"John & Kate + 8" (TLC)

[papooses]

I TiVo'd this show the other day & am just getting around to watching it. Wow! Mom is an ex-nurse, now a SAHM, she was only pregnant twice: they have 2 six year olds + 6 two year olds :eek: :love: They're great, a perfect team :) Even better: they have a Sprinter van, highback Turbos for the big kids & 5 point harnesses for the little kids :thumbsup: Each parent takes care of 2 little kids & each big kid takes care of 1 little kid when they're in public :whistle: Of all the large family shows, this was actually a REALLY GOOD one :twocents:

[Loves2sing]

I love watching those shows! They always come across as such caring and stable families. I don't know how that is even possible with that many kids, I feel like pulling my hair out 1000 times a day with one kid!! Good for them though actually restraining their kids properly. Think of how expensive their family must be, yet they still see the NEED to buy proper carseats!! YAY!

[rlsadc]

Arent they a great team? And they dont even pretend to be perfect... I like it alot. :thumbsup:

[cpsaddict]

I watched the first show with this family, Surviving Twins and Sextuplets. Then they had the babies in Comfortsports. The only bad thing was the big coats, but they were all relatively tight. I didn't notice the what the older two were in.

In that one, they took them all to a buffet type place for dinner. :eek: I was impressed with how they did it.

This family is definately one of my faves!

[Loves2sing]

My favorite was 16 kids and one on the way~ or something of that nature

[rlsadc]

My favorite was 16 kids and one on the way~ or something of that nature

yea that family was soooo big, and everyone got along. a true brady bunch. they were building their own house, and mom even homeschooled.

[thepeach80]

Yeah, but they have terrible crs habits. :( In John and Kate's first show, I thought I saw the girls in harnessed seat still. I didn't see anything in the show that made me want to scream, besides they could've kept the 6 of them rfing longer than they probably did.

[Loves2sing]

The thing that does bother me about these shows is that they make me feel like I am a failure at mothering and being a wife, cause they are just soooo perfect!

[thepeach80]

The thing that does bother me about these shows is that they make me feel like I am a failure at mothering and being a wife, cause they are just soooo perfect!

Lol! I can't even handle 3 as well as they handle 8!

[Loves2sing]

I know, but I only have one, and I have a husband who likes to clean and does his share of the laundry! I am a total failure:crying: Just kidding, you know that as soon as the cameras are turned off they are probably going to be headed for divorce court! (But I hope not!)

[papooses]

Yeah, the little ones could probably be RF still & the bigger kids could be harnessed, but at least they're *in* seats & at least they're not expired, OHS, etc. Plus, the Sprinter is way better than the average large van :) I usually can't watch these kind of shows because the carseat issue is so horrible :o

[rlsadc]

The thing that does bother me about these shows is that they make me feel like I am a failure at mothering and being a wife, cause they are just soooo perfect!

lol, jsut because you feel like you couldnt handle 16 kiddos does not make you less than...

i have a hard time with aleah and dh is great with housework

[Laurette]

I LOVE THAT SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hillarious!

[Patriot201]

I TiVo'd this show the other day & am just getting around to watching it. Wow! Mom is an ex-nurse, now a SAHM, she was only pregnant twice: they have 2 six year olds + 6 two year olds :eek: :love: They're great, a perfect team :) Even better: they have a Sprinter van, highback Turbos for the big kids & 5 point harnesses for the little kids :thumbsup: Each parent takes care of 2 little kids & each big kid takes care of 1 little kid when they're in public :whistle: Of all the large family shows, this was actually a REALLY GOOD one :twocents:

I love those people. They have been on Discovery Health multiple times now, starting with when the sextuplets were still VERY young (they are such OLD two-year-olds now! :p ). Both Jon and Kate are very "real," down-to-earth people. :) :)

[cpsaddict]

OMG, the 16 kids one has HORRIFIC car seat use. Everytime they have a new baby, it has to ride in an expired and recalled Evenflo Joyride. In one of the first ones, when there were "just" 14 kids, they had Fisher Price t-shields, you know the "Felony Fisher Price". Then, later they had a variety of Eddie Bauer/Cosco HBB and Century Breverras. The straps were all horribly twisted and loose.

Don't get me started on them "converting" their motorhome to seat more! :thumbsdown:

[arly1983]

OMG, the 16 kids one has HORRIFIC car seat use. Everytime they have a new baby, it has to ride in an expired and recalled Evenflo Joyride. In one of the first ones, when there were "just" 14 kids, they had Fisher Price t-shields, you know the "Felony Fisher Price". Then, later they had a variety of Eddie Bauer/Cosco HBB and Century Breverras. The straps were all horribly twisted and loose.

Don't get me started on them "converting" their motorhome to seat more! :thumbsdown:

AMEN! I was cringing all through that episode.

Compared to them, John & Kate are doing a wonderful job with carseats:thumbsup:

[Starlight]

In the 1st episode, the surviving one, the twins were in harnessed AO's, and the babies had a combination - some in Snugrides, IIRC, and some in triumphs. Much better carseat usage.

[cmm7]

I love this family, too! They are very real!

And, they are a lot better with car seats than some of the other families on t.v. I believe I saw on their old website (new one is harder for me to navigate...) that CarSeatPoncho donated ponchos to them?

[Patriot201]

In the 1st episode, the surviving one, the twins were in harnessed AO's, and the babies had a combination - some in Snugrides, IIRC, and some in triumphs. Much better carseat usage.

I think that the sextuplets were in Snugrides (with the blue and white check cover-- I am blanking on the name of that cover) and ComfortSports, not Triumphs. Not that it really matters, of course... :):p :p

[Melizerd]

They were on the Dr. Phil show. They are getting a nanny or two and 3,000 bucks worth of Fisher Price toys so the kids can have some of their own toys and not have to share EVERYTHING. They were so sweet.

I couldn't believe how big her belly was either. She said it grew so fast she was sunburned and had to put vaseline on it and wrap it in saran wrap.

[Melizerd]

My favorite was 16 kids and one on the way~ or something of that nature

That's the Duggars in Arkansas.

[cpsaddict]

I think that the sextuplets were in Snugrides (with the blue and white check cover-- I am blanking on the name of that cover) and ComfortSports, not Triumphs. Not that it really matters, of course... :):p :p

This is funny that I know this, but I think it was the Colby cover.:whistle:

[broken4u05]

all i can say is i love this family. As many of you know i am the nanny to twins and i do not find them hard to take care of but like today we had a playdate with another set of twins their age so there was 4 17 month olds and that was harder. Now add 2 more and than twins.. I do not know how she does it. Triplets are the most i think i could do if that.
O and another show they were putting the kids carseats in the limo to go to a show. i am glad they cared some people would just say it is a limo noone buckles in.

[Susan in MI]

My favorite was 16 kids and one on the way~ or something of that nature


There are things I like about the Duggers, but I'm certain there is a lot about them that people don't know. I also cringe at their carseat usage, ugh! I've heard that with big families like this, one or two at a time, not huge multiples, it gets easier after 5 or so. In part because the older kids are able to help.

It does seem that often these very large families have terrible car safety. There was a family last year that was in an accident in FL (I think) where several family memebers were ejected. Their new baby was killed. I don't know about their car seat use, but if so many were ejected, they could not have been restrained properly. Sad.

I do love Jon and Kate too! They seem to let us see their bad sides too and I like that. No one is perfect, if you are going to put yourselves on TV you might as well show the real you. The last thing I would want is to be on TV! When I was a kid and people would say "I want to be rich and famous." I'd say, "Not famous, but I'll take rich." I like my privacy.

[Loves2sing]

I noticed the Dugger's car seat usage, and was not impressed too, but I was impressed by how well behaved their children were. I don't know how many of you have ever built a house, but let me tell you, it is VERY stressful, and I was amazed by how well they handled it, especially being under such a crappy time crunch! I also never wanted to be famous. I always wanted to be a professional singer, but I didn't want the fame. I did want the riches though!!:p

[ThreeBeans]

I cannot abide the Duggars. I think they are absolutely horrible parents.

[arly1983]

I really connected to Kate and John, they just seemed very real!

I loved watching them try to take a picture with all the kids at the christmas tree farm!

[CPS_obsessed_EMT]

I think we need to be careful about the things we are saying about these families... You have to remember that they are actual people in real life, who could possibly be reading on this site. Sounds far out there that they would actually read THIS board, because we feel so exclusive here. But you have to remember, only a tiny percentage of the people who read here actually post.
So I really think that we need to stick to posting things like "how can I help my friend practice better carseat usage" or vents about anonymous seat usage we see around us, instead of gossiping about specific families and using words like "horrific" etc.

Case in point: Recently I was at a La Leche League meeting. There was a new mom there with a 3 month old baby. She happened to mention that she was the oldest of 16 children. Then she said that her family was actually on a show on TLC called "Kids by the Dozen". Last year. I said something like "Wow, that must be hard to have your family on display like that." She then told me about how there was this one episode, where they were showing the family loading up into the van. While the parents were buckling in the younger babies (which they didn't show) the older kids were kind of crawling around and playing in the van waiting for their turn to be buckled in. Well the next shot was the van going down the road. The way it was cut, it kind of looked like they were driving around like that (not buckled in) when it was really just the way the clips got cut. If you go back and watch it, you can clearly see that the van isn't moving in the first shot, but people didn't bother to notice that. She said there was this huge backlash and people were writing all kinds of horrible things about her family on the internet (blogs, etc) and it was really upsetting for the family.
She actually had some carseat problems with her 3 month old, but was really hesitant to ask because of the past experience of her family being criticized. I talked to her about this board, because I thought it would be a good place for her to come without worrying about being bashed or criticized if she wasn't doing something perfectly. The next day I saw her and she said she did a search, but couldn't really find her question. I told her to make a thread about it. I haven't seen it, so I'm hoping she didn't get scared away or anything, because there really ARE some nice people on here who will help you w/o judging you (since most of us have had less than perfect car seat behavior in the past ourselves)

My feelings about it are, if you have 16 kids, you probably don't have time to spend hours researching which seats last the longest (ie, the comfortsport Vs the Scenera etc) and you probably are thankful to receive any reasonable carseat that is given to you. I can't imagine trying to afford 6+ Marathons or whatever when money is already tight. They are probably doing the best (to their knowledge anyway) that they can with what they have.

I am just daydreaming here, but wouldn't it be cool if SafeKids or some other organization could sponsor a fundraiser to get all the kids in safe seats, and teach the family a little seminar on car seat safety? And have that shown on the show to reach even more families?

Anyways, just my two cents...

Cheers,
Melissa

[CDNTech]

:yeahthat:

[Loves2sing]

I am just daydreaming here, but wouldn't it be cool if SafeKids or some other organization could sponsor a fundraiser to get all the kids in safe seats, and teach the family a little seminar on car seat safety? And have that shown on the show to reach even more families?

Anyways, just my two cents...

Cheers,
Melissa

I think that would be so awesome. If we could somehow put something together for them. I wonder if you could email TLC, suggesting something like that, and then maybe get the ball rolling?

As far as the let's not bash everyone else's parenting, I agree 100%! We all do things in our own parenting styles that other parents won't agree with. None of us are perfect, and we need to remember that no one else is either. I was kidding around about the "perfection" of these families earlier on this thread, but sometimes that does not come through clearly as a joke, when all you can do is read it and not hear the way I meant it to sound. I apologze if I offended anyone, cause that was never my intention, and by the first few posts, no one else meant to either in the beginning of this conversation.

After being on this site for a while I think I tend to forget that we are not just a big group of friends that all have interest in carseats, and this site is actually meant to be informative for those less educated in this field. Thanks for bringing that back into the fore front Melissa!

[BrookeSLP]

I cannot abide the Duggars. I think they are absolutely horrible parents.


What is so bad about them? They love their children. Their kids are well fed, taught manners and not allowed to run the streets. They are given piano lessons, sports etc. They have two parents devoted to them. They are debt free, not on welfare, not using goverment subsidized services.
While it is not MY ideal life to have 16 + kids, I can't fault them at all for doing so. I'd rather see children grow up the way the Duggars are raised than an only child shipped to daycare 10 hours a day, or two kids that are unwanted by their 15 yo mother, so they are locked in a cage, or the priviledged only child that is so used to getting everything that they are a menace to all other children around them. Once again, it may not be the way the rest of us would choose, but that certainly doesn't make them horrible. Just my :twocents:

[CPS_obsessed_EMT]

Ok, so I came back and it occurred to me my first post kind of came off the wrong way :o

I didn't mean to lecture anyone or try to make anyone feel bad. I certainly admit to being guilty of judging people for their poor carseat use. But then I realized that I was being WAY too obsessed. I realized that not everyone devotes like 50% of their life to carseat safety like I do! The majority of parents think that they are doing the right thing just by having their kids in a carseat at all! After all, they don't get a whole lot of education about the importance of rearfacing, extended harnessing, expiration dates, etc, unless they REALLY look for it. I don't think that they are purposely being "bad parents" if they are making some carseat mistakes. If you try to educate them and they refuse, that is a different story though :mad:
What I was trying to say is, I think we should be careful how we word things, or how we come across. And we have to realize that not everyone spends hours each week talking on carseat boards or looking up the most recent CPS info like most of us here do.
How do you think it would make you feel, if you came to car-seat.org for the first time, wanting to learn more about CPS, and you read posts bashing other parents for using "expired" seats or not "extended RFing" or "extended harnessing" etc etc?? Do you think you would be compelled to want to join the group and learn more? Or do you think it would turn you off, and be afraid to ask questions?
The internet is such a small world. If you write something bad about someone, there is a decent chance that they could find it and read it.
And like that woman who I met who's family was on the TLC show, it upset her family SO much to see people calling her family horrible and that people thought that they would actually purposefully endanger their children. She was such a nice woman, and I felt so bad that her family had been judged like that, because it was all way off base and I could tell that she cared IMMENSELY about the safety of her baby.
Anyway, it really made me realize that those families on the shows that we watch are real people too and there is a very real chance that they could come to this site (or any other site) and read what we are writing about them.
I didn't mean to pick on anyone or anything, I just wanted to pass on that perspective, and suggest that maybe we take a more positive approach than just criticizing, especially since this thread was originally started to praise the family :)

[Patriot201]

This is funny that I know this, but I think it was the Colby cover.:whistle:

Yup!! That's it!!!!! :thumbsup: Good call! :thumbsup: