So the Jon and Kate plus Eight season premiere is in a few hours, and already the news is in: Jon is having an affair. With Elmo. It's sure to be a very special episode. Bring the kids.
OK, so maybe not Elmo, per se, but someone. And Kate, too, apparently. On top of the affairs, there's paparazzi, nosy neighbors, drive-bys and people who literally stop at their house to walk up to the porch and peer into their windows, hoping, I suppose, to see Jon hunched in the corner, crying himself to sleep.
Why?
Not why as in why do these crazy gawkers do this? But why do Jon and Kate continue to let them? I'll get back to that in a moment.
It does, indeed, promise to be a very ... odd episode, as the couple tries to come to grips with all these rumors and accusations -- all while watched and critiqued by millions. I read an interesting inteview Karl posted over at FameCrawler the other day, and between the lines it seemed pretty clear that it sucks for the family to deal with this ... and yet, there's so much money involved, so much possibility. Eight kids cannot be easy to raise, financially speaking, and this show and media frenzy just seems to be, in their eyes, what they have to do to make their future work.
But what impact will this have on the kids in years to come? What impact is it having now?
It makes me wonder: If you had eight kids and the possibility of having everything they could ever want paid for (important things like college and hamsters, I mean), would you continue to put them through this very public ordeal?
