Enough About Octomom, Already

Seriously, enough is enough. Lately one can hardly tune in to any media source without being bombarded with stories about Nadya "Octomom" Suleman. She has become Paris Hilton for the less fashionable. It isn't even so much the fact that the media are talking about her that is so maddening, but the way in which they are talking about her. What does it say about the state of this country when I can turn on the evening news on any given day and hear reports along the lines of, "Now, let's all raise our eyebrows and point, maybe even chuckle a little bit, at the freak show with the big Angelina lips and eight freakin' babies. What a whack job this one is, huh?"

The sad thing is that there ARE some very compelling stories there. This case of a single woman who already has six children, living on student loans and disability, having fertility treatments and giving birth to octuplets can trigger some interesting debates about the ethicality of subjecting one's children to the financial and emotional burdens of such a situation. It can raise some questions as to whether or not a doctor should have the right to deny a patient treatments which he feels would be detrimental. It can cause examinations into the abstruse psyche of a woman who is obsessed by the idea of having children, whose "magical thinking" leads her to believe that she will be able to control a seemingly uncontrollable situation. If we look even more deeply into the case of the Octomom, we may even enter into a discussion about why many women and couples feel the need to go to such drastic lengths as fertility treatments to have children, rather than, say, adopting.

To see something like THAT on the news would interest me. But do the media focus on these issues? Alas, and not surprisingly, no. No, the media feel the people would rather laugh at the crazy lady. And so I say, enough already.