JON & KATE - WHY DO I CARE SO MUCH?

If you’ve been living under a rock lately and haven’t heard of them, let me give you a brief synopsis.

Jon and Kate Gosselin were two kids who got married very young. By all accounts, they were crazy in love and wanted to document the wonderful feelings they had while sharing a new life together.

They filmed every event themselves with a hand held movie camera, from the boring to the sublime, narrating as they went.

“This is Kate, coming home from school” he would mention and she would run into the arms of her beloved, before the famous hairdo and the infectious smile.

“Here’s Jon looking serious” she would laugh, mocking his deadpan delivery we’ve all come to expect.

I remember feeling like that.

After several attempts at trying to become pregnant, the couple knew they needed help, and with the help of medical technology, the twins were born.

Jon was content, but Kate wanted more. Back to the magic doctor, they were surprised to learn there were six.

How were they going to pay for all this? they wondered.

Diapers, braces, toys, college?

I remember that feeling too, of desperation and fear. How will I take care of my babies?

Soon an idea began to form in their heads. America loves multiples as much as we do, and what better way to document our lives that having a camera crew move in with us and follow us all day, every day?

America did fall in love with the “eight little faces” as well as watching the give and take between a husband and a wife, clearly over their heads but still in love enough to want to make it work.

The years went by quickly and the soaring ratings made the show a cash cow for the network, as well as the Gosselins. It seemed to be a winning situation for everyone.

Except Jon, it turns out.

So what changed? Here’s the crux of the dilemma, in my mind.

What started out as a novel and ingenious idea quickly turned into a whirlwind of freebies, power surges and self indulgences the like of which not many of us have seen.

The attention paid to them and the need for more power fed into itself more and more, until no one could tell what was real and what was for the camera lens.

I remember that feeling as well. Although not in the same manner as the Gosselins, I remember what it felt like to stand out and be noticed.

Divorce has been announced, and is most likely going to change forever the lives of those eight sweet faces.

So why do I care so much about them all?

Because I remember feeling the same sadness you see in their eyes, realizing it wasn’t going to work, that as hard as one tries, things were never going to be like they were and there was no going back.

And I didn’t even have the camera lens of America watching.