Famecrawler
Octo-Mom Dons Joke T-Shirt About Breeding. Is it Funny?
Octo-mom Nadya Suleman was spotted this morning wearing a T-shirt that reads ‘Fight Breeding. Adopt.’ while hanging a banner outside her house that says ‘Don’t Let Your Dog or Cat Become an Octo-mom. Always Spay or Neuter’. Of course, the shirt and banner were part of an arrangement Suleman made with PETA, in which she has semmingly rented out her home and her body as a billboard, in exchange for $5,000 and a months supply of veggie burgers.
Obviously, both the T-shirt and the banner are a tongue-in-cheek reference to Suleman’s brood of children—her eight born at once, earning her the nickname Octo-Mom, and her six before that, for a whopping 14 in total. But is it really a good idea for Suleman to compare herself to a dog in heat? Last month, Suleman told Oprah that while she doesn’t regret any of her children, she could have perhaps made different choices, an admission that her drive to have so many kids may have been unwise. It seems that she is trying to correct the notion that she is a crazy woman who is addicted to having babies, and replace it with the idea that she is a reasonable woman who perhaps got carried away.
All that is fine, and perhaps there is maybe some truth to it. But to compare her choices to breeding—which the shirt does, implicitly—is a little offensive. At best, it is saying “Ha ha ha, don’t make the same mistakes I made having too many kids by having too many dogs!” At worst, you might say that she is alluding to the process by which she got pregnant, which was IVF. I know many women who underwent IVF, albeit not in the extreme manner in which she did it, and I think they’d bristle at any suggestion that it resembles breeding.
In short, is “Fight Breeding. Adopt” a message to dog owners, or is it a message to the rest of us? I see it as a little of both. Either way, Suleman complains that “Octo-Mom” is a media depiction that dehumanizes her, but by wearing this shirt and posting this banner, it seems to me she is guilty of doing the exact same thing.
For her part, according to her attorney, Suleman thinks the banner is “funny” and “cute”. I’m leaning toward neither. What do you think?
Source/Photo: PacificCoastNews
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7 Comments
lila commented on May 19 10 at 9:43 pmIt’s sad, she has to allow herself to be the butt of jokes in order to support her family.
taffey commented on May 20 10 at 10:25 amIn all honesty, I think Suleman is a breeder. I believe she really wanted a record number of babies just to become (in)famous and get a reality show. Check out the info at http://www.ivf-liesandvideotape.info/Links.html
Rosana commented on May 20 10 at 11:08 amI feel bad for the babies :(
Mama Rachel commented on May 20 10 at 8:24 pmNeither funny nor cute. It’s insulting to her children, some of whom can read. Child protective services … are you listening??
sommer commented on May 21 10 at 11:32 amI think it’s cute and funny. A sense of humor is always a good thing in life.
Gertie commented on May 22 10 at 4:53 pmI think she’s a fame seeking idiot. Having all these kids she doesn’t have time or money to care for them. I D I O T
Diana commented on May 22 10 at 6:06 pmIt’s disturbing. There isn’t anything funny about equating your children to an unwanted mistake. The only thing the two situations have in common is that they are both preventable.
You also have to wonder about the irony of PETA using a spokesperson who wears mink eyelash extensions.
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