Families in the Spotlight
Posted by Danielle Bean in Family on Friday, February 27, 2009 7:30 AM
Do you watch Jon and Kate Plus 8 on TLC?
I’ve watched a few times, mostly because I wanted to like it. A mom, a dad, and eight cutie-pie kids—what’s not to like, right?
I found myself continually put off, however, by the nasty tone Kate takes with her husband Jon. I feel bad for the guy!
I don’t want to judge her too harshly, though. Goodness knows that people might very well feel bad for my husband sometimes if they were privy to everything that goes on inside the walls of my house.
Which brings us to the question brought up in this article I recently read about the wildly popular reality television series: How much exposure is too much for a famous family that makes its living by sharing its private life with the world at large?
I don’t mind at all that the family has become wealthy and media-savvy—it would amaze me if they did not.
But I do wonder about a culture where one’s family life can become a commodity.
If Jon and Kate Gosselin have sold their children’s privacy, we the viewers are the guilty buyers, even as we find it harder and harder to see the pair as the guileless, relatable-to, in-over-their-heads parents we once knew and adored. Looking ahead, the Gosselins’ challenges are still real and many, though different: How will they teach their kids to be humble, and that normal people don’t get to run the bases at Phillies games? That everything isn’t free and yours when you want it? That fame is, by and large, capricious and fleeting? Only time will tell how their eight will deal with having grown up in a home studio, in front of cameras and fans, as the world watched.
At one point should a family say NO to more attention and more money, in order to preserve their children’s privacy and the integrity of their family life?
I don’t know the answer to this question, and I am sure that what might be harmful for some families might not be for others, but I think it’s an important question to ask ourselves—even if we’re only watching.
What are your thoughts?
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