KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN

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KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN Page 31

by Robert Hoffman


  Tips on personality development of the child

  Do not scold the child all the time for minor failures.

  Do not trouble the child constantly.

  Avoid frequent use of bitter or harsh remarks.

  Avoid the practice of preferring one child over the other and thereby neglecting the other.

  Do not denigrate or disparage the child.

  Avoid prolonged separation of the child.

  Constant friction with the child or between the parents should not be expressed in front of the child.

  Never discourage the child.

  Do not praise your child always.

  Excessive discipline is also harmful.

  Repetitive or severe punishment should be avoided. The child should be given a chance to rectify him/herself, and punishment should be the last resort.

  Parents should not be over-ambitious regarding their children, and they should not set goals for a child which are not in harmony with his or her intellectual endowment, capabilities, achievements and interests.

  Kate forces her children to make her cards and presents and she tells them what to do to celebrate her, be it a birthday, Mother’s Day or any one of her hobbies of the week, like when she ran in a marathon on the other side of the country in Las Vegas. In that case she told the world via Twitter and on her blog that her kids made signs to encourage her and stood outside watching and cheering her on as she ran around in her driveway. She had a cake made for them to have a ‘Go Mommy’ party while they sat at home with a babysitter while their mommy was away for a week with her married bodyguard. She makes the children her own personal cheerleaders while doing nothing to encourage their growth by allowing them to participate in their own activities outside of their house.

  Given her failures as a parent, it may very well be best for the Gosselin children’s mother to be absent from them as much as possible. It is not my imagination that Kate looks and acts her happiest when she is away from her kids. It definitely appears as if Kate doesn’t enjoy interacting with her children. All photographic, video and Twitter evidence shows this beyond any doubt. Take her recent Celebrity Wife Swap appearance. With a film crew in her house and cameras rolling for the entire world to see, you would think that Kate or any sane person would be on their best behavior to show what a loving mother she is. Not Kate Gosselin. She actually yelled at her twin daughters in front of the cameras for coming down to the kitchen a few minutes early, before their scheduled 6:03 morning kitchen entrance time. The poor girls looked dejected and beat down as they were belittled and sent away…for the television audience’s viewing enjoyment.

  Her M.O. has always been to hide in the kitchen while volunteers and paid ‘helpers’ took care of her children. In the early days, the twins would get off the school bus alone and come inside the house to find Kate ‘busy’ in the kitchen while their six brothers and sisters were caged in by the front window entertaining themselves. She couldn’t take the five or ten minutes like a normal mother and come outside to greet her children as they arrived home from school. Kate invents reasons to have to be in the kitchen so she can spend as little time with them as possible. She is an awful cook, baker and even dishwasher but the kitchen has always been her escape from the reality that is being a mother.

  If you look at photos or video of Kate when she is with her children, she always looks angry, sullen, disapproving and mean. When you see photos of her when she is away from her kids, either on one of her “business” jaunts or for any other reason, she is always smiling broadly and is positively beaming. Whenever she is with her kids, she tweets like there is no tomorrow. When she is not with her kids, she barely tweets at all.

  In a related sense, Kate’s idea of fun is anything that doesn’t involve her children. Everything we have seen of her actions indicates that she is fulfilled only when she is the center of attention and when others are complimenting her or gushing about how wonderful she is.

  Maybe this is because she resents the fact that it is her children who made her famous. But time and time again, she is slapped with the reality that exposing her children’s private lives to the world is the only reason anyone outside her immediate circle of life even knows she exists, and the only reason anyone has ever been, or will ever be, interested in her. She has traveled numerous paths to try to find fame on her own, but try as she might, she just doesn’t have the talent, personality, intelligence or likeability to succeed in celebrity endeavors on her own. Since she can’t shake those cute little albatrosses from around her neck, she must continue to wring every last drop of money-making usefulness out of them as she can.

  “I need to look at, ‘what’s best for the kids?

  What’s best for the kids?’

  That is what I say to myself constantly.”

  – Kate Gosselin

  DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL

  “Their protectivity of me is so dear!

  I honestly loved how they took such protective care of me!”

  – Kate Gosselin

  That’s beautiful, right? The way Kate talked about her parents in the above quote? Only Kate wasn’t talking about her parents when she said that. Kate hates her parents, especially her father, Kenton Kreider. That quote was taken from one of Kate’s journal entries in which she was discussing spending time with Dr. and Mrs. Glassman during her tummy tuck surgery back in 2006. Here’s how Kate described it in her journal:

  August 2006

  Kate said that she felt like they were her parents and it felt so good! She said that she never had that as a kid and she enjoyed the feeling.

  There are only four entries in Kate’s journal where she mentions her parents or her childhood. That isn’t much considering she wrote down every minute detail of what was happening in her life during this period. These are the first three paraphrased entries:

  September 2006

  Kate remembers her grandmother and all of the pure bliss that she and Kate’s grandfather tried to create in Kate’s bliss-less life as a kid and actually as an adult too.

  October 2006

  Kate talks about her grandmother’s funeral and how it’s so hard to believe that she’s gone. She was the perfect example of unconditional love. Kate said that her own mother tried to preach to her and her brother and sisters through her tribute to her grandmother and none of the kids appreciated it!!!

  December 2006

  Kate said that her parents were being crazy as usual but doesn’t disclose any details.

  The final entry is from May 2007, when she wrote about pulling Collin up by the hair. She said that she saw her dad in herself today and that really scared her!!!!!

  When Kate was making the rounds during her great church scamming tour, she talked about being born and raised in a Christian home and about being “saved” when she was 8 years old. Her father, Kenton, was an assistant pastor at a local church in Pennsylvania. She said that when she was growing up, she knew Jesus loved her, but the focus was more on a punishing God.

  I did a lot of research, trying to understand what it means to be “saved.” The best definition I could find is that being “saved” simply means that you have accepted Jesus into your heart as your savior. I have no idea if something specific happened to Kate when she was 8 years old, but it sounds like she grew up in an atmosphere of fear, being told that God would punish her if she got out of line.

  A child living every day in fear and dread is unhealthy and tragic. Just ask the Gosselin children. It makes me wonder how much from Kate’s childhood shaped her adult behavior. Certainly, neither Kenton Kreider nor Kate would be happy to engage in a public debate about her real relationship with her parents or what really happened between them. Nobody would win that one, I suspect, so they have both opted to remain silent on the matter.

  In Multiple Blessings, when talking about how much she loved her grandmother, Kate did take what could be construed as a shot at her father when she said, “Grandma didn’t just preach God’s word; she lived and bre
athed it!”

  Whenever Kate was asked about her parents in interviews, she would give a very brief, very carefully crafted, very Discovery-approved response: “They changed and had opinions on how to raise the kids.”

  During the 2009 TLC special, Kate: Her Story, Natalie Morales asked Kate about why her parents are no longer part of the children’s lives. This is some of that conversation:

  “I was one of five kids. I was the middle child. The forgotten middle child as they say.

  It was definitely; it was a strict upbringing I would say. Um, I went to a Christian school, kindergarten through 12th grade.

  NM: so was it a loving home?

  Yes, my parents um, did their best um, my mom was the ever present parent who saw to it that our meals were cooked and our you know house was taken care of, um, my parents struggled um, I would say, um, I, I’m famous for telling my mom growing up my whole life, “mom five kids is way too many, there’s just, you lose something in the details…”

  NM: What is your relationship now with your parents?

  My parents email me um, I email them back, they’re very different from me, um, nobody’s right.

  NM: Have you changed or have they changed?

  I think both of us have changed, um, there was a lot in my childhood that was not um, happy you know.

  NM: Like what?

  It would probably take me ten years to figure it out, so to say that I talk to them on a daily basis is not accurate.

  NM: Are they involved as grandparents in helping with your children?

  Not so much, and that’s probably more by my choosing at this point then by theirs. Is it out of the question forever? No, probably not

  I think the change came after our (6) babies were born. That was the beginning of me realizing that everybody has an opinion and um, sometimes those opinions aren’t my opinions.

  NM: Do they not approve of you putting your children on television? Was that part of the issue?

  No no it was before television, and at that time I felt like it was just best to step back and take a break.

  NM: Do you miss having them in your lives?

  There’s definitely something missing when you don’t have supportive parents nearby, um, and your kids don’t have supportive grandparents, absolutely.

  In March of 2012, despite her earlier words to the contrary, Kate engaged in a Twitter conversation where she disputed the fact that there’s any problem at all between herself and her parents.

  xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 do u ever wonder since u have no relationship w ur parents what that is teaching them about future relationship w u?

  no facts in your question, just your opinion so no I don’t wonder…:)

  xxxxx @xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 Thank u @xxxxx that is my point. K8 is choosing to not speak to parents

  ha ha you’re wrong! Again

  xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 The only “fact” @xxxxx assumed was that it was your decision to not allow your kids to see your family. True?

  nope!

  Kate’s tweets contradicted what she had said in the Natalie Morales interview. When Natalie asked Kate if her parents were involved as grandparents in helping with the children, Kate specifically said that it was “probably more by my choosing at this point then by theirs.” So when Kate’s tweeties talked about it being her decision to not speak to her parents, they were just going by the information she had provided in her interview.

  Kenton and Charlene Kreider are the grandparents that took care of Mady and Cara while Kate was in the hospital giving birth to the sextuplets. Beyond that, not very much is publicly known about Kate’s relationship, or lack thereof, with her parents, other than what she has stated in interviews. The widely accepted story explaining Kenton and Charlene Kreider’s absence from Kate and the children’s lives is that Kate’s dad asked the members of his church for donations after Jon and Kate had the sextuplets. His church members responded by donating lightly used baby clothes and several cribs. Instead of being appreciative and grateful for the generosity, Kate decided she only wanted new, matching cribs and clothing, not used ones. She told her dad she only wanted cash.

  Obviously, Kate’s parents couldn’t go back to the church members and tell them their daughter had refused their donations and was only interested in cold, hard cash. When Kate said on Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht that her parents “don’t know how to help us,” what she likely meant was that, since she didn’t get the cash she wanted, her parents wouldn’t be seeing the family anymore.

  The real issue that made Kate furious with her father wasn’t about the lovingly donated, “gently used” clothing or the “non-matching” cribs. It was about the money she thought she should receive from her father through his church. More accurately, the issue was the lack of money.

  Where was the money!?, Kate demanded. Her money!? She knew that the collection plate was passed for her and her children, so she questioned why the only things she got were some “dirty clothes and used cribs.”

  Push finally came to shove, and Kate accused her father of stealing her money and banished him to the depths of Gosselin Hell. She did the best thing she could do to hurt and punish him and her mother: She vowed to never let them see their grandchildren again.

  I don’t really know for certain anything different, but in interviewing people in Elizabethtown, PA, where Kate grew up, and more importantly, talking to one of Kate’s own siblings, who requested anonymity, I got a little better insight into what makes Kate Gosselin tick.

  According to the sibling, “Kate is just like her father. She’s driven by power, control and money.” This sibling also revealed that Kate and all of her sisters and brother were emotionally and physically abused by their parents. Apparently, Kenton Kreider was the poster boy for Proverbs 23:13-14. He took the phrase “spare the rod, spoil the child” to the extreme. There were daily beatings for any and all disciplinary infractions. “Katie walked around on eggshells, never knowing when or where the next beating would occur.” (That sounds hauntingly familiar.)

  Kate said on an episode of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht that she was “very, very over disciplined.” That would explain where Kate learned how to raise her children, but it’s no excuse for abusing them. She also said cryptically on TLC’s Kate: Her Story that “There was a lot in my childhood that was not happy.”

  Kate learned another very important lesson (to her) from her father. She learned how to separate good, church-going Christians from their hard-earned money. Kate got to see first-hand, watching her father in church, how easy it was to convince people to give – ’til it hurt. As a young girl, she watched the collection basket being passed around and she wondered how she could get her hands on some of that money. She kept that thought tucked away for a rainy day.

  When it rains it pours, and soon enough, Kate had found her own unique way to get her hands on the hard-working Christians’ money. She gave birth to six children at once, knowing full well and in advance that there was absolutely no way in Heaven or Hell that she and Jon were going to be able to afford to raise eight children on their own. Kate knew her target audience from doing her own research on the McCaughey septuplets, and she wagered that when she announced to the world that she was dead set against even thinking about “selective reduction,” her new flock would hoist her on their shoulders and deliver her to the “promised land.”

  Kate went to that well of Christian support many, many times with statements such as “We truly believed that if God gave us these babies, He would take care of us.”

  She played that card over and over again, and it was music to the ears of Christians everywhere.

  Here is one last observation. In all of my research, I had never heard Kate speak of or write anything about her father. Whenever she mentioned her parents, it was always in the plural form: “My parents.” She never once spoke Kenton’s name nor alluded to a single happy memory of her father since the estrangement. Ever.

  Kate is afraid of her father and what he might say about her in
the media. In March of 2012 Kate got spooked when someone posing as Kate’s father on Twitter sent her several very cryptic tweets about things that only Kate, Kenton and the mysterious tweeter would know. Kate was afraid that her father could possibly be the person behind this book and, within days, she blogged about happy memories of her father paying the bills when she was a child:

  Kate’s Financial Lessons for the Gosselin Kids

  Posted on April 30th, 2012 by Kate G

  Kate said as a kid, she would watch her father paying the bills on the dining room table. He sometimes let her help by playing mailman and putting the return address labels and stamps on the envelopes. He told Kate how important it is to always pay your bills first to keep a perfect credit score.

  I don’t believe this was a coincidence.

  “Happy Fathers Day to all great dads out there.

  You are who your kids are likely to become.

  B the best u can b for them today&always!”

  – Kate Gosselin 6.17.12

  THE LIES AND TIMES OF KATE GOSSELIN

  “Once again, if you read something about me

  (or most other people in the media) in a tabloid

  where information has been provided by an unnamed ‘source’

  you can assume it to be completely fabricated and totally false.”

  – Kate Gosselin

 

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