sunflowergal
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Oh, wow! The mother have 14 kids now. That's too many.
The likelyhood that these children will be healthy is extremely low. They will probably be profoundly hanicapped. I think it is cruel to hurt so many children for no reason. Why would someone choose to do this to their children? Plus, how many people keep high order multiples and then just loose them all?
The likelyhood that these children will be healthy is extremely low. They will probably be profoundly hanicapped. I think it is cruel to hurt so many children for no reason. Why would someone choose to do this to their children? Plus, how many people keep high order multiples and then just loose them all?
8 Is Enough: The Limits to Human Reproduction
Eight kids at once. The mind boggles. The mind is also pretty creeped out by the thought of one tiny baby after another coming out of a woman as if she were a mouse.
It's great those octuplets are here and healthy, but really, humans aren't designed to have litters.
It's basic energetics. Every individual has only so much energy. Some energy is spent staying alive - that is, finding food and not being somebody else's food - and what's left over can be spent on reproduction. In other words, there are limits to reproduction.
Of course, the various slices of that reproductive energy pie also vary between males and female of all species. Males don't gestate or lactate so they pass on the most genes by flitting from female to female making as many babies as they can, and then walking away. The female reproductive pie is much more complex. There are costs to pregnancy, lactation for mammals, and then whatever else is needed to bring a kid up to sexual maturity so they can pass on genes as well.
But there are all sorts of ways, from an evolutionary point of view, for females of a species to distribute that energy and bring up babies successfully. She might have as many babies as she can in one shot, litters that is, and have them as often as possible. For that kind of female, reproduction is an assembly line of cheap production per kid. Or a female might opt for the other end of the scale and make one baby at a time and wait for a very long time to see if that one investment pays off.
Obviously, humans are on slow side of the baby production continuum. Evolution has selected for this path because there are features of our species that require great investment by mothers. Human infants might have big brains compared to other mammals, but they need to get even bigger once outside the womb. And so human infants are actually born neurologically unfinished. They can't cling, sit up, feed themselves, or run from predators. And so the very nature of what it takes to be an adult human puts constraints on how many children a mother can have at a time.
Take a look at a naked woman and see for yourself how many babies a woman is designed to care for - two, at most.
In fact our babies need so much that human fathers, too, have been selected to stop fooling around and to stay at home with one female if they want to see their genes go forward. The evolution of the human family is not about men and women deciding to make a commitment; it's really about the dependency of our children.
And we are so used to this system that we can't help but stare in awe at twins and scream in shock at octuplets. It doesn't seem right to have that many kids at once because it isn't right in the evolutionary sense. That family will surely have help beyond the mother and father, and they will all probably have a great time, but chances are it will be a very long time before that mother reproduces again.
If there's anyone who knows what it's like to raise a large family, it's Kate Gosselin.
The star of TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8, who is mom to 8-year-old twins and 4-year-old sextuplets, is offering parenting advice to the woman who gave birth to octuplets on Monday in Bellflower, Calif. – and who reportedly already has another six children at home.
From one mother of several children to another, the Gosselin matriarch shares with PEOPLE her eight tips for raising eight kids under one roof:
• You must have help – accept it. It can be very difficult especially for someone like myself who likes to be in total control. That will continue until your kids are grown!
• Schedule, Schedule, Schedule – create a schedule very early on and stick to it. Kids like a routine, and for me it removed the guesswork. (Are kids hungry? Are they tired? etc.)
• Choose your battles – let little things go! You can't control everything.
• Make every moment count – use the time you are wiping their hands and face or changing a diaper to connect.
• Plan ahead – think the plan through and find pitfalls ... Change accordingly.
• Encourage teamwork – it gets the job done faster and more efficiently while fostering a deep family bond. (Involve kids in chores – it develops a strong work ethic.)
• Save and spend smart – lots of kids means lots of saving is necessary! Use coupons, buy in bulk, watch for sales! It's a must!!
• Above all, take a few minutes for yourself ... Don't let mommy guilt get to you. Even if it's just a 10-minute shower, which at the beginning seems like a luxury.
To see more of the Gosselins, check out their page at TLC.com.
This is not fair to other families who want to have a child but cannot have any for medical reasons, and this woman already had 6, and then received fertility drugs to have more. I think it is also unethical as well! Shame on her. I bet many women who want a baby but are unable to conceive or carry a baby are very angry about this. Plus, 14 kids is too fucking many!
I think this woman should offer the octuplets to families who want to adopt. She should not get to keep the octuplets. (I am not saying they should be in foster care). They should be arranged so that when the octuplets become big enough and healthy enough to leave the hospital, to go directly to families who are willing to adopt them. Each adoptive family should get 1 baby each. Unfortunately, I do not think there are many families that want to adopt...they usually prefer to give birth to their own baby. So, this is a rather very unfair situation for the octuplets and for the families that do not get to carry their own babies.
I cannot believe you are even suggesting that! Would you give up your babies just cause you got alot of them?
I cannot believe you are even suggesting that! Would you give up your babies just cause you got alot of them?
Yes, if I had that many babies! I don't think I could handle 8 babies!I even think just 1 baby is a LOT of work! I don't even want to have a baby yet, I am not ready for even one baby yet! I would find adoptive families for most or all of my babies if I had 8 babies all at once!