[Warning:  The F-word appears a couple of times below in exceptionally required circumstances.  If you don't like it, too bad.  I don't like a lot of things that I have to deal with everyday...and this is just one of them...]

It makes me sick.  It makes me just freakin’ livid.  The fact that the world’s population is so outta hand already, humans having reproduced like cockroaches in a can of shit with not a can of Raid within reach…and now THIS?!?

I thought we lived in a modern, and so-called “enlightened” age.  An age where one does not need to create offspring equaling the number of players on a baseball team in order to make a go of it on the family farm, nor to flesh out the congregation of a fledgling faith and to subsequently send said offspring to the four corners of the earth propagandizing for converts.  So, I would say there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for having so many children as this Nadya Suleman! NONE!

Yes, I’m shouting!  I’m hopping fucking insanely ANGRY!!

What good is it to recycle our plastic/glass/aluminum/tin/paper products?  What good is it that we use canvas/nylon/other bags that we bring from home to the grocery store so we don’t increase the landfill by that much more unnecessary crap?  What good is it that I, amongst many others across the nation and the world, refrain from owning/driving/using a car and rely on public transit so that we can reduce the use of petroleum, and therefore reduce the toxic emissions into the air that we and all the plants and animals need to breathe and live?  What good it is that we do ANY of this crap…if people like Nadya Suleman are having eight children (at a time, no less!) when they already have SIX children?!?  This is not the way to reduce the human footprint on the Earth! This is not how to take care of our HOME.

I have long been of the mind that if you want children, by all means get yourself in order and do so.  By “in order” I mean, take care of your health before, during and after your pregnancy/birth/recovery.  By “in order” I especially mean get your head in gear:  take stock of yourself, see a psychiatrist/psychologist to deal with your baggage before you have a kid to take it out on, take child development classes and read books on child psychology so you don’t screw up your budding beautiful person.  By “in order” I mean take the time and effort to realize the impact you are making when you create this new person.  Yes…One New Person. And each one single person has an enormous effect on the Earth and on the other people on that Earth. 

So, it follows for me that each person, if they care about the Earth and any of the people in it, should only reproduce themselves once.  ONCE.  That means Dick and Jane get married (or just live together or whatever), and they have two kids, Johnny and Mary.  Population does not grow, it stabilizes.  Earth disaster partially averted (for now).  Now, if Dick and Jane get divorced, that doesn’t mean that they get to start over with their new spouses and have more kids.  Just one more kid each would be doubling the population, ecosystem destabilizes, we all eventually get screwed.  More so if Dick and Jane started out with six kids…got divorced and then each decided to have more kids.  Saaaayyy…eight more?  You see what I’m getting at?

Yeah, you say, but this isn’t China.  This is the US.  Get the government out of my uterus.  Yep, I agree.  That’s why it’s not a LAW like it is in China.  It’s also not a law to ditch your car, or to recycle, or to use biodegradable cleaning products whenever possible, but it’s still a good idea…and it’s still responsible…and Good People try to do these things.

Oh, but then there are people like Sarah Palin…and Nadya Suleman.

Did I mention that, on top of all the Wrongness & Irresponsibility of having so many children, it appears that Ms. Suleman doesn’t even have a way to support these 14 new children of her’s…nor do her mum and dad with whom she lives?  Her poor father is reported to have deemed it necessary to return to Iraq in order to make money to help support the additional family members.  If you ask me, I think he just needs to get out and away from this crazy…and very cramped…situation!

Yes, correct…cramped.  The family doesn’t have sufficient space in their home for all these children.  I don’t care what you or anyone else says, but a two or three (or even four) bedroom home is NOT sufficient space for 17 persons (or 16 when dad leaves for Iraq)…no matter in what country you’re living!  I mean, even if their home in suburban L.A. is a decently nice home now, I sincerely doubt it will be for long as such a circumstance fosters slum-like conditions.  Think about the wear and tear and cramped quarters, not to mention the sanitary conundrum that will arise.  HOW many children in diapers at once?  (So…HOW many diapers being tossed on the landfill a day?  Or, if they try to act responsibly…I doubt it…and use a diaper service, HOW much more chemicals poured into our water supply?)

The whole living situation brings me to my next concern:  Children’s Welfare.  Being that we’re talking about Whittier, California (that’s the US, people), I would think that so many small children in such a space has to be against some health code somewhere, wouldn’t you think?   I mean, if this were an in-home day-care facility and not a family home, it would clearly violate the laws of California set forth in Title 22, Division 12, Chapter 3 – Family Child Care Homes . Article 6, sec. 102416.5 clearly states:

(c) For a large family child care home, the maximum number of children for whom care shall be provided when there is an assistant provider in the home, including children under age 10 who live in the licensee’s home and the assistant provider’s children under age 10, shall be:

(1) Twelve children, no more than four of whom may be infants;

And it goes on to clarify even futher:

A large family day care home may provide care for more than 12 children and up to and including 14 children, if all of the following conditions are met:

(A) At least two of the children are at least six years of age.
(B) No more than three infants are cared for during any time when more than 12 children are being cared for.

Oh…and let’s not forget that one of Nadya’s children from an earlier birth is autistic, so needs care and attention above and beyond the norm.

Sure, okay…the above link also notes that Nadya has a degree in child development (2006 USC, Fullerton), but that she is also reportedly still going to school to pursue a degree in counseling. So, um…who’s taking care of her six children? And who will be taking care of her eight additional children? And wouldn’t she know better than to pursue such a large family without sufficient resources?  It seems to me, given that she has had a preoccupation with becoming a mother and having vast amounts of children since her hormones kicked in as a teenager, that there is more at play here.  I personally think that Mommy needs some counseling for herself.  Not to mention some basic conscience and ethics!

Normal persons funnel such impulses into a career in child-care, child-development, teaching or such.  Careers that utilize their time and passions to the betterment of the next generations.  Persons that genuinely care at all for children must first insure that any children they have/give birth to are able to be fully supported financially, emotionally, and nutritionally…for the legal requirement of 18 years, if not longer.  How does one do so with so many (14!) children, no employment, and a fragile living situation??  I don’t see how it’s possible.  It is the height of irresponsibility and selfishness on the part of this woman to endanger herself, her children…and even the human race…with her hubris. 

Nay…It’s fucking downright EVIL. And we will all pay for it.  Via taxes to Child Services, via the Future Fucked-Up Generation, via more Human Cockroaches Infesting the Earth. 

Thanks a lot, Ms. Suleman.  Thanks. A. Fucking. Lot. 

For canceling out all the hard work that we’re trying to do. 

For burdening us further with yet more probably fucked-up psyches and the blobs of flesh attached to them. 

I hope your children all grow up to hate you.  I sure do.

 

© 2009 D. Kessler