by Ellen Carroll on February 20, 2009

Book Reviews, Jon and Kate Plus 8, Multiple Blessings

I can’t tell you how many times I have thought to myself (or out loud to my husband), “Why in the world did we think we needed to have kids again?”  Between two very sweet, very different boys born only 15 months apart, life can get pretty hectic at my house. There’s always someone who is hungry, tired, sick, or a combination of all three. The floor almost always needs to be vacuumed and the mirrors are constantly smudged with tiny finger prints. Laundry can get out of hand in a matter of a few hours, depending on the day. Yep, it’s a regular zoo at my house.  So what do I do to relax? I usually throw in some ear plugs and a bag of popcorn, bring a basket of laundry to the couch and flip on TLC. It’s well known to any woman that watches cable television that TLC has got some seriously entertaining programs. One of my favorites, though, is without a doubt John and Kate Plus Eight. Who doesn’t love a little novelty tv?

The funny thing about it is that all this time I’ve been watching their family grow (literally), I have spent very little time thinking about their day to day lives. Sure, I’ve wondered how in the world Kate manages to buy groceries and budget as efficiently as she does. I’ve been flabbergasted by their huge birthday parties and laughed out loud at their trips to the beach and Disney World, but I haven’t spent one moment thinking about what happens when the cameras are off.

When my mother-in-law handed told me that she had purchased Jon and Kate’s new book and promised to let me read it after she was through, I was thrilled at the chance to have some new reading material. I was anxious to see what hilarious stories they had to tell and to hear ‘behind the scenes secrets’.  The book didn’t disappoint, it was full of sweet stories and funny moments, but there was something deeper there.

It became very clear to me after reading a few chapters that this was more than just a chance to sell their story. I’ll admit that it was easy for me to imagine that a family that has their own television show can’t be wanting for anything. I think that like all other television personalities, I had put them up on some sort of pedestal and didn’t really think of them as really real people. When I read the book, it snapped me back to reality. What we see on the television is real, in a sense, but to read their own words when they describe their emotional journey puts everything into a very different light.

For the first time since I had ‘met’ the Gosselin family, I could begin to understand that they really are extraordinary people who have lived through extraordinary circumstances. The book carefully and without apology explained everything from John and Kate’s marriage and the birth of the twins through the first year of the sextuplets’ lives. At times, it was excruciating to continue reading, it was just tooreal. It was heartbreaking to read about their struggles with infertility- and their shocked disbelief at becoming pregnant with sextuplets. It was hard to read about their worries for the health of the babies and for Kate, and to read about doctors begging them to use selective reduction to decrease the number of babies to a safer, easier number. I openly wept at the loss of parents and friends and cheered when they perservered through it all. 

This book is unlike any I have ever read. It was amazing to be granted a more intimate feel for this larger than life family, but that’s not what struck me as the most different. This book wasn’t written for glory, or to further the fame of the Gosselins (althought that will inevitibly be the outcome). Instead, it was written as a very gracious thank you to the people that helped them get where they are. That very different attitude is what makes me a fan and I would strongly suggest this book for any parent, whether you have multiples or not.

I will never be able to even watch Jon and Kate Plus 8 again without thinking of what I read and will always view them in a different, less skeptical light. As cliche as this will sound, Multiple Blessings proved to be a blessing for me, reminding me to never take the most important things in life for granted- my faith and family. (And to stop whining about an extra load of laundry here and there.)

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