I Just Want You to Know | Episode 5

This week in Forehead Corner we find out what Kate Gosselin Just Wanted Her Kids to Know, when she wrote a book about how hard it was to be nice to them and their dad, Jon. Take a trip back to 2010 when Jon and Kate Plus 8 spread anger and sadness throughout the land!

00:00 - 05:19 Shiny Faces & Spiders

05:19 - 13:25 Reps, Acting Work & Threads

13:25 - 01:19:05 Kate Gosselin's Book, "I Just Want You to Know"

01:19:05 - 01:21:26 Fizzle Out & A Look Forward

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey gang, welcome to Forehead Corner. Um this episode well I can't I should have looked up the day before I started talking, but um it'll come out when you're hearing this is the day it comes out. Um let's I wanna get a few um housekeeping or um admin things off out. Hang on, let me okay. I'm not telling Jason, I'm not telling you that to restart. I'm saying let me restart my brain. Okay, just a couple few things off the top. Number one, enjoy my roots and getting them colored tomorrow, the episode after the this one, you won't see them, and then they'll be back. They always come back, and so don't panic. Um, also, I said this I think on the first episode, but um, I don't wear foundation or powder because it's feels gross, so my face is kind of shine. I just whistled. Um, it's kind of shiny. Um, and it and according to the TikTok girlies, that is a an aesthetic that some people do deliberately. I'm not doing it deliberately, um, but I would love it if you kept your judgment to yourself or just go on um um get a text. I'm in the I am fighting for my life to either um work up the nerve to completely say I'm done with show business or hang on until I hopefully get another job. And I just got a text from my manager who I love, but um anyway, um yeah, good it's the should the shiny complexion, that's all that is all over TikTok. People are putting people with matte skin, which would be my preference, women, they get these gels and serums and put them on our face, put them on their face and make them shine and and Godspeed to them. Um and um if you so I'm sorry I don't I'm not answering any listener email this week. I swear to God I will next week. I apologize. I meant to get to it. Um I didn't get to it though. I don't have a good excuse. Um if you'd like to send an email if you like the sound of not having responses to your emails, if that sounds exciting to you, why not send me an email at foreheadcornerpod at gmail.com. Also, um my um fantastic producer slash sound engineer. We have not discussed how he would like me to refer to him. Uh yet another thing I didn't take care of. Jason Crow. I'm recording at his studio, which is called Sides and Sounds, and it is in Burbank. He loves to work with creative people, um, records podcasts in this space and audition self-tape auditions and works with creative people and is fantastic. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for working with Jason. And I mean that in every sense. I wouldn't have the equipment or the know-how, also would have given up after trying one episode. Um, but because I have dragged Jason into it, I am continuing to drive myself to the edge of a cliff by continuing to make this podcast. And and even though that sounds unpleasant, I am grateful. Um well, actually, it I just I'm sorry to talk about you, like you're not in the room, Jason, but I do like you. He's a really enjoyable person to work with. So that's been fun turning my phone over over so I don't keep seeing a not to be not to be excuse me. It's a piece of fuzz. Side note, I walked into a spider web today when I was walking my dog and um and uh I did make contact with the spider briefly. This is I will give spiders credit. First of all, they didn't ask to be born creepy, and second of all, they are as excited, if not more excited, to get away from me as I am to get away from them. So I walked into it, made contact, and the spider said, Goodbye, bitch, I'm out of here. He didn't get on me and stay on me. But I just saw a piece of fuzz and I forgot what I was oh, not to be a bit. This is a bitchy thing to say, and I it is psychologically difficult to get emails and text messages from your representatives, and not a one of them has anything to do with a paying job. I love them, the women that I work with. I really personality-wise, personally, I have good relationships with them, and it is not their fault that I am not working right now. Um, but I would love it if if there is a God, I would love it. Let me just do a quick if you could intervene and please either send a job my way or have a bus run me over before the next series of communications from my reps that don't involve any income coming my way. Thank you, uh Namaste. Um, okay. Quickly, what is happening on threads? Because I love to share it. Because you know why? Because um Threads likes to go on Instagram and tease content, and then when you click on it to see the rest of a video, it's like, haha, it's on threads and you don't have an account. And threads itself as a social media app is just devastating. It is um, it's like a magnet that has drawn together a lot of people who have uh, I would say, uh high amounts of anxiety and and dread, flat out dread. So there's the most popular thing to the most popular topics on threads are always you guys aren't scared enough. And um that's actually the only one that I see over and over again is some variation of you're not terrified enough. We're not people are underreacting, you guys don't know what's coming, you're not ready for what and and then they also love to pick a different barely famous celebrity to gang up on. Um, and then the one of the big things in the past couple days has been um I'm just fixing this so it doesn't look like I have a gun in my waistband. It was sticking out. Um and I don't, just to be honest, I don't have a gun in my waistband. I have thought about getting pepper spray though, in case I ever decide that I can't stop myself from going to the women's meeting of the AA group I used to be in to show up just to mad dog everybody, and that if any of them got mad and tried to physically remove me, I could pepper spray them. As only as self-defense. They probably wouldn't do that, but any case, in any case, um what's happening, one of the things happening on threads the past few days is that this family, it's a um, it's a couple with two young kids, one of whom is a toddler. And the caption on the video, the mom is taking the video, and it's of the dad holding the toddler hovering over someone else's table. And it says, the captain says, What my toddler wants, my toddler gets. And the controversy is in part that it is a that is a white family, and the dad just takes the toddler, the little girl, carries her over to the table and hovers there and asks for a piece of the cake that this family of black people are having a sell someone's birthday celebration or some other kind of celebration. So the controversy is like the entitlement of white people, the fact that he didn't apologize and wasn't acknowledging that he's interrupting their dinner and that he's being um, you know, like my my baby wants a piece of your cake, so it's the expectation that you're gonna give it. And there's a lot of people talking about it in the sense of white entitlement, which I totally get. I have mixed feelings about it because on the one hand, I feel like if I, first of all, my my feeling with my niece and nephew when they were toddlers was whatever they wanted, if it was in my power to get it for them, I would do it. And if I couldn't, and they were having a meltdown, I would run around like an idiot trying to make them laugh to so they would stop crying because I was distressed by their feeling mad. So I would, if they were at my parents' house having a meltdown, I would start running back and forth, crouched down behind the kitchen counter while they were in the family room, and then popping my head out on either side, saying boo or some stupid shit to try and get them to laugh. I would pretend to go, I'd stand up behind the counter, pretend to go downstairs. I would do whatever I could to cheer them up. So my feeling about toddlers is um they are little tiny people, they're brand new here, they have they have big emotions. I just want to give them as much as I as possible. Um, and if someone just sent their toddler over to my table and told them, just say the word cake, wander over and just say cake. You can barely talk, you're two, just say cake. If someone did that and to my table, I would be going over to their parents to say, can I have your permission to give your baby a piece of cake? That's how that is my honest feeling about toddlers. This particular video is making people angry because the dad just goes over and stands there hovering. If I was gonna go as an adult to ask, first of all, I wouldn't. I would tell my toddler, I'm we'll get you some cake on the way home. Um, and if they had started to have a meltdown, I would, at worst case scenario, pay the check and leave and just remind myself this is a they're gonna be time goes by really fast, they're only gonna be this age a short time. It's it's much better to for me to not get upset and add to their distress and then just go, let's go find a fucking cake. Um, but people are mad. I've already talked about this for too long. What? And I'm not adding anything new to the conversation, but I guess it does, it did seem like the dad didn't even say, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. My toddler is bullying the whole family. Can you can I buy a piece of cake? He just kind of was like, hey, look at my cute baby. Can we have some of your cake? Now, having said that, I haven't even watched the full video. I've just been reading the discourse about it. And that brings me, and that's all I want to say about that, because I realize um it wasn't, I didn't add anything to that discourse. And that is one of the things I'm committed to on social media is if I'm going to enter the discourse, I'm for sure not adding anything to it. I might give a, hey, I see where you're coming from. I will not be adding any value. Um, and that is a promise. Speaking of value. I did it, I read this book. It's Kate Goslin's book from what year? Also should have looked this up. I mean, it was a long time ago because in it her kids are five. The little ones are five, and now they're in their early twenties. Oh, I do need my glasses. I can't. Or do I? I'm sorry. Um it's simply would it kill publishers to just have it in big block print the year it was published? God damn it. Well, listen, their kids, her kids, the the sex tuplets, the six youngest ones, this is from John and Kate Plus eight, Kate Goslin. They were on a TLC reality show in the 90s. Was it the 90s? No, it was the early 2000s. Anyway, it's called I Just Want You To Know Letters to My Kids on Love, Faith, and Family. Now, before I start shit talking, I do want to give her credit, huge credit, for making this book so thin. It's only 175 pages. The last like 20 pages of the book are recipes and pictures. So thank you, Jesus. I only had to read 175 pages. I also want to give this disclaimer. I'm really triggered by people who mistreat kids. And I at the same time, so I am going to be criticizing her because from what I read, she seems like a narcissist who really had little to no emotional connection to any of her kids. However, she is also a human being, and I don't want to dehumanize someone by just tearing them down as if she's not walking around in the world as a person whose feelings I would never want to hurt if I saw her to her if I met her in person. I would never hurt someone's feelings to their face unless they had I mean, I guess we learned from last from the pod the Patreon last week, unless they had walked up behind me with their dog, I then I'll cuss you out. But um, not anymore. I did that one time, I talked about it. If you blow me off at a spiritual retreat that you talked me into going to, I will hurt your feelings. Um anyway, let's get back, because why am I talking about me? Okay. Thank God it's short. And it starts out with her um throughout the book, she has a letter to each of her eight kids, and um, and then the chapters are just uh about really they are so it says letters to my kids on love, faith, and family, but really excuse me, um there's very little about love. Um she talks about loving her kids, but the dis the chapters, the meat of the chapters is all about this was our routine. These are all and it's heavy, heavy on these are all the things I did. I was responsible for everything. And I also like, yes, she sometimes acknowledges that her husband, now ex-husband John, contributed to taking care of the kids, but but when she briefly talks about how she wishes she had spoken to him more nicely on the reality show, because when she wrote this, they were newly separated. She's like, I wish I hadn't talked to him the way I did. I know I could have been better, and I regret that, but I was completely committed to our marriage subtext. He wasn't. And also, I wish I had talked to him more nicely, but I was stressed out because everything was on my shoulders: financial, um, the kids' safety, the kids' care, all that, which by her own writing in this book isn't totally accurate because she says repeatedly that when when as far as her kids were concerned, one parent was as good as as the other, like um in terms of like whoever was staying home and taking care of them. I'm gonna predict when her son Colin's book comes out that he will in fact say actually they preferred their dad because she is a tightly wound like uh you know Daffy Duck, how his his personality was I am about to blow. If you Bugs Bunny, if you prank me, if you challenge me in any way, um, if you disturb any of the there's that one where he has like a mountain of gold coins, if you come close to disturbing even one of them, anything that puts me off the path that I'm on, I'm gonna fucking blow my top at you. That's how Daffy Duck was, from what I remember, and that's how she is. Towards the end of the book, she says when they moved into finally moved into a really big house, um, because of being on the reality show, she says that when that when they first moved in there, if one of her kids spilled a glass of milk, it would send her over the edge and it would ruin her whole day. And I just um feel so judgmental about that. When this book was written, they were five. So they moved into their that house before they were five because they're already in it when she's writing this book. To blow your stack for at a little kid spilling anything is doesn't even make any sense. Little kids don't have full coordination yet, they spill things all the time. Side note, there are plenty of adults who also spill shit all the time. Imagine getting yelled at by somebody as an adult because you spilled something. I'm not saying I don't understand the stress of having to constantly clean up messes and also having that many kids. But she writes she is so obsessed with cleaning, with order and cleaning and routine, and refers to herself as strict and rigid. And this is there's they were just very little, little kids that she's yelling at, and also she hit them. Like it's there, there is ample information out there, including some pictures and video of her ac hitting them. So it's not she doesn't admit it in the book. She says, I ask God to help me stop being a mean mother. I ask God to help me stop being so impatient. Um, but there is a book, maybe I talked about this a little last time. One of the producers of the reality show, after it all ended, released a book with um clip not clips, uh segments of Kate's journals that she had kept during the filming of the reality show, where she talks about hitting her kids. And imagine what you would have had to s have seen as a producer on a show, um, what you would have had to have seen to Make you release a book disclosing uh information about the subjects of the show. What am I trying to say? Like that could affect your job prospects as a as a reality show producer to reveal behind the scenes stuff about the subject of the show might I think make other productions of reality shows hesitant to hire you because they might think, well, how can we trust you not to leak things? You know, we we're getting people to trust us so they can, so we can film them and you're leaking things they don't want leaked, so we can't trust you and can't hire you. I'm imagining that that is a risk to that producer's career. So imagine the shit she must have seen to make her feel like, no, it needs to get out there. This woman abused her kids. It seems alleged, I have to say, I'm sure, for legal reasons. By the way, she also recently on TikTok in comments had told people were saying, Why don't you sue your son Colin for defamation? Because he's saying you abused him. If it's not true, why don't you sue him for defamation? And she says, I would. I absolutely would, but the standards of the bar you have to meet for defamation if you're a public figure is much higher. So this is a woman who would sue her own son. So no doubt she would sue me. I guess my safety net is that um after three weeks of episodes, I hit a thousand listens on Spotify. So not I am hiding in plain sight is what I'm saying. I am not conspicuous. She's never gonna hear about what I said about her. But to be safe, it's alleged that she abused her kids. Um, okay, I'm gonna go through it a little. Let me see the time. What the fuck? T-Mobile. I'm sorry. T-Mobile texted me and it says, up for a challenge, start a new T-Mobile Tuesdays streak to unlock a special reward. If you don't leave me the fuck alone, T Mobile, I already, you are my cell provider. You're my cell service provider. Don't it's this is almost the same as getting a text from my agent that isn't, hey, you have a job offer. For you to be texting me, T-Mobile. I just opened your app. Anyway, I actually do enjoy T-Mobile's service. It's been great so far. Um so chapter one is um the very first chapter is called I don't know, guys. We this is just me trying to be someone who ta reads and talks about books. It might not it might not work out. The she writes Dear Kids is the intro. I'm not gonna chapter one ordinary in an extraordinary way, and it's just all about how hard it is to be famous because you and your kids are on a reality show. And um, and it's a lot about their safety, about how worried she is about their safety. So the one of the things that makes me feel some empathy for Kate and some guilt about um how much I dislike her and I'm criticizing her, is that the fear is a huge thing in her life. The fear of the safety of her kids, the fear of every possible worst case scenario in the one of the early chapters when she talks about when the six babies were infants, so they had a set of twins, and then three years later, uh, sex tuplets, which is six. I hope I'm saying I hope sex tuplets means six and not seven. Um I don't really care though, if I'm being honest. You can Google it. Um, but they have six babies, and she spends a lot of time talking about how her and her husband spent a lot of time figuring out what are we gonna do if there's a fire? How are we gonna get them all out? She spends a lot of time talking about that kind of stuff. Worst case scenario emergencies, what is the plan? A lot of time talking about all of the diapers, all of the bottles, all of the feeding, and all the logistics and the routine and and um very I'm sure very important stuff when you have that many babies, but also there is not a word about um bonding with them. It's super important to bond with humans when they are infants and throughout their childhood, but it's all about the like almost like it's an assembly line, and it's like we get up at this time and then do this and then do this. And a lot of it is about laundry and cleaning. And I wish that she had the temperament and the psychological makeup to have been able to not worry as much about keeping everything super clean and actually spend time bonding with her little kids because it could because it's important for every kid. Um so she gets mad at fans of the show initially right out of the gate. Then the first letter is to one of the older one of the twins. There the twins are Kara and Maddie. And the letter, all of them are this way, but this is the first one I read. It's all this letter to her daughter Kara is all about herself. It's all about how she felt being a mom, what her pregnancy was like, and all of the things that she did for her kids. And she says, My children are my most precious belongings. Later in the book, she refers to one of her daughters as her prized possession. The most that she says about Kara in this letter to Kara as an individual is she was a sweet and quiet little girl and that she helped out a lot with chores. And again, this is me being self-righteous and judgy, but I could talk for I'm sure a couple, I'm not going to, but I could talk for a couple hours at least about each of my niece and nephew, what they were like as a baby, what things that they did that were funny and cute, their little quirks and and so many vivid memories of the time spent with them. And this is a book, and the it seems like the main purpose of the book for Kate was to try and it was when she was getting a divorce from John, people were giving her lots of shit online because of how like kind of um hard she was on her kids on the reality show and how like insulting she was to her husband. So she was kind of already a bit of a villain, and then they separated and got a divorce. And it seems like this book is her attempt to be like, I am actually a fantastic mother, I love my kids, I do I do anything for them there and I'm a really good mother. Um and doesn't because I think she's a narcissist, allegedly, because she doesn't she doesn't exhibit what an actual connected, loving, nurturing mother would be like. She doesn't register that she mostly is talking about herself and all her sacrifices and all the work she did, and very little, you don't get really any sense of what any of these kids are like personality-wise, um, except when she throws them under the bus, which she does later in the book. And mind you, the six kids are five when this is written, the older twins are seven or eight. So these are still really young kids. And when later in the book, when she's talking about issues and and problems, it's always one one or more of the kids' fault that something happened to one of the other kids. And you you still don't I have no idea what Kara's like, which is fine. I don't know her, but her mom should know her. Okay. Um chapter two is when they move to a new house, not the big one that they moved to at the end of the book. Um, they move to a new house and she teaches the the toddlers at that point. Maybe they're like one, teaches them how to go up and down the stairs. Um, and also how there's a playroom and how so there there are two actually at this point. The the babies were two, teaches them how to go up and down the stairs safely, and also talks about how she sets up the playroom in a way to get them to help clean it up. Two-year-olds, expecting that they would be able to cognitively and physical coordination-wise help clean up. I I'm not saying you can't teach a baby to be like, hey, do you want to put this toy in that basket? But like at two especially, they're mostly if they even if they if you even can clearly communicate what you want, half the time they're gonna be like, No, I don't, I don't want to put it there. Now what? Now you've set up a battle of the wills. Um There's nothing in this chapter, in chapter two, there's nothing about love, faith, and family. It is literally again all about the logistics, the the laundry, the meals, the different planning different activities to take them to. There's video clips. I've never watched the show because it's so distressing to see kids crying and being treated harshly by their caregivers. I can't take it. And it's not like she's beating them on the show, but there's clips all over TikTok of her like the kid, little toddlers crying and her being like, No, you can't have that. You can't, you know, like she takes Colin's stuffed bear at one point and throws it away, and you can hear him wailing in the body. He's like a baby, like a three-year-old. And her telling the kid, there's a they all go to this kids' activity center, and there's like, I don't know, like coloring or something. They're doing something, and she's like yelling at her husband like, they can't have markers. No, they can't have markers because it'll get all over their clothes. It's like they're three though. Like, you gotta you gotta let kids get stuff on their clothes, or else I don't know what else. I was gonna try to make a joke, but it's too dark and sad. Um, so it's all about the activities that they do when in fact they're not even fully allowed to do a lot of the stuff because she doesn't want them to get their clothes dirty. Um and at the end of the chapter, she talks about taking them all to church. And I have to say, um I would love it if if babies weren't asked to go to church. Um I simply, as an adult, I've been to um throughout my life as an adult, I've been to a few Catholic weddings, and my dad's side of the family is Catholic. Nothing against Catholic people who are Catholic. Some of my favorite people in the world, my favorite aunt was a devout Catholic who went to Mass every morning, and she was one of the least judgmental, most loving people I've ever known in my life. Um, but you want to talk about having a hard time keeping your eyes open. You go to a Catholic wedding or a Catholic funeral, you can have an hour of mass before they get to the wedding or funeral part. As an adult, that's difficult. How is a two-year-old do it? End of chapter two is the letter to Maddie, which is the other twin, and it's again all about Kate, except when she tells Maddie that she was more that she was smaller than Kara at birth and more Asian in appearance, like her daddy. And then she brings up Maddie lying about a towel. This is in her letter, this is in her. And also, remember that the other day when you lied about using a towel? In the in a in this book? Um, anyway, I can't believe it. Chapter 4, she starts talking about Jesus. She says that two of her daughters, when they were five, said they wanted to accept Jesus into their hearts. I find some of what she says difficult to believe. I have a really hard time believing that a five-year-old would, on of their own volition, say, um, I want to become a born-again Christian. Um, but I will give this caveat. I was not raised with any religion. And so I know when I heard I remember saying prayers when I would go to bed because our neighbors were religious. But the prayer was, now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I awake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Um, that's not a great thing to have in your head as a small child. I hope I don't die, God, but if I do, hope hope to see you soon. And I'm five. Um okay. I uh let's go to the oh. Again, Kate's fear is all throughout every stage of these kids' lives. Her fear of what will happen to them. So that does make my heart go out to her. I think it's very likely, I'm gonna say allegedly, again, very likely that Kate Goslin grew up in a um not safe emotionally regulated household. I my my sense is first of all, if she is a narcissist allegedly, that is a um personality disorder that develops in when you're so little, like really early toddler dumb. It's a defense mechanism to not being safe. And so it's not a conscious choice. I can't really blame people. You can't, you don't, no one, no one says, I want to be a narcissist. It's something that happens when you're too little and you're you're in a situation you can't process. That makes me think she might have allegedly grown up in a in a scary household. The fact that she's fucking worried and scared about worst-case scenarios all the time. So when the twins start first grade, she prays that God will get them home safely on the bus and that keep them safe at school, and then also prays that God will keep them innocent from all evil at school. And I am flabbergasted at what evil she thinks first graders are getting up to. What could what evil could possibly be happening at an elementary school to keep them innocent from it? I I can't imagine. Oh, and then one of her kids, one of the boys, um, just this is a more from the Dear Jesus chapter, asked her one night why the sky looks so beautiful because it's one of those sunsets where it's multicolored. And she tell she tells him Jesus painted the sky. And I don't think that's bad, but I do feel like you know, there's a lot of things in life that there's no explanation for, and to use um God or Jesus to explain them, especially to kids, is I think understandable, or to explain unexplainable things to yourself. But when there is like an actual, we do actually know why the sky is multicolored. So I guess I just I just find that a little weird. Um and then I tried to write a joke about it, but I couldn't. Like I was trying to make a parallel and say, it's like if your kid said, Mom, mommy, what makes water come out of the faucet? And she said, Jesus installed copper pipes under the house. Like I was trying, I tried to write a joke, but that doesn't really fit. Okay, her letter, next letter after this is to Alexis. This is the first one to one of the sex tuplets. Again, it's all about Kate's pregnancy, and um she also says to Alexis, when I saw you for the first time in the NICU, because they were premature, I noticed your blonde hair and your Asian eyes. Again, not sure why she is feels a need to explicitly tell her daughters, you have Asian eyes. My um, and this is a side note, my niece and nephew um are biracial. My sister-in-law is Japanese, grew up in Japan, and um not I can't remember anybody in my family ever saying, Hey, just FYI, you guys have Asian eyes like your mom. It's never come up I can't and it not it's not it's not that it's it it's totally I mean honestly with my niece and nephew, uh all any of us ever talked about was how beautiful they are, because they are. Um but uh it'd be weird, I guess, to be I mean to me it's it's the same as being like um like you like you really have an Irish nose, which I do. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's sort of a weird I don't know. I just think she's weird. Um another theme in her letters is telling her kids not to take the easy road. She repeatedly stresses that the hard road is better. And in one letter to one of her kids, the context is her kind of saying, It's harder to walk the road of integrity. And she's sort of also talking about Jesus and God and that kind of um morality that she wants her kids to have, and that it's a harder road, but it's worth it. But then in others, she's she's just like, I hope you work really hard and that you never take the easy way. And as someone who's on a GLP one, I want to say there's nothing inherently wrong with doing something that's easy if it's an option and it doesn't hurt anybody. Speaking of which, um, this GLP, I hate, I hate this GLP one that I'm on. It interfered with my antidepressant. I was really down last week, and then now I'm eating, I'm on day two of eating healthier because I felt nauseous all the time, and I realized because of the GLP one, I can eat smaller quantities of food, and that makes it so I'm not I don't gain weight and I've lost some weight. Um, but I'm only eating garbage, and that might be part of why I feel like shit all the time. So I'm on day two of eating healthier, and I hate it. I won't hate it a few days from now, but it's like it's not the GLP one's fault, but I but I realized yesterday I started it at Thanksgiving so seven months ago, and it wasn't until yesterday that it occurred to me to attempt to eat healthy on it because I didn't want to eat at all for so much of it that it was like. Like, well, if I have a chocolate chip cookie for lunch and that's all I have, that's fine. And I'm making Kate's point for her. Don't take the easy route, some people say. But I'm gonna stay on this. I'm just going on a lower dose. Um, I think I talked about it last week and I did it again. Um anyway, she's I don't think it's necess I don't think there is necessarily any value in doing something the hard way just for the virtue of, well, I did it was really hard, is what I'm trying to say. In the behind the scenes chapter, she talks about filming and at one point says, This is just another one of her weird things. At one point she says, they made a point to get to know the the crew. That's not weird. But then says the kids love the crew so much they would run up and hug them when they would come in in the morning, and they love them so much they gave them nicknames, and then these are the nicknames that she provides Stinky, Meatball, Wave, and Jen Little. Like Jen Little is, I guess, and Wave are fine, but I wonder how Stinky felt about being nicknamed that by children. I wonder if they took any kind of personal insult from that and meatball and side note I will not hand it to Trump on anything. I'm not handing it to him, but I will say I did enjoy that he called Ron DeSantis Meatball Ron. Um I'm not giving him credit for anything good, I'm just saying that was Meatball Ron. Um Page Oh, so then by I'm at at this point in my notes, I'm at page 102. Is the first time that I'm hearing about her sons Aiden and Joel. These are two two of the boys of the sex tuplets. This is the first time she says a word about this. Is more than halfway through the book. At first, I didn't I'm like, who is Aiden? That's what I mean about how none of it is about the actual kids and bonding with them and getting to know a fellow human being. And I'm sorry to keep being so corny about it, but it is really a gift to meet a human being when they're born and then bond with them and see them grow and become more and more of their own person. Like it's you don't even you know what I'm talking about. Um she does shit talk her kids a fair amount. There's a chapter. Oh, she reads it writes a chapter called um Tower of Babel, where it's about when they all started talking as toddlers, and a lot of it is just like insulting them. Like um, she says Colin had a lot to say, even if I didn't understand it. Colin spoke a lot, but I didn't know what language he spoke. Alexis would butcher her words and sometimes still does to this day. It's like stop shit talking, your five-year-old. Um, and then um this is the part where she gives a nod to how rudely she spoke to her husband John on a regular basis basis, but gives the caveat that all the responsibility for everything was on her. And she ends that section by saying she was completely devoted to her marriage, even if the way she spoke to her husband husband wasn't very pleasant. Um, I also noticed in these letters there she has three boys, and in each of their letters, she says, I know I don't have the skills to father you, and only says it to the boys. And it is a very passive aggressive reference to not only, and she in each letter she also says, Our family's circumstances have changed a lot recently, and I know that's hard. And to the boys says, and I know I don't have the ability to father you, which is passive aggressively implying your father's not in the picture at all anymore because we're separated now, he's not parenting you anymore. And I don't know that that was true. What I've um seen on um the internet, which is where I live, they they separated because John didn't want to do the show anymore. He felt like it was not good for the kids and wanted them to have a normal life, and they separated, and then she's making it to her kids like, well, I guess you don't have a father anymore, which is really sad for them. Um and then there's another, there's a chapter called No Group Think, where she's talking about how she made sure to treat each of her kids like an individual. Meanwhile, I didn't even know Joel existed until over halfway through the book. Um, and but when in this chapter, when she talks about treating them as individuals, she kind of rationalizes treating them, not always treating them equally fairly, and says that when her kids said would say something wasn't fair to that to her, she would say life's not fair. Mind you, these are five the at the time of this, these are five-year-olds. Now, my dad used to say that. Here's the thing life isn't fair, which is why it's important when you're dealing with people you love, whether it's your kids or just your fellow adults that you love, you should try to treat people fairly. And kids are really sensitive to that, and it's fine to be like, look, I can't always treat you give all of you exactly the same, and I'm sorry, but instead she's like, Well, life's not fair, get over it, five-year-old. Um, in chapter 10. Oh, I'm sorry, guys. I feel like this isn't um blowing the lid off of uh book podcasts, but we're getting through it. In one in that chapter, in one part, she talks about taking her daughter Kara alone to the grocery store because she's talking about how I tried to give them alone time when I could, took Kara with me to the store, and Kara kept freaking out because she kept losing sight of me in the store because she was behind me. Mind you, this at that time is probably like a six or seven-year-old. Why is she walking behind you? Why isn't she walking next to you or in front of you? It drives me crazy when little kids I mean, I guess that's not that little. Maybe I'm looking for I'm just being too hard on her about that. But I guess she said she cried and got upset multiple times um because she lost sight of her mom because Kate would go around a corner of an aisle. And I just don't know why you wouldn't you you made a point of saying I took her with me to have special alone time with her, and then your behavior is causing her distress, and you're like, well, guess she's a Frady Cat, even though throughout this whole book you've been talking about always being worried for their safety. I am way overprotective, and I'm sure that in some ways that wasn't great for my niece and nephew when I would take them out in public. Like my anxiety probably affected them. I wish that hadn't happened. Although they've never indicated that. Also, kids don't, they're only 19 and almost 19 and 20. They're not gonna be like, hey, Mart Martha, I wish you hadn't been so worried about us all the time. It made me worry. Um, but I'll tell you what's different about me and Kate with the worrying. I kept my fucking eyes on them when we were in public, and it was one of me and two of them. I kept my eyes on them at all times. I didn't get angry at them, and um, I wasn't like rigid and strict and like act right in public. I didn't care about that, but it was like I'm never losing sight of them because I don't want to lose them. Side note, I did lose my nephew at Disneyland one time. So what am I even talking about? Um he wasn't well, he was. He was, I think he was probably like he was probably maybe like seven. He was little. I I was ready to commit Harry Carey. I'm not kidding. I was like, well, my life's over. I lost my nephew. Um I want to die. Um, and then he called his mom's cell phone. Well, he found a security person who called his mom's cell phone and we were all reunited. Anyway, I that was the only time I took my eyes off him, and that's why I lost him. That proves my point. We were in a gift shop. I was buying his sister, my niece, a gift. We were at the cash register, he was right here. I was paying attention to the credit card machine, and when we paid and got the thing and turned around, he was gone, went outside, he wasn't anywhere. I lost him. Anyway, which proves my point. You gotta keep your eyes on your kids in public, especially if you're may if you're writing a book about what a great mom you were, to defend yourself against all the people who think you're not a good mom. But that's I guess the point one point is that she doesn't she has no self-awareness that this makes her look bad. I think she thinks it's like a listen to how you know high maintenance my kid was. Um in chapter 10, which is blood, band-aids, and baths in the kitchen sink, she talks about and has pictures of a time that the sex the sex tuplets um destroyed their nursery. So they're still in diapers, so and she talks about potty training them, I think, when they were around two years old. So they're two or younger, still in diapers, and she left them in their nursery with no supervision long enough to be preparing dinner because she says I was making dinner, and when it was ready, I went up to get them and I walked in, and the room was trash. There was glass on the ground, they had broken lamps, they had tipped over a dresser, they had clearly been on a baby rampage. And my question is what in what world can you leave a two-year-old or younger alone for any length of time? And that you can't. I mean, if you have baby gates and you have them in a child proof area, you could run to probably run to the bathroom. Um, maybe it depends. Like to that age of development, they are highly mobile and have no fucking idea what they're doing. That's why they trashed their nursery. I also feel like this is my suspicion about what allegedly might be going on in this family. They went on this rampage because they are in a family where there is a huge amount of stress and anger from Kate towards John and towards the kids. So they were all fighting with each other, and they had to just go on this rampage where they broke a bunch of shit. And she her her um summary is like, wow, I can't believe I didn't hear anything from downstairs while I was making dinner. Wild. Um and it's and then the aftermath is just all about them cleaning them up. It's not a word about I wonder what state my babies were in that made them topple a dresser and pull everything out of it and break things. Like I wonder and walk around and bloke broken glass. I wonder why this it was just well, and then I cleaned them all up and put everything back together. Um and then she again trws one of her kids under the bus and says Hannah came over and dropped a heavy when they were all playing upstairs one night before bed. She was on the floor and her daughter Hannah came over and dropped a heavy peggy bank on her face. Then there's another anecdote where um I'm sorry, I have notes on it, where uh Leah, one of the sex tuplets, um the twin, she's again downstairs making dinner. The twin the kids are all upstairs. The twins and they're very little, they're babies. Um, I don't you probably can't see it if I show you, but the picture of Leah who had a little gash on her head, she is a b it's a baby. It's like a one and a half, two-year-old. Making dinner, they're all upstairs unsupervised. The twins come down and say Leah's crying. She tells them, go upstairs and find out why she's crying and come back and tell me. They go back upstairs and they don't come down. So when she finishes what she's making, she goes upstairs and finds Leah in her crib. This is the baby, with a gat a bloody gash on her head, blood everywhere. And no idea how it happened, and no further investigation. It's simply, and she throws the twins under the bus for not coming back down to tell her and get her sooner. So it's my baby had a big gash in her head, don't know how it got there. And if my twins who were two years older than them, so probably four or five at the time, if they had come down and get me sooner, I could have helped sooner. So it ultimately is it is the fault of her sisters. And then um she talks about how her daughter Hannah, also one of the sex toplets, started having migraines at two years old. And this is what she says about that. Um Hannah started getting headaches when she was two. Every so often she would come downstairs in the morning complaining of a stomachache and a headache. Um, I took her to the pediatrician who ordered a CAT scan and confirmed she was having migraines. The doctor explained that a migraine could be triggered by getting woken up too early. Hannah has always slept in later than her sister's and they would often wake her up in the morning, which sometimes triggered migraines. Back up a minute. A, you're blaming her sisters Alexis and Leah for wait for her migraines, and B, the doctor said a migraine could be triggered by getting woken up too early. There are other things that can trigger migraines, and especially if she was coming downstairs with a stomachache and a headache, there are little pieces adding up to an allegedly very distressing environment for these babies. They went on a baby rampage and trashed their nursery. One of them ends up with a bloody gash on her head. One, a two-year-old having migraines. And she's like, I'm sure being woken up early as a trigger was mentioned by the doctor. Highly doubt that was the only cause, possible cause that he mentioned, but she decides that's what it is, and it's her sister's faults. Um and also this uh she would come downstairs a migraine, I would give her Tylenol, which she would promptly throw up, and then she would fall asleep again. I'm retroactively I'm getting in a time machine to go back in time and call CPS. Um Okay, uh wait, almost to the I'm sorry, oh yeah, okay. I have she does occasionally um that time. Guys, sorry, I'm good we're closing in on we are closing in on the finish line. But this is something she does every so often in the book is try and look like she's admitting to not being a perfect mom. I'm assuming maybe to make it seem like she's not lying at all the other times when she says she's a great mom. But how would I know that? I can't read her mind. But it says, I have to confess I didn't handle all the chaos well all the time. One infamous Friday in October when we started out with all the usual stuff, and then I put the babies down for their naps, got the twins off to school and cleaned up. And after the nap, um, she went to wake them up, and one of the babies, Leah, was covered from head to toe in poop, and it was also all over her crib, in the sheets and the blankets. Um, and she had even flung some of it into her sister Alexis's crib. I was so mad and woke her up with my angry voice. I put her in the bathtub and stood her in an inch of water to soak her feet and showered her. She was shaking as I cleaned her up. Then I had to clean up her crib. All this happened um after the other four had gotten into the tissue box on grandma's desk. Now, can't you just put out a decoy tissue box for your toddlers to tear up and just be like, this is one of their toys, it's disposable, it keeps them occupied. They like to shred up Kleenex. Instead of making it like they're doing something bad. Then she came downstairs. No, then she's up there dealing with the the baby who had been covered in poop who had been shaking while she cleaned her, which means that's not good. I mean, that's traumatic. And then the other daughter, Alexis, comes running upstairs in the into the room soaking wet. She had made a pool of water on the kitchen floor with the water spout from the freezer door. Again, this is toddler behavior, and you're leaving them free range in the house that's not toddler proof. I seriously lost it, so I put her in her crib until John got home and told him he could get the monster and feed her dinner. I was so frustrated. Of course, she's not a monster, but she was surely capable of monster messes, and I didn't know what to do at that point. I felt so guilty about how I had. Handled everything. After everyone was in bed, I journaled and prayed for patience again. Um, I didn't it was late and I didn't know how cheery I would be in the morning when I greeted them, but I knew all their smiling faces would help. I'm just saying, like, you didn't know how cheery you would be, like you're still mad at this baby for act doing a baby thing. Um, skipping ahead, very sad uh because it's the letter to Colin, and he's the one who wrote a book that's coming out in October, which is what prompted me to read this book. And in her letter to Colin, and this is my guess of what allegedly is the issue with her and her son Colin, is that in allegedly dysfunctional and allegedly abusive families, and I'm I'm mostly talking about emotional abuse. I don't I I think he's saying she did physically abuse them too, which I would not be surprised about, allegedly. Um but allegedly emotional abuse is pretty intense. What? That didn't I don't know what the f it's because I only had shredded chicken and half a cup of apple sh of organic applesauce and like a quarter cup of mashed potatoes for lunch, and it it su it sucks eating healthy. And now my brain doesn't have any fuel. I need garbage. I need garbage in my body to have energy. Um anyway, my guess is that in func in families that are allegedly dysfunctional and abusive, there is often one kid who is the scapegoat. People don't like to think that's true, um, but it is. It is very it is not uncommon. And I think he was the scapegoat, and I think we are about to find out why. The first part is that she says in her letter to Colin how intelligent he was, how he it sounds like she thought was more intelligent than any of the other kids, and then says, You you by nature are also very sweet, kind, and helpful. We appreciate you. Keep it up, sweet boy. And then, so I think he probably was sensitive, and that also sometimes is the kid who gets singled out as a scapegoat by a parent who is unable to deal with their own vulnerability. A really sensitive, vulnerable kid and an intelligent kid can trigger a lot of anger in them because it's it's threatening to bring up a lot of their own shitty childhood. So she says those nice things about him, and then she says, mind you again, this is I just want you to know, letters to my kids on love, faith, and family. This is her clapback before they use the term clapback, to all the people saying she was a bad mom. Let her to Colin says nice things about him, and then says, as you have grown, however, I must say you have also challenged my authority greatly. At two and a half, you began testing and trying my parenting at every chance. I called daddy at work many days crying because you would not obey. That that was I read that right when I was starting to feel kind of bad for her and kind of sorry for her, and like, well maybe she did maybe she's not all and then it's like you you wrote a letter in a book to your kid and let the world and him know that you put it on him that he was making you cry all the time because he wouldn't obey you, which five and again, here's me being a judgmental bitch, because I'm an I'm an aunt, I'm not a mom. I don't ever think of my niece and nephew in terms of were they obeying me or not or recognizing my authority. Um that is so I know it's different for parents. When you're an aunt, you can just be their their best friend and their champion. And I know as a parent, you can't. I know as a parent there's a bunch of responsibilities and a bunch of things you have to teach them, but when they're that little, for you to be crying because your little younger than five-year-old wasn't doing what you told them to do in this chaotic house. I just it just is really horribly sad for him that that was her view of it is you are a problem. You made me cry repeatedly, many times you made me cry because you wouldn't do what I told you to do. It's that is not a fair thing to say to a kid. Um, and then in the I swear we're almost done, a couple more quick things. One chapter called I Am Mom, Hear Me Roar. She's praying and um lists out one of her prayers, and it ends it ends with help me to be a patient and loving mother and not a mean and yelling crazy mother. Okay. Wish you weren't Wish you weren't being mean and crazy so often that you had a recurring prayer about it. Um letter to Leah, another one of the sex tuplets, again, passive aggressively insulting her child. This is um this how this paragraph starts out great. You were exquisite, as great grandma always said, and perfect in every way from day one. You had a lot of dark brown hair on your head and on your arms and back. Thanks, Mom. Thanks for putting that in a book. I am a girl, and you're telling people I have a lot of dark hair on my arms and back. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for couching it in you were perfect in every way, so that you could backhanded compliment me. And then, um, and then she also brings up all the kids bickering in this letter. This is a letter on love, faith, and family to her daughter Leah, and in it she's talking about you're kind of a tattletale. You and your your siblings bicker, and you run in to tell in the kitchen to tell on them. And says, um this is something that I consider a red flag allegedly. Towards the end of the letter to Leah. Please always strive to remain close to your family. That part's fine. It may be difficult at times, but don't ever allow anything to entice you to become disloyal to those who are closest to you. And uh this could be totally harmless, but I will say in allegedly abusive families, it is a common thing for a parent to tell kids, don't talk about what happens inside the house to anybody outside the house. That would be betraying the family. Not saying that's what she was doing there, but it is allegedly a little weird. A little bit of a weird thing to say to a at the time of the writing of that letter, a five-year-old. Um in the one of the last chapters, at one point she says, uh, I had heard there was a lot of anger toward me on the internet. Someone had slashed all their tires. So this is when they move into a bigger house. And before they moved into the big house that they're in when this book is written, she's in this chapter of playing it playing safe. She talks about how because of all the fans and the media and the paparazzi and the tabloids, the kids had to stay inside the house all day with the blinds drawn. They couldn't even play in their yard. These are little kids, and that was their life, is before they moved to the big house. And then when they moved to the big house, she says, When they walked in for the first time, Leah gasped and said, Thank you, mommy. So she's passively giving herself credit for the new house, and John has nothing to do with it. Um, and that was and later in this chapter is when she says, When we first moved into the house, if someone spilled a glass of milk, it would send me over the edge and ruin my day. Now I don't even blink. I hand the messmaker a paper towel and move on. Mind you, they're five at this point. Letter to Joel again, a character we didn't even know existed for over half the book. At one point, um she's talking about a stuffed animal that he has, like it's another backhanded compliment situation. It was so cute that you named your stuffed animal doggy man all by yourself when you were two. The funny thing is, doggy man isn't very manly at all. The poor little gray doggy um came wearing a predominantly pink and purple girly sweater. Poor guy, but you two became fast friends and you love him just the same. Listen, five-year-old son. Actually, he was two years old at the time. Listen, my two-year-old son, your male stuffed animal is femme. And I and that is sad. It's sorry, I feel sorry for a guy who's feminine, and I hate to break it to you in this public book, but your favorite stuffed animal might have you might have been gay. Um and again says, I'm sorry that I do not have the skills to father father you, which is implying that their dad, John, is nowhere. And then the last chapter is just about letters of legacy, and then it's about okay, that's it. Um did I end? No, I didn't. I mean it's time to end, because it's been over an hour, and I didn't. Oh many great thing to end on, so I'll just say this. Throughout the book, from the first chapter to the end, there is a lot of emphasis on keeping the kids safe and how hard that is because they are public figures. But the decision to for them to be public figures was hers. The reason that they had to live in inside a small house and stay inside all day with the blinds closed is because they were on this TV show. And when her husband, their father, said, I don't want to do this anymore, this isn't good for the kids, um, she wouldn't agree to it and they separated and divorced. And now Colin is coming out with a book, and he has said in interviews, her son Colin, who she had sent away to a mental hospital for like two and a half years, didn't visit him once, and no one had a way, his dad didn't know where he was or how to get in contact with him. Colin is saying she did that because Colin didn't want to be on the show anymore, and that the network um was insisting because of new new laws about kids on reality shows, they she had to get all her kids to sign work permits and he wouldn't sign one, and so she sent him allegedly, according to him, send him to this mental hospital. So although the whole book is about how scared she is for their safety, her decisions are the primary reason that their safety is at risk. And um, I wish I had something fun to end on. Um uh I'm starting to panic. I'm checking my email, wouldn't it be great if there was something? Uh let me go to my old friend threads just to see if there's a new um someone's cat snuck out and they they caught them coming back in through the window, so that I'm happy for that cat. Uh oh uh what? Oh god. Um Okay, there's a there's several I'm already seeing several uh diarrhea parasite threads and um Okay Mom, I can't. Guys, look, I hate to end on a fizzle out, but that is what's happening. God s Godspeed to us all. Um on this week's Patreon, I think I'm gonna talk about the food cult that I was in. Um probably gonna s talk some more shit about my old home group. Um and um I'll find some I'll find some things to talk about. I gotta I don't think I should do another book podcast anytime soon because it felt possibly laborious. Um sound off in the comments, and by the comments I mean the podcast email, which is forehead cornerpod at gmail.com. Um, please hit like, subscribe, and leave a positive review and do all of that without listening to a word of the podcast. You no one can check. You're free to just subscribe and walk away and never look back. Um, so thank you for that. And um, and that's it. That's the end.