John & Kate + 8...Wholesome Fun Or Child Exploitation
By CraftyCorner
@CraftyCorner (5600)
United States
March 14, 2009 5:50am CST
The popular TLC Cable Reality Show John & Kate + 8 features the daily antics of the Gosselin children for the Cable world to view. John & Kate have a set of eight year old twins and four year old Sextuplets. That's a total of five girls and three boys. On screen we see everything from temper tantrums to toilet training. This is interspersed with product placements, like Juicy Juice boxes on counters and Tide detergent on the counters for Kate's wash.
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Do you see this as harmless entertainment? Admittedly, the kids are remarkably cute.
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Or do you see this as child exploitation? The Dionne Quintuplets would argue that such exposure is indeed exploitation. They too were on display.
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It could also have some dangerous aspects as there are some perverted people out there. Not everyone is simply into the 'cute' factor. Toilet training and watching kids getting out of the bath is rather intimate business.
2 people like this
2 responses
@ElicBxn (64169)
• United States
14 Mar 09
I think these people "sell" the multipuls to raise money to raise the kids - if they didn't they couldn't as easily afford them.
Now, I don't like kids, don't watch these shows so I don't know a lot about them, but I will say that MOST people that have these "litters" of children were having them because they wanted a child, they love children and wanted them, AND are doing the best they can to raise them as well as they can.
I would've said "all" but "Octo-mom" has proven that to be not true - she needs to spend some time actually taking CARE of her OWN children instead of getting cosmetic surgery and the like.
I also don't include in that the 18 kids and counting family. Why? Because she hasn't been having fertility treatments.
2 people like this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
16 Mar 09
Multiple births are a risk with fertility treatments. Fertility treatment may be the only option for the infertile who do not wish to adopt.
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I agree with you about the Duggar situation, that show is more about lifestyle choice than 'look at the size or dynamic of our family'. That family consists of a carload of singleton births and three sets of twins. If that family was around a hundred years ago, no one would bat an eyelash. Today's era of small families and birth control makes them noteworthy.
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I think that Nadya Suleman has acute mental issues.
2 people like this
@MysticTomatoes (1053)
• United States
16 Mar 09
I'm with the first poster. I think that they are selling the rights to their story so they can be on TV and flaunt it. I personally don't like watching shows like this. Between this couple and that nutjob "Octo-Mom" the world has enough. The "Octo-Mom" is getting her own TV reality series once the kids all come home from the hospital.
Instead of punishing people like "Octo-Mom" we are rewarding their ways by giving them new homes, daycare 24/7 and free food and clothes plus the chance to be famous due to their overwhelming urge to raise welfare babies.
1 person likes this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
16 Mar 09
I don't think that Nadya's dreams of Octo-stardom are going to come true. California has very strict laws regarding working children. Suleman will have to work another angle for freebies or find a more lenient state. (Color me cynical.)
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The Gosselins don't live in California, they live in a state that has much more relaxed laws regarding children with paychecks.
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