Octomom Vs. Octograndma: Nadya Suleman Lashes Out At Her Own Mother In Interview

Just when you thought this could not get any crazier, it gets crazier.  I happened to catch a few minutes of this interview this morning on the Today Show, and let me tell you...this is not what you want to be watching when you first roll out of bed in the morning feeling like twenty miles of bad road.  This woman's voice could peel off your fingernails. Basically, the tensions that have been simmering for a long time now have boiled over, with Angela Suleman ripping into her daughter for even having in vitro to start with:

Now, in a RadarOnline.com world exclusive Nadya and Angela face-off on camera for the first time - and fireworks erupt! Angela denounces her daughter's decision to have the in-vitro procedure that led to the octuplets and Nadya loses her cool and lashes out at her mother on this exclusive video. "I will never understand," Angela tells her daughter about Nadya's decision to have in vitro. "You should have considered your other six children." "You can't go back and alter the past. Done, done, done," an agitated Nadya tells her mom. When the discussion turns toward adoption sparks fly and Angela gets an intense reaction from Octo-mom when she says her reaction to seeing the octuplets for the first time was: "I felt sorry for them."

Okay, I watched this video (again, taking one for the team) and the impression I came away with was that Nadya is a very intelligent woman who has obviously had some education; but she comes across as selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, in her own world, and extremely annoying.  Personally, I don't know how grandma kept from just slapping her right across her puffy, injected mouth.  How this woman could speak that way to her mother, who has been taking care of the other grandchildren and who has already lost one house and is ready to lose another because of Nadya, is beyond me. So just what is going on in that family?  Nadya is in Nadyaland, grandma is stressed out, and grandpa has finally broken his silence (to Oprah of all people):

Her own father questions her sanity. Her mother thinks she has no grasp of reality. Her home is besieged day and night by an army of paparazzi. The home in which she lives is in the process of foreclosure. And Nadya Suleman, California’s notorious “Octomom,” navigates calmly through life, apparently uncomprehending of the chaos around her and the enormous difficulty of raising 14 kids. Chris Myers, senior executive editor of RadarOnline.com, described what it’s like in Suleman’s home Tuesday to TODAY’s Meredith Vieira. “Inside the home, there’s this vacuum,” he said. “She walks in and six kids cling to her legs: ‘Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!’ There’s all this love. She’s totally focused on these kids ... The house is kind of like a day care for kids. It’s kind of like a controlled chaos.” [...] Meanwhile, Suleman’s father, Ed Doud, finally spoke out about his daughter’s situation with Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday. In excerpts from the taped episode of “Oprah” that aired on TODAY, Doud called his 33-year-old daughter “absolutely irresponsible.” He also said, “You know, she needs help. I say to everybody now, ‘People, we do need help.’ Do not punish my daughter for what she has done and do not punish the babies, because they were given by God.”

A few days ago, I wrote a long article basically saying that the sins of the mother should not affect the children...that the Suleman children, all fourteen of them, do not deserve to suffer because of how their mother is acting.  And I still stand by that article, every word.  In fact, I'm more convinced than ever that the children need help, because this woman is clearly incapable of understanding that there is no way that she will be able to raise fourteen children on a counselor's salary (which will probably be about $60,000 a year) and that she never should have popped out fourteen babies using IVF while receiving food stamps to start with. I had a thought that maybe having someone competent step in and temporarily place those children in foster homes or some central location away from Nadya and her special brand of crazy might be the best thing that could happen right now.  That way, the children can receive counseling, mom can get the mental help she so obviously needs, and the whole family can get family counseling.  The adults can get some financial counseling, they can set up visiting nurse and child care assistance, there can be an outside trustee to handle any donations given to the children, and then IF things work out then GRADUALLY bring the family back together.  Right now, this isn't a family, it's a mess.  And it has been announced that help has been offered to the family, but they have yet to take the offer:

Help has been offered. Linda West Conforti, a registered nurse who founded Angels in Waiting, a group offering to help care for the Suleman children, appeared on TODAY to repeat an offer of a house for Suleman and her 14 children and around-the-clock professional care worth $130,000 a month. Conforti and her attorney, Gloria Allred, told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira that Suleman has not responded to the offer. Angels in Waiting has given Suleman until Thursday to respond to the offer. Allred said it was necessary to set a deadline because several of the octuplets are expected to be released from the hospital within the next two or three weeks, and substantial lead time is needed to set up a home for the family and draw up a plan to care for all the children. [...] Allred, a celebrity attorney, had filed a petition with California’s child protection services to have the octuplets taken into state care. After she announced her action, Conforti called Allred to offer to join forces to set up a home for the family. “Angels in Waiting will give these eight babies the best possible chance they have for growth, for brain development, for integrating sensory disorders, the whole bit,” Conforti told Vieira. Conforti and Allred said their offer is the only way to save the taxpayers from having to pay for the care of the children and perhaps the only way to keep the family together. Suleman had been receiving disability payments for an injury suffered while she worked at a state psychiatric hospital. The payments have ended, and she is unemployed. She has denied taking welfare, but she does receive nearly $500 a month in food stamps and another $1,800 in Supplemental Security Income for three of her children who have various disabilities. One of her six children at home is autistic.

Usually, I can't stand Gloria Allred.  She's like a vulture, swooping down and grabbing her fifteen minutes where she was never asked to butt in just so she can get some screen time...but in this case, I think she has a point.  It might work, it might not, but something needs to be done. So you know, I'm not against big families.  My mom came from a big family.  But she also came from an era when things were different than they are now...plus the kids were spread out over a twentysome-year time frame.  There were not eight kids the same age at the same time.  When the younger ones were little, there were older ones to help out; some of them were even adults with children of their own.  Oh yeah, and there was a husband.  With a job. I love babies and I love children.  I have two kids of my own.  But I'll say the same thing about having children as I have in the past about having pets...do not have more than you can reasonably take care of and afford.  That why I only have two kids.  And two cats.  Done. I'll let Nadya's daughter Amerah, clearly more mature than her mother, have the last word:

Amerah is a self contained six-year-old, clearly a bit concerned about the eight siblings headed her way. Question: Do you think it'll be fun to have a lot of brothers and sisters like that? Amerah: No. Question: Why not? Amerah: ‘Cause there's gonna be a lot of crying. Question: Do you think your mom's gonna be okay with all those kids all the time? Amerah: she's gonna be stressed out all the time.

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