Keep the kids clean or have fun?

[snoopy5386]

I think it is just how some people are. I am a let them get dirty, sensory experiences are part of learning, they are only young once kind of mom. We have painting clothes that we wear when we are painting, but otherwise if DD gets dirty she gets dirty. DH is the total opposite and he makes me cringe frequently. He is very much like Kate, he just CANNOT handle messes. Messes while eating, while playing, etc. He flips when our 2 yo spills or drops food at the dinner table. He is always wiping her face too. I am just like let it go, you are going to give her a complex. I had him watch her one time while she was painting with watercolors and he was flipping out over the mess. If it were up to him DD would never paint. It is just how he is.
And I sympathize with her on the laundry thing too. I have 1 DD and I HATE keeping up with stain removal. Why oh why do people buy 2 year olds white shirts??? I almost always have to wash a stained shirt more than once to get the stains out, sometimes 2, 3, or 4 times. It is a PITA keeping track of these stained clothes in the wash, remembering to pull them out of the washer and see if they are still stained to treat them again, etc, etc. I can't imagine doing it with 8.

 

[Disney1976]

I haven't read all the replies, so forgive if this has been said. But, I wonder if some of these "trips" or things in the show are set up to create a story? I know someone who is a producer on "Hogans Know Best" (is that show still on, with the son in jail and them getting divorced?) and they told me that many, many times, the crew would arrive and the family wasn't doing anything interesting, so they would talk to them and "create" a story for the show. She said it was largely faked. Surely, people working on the show know that Kate is a neat freak and a little high strung, so why not do an episode where she hires a maid, or takes the kids to a Crayola factory? It makes for good discussion, as you can see.

Oh, and I think Jon's a saint. And I thought my ex-wife was bad! Sheesh!

 

[1stluvispooh]

I can totally get why Kate is the way she is. I mean her kids are being plastered on national television and she wants them to look cute, but when they are going to a place like the Crayola factory and they get play she really needs to ease up on them. And for her to act like a lunatic running around feeding each and everyone of them ice cream while at WDW was out of control. Take a pill women!!!

Ok, Kate!! We get it your kids are really cute and wear really cute clothes that all match great!! Now let them have some fun for heaven's sake!!!!

I think some of the cutest pictures of my kids are when they are covered with a mess from head to toe

 

[disneyworldmomma]

I love the show, but I saw the Crayola episode and then one where she wouldn't let them eat cupcakes for their birthday at the bakery and then I saw the Disney clip about the ice cream and I was really annoyed with her.

Part of being a parent is not letting your neuroses (sp?) effect your children! Let them be kids and get messy. One of my favorite pictures is of my daughter eating ribs (she even had sauce between her toes!).

Skin washes very well and it is rare that I can't get a stain out. I agree with the OP about using Biz -- that is my go to product. I always have a "Biz bucket" (Biz and water) and anything that gets stained gets dropped in until laundry time. I also like Zout. And baby wipes are great on stains!

My other tip is I put my kids in white! People call me crazy, but I just bleach it and everything comes out! It's harder to do that with colors.

If Kate did not want her kids to get dirty, why take them to Crayola or a bakery to decorate cakes. Or even buy them ice cream which melts in 10 seconds in the hot Florida sun! Don't put them in a situation and then require them not to participate!

This has been bugging me and now I am glad I got that off my chest. Thanks for the thread OP!

I whole heartedly agree she is way to high strung and i can't stand the way she acts about moms who don't have 8 kids!!! She always says things like how easy it is to take care of 2 or 3 kids It so condisending like i'm not as good a mom just because i have ONLY 3 KIDS or because i'll let the dishes sit in the sink while i paint on the deck with my kids!!! ugh!!! THE MAGIC KINGDOM EPISODE MADE ME STOP WATCHING I WAS SO ANNOYED!!
Having fun and getting dirty is part of the joy of being a kid (THEY DIDN'T ASK TO BE SIXTUPLETS!!)

SORRY but this has bothered me for a while now i feel better

 

[disneyworldmomma]

I saw this episode. Ok, first of all...yes, I can see her point. However, dear dear sweet Kate is a serious micromanager. AND she had helpers. AND the disney CM to help with all the kids. She was not dealing with all these kids alone with their ice cream with a clueless hubby. For goodness sake Kate..your kids are lucky enough to be in the garden getting undivided attention from the characters because you have a television show. You have all of your crew with you that has been helping you with the kids on the trip (they said it in the show). Let them get ice cream on their shirts! LOL After all, Jon would have allowed it!

Julie, who would be in an insane assylum right now with 8 kids.

I total agree here too!! everyone forgets that shes not even the one who does the laundry she had a neighbor who comes every week to do it!!!!

 

[MrsJ Henry]

I total agree here too!! everyone forgets that shes not even the one who does the laundry she had a neighbor who comes every week to do it!!!!

She does the laundry. Her neighbor folds it and puts it away

 

[happymickey464]

She does the laundry. Her neighbor folds it and puts it away

I don't mind doing laundry,it's the folding and putting it away part I hate.

 

[delmar411]

She does the laundry. Her neighbor folds it and puts it away

She does nothing. Just a tidbit her fans should know. The show pays for a multitude of hired help straight down to a personal chef for the family.

 

[imthatgirl]

i think the show would be better if it showed real life with sextuplets, not the life they lead. like others have pointed out,she gets a multitude of help, which greatly takes away from the reality of it.
but i should also add that i am biased i have a personal problem with parents who sell their children to make their own pockets fatter.

 

[racetrack18kb]

Kate drives me insane sometimes too. I understand that she has to wash a tremendous amount of laundry and I'm sure that's is a real pain if there are clothes with tons on stains on them. But they are kids. They get dirty and messy. They wipe their hands on their shirts sometimes. At least mine do, among other things. Why not get the kids a set or two of messy clothes and if they get stained, so what. Maybe she could relax a little if she just set aside those 2 sets of clothes and accepted that they will get stained.

As for the original question....obviously, let them get messy. I have 4 kids and each has quite a few outfits for special occasions for when they need to look nice. Otherwise, it's all play clothes. Lot's of play clothes. I don't care how dirty they get. I'm not going to stress over every stain they get because I know they will just get them messy again.

 

[vcgirl925]

She does nothing. Just a tidbit her fans should know. The show pays for a multitude of hired help straight down to a personal chef for the family.

Really? How do you know?

 

[princessCKL]

I have caught up on a lot of the shows this summer. The first show I watched was the Disney episode. It seems to me, that there are many inconsistencies in the show. Perhaps she has just changed a lot over the past few years. For example, she makes such a huge deal about organic food and yet in the episode where they shop at a warehouse type place, you can clearly see cases of Poptarts being bought.

 

[RMulieri]

Really? How do you know?

Because alot of us personally Know her and her family. Several of us were volunteers when the sextuplets came home.To say she does nothing is not really fair.But she does not do as much as the TV show lends itself to believe.just a little Tidbit, Jon and Kate plus 8 is not REALITY.It is unscripted Tv, a big difference.Alot is edited and set up.

 

[labdogs42]

Because alot of us personally Know her and her family. Several of us were volunteers when the sextuplets came home.To say she does nothing is not really fair.But she does not do as much as the TV show lends itself to believe.just a little Tidbit, Jon and Kate plus 8 is not REALITY.It is unscripted Tv, a big difference.Alot is edited and set up.

Interesting! I actually think that is kind of great. I don't know how I would afford eight kids, so I think I would probably be looking for a TV deal, too, if I had sextuplets! It is essentially Kate's career to do the show. Sure, the kids are kind of child stars at the same time, but at least they all get to work from home! And they do get to do a lot of cool stuff as a benefit for the show (e.g. Disney, Dutch Wonderland, Park City skiing, free piano...). I didn't know about the personal chef, etc. I could use one of those!

 

[disneynewbee]

I have 4 girls and in my house there is a general rule. You have to look nice and clean and presentable for the first half hour of an outing or party (first impressions are everything LOL) then you can go for it. By time we leave a party their ponytails are half out, their hair is covered in some type of food which is also all down the front of their shirt, and most of the time the little one is no longer even wearing a shirt. I do see how with 8 kids it could be hard for her, one little bucket of stained clothes has me in the laundry room for what seems like forever using the stain remover. I do put my kids in my least favorite or dark colored outfits when going somewhere where I anticipate a huge mess.

 

[imthatgirl]

I have caught up on a lot of the shows this summer. The first show I watched was the Disney episode. It seems to me, that there are many inconsistencies in the show. Perhaps she has just changed a lot over the past few years. For example, she makes such a huge deal about organic food and yet in the episode where they shop at a warehouse type place, you can clearly see cases of Poptarts being bought.

or how about the episode she even talks about how they only eat organic, yet there is a macdonalds cup in the background?

 

[TheRatPack]

Well, we have 5 children and we are a bit overly clean too. I hate to say this, but a lot of it comes from other people and their perceptions of large families in our area. We don't want to be that family that looks as if their kids aren't bathed, dirty fingernails, chocolate icecream down the front of their shirt....etc. I dress my children in nice clothing when we go out, and I like to keep them looking nice.

I used to be more 'who cares' when I only had 2. We'd paint on the front porch, paint our feet and hands and walk across some art paper, I didn't carry a stain stick/Tide Pen and sometimes we'd head to town and still have a bit of paint or sand/dirt on us LOL But then when we adopted 3 at once, things became more structured and with that came less mess, more planned chaos LOL

When we go to Disney, we wear matching shirts....and so again, we try to keep the stains at a minimum during the day. While I think that Kate is a bit over the top, I can see her madness in some of my own ways....I can't imagine having that many children and all the same age, I think she does a great job with them.....and soon enough they'll all be in Pre-school and make messes all day so let her control things while she can

 

[TheRatPack]

If someone sees my kids with said popsicle stain on their shirts and thinks they look like "trash", well, that's their issue, not mine. When I see a young child with a stain on their shirt, I think, oh, someone had a good time. I do not think, oh, their mother clearly neglects them.

That's great that you can think that when you see a child that has a stain/mess on them...but larger families usually get the opposite from most people. They jump to "wow, they had too many kids and look at what a mess they all are". We have 3 adopted children, and so we had CPS/DFCS in our faces for a bit over a year (we adopted from foster care)....so again, we were very scared of just letting them run wild and get messy. We read in their case files how the social workers would show up at their previous home and note every single little thing (cheerio on the floor, no shoes on outside, half eaten pancake on the counter top, last nights supper dishes in the sink).....so again, we try to keep clean and organized as much as we can with 5 kids because outside perceptions became part of our concern when we adopted and so now we organize our messes/chaos LOL as much as we can.

 

[james'mommy]

She does the laundry. Her neighbor folds it and puts it away

Putting clothes in the washer and then moving it to the dryer is not doing laundry.

 

[delmar411]

Well, we have 5 children and we are a bit overly clean too. I hate to say this, but a lot of it comes from other people and their perceptions of large families in our area. We don't want to be that family that looks as if their kids aren't bathed, dirty fingernails, chocolate icecream down the front of their shirt....etc. I dress my children in nice clothing when we go out, and I like to keep them looking nice.

I used to be more 'who cares' when I only had 2. We'd paint on the front porch, paint our feet and hands and walk across some art paper, I didn't carry a stain stick/Tide Pen and sometimes we'd head to town and still have a bit of paint or sand/dirt on us LOL But then when we adopted 3 at once, things became more structured and with that came less mess, more planned chaos LOL

When we go to Disney, we wear matching shirts....and so again, we try to keep the stains at a minimum during the day. While I think that Kate is a bit over the top, I can see her madness in some of my own ways....I can't imagine having that many children and all the same age, I think she does a great job with them.....and soon enough they'll all be in Pre-school and make messes all day so let her control things while she can

I'd be willing to bet that if a camera crew followed you and your family around, it wouldn't appear as if you don't even like children. I could probably look the other way with a lot of Kate's behaviors but the fact that she simply radiates dislike for children/the messes children come with and shows little to no 'mommy' caring behaviors towards them that really made me stop watching. Several of the first episodes that I saw really made me upset at her treatment of the children. The blocking them into their rooms for 'naps' and when they venture out after they are done, if it isn't the time that she "allows" they are punished by being forced to spend and extra 20mins alone in their room after everyone else is allowed up. That's not discipline in my book, it's just plain mean and spiteful.

And then the one where one of the babies has a blow out in their crib and Kate is left to deal with it. It really appeared that if the cameras hadn't been there that she might have called someone else to come in and deal with it. I hope she was ashamed of herself when she saw that episode.

Sorry for the venting. I didn't mean for it to turn into one. Obviously the whole thing riles me up and I truly just feel so badly for all the kids, esp the twins.