In my house, that accomplishment would be cause for celebration as well. It’s exciting when your
2-year-old takes on new challenges. A lot of parents, me included, have videotaped such milestones for posterity.
But in reading Kate’s journal, I began to get a sense of why the kids might be anxious, and scared, and especially confused. Here are a few of Kate’s paraphrased journal entries regarding crib climbing. See if you can spot any inconsistencies in her parenting.
July 2006
Kate describes the scene after the kid’s nap, Hannah was tattling on Collin because HE WAS IN AADEN’S CRIB WITH HIM!!!!!! Kate says that Collin had climbed into his crib and he did it again after she had removed him!!!!! She told him NO MORE!!!!
September 2006
Again, at nap time Kate heard a thud and she knew what it was. This time Joel had climbed out of his crib!!! Kate let him go for a little while until she heard him getting into drawers. That’s when she went up and spanked him and put him back in his crib. Kate yelled at him that she’s serious and she will not tolerate crib climbing!!!!! She hopes he got the message but she can’t be sure because of his glazy stare when she talks.
But then, in an entry a month later, Kate wrote this:
October 2006
Kate said apparently at nap time, the girls have a ‘new thing.’ Hannah and Leah like to climb up the outside of the boys’ cribs and kiss them!!!! Kate says it is sooooooo cute and she let’s them do it.
January 2007
Kate likes crib climbing so much now that she alerted the film crew to set up a camera in the nursery to catch the climbers.
So for filming, crib climbing is happily cheered and celebrated.
Crib climbing is “sooooooo cute” when the girls do it.
Sometimes, though, crib climbing will get you spanked and punished.
Two-year-olds in diapers should be able to figure that out, right? It’s no wonder Joel has a “glazy look in his eyes” when Kate talks.
This is not a circumstance that can be excused away by saying that Kate doesn’t understand child development (even though most of the time she doesn’t). Kate fully understands that they’re only 2 though, and should act like 2-year-olds. In the “Sextuplets Turn 3!” episode of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht, Mady yanks a doll out of the hands of one of the little girls and Kate yells at Mady and tells her to give it back. Mady yells at Kate and says this about the little girl: “She’s mean.” Kate tells Mady, “No, she’s not mean. She’s two!”
It sounds like Kate does understand age-appropriate behavior on some level, so why the spankings for equally age-appropriate behavior in crib climbing? Spanking a 2-year-old child in diapers for climbing into and out of a crib, especially after praising the child previously for the exact same thing, is just sick.
“The struggles that we face are being consistent.
Because discipline for us is about a 24 hour a day job.”
– Kate Gosselin
POTTY TRAINING
It’s been very well documented that Jon and Kate allowed the television cameras and the world to watch their children being potty trained on several episodes of their reality show. The kids were shown partially naked and sitting on the potty countless times throughout the Season 3 episodes. At one point, the boys were sitting on their potty chairs outside in the driveway, because “boys are messy,” according to Kate. There is so much dignity in that.
One potty training event in particular bothered me greatly. It happened, once again, to poor little Collin. He was trying to go to the potty, and Kate left him sitting in a room by himself. Well, he was by himself except for the strange man who was pointing a video camera at him. For the viewing audience, Kate and the crew had a timer on him, to further the humiliation. After more than 30 minutes of Collin sitting, trying to go potty, Kate turns the light out on Collin, leaving him alone to sit in the dark on the potty, and telling him, “Don’t get up ’til there’s pee in there. Understand?”
Then Kate passive-aggressively taunts Collin by singing “Aaden’s a big boy, Aaden’s a big boy!” because he managed to pee in the potty.
Aaden peed in the potty because he was scared to death to not pee in the potty, Kate.
Kate’s reward to the kids for peeing in the potty is one mini M&M.
That’s right. One. Mini. M&M.
For pooping in the potty, the children were rewarded with two MINI M&Ms.
KATE JUSTIFIES HER APPEARANCE AS AN
EXAMPLE TO HER KIDS
In Kate’s book, I Just Want You To Know, Kate talks of how her mommy transformation played out very publicly and tells us that it’s important that mothers not lose track of who they are. She goes on to say that looking nice sets a good example for our kids. Kate says that looking nice improves self-confidence, which she can pass along to her daughters.
This sounds surprisingly logical, but Kate’s words do not fit the reality of her actions. The reality is that through her actions and words, Kate is passing along a dangerous message to her five beautiful, impressionable daughters that how they look naturally isn’t good enough. She is modeling the unhealthy example that the only way they can feel good about themselves is with fake breasts (I know she got breast augmentation because I’ve seen the paperwork from the doctor), Botox treatments, fake tan, fake teeth, hair extensions, fake nails and tinted contact lenses.
Instead of teaching her daughters to be proud of who they are, and not to be consumed by false images of what they “should” look like, she is setting them up for some potential body image issues.
QUEEN BEE
During the “Twins In Charge” episode of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht, Kate yells at Jon, “It’s not all about you all the time!” Kate then says to the camera, “Man, he makes me mad.”
Then, rather than play with her children, she moans about the clutter, saying, “Someday I’ll have a house that we fit in. I don’t know what size that is gonna be, but I know we don’t fit here.”
Jon, having had enough, yells “Who cares Kate? Just shut your mouth and stop cleaning and play!”
And Kate responds, “I can’t play before the work is done.”
Jon fires back, “You don’t play with your kids!!!”
And Kate answers with, “You’re right. I’m busy doing your work.”
Jon says, “You’re busy sitting in a chair!”
Mady finally chimes in, telling the camera, “Mommy’s making lunch. She just sat in the chair and gave orders to daddy. That’s really all she did. She’s like queen bee.”
Indeed, Mady. Indeed.
DISGUSTING, DIRTY BOYS
The Gosselin boys are afraid of Kate. Actually, they’re scared to death of what she might do to them for breaking one of her biggest rules…getting dirty. I’ve seen it in how they act when they’re outside. I’ve heard it from them. And I’ve seen it very subtly many times during the Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht episodes. The boys are afraid of their mother, and they are afraid to get dirty.
It is just so sad to see little boys afraid of getting dirty because they have been threatened with punishment by their mother.
In the Season 4 episode of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht called “Boys Day Out,” Kate says, “Boys, they’re just dirty. I’m telling you boys are just dirt, they’re just dirty!”
Poor little Aaden is seen scratching his behind, like any male of any species does on occasion, and Kate berates him by saying, “It’s disgusting Aaden.” She also goes on to tell Aaden, “You’re nails are horrendous child.”
Then she tells us, “They can be boys but why do they have to be dirty?”
BECAUSE THEY’RE BOYS, KATE! READ A PARENTING BOOK!
Kate says: “The girls are definitely more verbal. Girls have feelings and emotions and outbursts.”
So she is basically stating outright that boys don’t have feelings or emotions.
Here’s where a trained eye picked up on the problem though.
At the golf course during the episode, the
boys are sitting in the golf cart and Collin says angrily and nervously to Joel: “Stop it Joel, you’re getting me dirty! You’re getting me dirty Joel!”
And Jon says to Collin: “Stop. Who cares? Look everyone’s dirty. Calm down. I don’t care. Your mother has got you brain-warped, thinking you have to be a clean boy all the time. Who cares? I don’t.”
Jon sure wins that parenting battle, and this was years ago.
The Gosselin boys have lived their whole lives without knowing the joys of crawling around in the dirt playing with Tonka trucks or making mud pies or sliding into home plate or rolling down a grassy hill and getting grass stains and not having a care in the world…because Kate tells them they can’t. Even worse, she spanks them and screams at them if they get their clothes dirty.
BUSTED AT THE BUS STOP
On October 4, 2011, Kate posted a blog on her website called “Just Another Day in Mommy Paradise.” She described a typical day in her life, and one of the things she mentioned is her morning bus stop procedure.
“I hug and kiss each one – not once – but twice and send them off for another day of brain filling instruction! Knowledge is power, after all!”
I’ve been at the bus stop watching the morning drop off somewhere around 40 times since 2009. I have NEVER, not one single time, witnessed a loving moment from Kate toward her kids. Not once. If she ever says anything nice to them before school, she must say it in the van on the way to the bus stop, because the only thing I have seen and heard on a regular basis is Kate yelling at and rushing her kids onto the bus. There’s always something that one or more of them have done wrong to incur Kate’s wrath in the morning…before a 45-minute ride to school. So the last thing they hear and see each morning before boarding the school bus is their mother screaming at them for something meaningless. She even climbs onto the bus with them and yells at them to get in their “Kate-assigned” seats on the bus.
Just a few weeks after Kate’s blog about being all huggy/kissy at the bus stop, she got busted by the paps. Kate hadn’t been photographed by the paparazzi in months, so her guard was down and she felt free to be herself and be nasty to her children in public.
On October 25, 2011, a few paps passing through town on their way to Philadelphia shot Kate at the bus stop at 6:45 AM, as she was yelling at her children while sending them off to school. Realizing the paps were there, Kate launched a preemptive strike. She knew the paps had caught her red-handed verbally abusing her kids, so she wanted to get out in front of the story before it hit the Internet. She tweeted this:
Seriously? Paparazzi at busstop before 7 am? Inhumane! Glad I remembered to wipe yesterdays melted eyeliner off! Pictures of difficult school morning. We all have them though, right?
Every parent, guardian or caregiver has probably experienced a difficult school morning at one time or another. But most parents, guardians or caregivers would never resort to screaming and yelling at their kids at the bus stop. Personally, even on “difficult” mornings, I hug and kiss each of my children and tell them how much I love them and how much I’ll miss them each day while they’re at school. I also give them encouragement to work hard and have a great day. But hey, that’s just me (and every single other good, loving parent in the world). Kate ended up on Twitter defending and excusing her actions, as usual. Kate’s responses are in bold.
xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 That’s ridiculous! Do the media hounds ever give you some peace? Try and have a great day.
Not sure what was up with those clowns this morning?! Tried to hide but I hear those clicks from miles away.
xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 you always look hot Kate
Thanks for kind words but not this morning (or any for that matter) before 7 am!
xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 must be a slow news week. They need to leave your kids alone
They wouldn’t have pictures of me ‘yelling at my kids’ then…Ugh
Agreed! How is that news? I do it every morning! Don’t we all?
xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 I swear the paparazzi are going to extreme levels right now!!! Just keep you’re head held high and forget them Kate <3
Just sick of instructing like a mom and getting pics taken with scowl face… Then they say ‘Kate yelling at her kids’ uh…
First of all, why is it impossible for Kate to be “instructing like a mom” without scowling at her children? Secondly, Kate was yelling at her kids as she was sending them off to school. What should the tabloids say? Here’s a tweet from Kate about the bus from a different day:
They ride for 45 minutes..say it’s the best part of the day! So I no longer feel bad. Have ridden since pre k! Overall goes well!
I wonder why Kate can’t figure out the mystery of why the kids say the bus ride is the best part of their day. Could it possibly be that the long bus ride is the only time they can relax and be themselves, without having someone barking at them?
VOMIT-FEST, GOSSELIN STYLE
During the “A Rough Ride” episode of Kate Plus Ei8ht, Kate and about 20 people took the Gosselin kids to Bald Head Island to film a series of episodes about their summer vacation. This episode showed the world how ill-equipped, uncaring and unloving a “mother” Kate Gosselin really is. She can’t use her tired excuse that what was aired was all the result of bad editing because she had final approval over every bit of it; that means she must have been proud of her work. I recommend that you watch it on YouTube to get the full effect of Kate’s horrible parenting and exploitation of her children … for money and fame.
Here are a few of the lowlights.
Inside their beach house on Bald Head Island, Kate is preparing to take the twins surfing while the little kids go to the beach with Ashley the babysitter. When Kate is leaving and the kids come to hug and kiss her goodbye, the editing shows only the actual hug, not the yelling leading up to it. They cut out the part where Kate yells at the kids to “Get over here now and give me hugs for the camera so we can leave!!!”
Mady and Cara learn to surf while Kate, of course, is standing over Mady telling her what to do. Two professional surf instructors are there, but Kate feels the need to hover over Mady and chime in because of her vast surfing experience. Mady screams at Kate “Don’t yell at me!” and eventually quits and storms off. Just one more positive life experience ruined by Kate’s need to control everything.
In another of the many, many examples of Kate believing that everyone is beneath her, she makes this comment about her surf instructor:
“My little instructor man said, when I knew I was falling I should concentrate on not screaming and closing my mouth so I didn’t drink half the ocean.”
I think he was only interested in her closing her mouth.
Later in the episode, they decide it would be a good idea to take the kids deep-sea fishing.
Watch how sad poor Cara is and Mady didn’t even go along. Neither of the twins wanted to be there. They wanted to be back playing on the beach like normal children.
On the deep-sea fishing boat, things get very ugly as all of the kids start feeling sick. They are all laying around, getting ready to start throwing up, and Kate, with all her wisdom as a nurse, decides to hand out animal crackers and juice! Eating and drinking is exactly what anyone would want to think about in the seconds before they begin vomiting.
And the vomiting begins. And Kate just barks orders rather than trying to comfort her sick children and help them through a horrible situation. She commands other people to take care of her children. She is a nurse, yet it would appear that she has absolutely no idea what to do during this “emergency.”
Kate screams, “I need something for vomiting now!” Steve the bodyguard comes running to the rescue with chum buckets. Chum buckets! Buckets that already stink from having chopped up rotted fish inside that are used to lure the sharks and other fish they hope to catch. Good idea, Steve, you jackass.
On the interview couch at home, Kate proudly says, “It was a vomit fest Gosselin style.”
What the Hell is that? A vom
it-fest Gosselin style?
Cut back to the boat. Cara is now crying. All the kids are crying and sick.
Collin is wailing “I want to gooooo baaaaack.”
And Kate says in her loving and nurturing way, “Well you can’t go back. What’s wrong!?”
What’s wrong? All your kids are seasick, dumbass. That’s what’s wrong. Anyone who has ever experienced being seasick will tell you that it is complete and utter misery.
Kate says, “Crew members were holding buckets and security people were holding buckets and PAs were holding buckets.”
Guess who wasn’t holding a bucket though? Kate Gosselin, the children’s mother. Surprise.
So Kate, “the most organized person on the planet,” and a nurse no less, did not bring one thing along for the kids on a deep-sea fishing trip, just on the outside chance that one or more of them might get seasick. No Dramamine. No extra clothes. No meds of any kind.
No clue.
Thinking that the vomit-fest was television gold, we are exposed to even more of the children’s suffering. Steve holds Aaden over a bucket as Aaden throws up all over himself – with a TLC camera right in his face, of course. In the background you hear drill sergeant Kate yelling “Aaden’s throwing up!!!”
Kate’s firm grasp of the obvious is impressive. Don’t worry though, the cameras are already there documenting it.
Back home on the interview couch, Kate says, “It was a vomit fest Gosselin style! It was disgusting!”
Back on the boat Kate screams in a panic, “OK, oh crap, oh man!!” as Steve wipes vomit off of Aaden’s face.
KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN Page 27
