Jon – Kate + 8=Divorce

By Heather Huntington on July 22nd, 2009

• Share
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 3 Comments

This month’s big announcement that Jon and Kate Gosselin, the original octo-parents, are getting a divorce comes as a shock to precisely no one. After all, Kate–as anyone will tell you–is a bitch, Jon has been cropping up drunk at every sorority house and bar on the East Coast, and most importantly they have two litters of multiples to tend to. The stress of that last one alone could break even the most perfect of pairings.

But still, as much more fun as it is to watch their lives become a trainwreck than to watch TLC scrape for ratings with gimmicky celebrity visit episodes and product placement gifts (Yeah, I’m so sure you paid for those crooked houses), I have found myself feeling something unexpected: bad.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that after years of basically being beaten down, Jon finally broke. In fact, it is that very shift in balance I think we all hope for when we see a friend voluntarily in a relationship that isn’t so healthy–that one day things will get too bad even for them and they’ll wise up and get out.

But the thing is, there are those kids. All eight of them. Now saddled with a father who is clearly bitter about every decision he has made over the past decade.

What I do see is a man who appears to have hit a wall. Perhaps he didn’t see it coming. Perhaps he overestimated himself. And just one day he literally woke up and was like, ‘I can’t do this one second more,’ and freaked the fuck out. I suppose you can’t really blame him. He is a year younger than me and he is basically a ball-less Mr. Mom who gave up his job to stay at home with the spawn while wifey took the show on the road with her books. But the thing is, those were his decisions. He decided to be in a relationship with a bossy woman. He decided to attempt to have children with the awareness of the consequences of fertility treatments–twice–and opt against selective reduction both times. He decided to stay at home. Could he have been badgered into those decisions by his wife? Most likely. But he’s the one who made the decision to let the badgering work, and now his brood is paying the consequences.

The issue for me is, I think, that when he finally found his balls,  he’s gone into some sort of dickhead overdrive. If being at home was emasculating and unfulfilling–fine. I sure as shit wouldn’t want to do it. But now what I see is a guy who has completely shut off, and that is what is sad to me. People talk about Kate turning on the water works for the camera, but I don’t think it’s fake. Her marriage is falling apart; if it were me, it would be all I could do not to cry constantly. He, however, phones it in with the kids and then just sits there with this weird combination of his icy, angry glare and his flat affect. ‘My children are my priority,’ my ass.

Getting caught drinking with college girls? Spending holidays skiing with your girlfriend and then trying to make it look good for the cameras by saying how thrilled you are to be giving to the disabled children? How about you grow a pair and find a way to be with the ones you have without looking like you are trying not to slit your wrists?

I get it, he is trying to find himself, but it is just so classically immature that it infuriates me. Sure we all need to sew our oats–that’s why those of us with brains do it when we’re young, in college, before we got married and had 45 children. It’s not their fault he had no self-awareness and thought playing house would be fun, but now they get to pay for it with a 32-year-old dad thick in the throes of completely stereotypical mid-life crisis douchery. How unoriginal. And yet gross.

After years of watching Jon get beat around on his show, I never thought I’d say this, but here it is: Kate, I’m with you.