Ebony's Pearls

Brand New Itzl Waving in his Teeny Bed
Originally uploaded by nodigio

The children are here, are alive, and deserve to be cared for to the best of our ability. Those facts cannot be disputed. None of these children asked to be born, therefore they do not deserve to be mistreated by anyone.

Ms. Suleman, on the other hand, needs some serious therapy, counseling, and sterilization so she doesn’t lapse back into her “must have kids” mental state again. It’s not that she has too many children – my grandmother had 23 children and successfully raised all of them. The Duggar family has 18 at last count and they are raising them well and without government assistance. Quantity is not what’s at issue here.

It’s the fact that Ms. Suleman is delusional.

Delusion One: She has over-estimated her ability to care for so many children at such young ages. Even caring for newborn twins or triplets is a logistical feat that taxes a married couple with family and friends supporting the parents, to attempt to care for 8 newborns with very little in the way of family support, not to mention 6 other children, half of whom are disabled – there’s no way any sane person would have thought themselves capable of caring for even one more child, let alone the 6 more she had implanted.

Delusions Two: She appears to expect total strangers to step up and help her support her and her offspring, regardless of what she actually says. She appeared to expect the same welcoming the previous octuplet mom received – the new van, the new house, the free diapers and baby food and all. Her initial secrecy and releases that when people heard her story, they’d overwhelm her with goods all appear to be a hoax now, because there was no story beyond selfishness. She was a selfish woman, and her story supports that appearance.

Delusion Three: Failing public and commercial outpourings of goodies, she appears to expect the media to pay for her story and the proof is that she’s hired a publicist to market her story around. it’s a rather sordid story with a main character who isn’t very likable. The only story she has offered is the whiny “I was an only child, pity poor me” story, and that doesn’t play well in Peoria or anywhere else. That’s not a compelling story the general public wants to hear. She wasn’t abandoned by a spouse, or widowed, or implanted only 2 embryos that unexpectedly split into 8 and left her with the ethical and moral dilemma of choosing to keep or selectively abort, or any other type of tale to which we could relate. In vitro fertilization is past its infancy and there’s no saga of hope, fear, and failure and all the accompanying moral and ethical choices. I remember those days when in vitro failed far more often than it succeeded and the huge number of embryos implanted in the hopes that one, just one, developed. She didn’t have to face that, so, no story there.

Delusion Four: She honestly does not see receiving Social Security benefits and food stamps as welfare assistance – which is exactly what they are. She claims she can support all 14 children all by herself, and yet, she’s getting Social Security benefits and food stamps that may well exceed $2500 a month, and with her addition of 8 more children, she’ll get more in food stamps. She’s already submitting Medicaid claims for the birth of these babies – an amount that will exceed over a million dollars. What other welfare benefits she will claim and receive over the course of the lives of these children remains to be seen, and yet, she says she’s not receiving or accepting welfare. That’s delusional.

Delusion Five: She claims she can care for these children by herself and then adds that she expects to rely on day care centers and volunteers to care for her children while she pursues another college degree. She expects student loans to be like grant monies, but she’s going to have to pay those loans back. She’s also put up a website soliciting donations for the care of her children. She’s stated that she hopes the biological father will step up and help out with these children. Poor man. I’m sure he’s shell-shocked by what she did. He shouldn’t be held accountable for her irresponsible actions, and if he does involve himself in their care and support, then I think he’s an admirable man for it. And if he doesn’t, no one can blame him. On some level, she knows she can’t do this herself, but her delusions won’t let her admit it.

I sincerely feel sympathy, not for Ms. Suleman, but for her children who really won’t receive the quality of care they deserve. Ms. Suleman has solicited public attention, and with that, she will receive public condemnation for her selfish acts. She could have gone on having one or two babies every year or two and few would have noticed. By choosing to implant so many embryos at once when the technology has advanced enough that the risk of such a large implantation no longer needs to be taken, she has eliminated much of the public sympathy she would have had in earlier decades when in vitro was new and risky. She and her poor children will be in the public eye and not in a good way. The public will seek every flaw and use that to feed the hatred against her – and those poor innocent children. They will grow up under a microscope and every childish misbehavior will be attributed to the circumstances of their birth and mother, and not to normal childhood. These children won’t have a normal childhood. Ms. Suleman has assured them of that.

Her older 6 have dropped mostly out of the picture, except for mentions of Social Security benefits and food stamps. They will be the invisible ones, eclipsed by their younger siblings. Those eight babies will grow up and be defined by their mother’s act: the Suleman Eight.

They deserve better.