Be prepared for a sentence you don't read very often. I feel bad for Octomom Nadya Suleman. And if you watched her appearance with all eight of her toddler octuplets on the Today Show this morning, you should too.
The polarizing parent has been getting flamed by the Internet once again for allowing her eight 2 1/2-year-old kids to -- as Jezebel called it -- "wreak havoc" on the set during a nearly 10-minute interview. Natalie Morales was babysitting one child off set. Ann Curry had to hop up from her seat to rescue another from diving outside of the set, onto his face.
In other words, they acted like toddlers. Normal toddlers. Well, like normal toddlers in a room full of expensive camera equipment whose mother simply can't keep an eye on them because she's got someone asking her a whole bunch of questions. Just take a look at the clip:
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I have one child, and I remember those days. We'd go to story hour at the library, and she'd want to wander away from me to check out what else was going on. Hey, she was with me almost all the time, I was boring. This was a new place, with new smells, new adventures. Sometimes, it was all I could do to keep her in the room ... and remember, I had one kid.
"Octomom" has eight. And the Today Show wanted her to bring them all along so they'd get to say they were the ones who introduced her kids to the world. If she'd brought a nanny, I can just imagine the backlash she'd be getting. "Oooh, she has 14 kids, and she can't even take care of them herself."
Instead she showed up and did her thing under impossible circumstances -- set out on a blanket in the middle of the floor with Nadya and the kids on the floor, and one of her older kids (9-year-old Amerah) in a chair. There wasn't much for the kids to "do" on the set. Mom had to pay attention to Ann Curry and answer questions, so she couldn't wrangle them. And their big sister tried, but she's 9, and there are eight of them. So Nadya had to sit there, telling Ann that her kids are usually "incredibly behaved" but they'd gotten just two hours of sleep on their flight to New York. And the whole incident has been called "Octomom chaos" by the Daily Mail, she's been snarked on by Stupid Celebrities for creating "pure chaos," while Jezebel's writer joked about snorting her birth control after watching it.
Yup, I'm going to say it again. I feel bad for Nadya Suleman. The Today Show did its best to make her look like a bad parent ... and the world has taken the bait.
After watching that video, do you think those kids were being anything but normal toddlers?