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Nadya Suleman: Taking One For the Team
By Rebecca Walker / February 22, 2009
Since we’re still talking obsessively about Nadya Suleman, or "Octomom" as she’s been called in the press, let’s talk about non-traditional families and the way they are demonized in American popular culture.
Make no mistake, I wouldn’t have fourteen kids. But if I did, I wouldn’t deserve hyper-scrutiny, public ridicule, and a contant drone of judgment. Suleman wanted to have a lot of kids. Her reasons are complicated. Why is it anyone’s business? Women have had fourteen kids and more for centuries. Women have chosen selective reduction and "killed" their fertilized eggs since IVF became viable.
It’s called the right to privacy. It’s called the relationship between a woman and her doctor. If her doctor broke the law, fine. But the world is on fire. The alleged 1.3 million dollars American taxpayers will have to fork over to support Suleman and her brood is nothing compared to the twenty billion dollars American CEOs have stolen from the TARP bailout in incomprehensible bonuses.
But Nadya Suleman is the new, collagen injected version of the "Welfare Mom." She’s that single, lazy mom putting the squeeze on our shrinking wallets. She’s an educated, but unstable and irresponsible "gold-digger."The state should hold her accountable, but Madoff, who bankrupted humanitarian organizations all over the world and is at least tangentially responsible for at least one suicide, isn’t in jail.
Right.
I edited One Big Happy Family to support people who make nontraditional choices, whether to be a single mom or to give birth at home without a midwife. I edited it because traditional nuclear families end in divorce half the time, and often drive one or more members to Valium, infidelity, bankruptcy, or something far worse. Which is not to say nontraditional families are better than traditional families, but it is to say that all of us are trying to figure this family thing out, and people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Unless we’re talking supporting all families with health insurance, on-site childcare, healthy food, and affordable and high quality education, we should recognize pathologized mothers like Suleman as the whipping women they are. They are targets used to reinforce the normative of the heterosexual, married, upwardly mobile, and let’s face it, usually white family that’s disappearing before our very eyes with the erosion of the middle-class and looming impossibility of the American dream.
Truth be told, Nadya Suleman is taking one for the team. As long as we think she’s crazy and irresponsible, we think we’re perfectly sane.
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Alright, things are looking stranger the more she does interviews but I would like to ask if she has broken any laws? That is where we should be looking-the legal system-not our morality systems.
The bizarre thing is that there is a semi-Judaic connection– see, Ms. Suleman claims the sole father of her litter is "David Solomon," who on one of the original six birth certificates listed Israel as his state of birth.
Back in 2001, Nadya even applied to change her surname from "Suleman" to "Solomon" — which is the name she gave to all her children. (All the octoplets are also saddled with "Angel" as middle names.)
But here’s the weird part: "David Solomon" doesn’t exist. Nadya’s various family names are Arabic versions of the Hebrew: Doud (David) and Suleman (Solomon) — and earlier this week, it was revealed that she made up the name.
So yes, she’s a big fat liar, living in a fantasy land — which, unfortunately, might also be said about Bernie Madoff.
who used surgery to subject all of us to her sideshow… Her gross carnival shall be and has been funded on the public dime. Her thoughtless and selfish decision for her bizzare twist on instant gratification burdens the public health system to an outrageous proportion. How many other families in need shall have their medical services diluted by this disgusting pig? I for one hope she takes the offer from Vivid video, and she likely will and she is a souless and disgusting freak anyway. At least her abominable show wont continue to be funded by the public…
Why do some believe this mother is unfit? There are no indicators that she has done anything to harm any of her children. I would say that people like nancy grace have no idea what they are talking about and just try to boost the ratings by getting the public all upset. This is a modern day witch hunt carried out by people who don’t really seem to care about the quality of life of all humans-they just want to attack others out of their false moral superiority. I say to them-do not pass judgement without facts. She may suprise you and raise her kids in a way that many parents could model. Let us wait and see.
Aside from both being self-asorbed to a point of massive and apparently cheerful, destructiveness, I don’t see how Suleman and Madoff have anything in common.
The "choice" argument is at odd with Suleman’s own argument that she had to have all the eggs implanted because they were people. This woman has selective religiousity… and I’m not even clear what religion, … mom’s Protestant, dad’s Muslim… she’s….? …a poster child against religious intermarriage?
To get back to the specifics of Rebecca’s post for a moment, let’s all re-read LisaK’s pithy, rigorous and clear-headed comment once more. As she points out, claiming that Madoff’s larger crimes somehow render mention of Suleman’s terrible judgement caddish is preposterous. Like the argument that criticism of Israeli policy is suspect as long as terrible things happen in Darfur, Rebecca’s principle makes it impossible to get agitated at more than one thing at a time.
And Rebecca’s larger point-that the married, hetero, male parent wags his finger at Suleman largely in the service of depicting his own highly contingent choices as the transhistorically correct ones-is such a stretch as to break the back of a Pilates instructor. Would she be similarly upset with critics of the patriarchal cults that litter the wilds of Idaho? Would my distress at those guys keeping women uneducated and servile be just a case of my discomfort with non-traditional families? (And yeah, in the 21st century West, such arrangements are way outside the mainstream).
Rebecca’s injunctions would make reasonable criticism of almost anything suspicious.
I know what people mean when they use the word "irregardless", or when they use "reduntant" to mean "superfluous." If you get called a "fascist" on this site, you generally know what the other person means, but that doesn’t mean that their usage of "fascist" isn’t sloppy.
Alright, fine, forget "traditional" being superior. The point is, the distinction between "traditional" and "alternative" is extremely unclear. The "alternatives" are often just as traditional. It’s not that neither is superior to the other, it’s that they’re usually useless categories, especially the way you seem to be using them in the thread.
"Of course I understood it; my point was that it’s sloppy usage."
Let’s see… you understood what I meant. There’s no indication that anyone else didn’t understand exactly what I meant. Nobody quibbled about my grammar. So, I guess it was actually rather precise usage, wasn’t it? Unless you’re just being sloppy with your use of the term "sloppy," in which case, you can feel free to explain yourself further.
And, for the record, I was not (as you acknowledge) claiming that "traditional" is superior to "alternative" (it usually is, but as "alternative" could have virtually infinite meanings, it’s impossible to say in all cases). I was claiming– and I still claim– that you can go off and indulge in whatever alternatives you like, and, by and large, I don’t care, until you demand that I pay for them or celebrate them with you.
That said, when I used the term "traditional," I think pretty much everyone– you included– understood exactly what I meant.
Of course I understood it; my point was that it’s sloppy usage. What we all call "traditional" is not any more (or less) traditional than a whole bunch of other lifestyles, so the distinction implied in the comment I originally responded to between "traditional" and "alternative" doesn’t really exist. Having tons o’ kids, or kids out of wedlock, is just as traditional as having a monogamous marriage. If you were arguing about polygamy with a Yemenite Jew, and told him to "get a life", he could respond sarcastically "You mean an "alternative" one, or is it acceptable if I stick with my
(three, adult, female) wives and the many, many children we’ve produced (and care
for) in the traditional manner?", and it would not be unreasonable. The fact that your choice is in some way "traditional" isn’t what makes it a valid choice.
I was also, I’m afraid to admit, conflating your position a bit with lbjack’s that traditions are empirically proven to be the best way to do things, but since you haven’t actually taken up that position, I guess that part of my argument doesn’t really apply.
My point, though, is not Hurray for doing whatever you want! It’s that pretending that "traditional" is in some way superior to "alternative", or even easily distinguishable from "alternative", is incorrect. In cases where they can be distinguished, and traditional is superior, it’s not by virtue of being traditional that it is superior.
OK, I’m not a Yemenite, nor is anyone in my community, nor have I ever met one (although I do think Ofra Haza had a great voice). The idea that Marriage=1Man+1Woman (and nothing else) has been traditional in Judaism (at least, in Ashkenazic Judaism) since Rabbeinu Gershom, a thousand years ago, which makes it fairly respectable, as traditions go. Apart from my own little crowd, the quaint and cozy notions of marriage and child-rearing I refer to as "traditional" are pretty consistent with what is commonly understood as "traditional" by just about everyone in the United States.
I would argue that child labor was more of a necessity than a "tradition," but there are, as you say, many traditions. Sacrificing one’s children to Ba’al of the Furnace was "traditional" in Carthage, but, not surprisingly, it’s really not what most people have in mind when they use the term. So, yes, of course I’m "picking one of many traditions." That said, when I used the term "traditional," I think pretty much everyone– you included– understood exactly what I meant.
marriage is viewed as a contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together
The "a woman" part is pretty recent; if you were a Yemenite Jew, I suspect you would feel polygamous marriage to be far more traditional than this newfangled monogamy thing all the rage amongst the European Jews. And as to "adult", well, that’s been traditional for not nearly so long. Of course there is a tradition of monogamous marriage to adults; I’m just saying that there are plenty of other ways of getting married that have equally long histories. Picking one of them out as the traditional one requires other criteria. I also think monogamous, consenting, adult marriage is the best one, but not just because it’s what my parents did, and their parents, and theirs, and maybe a generation or two further back.
Similarly for raising kids. Of course the "better" families didn’t have a tradition of sending their kids off to the factories, but the majority of families did traditionally do just that. Again, you’re picking one of many traditions and pretending it is the traditional way. Traditionally, do you think more children have been raised by parents who sought to educate them, like you do, or by parents who were happy to have them remain ignorant and illiterate? You yourself give the game away when you say "most educated and cultured members of this civilization now accept as the "traditional" method"; sure they "now" accept it, but they didn’t always. That’s my point.
There’s an equally long tradition of people having more children than they can afford to feed as there is of marriage being limited to one man and one woman; that doesn’t mean that what Nadya Suleman is doing is just as "traditional", and therefore justified.
I do think that the practice among gentlemen of limiting themselves to one adult wife (at a time) has been in vogue for more than long enough to call it "traditional." A "few hundred years" is certainly enough to establish a tradition. I note also that the Wikipedia entry on which you rely states that, in Judaism, "marriage is viewed as a contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together to create a relationship in which God is directly involved. Though procreation is not the sole purpose, a Jewish marriage is also expected to fulfill the commandment to have children. The main focus centers around the relationship between the husband and wife…" I’ll accept that as a fair statement of the tradition to which my wife and I are adhering.
And, yes, I care for my children in the "traditional manner," and, no, contrary to your ludicrous insinuation, that does not imply (at least not to normal people in this country) having them abused in factories. The fact that impoverished families may have been (or may be) obliged to have their children work in unsatisfactory conditions is regrettable– that said, it does not, nor did it ever, constitute the tradition in the better families, among which I modestly number my own.
Since your own upbringing may not have reflected what most educated and cultured members of this civilization now accept as the "traditional" method of child-rearing, allow me to enlighten you: I feed, clothe and educate my children, teach them the moral values that I hold dear, and, to the best of my ability, prepare them to lead productive and meaningful lives. Were your post better written, I might even save it, for their benefit, as an example of the sort of sophistry that can easily mislead the simple or uneducated.
I also want, just for the record, to state that this doesn’t mean I’m thrilled that someone out there is sticking it to the man by having more kids than she can care for. I most closely agree with LisaK above. I just think that fetishizing "traditional" ways of doing things is pretty stupid.
What in the world is the connection between Suleman and Madoff? You seem to be implying that any misbehavior is negligible as long as someone out there has done something worse. Perhaps stealing $40,000 is okay, because someone else has stolen $100,000? Or because people have long hunted and Bush sanctioned torture in Guantanamo against human beings, it’s okay to torture squirrels? Honestly, this article seems completely unhinged. Are you seriously arguing that, because nontraditional families are too often treated with discrimination or derision, then every bit of pathological behavior that results in some kind of family is okay?
Suleman and her doctor (let’s not leave him out of this), behaved in medically irresponsible ways. She made her decisions based on the idea that others will rescue her, including the government, the hospital and the vast medical team caring for her babies. No one forced her to implant that many embryos.She’s not a victim, unless you want to cede that she is mentally unbalanced, in which case she may be a victim of her fertility doctor.
I especially am amused by your attempt to point to history as somehow providing a normalizing context–women used to regularly have 14 kids!! Perhaps. My father was one of eleven. But back in the day, women weren’t carrying 8 fetuses who would then spend months in the NICU.
Your anger is so intense that you can’t see Suleman for the sad, irrational woman that she is, but must somehow recast her as a martyr. This piece was too ridiculous to be even intellectually provocative.
Morganfrost: If you think one adult wife has been "traditional" for more than a few hundred years, you may want to read up on things. Also, I certainly hope you don’t care for your children in the "traditional" manner.
You mean an "alternative" one, or is it acceptable if I stick with my (one, adult, female) wife and the two children we’ve produced (and care for) in the traditional manner?
Oh good gracious, you guys. Get a life.
Morganfrost wrote,
Apart from that, I have no clue what Bernard Madoff has to do with any of this.
Don’t you get it, Morganfrost? It’s all part of a wider oppression by white male hegemony.
Clearly.
"But if I did, I wouldn’t deserve hyper-scrutiny, public ridicule, and a contant drone of judgment. Suleman wanted to have a lot of kids. Her reasons are complicated. Why is it anyone’s business?"
Of course you wouldn’t deserve any of those things, and of course it would be nobody’s business. Until you stuck out your greedy little hand and demanded that the rest of us foot the bill for your particular preferences.
"Unless we’re talking supporting all families with health insurance, on-site childcare, healthy food, and affordable and high quality education, we should recognize pathologized mothers like Suleman as the whipping women they are."
We’re not "talking supporting all families with" all those lovely benefits, nor does the fact that you are not entitled to have other people pay your way render you a victim (much less a whipping woman). Indeed, if I’m stuck paying for whatever alternative lifestyle you choose to indulge in, then I, not you, am the victim. The basic issue here is simple: it’s called "taking responsibility for your actions." Failure to do that makes you a bum, not a victim. And that’s exactly what Suleman is.
Apart from that, I have no clue what Bernard Madoff has to do with any of this. He can rot in jail for all I care, but whether he does or does not rot in jail has nothing whatsoever to do with Suleman (unless she invested her welfare check with him).
only someone who sees human beings as idiots or not and puts themselves
in the latter category, would think all members of the church are
idiots.
All member of the church? When did I say ALL members of the church?
The team that thinks our choices–be they to spend three thousand
dollars on a handbag, or vote for a Cplus student who almost destroyed
the world as we know it–are somehow sane, better, smarter, and more
responsible than hers.
Again, dividing the world into two teams is quite simplistic Ms. Walker.
I’ve never gotten off my topic, which is who does and does not get punished for the things they do.
They will not all go to jail. Surely you know this.
I did write about what I considered important (see above, again, who does and does not get punished for the things they do).
I agree. More reform all around.
I don’t think they are idiots at all–only someone who sees human beings as idiots or not and puts themselves in the latter category, would think all members of the church are idiots.
There are other ways of looking at the world, my friend, and the fact that you appear to only allow for people to be "idiots" or "far-rights" or "moderate-Leftists" or "Far-Leftists" suggests you are unaware that your point of view is not the beginning or end of anything.
Please. I heard there was to be a trouncing.
And neither will George Bush.
Would you stay on topic? Jesus Christ, when did I defend George Bush?
I am certain they will not all go to jail.
They had better all go to jail.
The point is that during every conomic meltdown or white collar
blooper, a straw man or woman is trotted out as the distracting freak
show.
If you consider this a distraction from the real issues, then write about what you consider important. You can’t have it both ways.
If only we had less welfare reform and more banking reform!
These are mutually exclusive reforms? I want both.
It appears the church has taken her up as a cause as part of their
ongoing evangelist, pr strategy. They’ve bought her a house, right? Who
is to say? In the name of fighting abortion, they may put all of her
kids through college.
Then they’re idiots. Why would that be a surprise? You seem to feel that the choice is between a far-Left and a far-Right. There are other choices. And the fact that you only appear to allow for a far-Right option, either fiscally or socially, suggests you are well aware that a moderate-Left viewpoint woud soundly trounce you.
How typical of a far-Leftist.
Madoff and many others will go to jail. But he would be killed in jail.
And we need to know what he knows first. We need to know where the
money went, and everyone else involved. There are some apt comparisons
of welfare momas to financial mafias, but there are some important
differences that you are failing to acknowledge.
Very bad comparison.
Really?
It remains to be seen what happens to Madoff and the many enablers at every level who allowed his activities to continue for years. I am certain they will not all go to jail. And neither will George Bush, the torturers at Guantanamo, the shareholders of the Carlyle Group, or any of the CEOs who took 20 million dollar bonuses out of the TARP baliout to the collective tune of 20 BILLION dollars. The point is that during every conomic meltdown or white collar blooper, a straw man or woman is trotted out as the distracting freak show. In the late eighties and early nineties, when we were reeling from Papa Bush doctrine, it was the Welfare Queen, having ten and twelve babies and collecting thousands of dollars a month in checks, which, more often than not still kept her close to the poverty line. And yet, welfare reform was somehow magically construed as one of the silver bullets to bring us out of the recession, not greater regulation of the markets. If only we had less welfare reform and more banking reform! We wouldn’t be in this mess. It may not be deja vu for you, but it certainly is for a lot of others.
I edited it because traditional nuclear families end in divorce half
the time, and often drive one or more members to Valium, infidelity,
bankruptcy, or something far worse. Which is not to say nontraditional
families are better than traditional families, but it is to say that
all of us are trying to figure this family thing out, and people in
glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Let them do so without government subsidies.
Ha! If only the well-off, heteresexual, intact nuclear families of America could survive without government subsidies like tax breaks for home ownership and marriage, and the very real social currency accrued by virtue of socio-cultural acceptance, etc.
But then there’s the issue, far more troubling, IMHO, of whether or not she will actually even get a government subsidy. It appears the church has taken her up as a cause as part of their ongoing evangelist, pr strategy. They’ve bought her a house, right? Who is to say? In the name of fighting abortion, they may put all of her kids through college.
Truth be told, Nadya Suleman is taking a fall for the team.
What team is that? Those who live differently, or those on the government’s tit?
The team that thinks our choices–be they to spend three thousand dollars on a handbag, or vote for a Cplus student who almost destroyed the world as we know it–are somehow sane, better, smarter, and more responsible than hers.
but Madoff, who bankrupted humanitarian organizations all over the
world and is at least tangentially responsible for at least one
suicide, isn’t in jail.
Madoff and many others will go to jail. But he would be killed in jail. And we need to know what he knows first. We need to know where the money went, and everyone else involved. There are some apt comparisons of welfare momas to financial mafias, but there are some important differences that you are failing to acknowledge.
Very bad comparison.
I edited it because traditional nuclear families end in divorce half
the time, and often drive one or more members to Valium, infidelity,
bankruptcy, or something far worse. Which is not to say nontraditional
families are better than traditional families, but it is to say that
all of us are trying to figure this family thing out, and people in
glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Let them do so without government subsidies.
Truth be told, Nadya Suleman is taking a fall for the team.
What team is that? Those who live differently, or those on the government’s tit?
WOW! A plus plus for profanity. Slut, sleazebag, etc.
I’d check out the first post of this series that asks the question about the difference between non-traditional and dysfunctional before making assumptions about my position vis a vis choice, and any number of my almost as intense (as yours above) critiques of feminist narcissism before lumping me in with your imagined cabal of pro-choice excesses.
In any event. Interesting perspective–with your vitriol you seemed to have proven my point. But long live freedom of speech, and freedom of privacy, the right to equal protection under the law, and the right to bear arms, and so forth.
Happy Sunday!
Nadya Suleman is nothing but a common hustler, already with six children, whom she has no means of supporting on her own. She has eight more on spec, the spec based on the presumption that publicity is money. Get in the news, get a publicist, get on the talk shows, find someone to ghost her memoirs…. It’s the classic con.
Except, to the likes of Rebecca Walker, who devine far more meaning to this spectcle than the con of a common grifter. Note Walker’s evocation of the movement code word "choice," perhaps the most depraved of the Me-Now generation’s purported virtues.
Walker says, Hey, if we’re rewarding the spiders and snakes of commerce who have pillaged the economy, then why lean on this little girl who, notwithstanding her sleazy motives, just wants to be fruitful and multiply?
We heap opprobrium on Suleman, because the only difference between this domestic whore, who wants us to subsidize her monstrous promiscuity, and the instititional whores who want us to subisdize their monstrous cupidity is merely of magnitude. By nature, Suleman is the same ilk as Ken Lewis (BofA), Vikram Pandit (Citigroup) and their cronies from Detroit: "We’ve fucked you over, it’s a fait accompli, we’re too big to fail, so whadya gonna do about it?"
"Non-traditional choice…" Ah, non-traditional, the zeitgeist fashion. In other words, I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do ’cause I wanna do it. Got news for Rebecca and her fatuous sisters: "Traditional" is traditional for a reason: it’s empirical, it’s what has proven most efficient, most effective, the kindest decision for the child. Choice is about the chooser: it’s all about Me.
Tradition, i.e. empirical truth, has determined that it’s more responsible to have kids in a two-parent home. It’s more responsible that the two parents be conventionally married. Before becoming pregnant it’s more responsible to consider the capacity to support the newborn(s)
Of course, Walker and her sisters are too busy hearing themselves roar than to consider the fact that Suleman is not the grandiose symbol of "The Team," but a common slut who has exploited 14 little children to gain her 15 minutes of fame. That is all she is. For Walker to try to promote Suleman to any more than a sleazebag further illustrates how those of the media seek to make our own perception of the world as glib, feckless and depraved as theirs.
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