Nadya Suleman

I’m sick to death of hand-wringing, shaming news reports about Nadya Suleman. I’m sick of hearing about how selfish she is for having a lot of children, when having children, period, is selfish. I’m sick of reading about how irresponsible she is for daring to have kids when she’s poor, as if reproduction were a pastime reserved for the wealthy. I’m tired of comments that she must be using her children to fill some emotional void, when I suspect that most–if not all–parents are guilty of similar motives (otherwise, why on earth would anyone have kids?). I’m sick and tired of it.

And now, there’s an article in the LA Times stating that the hospital where Nadya Suleman gave birth may not release her children to her, because they have concerns about her “living arrangement.” Since when were hospitals in the business of deciding which mothers get to take their kids home, and which do not? Assuming that there is a genuine problem, isn’t that the purview of social workers?

And what is actually wrong with Nadya Suleman’s “living arrangement”? If the article is accurate, her situation isn’t ideal, but the same can be said of a zillion other families in the US. Heck, the Duggars were living in a tiny, cramped house with just about the same number of kids, and I’d be willing to bet that the hospital didn’t threaten to not release their babies. No, what they got was a series of television specials celebrating their fecundity.

Do we really want to start taking away people’s kids for living in cramped homes? For being unemployed? Because their homes are threatened with foreclosure? (In the current US economic climate, that last one is going to hit a lot of people hard.)

Why are we worrying and obsessing about whether or not she has the resources to care for her kids, instead of providing those resources for her? Why is she being threatened with having her children taken away, instead of being offered the help she needs? Because she’s poor, brown, and unemployed, and therefore doesn’t deserve help? Actually, she’s not unemployed. She’s got a more than full-time job, but we would rather denigrate her work rather than compensate her for it.

And before anyone starts waving their hands in the air and crying, “Oh noes! My tax precious dollars!” let me say that I don’t care about “your” tax dollars. They don’t belong to you. We all pay taxes. One of the things that money is supposed to do is help people when they need it, whether that need is temporary or life-long. In a just world, no one would fall through the cracks, and we wouldn’t have litmus tests for who is morally deserving of help and who is not. This, like public roads, firefighters, and schools, is one of the benefits of living in large social groups. If you don’t want your tax dollars going to help people in need, then maybe you should become a hermit and live on a deserted island.