too demanding. In some ways, they are both right and others they are both wrong.
I don’t like listening to her talk to him some days. But he also seems to need to be told what to do by her, like he won’t do a thing without being told by her. Then he resents her for it. Heck, you have 8 year old children, you should know what needs to be done without being told, in my mind at least.
I will say, in her interview at the end of that episode, I saw a man who didn’t care anymore about being married and a very, very hurt woman. In her eyes, as much as her words, she looks like she was blindsided. And that? is sad.
I have been thinking about Jon and Kate long before the sh*t hit the fan recently. I started watching the show a year or two into it. I have to say, I agree with most of what you say, although to me, Jon is far more passive aggressive than Kate is.
All that aside, somewhere around the end of the third season, my husband said, “Look at their body language [arms crossed, leaning away from each other]. It tells everything.” Personally, I think they’re both at fault for the breakdown of their marriage, and I have no idea if it’s the multiples (and sheer number of kids), the stress of life in front of cameras, or just a mismatch that has fueled this impending split.
I wish them all the best. I think they both need to stop the show if they want any hope of reconnecting. I also think they need to stop just for the sake of the kids alone. What started as a charming, but flawed, family, has become nothing better than a sideshow.
(And whoever made the comment above about letting the kids get dirty, no kidding. I’ve never understood her obsession with the kids not messing up their clothes.)
I think Kate’s horrid, but in a realistic way. I don’t hate her. She seems like a real person with real (non-celebrity) problems. I don’t think the cameras are helping their marriage.
Well said. here’s my two cents: Of course they are both to blame for the breakdown of their relationship, there are two people involved here. I think Jon just decided to act on his frustrations sooner than Kate.
She is a control freak who verbally abuses her husband. He is a passive agressive freak who verbally abuses his wife. Bottom line: in order to stop the madness, wouldn’t you put an end to the show? How many millions of dollars do they need to survive? She’s so freakin put out at how much she has to do in her life “by herself”. Use some of your millions and get some freakin help!
That woman’s hair is utterly absurd. I freakin love to hate it.