A Reality Show Train Wreck

It's like a train wreck, and I'm ashamed to admit that I gaped right along with everyone else in the country.

In Doylestown, PA on Monday, Kate Gosselin filed preliminary paperwork to end her ten-year marriage to husband Jon Gosselin, father of her eight children and her co-star, along with the kids, in TLC's reality show disaster Jon and Kate Plus Eight. 

Now in its fifth season, the show chronicles life with two sets of multiples--a pair of eight-year-old twin girls and a set of sextuplets.  Unfortunately, it's has also chronicled the complete meltdown and destruction of the marriage of the kids' parents.

I'm sorry to admit that I watched the program last Monday night, sucked in by the "announcement" promised by the network concerning the Gosselin's marriage.  I watched and all I could do was scream at my television.

I screamed at TLC for exploiting this sad, sorry situation.  I screamed at Jon Gosselin for his recent destructive behavior and for announcing that he was "proud" of himself for finally standing up to wife Kate and jumping ship.  I screamed at Kate for her single-minded determination to pursue television stardom and her assertion that the invasive program had nothing to do with the dissolution of her marriage. 

But I found myself most frustrated with the couple jointly as they appeared to careen with ever increasing speed towards the implosion of their marriage and consequently, their life as a family.

Life with kids is hard.  I can only imagine what the pressures of living that life knowing your every move is being recorded adds to a marriage.  But divorce isn't a segment on a reality show.  It's a painful, life-altering event that will forever change not only the spouses, but irrevocably, the children.

Over the past several years, the Gosselin's lives have been reduced to snipets edited for our viewing pleasure.  Now, it seems like they're living their lives in sound bites.  Okay, we're not getting along--quite obvious since the end of season four.  Maybe it's time to get a divorce.  Hey, if we hurry, we might be able to promote it as the finale of season five.  Get that lawyer on the phone!

I know that's not fair.  I know these people have very real pain and very real issues.  But I just want to tell them to SLOW DOWN!  The progress and passage of life's important events shouldn't take on the feel of a television production schedule.

Jon and Kate, you have EIGHT CHILDREN!  Doesn't their future merit a bit more contemplation than the whirlwind separation and now divorce you are now pursuing? 

Stop filming the show.  Take a year off and for god's sake, find a good marriage counselor.  Figure out some type of compromise that will allow you both to breathe and will allow your kids to have two parents whose first priority is the family and yes, the marriage.  (I'm sure TLC will wait.  You're a cash cow for them.  They'll negotiate.)

Maybe it won't work out anyway.  Maybe your relationship is doomed.  But maybe, just maybe, if you slow down, take a step back and, I don't know, play your wedding video a few hundred times, something will stir in your collective memories about why you got together in the first place.

Yes, I screamed at my television last Monday night.  But when I saw those kids, I also cried.  And if things in this family continue along the current path, the ones really crying will be them.  Jon and Kate, that's just wrong.

This is an original post to Philly Moms Blog.  Mary Fran Bontempo also writes at www.maryfranbontempo.com and at Esspresso, Latte, Mocha.