Humans Weren't Meant to Have Litters

I left UFO Wednesday early last night so I could get home in time to watch the Fox special, "Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage". No, I don't have a DVR anymore and I forgot to set the DVD-Recorder, so I bailed on knit night for a peek at the train wreck.

In the promo for the documentary, there is a scene where Nadya admits she messed up by having all these children. That she admits her fault is what sparked my interest in watching the train wreck, as it were, in the first place.

I was remarking about the show today over the cubicle wall to one of my teammates and he said "...humans weren't meant to have litters..."

As messed up as the whole thing sounded, it was true. Humans really weren't designed to have more than one or maybe 2 or in rarer cases 3 babies at once. 8 all at once is, well, unnatural. Especially, trying to raise 8 infants and 6 other children under the age of 8 all by yourself. One woman trying to raise 14 relatively healthy well adjusted children is going to be an act of God.

Sadly, as one might expect Nadya is failing miserably. From what I witnessed her older children are all but feral. From outward appearances, the older kids are mostly disheveled and disoriented. Their behavior and emotional states range from abject withdrawal to aggressive rage to hysterical crying. I never really saw the older kids just smiling and having fun.

The infants look well fed and are clean, but I'm more concerned about what all the fall out will be as they progress and develop. There are a few scenes in the documentary where you see the babies all laying on their backs together, crying and flailing for some kind of attention as Nadya valiantly tries to attend to 1 or 2 of them at a time. As a result of her inability to give them the constant, individual nurturing that infants need, I'm sure they are missing out on key factors in their growth due to the overwhelming, crushing demands on poor old Nadya's time and attention by everyone around her. As for the older children, I fear the worse all ready. The 2 year old boy is quite the tyrant and is already calling his mom a B!tch to her face. There's no pack leader in this brood. Nadya's parenting style is well, let's just say very laissez-faire and passive. Lord of the Flies ain't got nothing on this household. I see sociopaths in the making already.

Nevertheless, Nadya is resolute to keep all her children and will not give any of them up for adoption, but it seems to be that the most humane and loving thing she could do would be to do just that. Let ALL 14 of them have a chance at having sane, loving parents that have the time and energy to devote to them.