Bad dancer but good bacon provider

Bad dancer but good bacon provider

By Nicole E. Avery
GVL Columnist
4/18/2010

Never in my life have I seen anything as awkward as Kate Gosselin lumbering across a dance floor. I was sucked in to watching "Dancing with the Stars" again this season -- similar to the other thousand viewers -- due to ABC's promised star lineup. Even if Kate doesn't have her dance routines figured out yet, she definitely has the role of a good mom down pat.

I was first "introduced" to Kate via her TV show on TLC, "Jon and Kate Plus 8," and frankly I didn't like her. She barked orders to her husband and was impatient with her children.

As I watched episode after episode, Kate's need for order and neatness was her worse offense to me. This was probably because I'm a junky myself -- don't worry, readers, I've taken the necessary steps to put my disorderly past behind me and I have been clean for one semester now.

Later while watching "Extra," I would find myself even more displeased and scrunching up my nose at the TV when I saw the "Extra" edition announcing Kate to appear as a dancing sensation on "Dancing With the Stars" -- how can she be a mother when the show is taped on the other side of the country?

Before I judged her too harshly -- since we're in the era of Obama and diplomatic thinking -- I put on my mom hat and really thought about what it would be like to have 8.5 children. (I counted her ex-husband Jon as half a child because he's always either having a mid-life crisis or a tantrum) After thinking about it what I realized was that eight kids is eight more than I'd ever want. Kate has to be the way she is in order to maintain any kind of sanity.

I never use to believe this, but moms really don't harp just because they want to. Kate wasn't nagging her husband and strict with her kids because it was fun, she did it in an attempt to maintain some kind of method to get what was needed done.

Even though we live in much more liberal times, we still have this mentality that when a woman has children she needs to be home with them -- period. Our society is especially strict on women who have children any age younger than their middle to late teens. We expect moms to be moms and that means self-sacrifice to the fullest, and a lot of people think Kate should be home raising her children.

But here's another side to this argument. The Gosselins made their money from their original TV show and Jon's job as a computer technician. The show's success made it possible for them to move into a bigger house -- which they needed and deserved.

We've got to remember that the flip side to having more money is that you generally spend it and that gives you larger bills. After the divorce, their finances drastically changed and the novel and TV appearances are a way for Kate to support her family.

We can throw stones at Kate for her being away from her family if we'd like, but she's doing what a single mom should be doing -- working.

The bacon doesn't bring itself home.

navery@lanthorn.com