The internet is a buzz over Jon & Kate plus 8 (reality TV show on TLC)and the sad situation their family is in right now. I don’t keep up with it, honestly, beyond what I’m not practically forced to know by the magazines at the check-out counter at the grocery store. It bothers me.

I just know that way back when they were first on television, something didn’t sit right with me. It just seemed like such a gamble, to have life be chaotic enough with twins and then the subsequent birth of multiples. I remembered my own house when the twins were born. Two kids in school, one in diapers, plus nursing twins. I couldn’t imagine having cameras flocking around us on a routine basis. It wouldn’t have been a pretty site – nor would it have been good for our establishing family.

If you watch the show you can see how the house transforms, how the mom changes from flustered new mom of a multiples, to a reality television star with frosty hair and metallic sunglasses. How on earth did it come to that? I mean, are you serious? Their faces on mugs and t-shirts? Videos? Like winning the lottery and completely imploding over the course of a few years. I’m convinced that people can have too much of a good thing. Children, especially. No child would likely benefit from a life where they are toted around Hollywood, jetting from city to city (to promote… yourself — how weird is that?!), in front of the media, made a spectacle of at sporting events, the list goes on and on.

Too many options, worrying about what sponsorships to accept, appearances to make, what trip to film, what make-up to wear — and way less focus on the precious years of raising children, stealing moments with your husband.

I suppose you could be envious of the sponsorships, the trips, the free plastic surgery. But then you can also see what “deal with the devil” had been made. At the sacrifice of a marriage, of your children’s childhood? Hindsight is always 20/20, but reality TV doesn’t really care about who they are filming and what the ramifications of the intrusion of their subject’s lives will be. But possibly more thought should be put into shooting reality TV when it involves children. Time will tell if these reality TV “child stars” face the same issues as the child actors who seem prone to confusion, drug-abuse and issues with parents and their hard-earned fortunes.

What do you think?