I love armchair psychology as much as the next girl (Or at least, freakishly cerebral one), but that kind of belief seems to be self-determined and off the cuff.
….
That's sort of a reverse occam's razor, isn't it? There's really nothing to demonstrate that she is mentally ill, either. Just anecdotal evidence on both sides. And since the defense against this media intrusion and judgment relies heavily on the notion that she is, it would seem the burden should go to demonstrating she is, not a lack of evidence that she isn't.
I saw some of the interviews she did, and she seemed just completely out of touch with the situation. A person who’s merely selfish would still correctly discern the point of a question such as, “Why did you chose to bear more children when you can’t support the six you already have?”
There is not a strict guideline of this. You cannot accurately say what a "selfish" person would do in a situation (neither can i or anyone else) like this, much less her.
This judgment of yours is just silly.
F'rinstance... I'm a horny devil. So if I hear that CHarlie Sheen (fellow horny devil) does X, then I can say, "Well, I'm horny and I WOULDN'T do X, so he didn't really do X either."?
This is a possibly unfit woman, in a television interview about her two pregnancies and her resulting 14 children. What part of that is normal anyway?Instead of her coming up with the closest thing to a sensible answer she could muster, she merely kept repeating some variation of, “Well, you have to understand; I merely wanted one more child, not eight.”
And Rainman repeated himself too. This proves nothing. It’s true – some people expect to be supported by the government from cradle to grave, without facing censure for having kids while on social assistance. Those folks have a plan. It’s a bad plan, but it’s a plan: they are going to feed their kids with government cheese while continuing to garner ‘adult plus dependent(s)’ support for themselves. They’ll send their kids to daycare until they’re old enough for school.
But Suleman, a woman who was working on a graduate degree in psychology when she did this to herself, didn’t even have that much of a plan. She’d known for months that she carried octuplets, but couldn’t even bullshit her way through a rough draft of what she’d planned to do with those babies once they came home.
She was just flat-out disconnected from the reality of her situation.
Which, quite simply, is exactly why she is being rightly held responsible for her own actions, which not only affected her, but 14 other people and whoever has to help care for and pay for her children, the kids she went out of her way to have. These are the reasons I suggested some kind of mental illness – a source for her disordered thinking: her answers are seriously out of sync with the questions she’s asked, and she seems to have no grasp of consequences.
I mean, we’re not talking about the mere failure to make detailed plans. We’re talking about some of the grossest incompetence I’ve ever seen – on television, or anywhere else.
George W. Bush.
Micheal Jackson.
Mariah Carey.
Nuff said.In my view, it is. Let’s assume for now that I’m completely out to lunch – absolutely wrong concerning Nadya Suleman’s mental state. She’s merely really selfish, and an attention-whore to boot. There’s no underlying cause; she’s just an asshole.
That still shouldn’t a) affect how professionals treat her (which means she was correct to toss AIW), and b) provide an excuse for members of the public to justify an absolutely outrageous feeding frenzy merely because ‘she’s a bitch who’s wasting our tax dollars and so she deserves whatever punishment and scorn we, the public, can legally – and sometimes illegally – heap on her.’
No one is saying that. You are implying that everyone but you thinks taht way.
That doctor is a scumbag.
But if you go downtown at night with hundred dollar bills hanging out of your pants, though you don't necessarily deserved to be robbed, there is mostly likely someone in most bigger cities that WILL rob your ass. Was it technically wrong to walk around with money hanging out your clothes? Not at all. Doesn't make you blameless for putting yourself in that situation though, does it? It's called personal responsibility and you are absolving her from nearly all of it. And, of course, because she’s hated in practically every quarter, with few if any defenders, it’s politically safe to attack and vilify and demonize her to the point where someone sitting in the media’s echo chamber might actually feel justified enough in his hatred to harm her.
You are really running with that "Everyone hates her" thing. She doesn't have a lot of defenders because she's wrong. That doesn't mean everyone wants her dead. I actually agree with you, that Suleman is toxic to those children and that she likely can’t take care of them properly. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if she loses all eight, and for valid reasons. BUT – and this goes back to my original point – she was still right to punt AIW. It’s one of the few choices she’s made in the last few years that makes any sense. Because she’s been so vilified already, however, a lot of people simply failed to see that AIW’s behavior in this situation was inexcusable. Instead, there was this almost palpable sense of horror that Suleman had “fired free help.”
I don't follow this story very closely, but you seem to fixating on the most rabid detractors as if they are the norm.
She DID fuck up, big time. And her bad decisions will affect many people BESIDES herself, for a long, long, long, long, long time. THIS is why people are angry and why they will continue to be upset, because her selfish actions have had and will have a giant ripple affect starting with the kids, to the taxpaying people who will ultimately have to pay to house and feed and clothe and insure them.I simply wonder if Suleman ever had enough self-awareness to realize that poking a snake would result in a bite. If she didn’t, then the blame assigned to her should be tempered by the understanding that she acted not out of malice but rather from a warped understanding of right and wrong.
And this makes it NOT her fault, how?
Replace her name with Jeffery Dahmer. Still hold water?And this is part of the reason why I’m so quick to blame the fertility doctor and Gloria Allred and Phil McGraw and Linda West-Conforti for the roles they’ve played in this cluster-fuck. If someone as messed up as Nadya Suleman should have known better, then those other folks definitely should have known better. They weren’t out of touch with the situation: they knew precisely what they were doing, and why.
And so did Suleman, the one who began ALL of this. No matter how much to blame those others are, NONE of this and I mean NOT ONE FUCKING THING would've happened without Suleman's conscious and determined actions. NONE.
AND she had done this before and in that case she ended up six for six. What she is, is stupid, not blameless and not a complete victim. They also knew that it was a really safe bet to fuck with Suleman for ratings: if their “help” had worked out, they’d have been hailed as heroes. Since their help didn’t work out, well, at least those caring, compassionate individuals tried to do something positive. It was pretty much a straight win for all of them, with the possible exception of West-Conforti (who may or may not have ended up out of pocket even after the Dr. Phil-sponsored donation drive for AIW.)
They were/are assholes. I agree. This doesn't remove culpability from suleman however.As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t even imply it – but if I inadvertently insulted people with mental illnesses, that wasn’t my intent.
I think the fact that you are quick to attribute mental illness when nothing concrete has been presented is an attempt to vilify her. it sounds like you are making excuses for her and there is no real basis for your decision. You are relieving her of responsibility for her own actions. As to the reason for my “crusade,” it’s because I seriously think there’s something psychologically wrong with Nadya Suleman. I’ll say this: she would be selfish regardless of whether she had a mental illness, but she would have chosen a less bizarre way of filling her own needs than to put her own body through multiple hells. A garden-variety selfish narcissist wouldn’t have put herself on the rack like that, or expected that people would take kindly to her exploits.
I think you may be right. But until a diagnosis is put forth or until there is something to indicate that she is going to be limited in her life by being unable to purchase a firearm or teach a class etc. because of mental illness, then she is held to the same set of rules that everyone else is. Namely, responsibility for one's own actions.
IF she is mentally ill, her children should be taken and she should be looked after or whatever. It is not up to you or any other casual reader to make that judgment on her mental state. Like I said, Michael Jackson is held accountable for his actions.Since the very beginning of this thread, I have by turns described Suleman as selfish, a poor decision-maker, and an extraordinarily bad planner. In fact, I don’t recall having said anything good about the woman herself – except maybe that she had the sense to send AIW packing. If my assumption about her disordered thought process is true, however, then Dr. Phil is more blameworthy than her, because unlike her, he actually knew better.
See? You are deciding she is unfit.
Dr. Phil is a putz. His actions came into play AFTER suleman, a single mother on welfare, went to a fertility clinic and got herself implanted with SIX embryos which she had available after she had this done with SIX others a few years earlier.
You know that half-court basketball thing they do at b-ball games?
Sometimes there is a raffle at games and someone can come to half court to try a basket in order to win something, let's say it is a thousand bucks. The people putting on the contest know that there is a very slim chance of someone making any individual basket. IF someone has six attempts, chances are no money is going to be paid out. BUT, it is very possible that one may go it. And though unlikely, it is POSSIBLE that all six COULD go in, and the people putting on teh contest fully freaking know that. CONCEIVABLY (pun intended), suleman could have six or more kids on her second trip to the clinic. She did. Her call. Her responsibility. And…media conspiracy? There’s nothing conspiratorial or secretive about it. Their asshattery is out in the open for all to see.
Just as it is when all the other multiple birth mothers go on television, only she reveled in her ineptitude and arrogance and selfishness. The media is evil, but they do what they do. Tom Cruise isn't a victim because the media showcased his antics on Oprah. HE did what he did. Responsibility. I never said she wasn’t responsible for what she did. I did say, however, that the blame should be spread around a bit more evenly as opposed to all being put on Suleman. And considering the uncomplimentary things I said about the woman in the very first post, I don’t think there’s a “poor little Nadya” vibe coming from me at all.
You have shuffled her responsiblity off on almost everyone but her. You certainly aren't holding her responsible, you even decided that Allred and Phil are MORE responsible. And you didn't blame Allred or Phil for your armchair diagnosis of THEIR mental health. How does her pro-life stance in any way indicate that she understood the consequences of carrying eight fetuses to term? She didn’t seem to grasp even the basic fact that she’d need space for all those kids.
Maybe she should've listened to those who originally tried to help her then. If she was mentally unfit, why didn't anyone commit her? You are choosing to see her as a victim based on what you think she is like.
If she is fit enough to legally make a call on her "pro-life" status, than she is fit enough to accept responsibility. Why do you think it goes both ways? My “agenda” – oh, and nice use of a loaded term, BTW – is to demonstrate that Suleman was a) right to fire AIW, and b) not the only (or even the most) blameworthy person in this situation.
Firstly, that was a question, and from what I've read, a legitimate one. You are defending suleman while accusing everyone involved after she began this as being MORE responsible than the one who actually did EVERYTHING on her own! That sure looks like an agenda. She isn't responsible for what she did, everyone else is MORE responsible than her for what she did. And when you do allow a bit of blame for suleman you blame it on some imaginary mental condition that only you have diagnosed, complete with making up rules as to exactly what a selfish person would do in order that we disregard personal responsiblity for something that is totally beyond her control, yet not so out of control that no one could legally stop her. Come on, that sure looks agenda-ry to me. I’ve softened somewhat on the latter point, because of some issues raised in this thread, but I still hold fast to the former point.
And yeah, actually I do feel a certain amount of investment in this: there’s something deeply unsettling about a situation where someone – even if she’s completely to blame – is being subjected to the mob mentality at its worst. It’s safe to hate Nadya Suleman – to loathe her in a way that’s completely out of proportion for what she actually did. It’s…grotesque.