Does anyone else watch this show? A lot of people love this show, and seems just as many hate it. Are Jon and Kate exploiting their kids? Are they having marital problems (as the latest commercial seems to indicate?) Any comments? Or is it just me?
Kate is a total harpy. But I don’t blame them for exploiting their kids if it helps pay the bills. That’s too many damn kids. In fact, if they were to drown 3 or 4 of them in a tub to bring them down to a more manageable number, I’d understand.
I agree with MOIDALIZE, not about the drowning, but about the fact that you can’t blame them for putting their kids on T.V. if it helps pay the bills.
I personally think Kate has mellowed a bit as the show has gone on, but Maddy (one of the twins) seems to be turning into a real brat. Every episode it seems she’s throwing a tantrum about something. As usual I think it’s the parents fault for putting up with it (but I guess that’s easy for me to say when I only have one kid to worry about and not eight).
Yeah, Maddy’s pretty awful. I haven’t watched in a while but she seemed like such a total drama queen.
I find all the big family shows, Jon and Kate Plus 8, 18 Kids and Counting(the Duggars), Kids by the Dozen, and the soon to debut Table for Twelve) strangely fascinating. I think they make having a large family oddly appealing. I don’t watch any of these shows on a regular basis, but it seems all these families are ultra-religious. It doesn’t seem that wealthy, well-educated, secular people have large families.
Jon and Kate do seem religious, but from what I can gleam, those other shows feature families that “planned” on having all those kids (or at least never tried to avoid it). Jon and Kate never expected to have sextuplets.
My wife is addicted to this show. I haven’t seen that many episodes, and I haven’t seen any at all in the last few months. Based on my experience with the show, I don’t think John and Kate are exploiting their kids. Sure, they’ve made a few bucks from the show, but they’ve got eight kids. You know they need the money.
Kate does seem a little harsh sometimes. John seems like a nice enough guy who’s still in shock. Yes, Maddy shows all the signs of growing up to be a first-class drama queen. Her twin sister seems much nicer.
The younger kids seem pretty decent. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they all turned out just fine.
I caught a special on them from a few years back, before it was a weekly series. Kate was mellower and the interaction between her and Jon was more relaxed and happy. Now they’re downright nasty to each other. Kate is controlling and bitchy, Jon is passive aggressive and miserable.
I do think they should take a break from all the media and filming, if only because the kids are now at an age where they’re aware of being on television and all the negative attention that can come with it. Maybe it would give them a chance to work on their marriage too.
I can’t stand to watch it – Kate puts my teeth on edge with all her nagging and whining. And Jon seems like he’s checked out. Mein Herr is much more involved with decisions and every-day work. And I agree with taking a break. The kids would probably benefit from not being “on stage” 24/7. However, they may need the money the show brings in to pay the bills.
Maddy and Cara are…what? Eight now? They’ll prolly soon be getting more self-conscious or self-aware soon, no? You know, maybe wanting privacy or just plain not being in the mood to be filmed or whatnot. I know I would’ve been.
I’ve only seen a few episodes, but those that I did left me thinking…
- Kate’s a bitch.
- Jon just wants to get left alone, watch a game and drink a beer in peace.
- TOO FUCKING MANY CHILDREN
I’ve watched this show a long time and I can’t stand how Kate has turned into this control freak and treats John like he’s one of her underperforming employees.
Yeah, I know raising 8 kids is a little stressful but would it kill you to be a little more respectful of your husband? Its as if he’s some annoyance of hers. She never has a nice thing to say about him or even throws him a smile now and then.
If he didn’t have 8 kids with her I think he would have said “F this noise” a long time ago.
The kids seem fine and I doubt there will be any lasting effects on them but there will come a day (soon I think) where they don’t want to be filmed anymore due to other kids teasing them about it.
I like the show, but I am hesitant to think I know anything about their marriage or the personalities of their children from a TV show. The footage is edited to tell a story about the family. And it is entirely possible that they are acting for the camera.
I have no doubt that there is an editor somewhere saying “If it looks like they are fighting, the ratings go up.” Or something similar. Or maybe they hate each other, but are just acting nice because they don’t want to lose the show.
TV isn’t real, by its nature.
Regards,
Shodan
I happen to know Jon, and it’s true - he feels smothered at times. But who can blame him?
I’ve seen the show for a number of years now. From the very first I couldn’t help but feel that Kate is deeply narcissistic and went for the multiple births in order to draw attention to herself. In the early years there was an episode showing her getting plastic surgery. If she was truly focused on the kids and money was a somewhat issue there is no way she would be going under the knife to make herself more pleasing to the eye.
She and octomom are two peas in a pod.
To be fair, it was to make her stomach look better, and after carrying 6 kids, she had…a lot of flaps and whatnot. Plus, unlike OctoMom, I think Jon and Kate could support themselves without camera crew and whatnot; this makes it easier.
I did think it was somewhat shallow of her to push the hair plug surgery on Jon.
If I recall correctly she got the tummy tuck at no cost to her. A fan of the show who’s husband was a plastic surgeon offered to do it for free. Probably in exchange for a little face-time/free-publicity/free-advertising on a national show.
That’s not fair. First, the plastic surgery was free, and in fact the doctor called her up and offered it out of the blue after his wife saw the show. (They get a lot of free stuff because of the show, since it’s essentially advertising for whoever donates it.)
Also, “octomom” had six other kids already when she took fertility treatments to have more. Plus, she was unemployed and on public assistance. In contrast, Jon and Kate only had two other kids when they tried for more, and both of them had jobs at the time. (Kate had to quit hers when they found out they were having sextuplets.)
You can’t compare Kate to octomom. Octomom had 6 embryos implanted, when normally they’d do 2 or 3. Kate went through intrauterine insemination, where they gave her drugs to stimulate egg development and then implanted Jon’s sperm in her uterus. Yeah, IUI has a higher rate of multiples (as they well knew from the twins), but there’s no way they expected 6. And did you see the show where she exposed her belly soon after the kids were born? She needed the surgery so the family didn’t have nightmares.
As someone mentioned, Jon and Kate are unlike most of those others in that they never tried for a large family. They only had two pregnancies. As they say in the intro to the show, they had two kids and tried for one more. They probably figured having twins again was a possibility, but didn’t expect sextuplets.
They do seem somewhat religious (e.g., they mention in one episode that their girls middle names are the “fruits of the spirit”, whatever that means). But they don’t seem super-conservative like the Duggars. (Weren’t they the ones where the oldest kid wasn’t going to kiss his wife until after they were married?)
They also seem fairly well educated. She was a nurse before she had the sextuplets, and Jon is, what, some sort of IT guy?