Jon & Kate Disintegrate Last Night On TLC
By Lori Acken
Back in early May, with storm clouds already directly overhead for TLC’s most famous — and lucrative — couple, Jon & Kate Gosselin, I aimed my “Pushing Buttons” column for the July issue of Channel Guide at the wisdom (or lack thereof) in real Moms and Dads inviting TV audiences to be their nosiest of neighbors. Especially when they are raising a family that is unique because of enormous ranks and the inherent enormous challenges.
Because we work some six weeks out from the time the magazine arrives in your homes, as I was writing, the rest of the nosy neighbors were kept terrifically busy guessing what would go down first: Kate would ditch Jon for her silver-fox bodyguard, Jon would dump Kate for a gum-chewin’ teacher, or TLC would eventually let on that it was all just a little fictionalized stew they cooked up for ratings’ sake. Because let’s face it — the snugglefest that was Father Knows Best went out of fashion a half-century back and we all love to hate Raymond now.
And now, just a few days before that issue and that column arrive in your mailbox, we got the one-two punch that we kinda saw coming: There will no longer be a Jon and Kate at home with the Eight. Not at one time anyway.
For a while, there won’t even be a show.
The official word from TLC — who did the plug-pulling independent of their stars — is thus:
“During this time, the family will take some time off to regroup, and then a modified schedule will be in place to support the family’s transition. TLC continues to support the Gosselin family and will work closely with them to determine the best way to continue to tell their story as they navigate through this difficult time.”
For that much, I commend them.
When there are real people involved — especially really little people whose collective biggest concern was, as it should be, how long it was taking the big people to assemble crooked little playhouses ($5,000+ a pop to start, if you’re curious) — having Mom and Dad ride each other’s @$$es all the way to divorce court should not constitute a story line. Because that there’s one you can’t retool or write off as a dream sequence when the viewers — or worse, the littlest cast members — protest.
So, then, let’s think for a moment about this part: “… determine the best way to continue to tell their story as they navigate through this difficult time.”
Is there really a best way? Is there really a best time?
And isn’t there a time when that story should stop being public property for the sheer fact that there are 8 children already in the midst of having their family’s worst moments available at Best Buy for $29.95? And all of posterity?
Mom? Dad?
Fans across the blogosphere love to flag-wave the cost of supporting a gimongous family when detractors dare to wonder if the previously struggling-but-happy couple’s infatuation with fame, fortune and freebies took their focus from their family and made this outcome a fait accompli.
Me, I see both sides.
I’ve got four kids of my own at home, and the specters of camp, car insurance, college and a host other bank-account-draining horrors frequently sit me up in my bed at night. On the other hand, a couple of workaday jobs seems to be keeping our boat afloat just fine. It ain’t a big boat and it ain’t a fancy one, but it’s floating for sure. Even if the only thing we get for free is advice.
Here’s another thing. Just a day or two ago, while thumbing through the local paper, I noticed a blurb about a couple in a tiny town in northern Wisconsin who welcomed quintuplets — the fifth such set born in the tiny town’s medical center in less than a decade. In other words, there are people doing this sort of child-birthin’ all over the place and apparently raising them with little fanfare, little cash and no TV cameras in the shrubbery. Apparently it can be done … if Stuart Weitzman shoes, Ed Hardy tiger pants, week long Vail vacations and $20K worth of playhouses aren’t considered essential.
Yes. I AM jealous. So you can put that little grenade right back in your pocket. But I want those things for myself because they’re slick, not because they’re essential to raising happy, healthy kids … and that is my point.
One of the things my colleagues and I learned early on, though, is that if we don’t like a show, the best thing to do is just turn the sucker off, because no one really cares how much thou doth protest. So I’ll stop shy of proclaiming that the show should not go on, on August 3 or ever.
That one’s for TLC to decide.
And above all, for Jon & Kate.
But maybe most all, for Mady, Cara, Hannah, Alexis, Leah, Joel, Aaden and Collin — because it’s Mom and Dad’s show, but it’s their childhood.
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