Kerry, though married heterosexuals without children seem to have caused much Canadian ire, octomom Nadya Suleman, back in the press because of a documentary about her that aired last night, inspires even more furious levels of vitriol. But in Suleman's case, the vitriol seems at least somewhat warranted. According to Ginia Bellafante's write-up of Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage in the New York Times:

Throughout, Ms. Suleman—who allowed Radar’s cameras into the birthing room, trademarked the name Octomom and plans to appear in a reality show—idiotically aims to convince us that she loves her privacy and wishes the paparazzi would go away, proclaiming at one point: “I’m just a mother!”

Indeed, at this point it's not Ms. Suleman's fertility decisions that rankle, it's her hypocritical fame-seeking. Broadsheet's Mary Elizabeth Williams thinks that Bellafante's write-up was unnecessarily bitchy, and scolds Suleman's critics for being overly, well, critical: "Only her children will ever be able to truly judge Suleman's performance as a mother. But as an observer of human behavior and psychological projection, I'd say she does a hell of a better job than a whole lot of her critics."

Veterans of the mommy wars can all agree that the minutia of the average woman's mothering choices shouldn't be subject to endless public picking over. But Suleman continues to dangle herself and her entire family in front of the country like judgment catnip. During the documentary, Suleman giggled about how she once locked her mother in a car trunk, for god's sake! If Saint Mary Elizabeth can refrain from having critical thoughts about Suleman after that admission, then she's a better woman than I am.

Tags: documentary, nadya suleman, Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage

Jess, I am hyper-susceptible to Octo-empathy right now, having just returned from a long overseas trip with just two squirmy boys who often behaved and sounded like at least eight. The part of me that can’t believe the quantity of potty talk a 4-year-old can generate on a transatlantic flight almost weeps for the Nadya Suleman whose 2-year-old called her “bitch” when she attempted to discipline him in the documentary. Mary Elizabeth Williams is right about one thing: Parenting ain’t easy and had the cameras been trained on me during hour seven of the flight last week, the New York Times would be pouring out their parenting wrath at me as well.

But the reason I find Suleman unwatchable actually has less to do with her parenting (or even her freaky dislocation from human reality) than her weird contempt for everyone around her. In the documentary, she excoriates her mother—the woman who cared for her kids as she was delivering more. She derides the same paparazzi she has invited into her life and her delivery room. She somehow finds time to slam poor Kate Gosselin—whom she creamed in the ratings wars last night—even though both she and Gosselin are more or less the same person with different bangs. She even talks a stream of trash about herself. In the end, the only thing sadder than watching the whole world judging Nadya and finding her wanting is the spectacle of her own judgment that everyone and everything has let her down.

Tags: documentary, nadya suleman, Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage

So, the Octomom is giving out parenting advice. (And banal advice at that. You’d think after 14 kids you could come up with something more insightful than “good manners, good role models and a good education.”) Doing something to excess doesn’t automatically translate into doing it well. What’s next? Dating advice from Tiger Woods?