quints

so once upon a time in the olden days a woman had five babies AT THE SAME TIME. now these days this doesn't seem like much of a feat, seeing as people are having eight babies at the same time every other day. but this was way back in 1934, BEFORE fertility drugs. so it really was quite a phenomenon. if someone had five identical quintuplets now-a-days without fertility drugs it would still be pretty remarkable. but anyway, back in the day this was pretty much the equivalent of a freak-show. and the girls were treated as such. the government in canada put them on display at a nursery-amusement park known as "quintland." sounds totally freaky to me, but according to newsweek 6000 visitors came to watch the dionne kids play every single day. holy. cow. anyway, years pass. two die and so that leaves three. and i'm taking this from newsweek...but in 1997, when an american family, the mccaugheys, had septuplets the dionnes wrote them a letter. this is what it said:

"we hope your children recieve more respect than we did. their fate should be no different from that of other children. multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products. our lives have been ruined by the exploitation we suffered."

now...how many of you are thinking about jon and kate plus 8 right now? ha-i knew it. when i hear the word 'quints' i think of dolls. when i was a kid they had these doll sets...they came with five identical palm-sized dolls, called quints. they were all the rage one summer. we had several different sets of them. does anyone else remember these?

anyway, back to the letter. maybe you are thinking that jon and kate should stop exploiting their children. and maybe you are right. but "our lives have been ruined...?" GET REAL. no one can ruin your life. only you have the power to do something that extreme. stop throwing yourself a pity party and move on.

and come on people. quit worrying so much about jon and kate. you don't actually know them. your life will not be affected by their choices. and those kids are going to grow up, go to whatever college they want to because they are rich and famous, and they're going to create their own lives. yeah, their parent's messy public relationship will probably affect them in some way. but not neccesarily in a bad way. you don't know what they'll learn. in ten years you'll most likely barely remember who jon and kate and the eight even are. and don't pretend that you just care about the kids and what's best for them. if that were true you'd stop talking about them and you'd stop buying people magazine. for all we know jon and kate could truly be doing what's best for them. who are we to say?

yep. that's my story. "and i'm stickin' to it."