How will "Octuplet Mom" support her brood? You and me, baby
Filed under: Budgets, Family Money, Ripoffs and Scams, Career, Health, Fraud, Relationships
After Nadya Suleman's delivery of eight artificially-implanted children almost three weeks ago, the internet was fairly humming with questions, speculation, and thunderous statements about the 33-year-old unemployed woman and her gargantuan brood. At the center of discussion, however, was the biggest basic question: how can she hope to support these children?Last week, Walletpop's Sarah Gilbert reported that Suleman is planning to take her show on the road. She apparently opened negotiations with Oprah and Diane Sawyer, and is contemplating a career as a childcare expert. Like many other commentators, Gilbert questioned whether or not Suleman's decision to birth octuplets was based on a cold-eyed plan to cash in. This perception was further supported by the slick Suleman family website, which encourages visitors to send cash and presents.
As further details of Suleman's finances emerge, the picture becomes even darker. Prior to last month's delivery, Suleman was already receiving $490 per month in food stamps, as well as state-funded disability payments for three of her children. While Suleman apparently paid out-of-pocket for the fertility treatments that produced her octuplets, her hospital has already begun requesting reimbursement from Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program.
Given that the cost of caring for a single premature baby is over $160,000, the total bill for Suleman's eight preemies is expected to run approximately $1.3 million. This, presumably, will be covered by California's taxpayers. Further, if Suleman's previous child rearing is any indication, a hefty chunk of the funding for her kids will also come out of the social safety net.
In a Today Show interview, Suleman expressed that having babies is an obsession for her, which is part of the reason that she insisted on having six embryos implanted in her uterus. While many commentators have heaped criticism on Suleman, some have also attacked her doctor, arguing that his treatment may have violated the standard of care. As Dr. Gail Saltz, an NBC contributor and psychiatrist noted, given Suleman's emotional issues, she should have seen a therapist, not had a huge passel of children.
Overall, this raises a bunch of difficult ethical questions: to begin with, are California's taxpayers responsible for Nadya Suleman's happiness? She chose to have children that she cannot currently support, trusting in the social safety net to keep them in Pampers and pacifiers. Now that she has the children, it's worth asking if she should be allowed to cash in. Moreover, given that many of her childcare expenses will presumably be covered by state funds, should the state have a voice in determining how many children she is allowed to birth? An even more difficult question is, now that the babies are out of the bag (as it were), does the state have a right to take them away from their mother?
Speaking as someone who loves being a father, I can relate to Suleman's appreciation of parenthood. On the other hand, speaking as someone who sometimes has to scrimp to provide for his daughter, her determination to produce eight children that she cannot support enrages me. What's your take?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-13-2009 @ 8:50AM
j said...
it is extremely interesting to me that when a woman decides to have 'x' numbers of children, we are so judgemental. me have spread their seed across the planet since the beginning of time. at no point in time have we begun to make them accoutable!
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2-13-2009 @ 8:55AM
Bruce Watson said...
J-
How can you say that "at no point [...] have we begun to make [men] accountable"? How about child support? How about having paychecks docked for deadbeat dads? Also, this isn't a situation in which a man mistakenly impregnated a woman. Rather, Suleman deliberately underwent treatments to have children that she has absolutely no means of supporting. While I'm not surprised to see someone playing the gender card on this one, I have to point out that it really isn't appropriate.
2-13-2009 @ 9:08AM
j said...
men still go where they please and do what they please. there may be a small percentage being held accountable but many more are not. there are many children existing in this world with no father caring for said children, financially or otherwise. when a woman has a child, she most often can't and won't walk away. men generally walk away with ease.
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2-13-2009 @ 9:13AM
Bruce Watson said...
Again, J, we're not talking about someone making a mistake and then compounding it by failing to live up to his or her responsibilities. We're talking about a woman who spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to impregnate herself with babies that she cannot afford to support. This was a premeditated act, not a mistake, and this woman now has 14 children with no visible means of support.
Yes, some men don't live up to their responsibilities. For that matter, so do some women. However, deadbeat dads have pretty much zero relevance in this matter, and your attempt to tack all reproductive miseries to male immaturity sounds a lot like persecution.
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2-13-2009 @ 9:30AM
KW said...
It is different than a actual natural pregnancy, this is completely and totally intentional. It is not in anyway shape of form a miracle. It is a total case of stupidity and a search for publicity, which this narcissist didn't get with the first 6 so try try again. As someone who lives in the same community as the McCauley septuplets, that the use of fertility treatments to have an ridiculous amount of children. If these children were conceived naturally that is a miracle but these children are the result of pharmaceuticals. No miracle. Just medical technology and pharmaceutical intervention.
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2-13-2009 @ 1:07PM
Margo said...
I think it's disgusting and just wrong that the doctor even allowed her to do the implantation knowing that she had 6 other children at home! Plus she suffers depression, HELLO...CPS anyone!!!! There are so many families out there trying to have children and can't, and this poor, depressed, single mom now has 14! I have 5 children myself and it's expensive and tough, but I have a husband to lean on and help out. And she also has 2 semi disabilabled children at home. The state needs to step in and seriously do an evalution on her and the home to make sure it's a safe and stable home for all of those babies.
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2-13-2009 @ 12:58PM
Bas said...
This woman makes me sick to my stomach. Personally, I have always had issues with fertility treatments when there are so many children without families in the world. We tried to get pregnant the good old fashioned way for 5 years, and now are researching adoption.
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2-13-2009 @ 1:50PM
Amy said...
Is it horrible of me to think that she should be cut down to the number of children she can financially support and then have the rest given up for adoption to people who can afford and desperately want children?
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2-13-2009 @ 2:30PM
Margot said...
In response to her setting up her own donation site, I have created my own.
http://gotnobabies.blogspot.com/
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2-13-2009 @ 3:00PM
Name said...
Have Dr. Michael Kamrava pay for the kids.
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2-13-2009 @ 3:52PM
Betsy Tierce said...
I agree with Margo and commend the couple considering adoption. This mother is mental ill and not capleable of caring for herself much less any child. I have one grandson who has working parents and grandparents. We all have jobs and contribute to his education, it is expensive but necessary. How will these children ever get jobs? I expect thay will grow up and continue to live off of the society. The children should be taken from her, she should be fixed and put to work. A job is great medicine for depression.
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2-14-2009 @ 5:05PM
Crystal said...
I think people need to worry about their selfs before you start worrying about Nadya!!! The way this Economy is going alot of you may need Public aid assistance one day. I think she's a good woman & mother, just because she's a single mother doesn't mean anything. She's going to collage to better her herself, her kids are well taken care of. I could see if her kids had bruises, or lived in a run down home, or she was a crackhead, then go ahead and put her down, but she's not!!! Why don't you's talk sh*t about the Duggars that have a show on TLC, that Mom is on like #19, and doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. You's all Suck, ignorant, insensitive, hypocrites!!
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2-17-2009 @ 6:24PM
Mirr said...
I think there are two separate issues that are at stake, and what is troubling is that they are contradictory. Clearly Suleman took advantage in ways that we don't approve of, and that we do not intend to encourage or tolerate - we must set up restrictions that keep this from becoming something that happens again in the future, and people would feel a lot better if Suleman were punished somehow for her bad behavior. But on the other hand, the question of what is best for the children suggests that what we ought to do - for their sake - is help Suleman succeed.
My vision of the best possible outcome would do both. I believe it is important to keep families together unless there is violence or unless a parent rejects the child(ren), if at all possible. So I'd like to see Suleman get help - not only in raising the kids, but I also think she maybe needs emotional support and help.
At the same time, I don't want to encourage the sense that she "got away with it". It's always bad for society when people are allowed to get away with bad behavior, and I don't think anyone doubts that Suleman behaved badly.
It's just that I don't like seeing people talking about breaking up families or harming children as a means of moral judgement.
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2-17-2009 @ 6:39PM
Bruce Watson said...
Mirr-
I think you've done a great job of parsing the moral dilemma here. Like you, I don't like the idea of the government breaking up families; on the other hand, I have to wonder if Suleman's children are really receiving the kind of care that they need. I recently read an article in the Daily Mail that paints a nightmarish picture of life in the Suleman household:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1145203/An-utterly-selfish-mother-Theres-father-house-pig-sty-lives-welfare-ALREADY-children.html
The other side of this is that Suleman, like so many other people, seems to have figured out a way to game the system. In my neighborhood, there are many young women who genuinely believe that having children is a job; in their view, child support and welfare payments are the wages. Ultimately, of course, Suleman is only a symptom of this problem, but she's definitely given a glimpse into the extent to which it costs taxpayers.
In the end, I wish that I could come up with a definitive conclusion here. In the end, though, I have to ask if Suleman's children are best served by their current circumstances. If they aren't, then I feel like society needs to take a deep breath and do its job, no matter how painful that may be.
2-19-2009 @ 2:03PM
Shannon said...
Whatever her motivations are, she already has the children, she better take good care of them by hook or by crook. They can't subsist on welfare forever. Whatever she gets from the taxpayers, it's not illegal but she better think up something fast. I believe in the saying that sin begets sin. If she did the whole octuplet thing just to milk the system, most probably she will continually make wrong decisions in the future which will be her undoing.
http://instantamber.com/news
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2-22-2009 @ 3:35PM
Kris said...
I feel it is very selfish of this woman to give birth to 14 children knowing that she does not have the financial resources to provide for them. Her own admittance she is not concerned with cash. She is relying on people helping her. So far the federal and state governments have helped her. She has collected over $165,000 in disability payments from 2002 - 2008, which helped to fund her in vitro fertilization. The Worker's Compensation Appeals Board needs to investigate this woman and determine if her claims from 2002- 2008 are legitimate. If she was in such pain that she could not work and drew on worker's compensation how can she give birth to 6 children and pregnant with another 8? 14 children take a toll on your body mentally and physically. I will agree she needs counseling and I would not trust my child in her care if she is willing to bring 14 children into the world without being able to financially care for them without the help of the government.
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3-16-2009 @ 5:57PM
Barbara said...
I think the woman is unstable and completely incapable of being a mother. She is selfish, deceitful, a leech. She has no visible means of support nor any incentive to work.
Who do you think is going to foot the hospital bill? Pay the rent on her new digs? Buy food and clothing for 14 children? You and me, people.
I can understand some celebrity's latching on to this womans questionable star.....looking for facetime. However, Dr. Phil, whom I admire, is spending entirely too much time trying to make this idiot palatable. She comes across as someone in a coma. The fact is, she's not mother material.
IMHO, her parental rights need to be terminated, the children put up for adoption and placed in good homes with parents who have their heads on straight and can take care of them.
She can't.
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4-07-2009 @ 3:30PM
as the crow flies.. said...
Quite a bit of hatred being spoken forth about this woman and her innocent children. The facts are these...she had 6 children already and had 8 embryos implanted with the hopes that a few would survive. Statisics show that nearly half of all embryos do NOT survive. This womans all survived. These kids are HERE and they are real live people with hopes and dreams and they are all precious and unique. Now, you all say that you have a problem with YOUR tax $ going to support this womans innocent children but you never once question how much it will cost to keep a child molester, murderer, or rapist, in prison for the rest of their lives, or why our government sees fit to give millions of dollars in TAXPAYER $$ to study how cow farts affect our environment? What is wrong with this picture? I think there should be laws put in place to prevent the implantation of so many embryos at one time and all who choose to go this route to have children should show proof of financial stability.
However, these people are here and they are very real and I think we should chalk this one up to "lesson learned" and move forward in a positive way to ensure that this never happens again. I also believe that this woman is entitled to keep these children as long as she cares for them adequately with the money that she is given by generous taxpayers.
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