KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (51 page)

Kate forces her children to make her cards and presents and she tells them what to do to celebrate her, be it a birthday, Mother’s Day or any one of her hobbies of the week, like when she ran in a marathon on the other side of the country in Las Vegas. In that case she told the world via Twitter and on her blog that her kids made signs to encourage her and stood outside watching and cheering her on as she ran around in her driveway. She had a cake made for them to have a ‘Go Mommy’ party while they sat at home with a babysitter while their mommy was away for a week with her married bodyguard. She makes the children her own personal cheerleaders while doing nothing to encourage their growth by allowing them to participate in their own activities outside of their house.

Given her failures as a parent, it may very well be best for the Gosselin children’s mother to be absent from them as much as possible. It is not my imagination that Kate looks and acts her happiest when she is away from her kids. It definitely appears as if Kate doesn’t enjoy interacting with her children. All photographic, video and Twitter evidence shows this beyond any doubt. Take her recent
Celebrity Wife Swap
appearance. With a film crew in her house and cameras rolling for the entire world to see, you would think that Kate or any sane person would be on their best behavior to show what a loving mother she is. Not Kate Gosselin. She actually yelled at her twin daughters in front of the cameras for coming down to the kitchen a few minutes early, before their scheduled 6:03 morning kitchen entrance time. The poor girls looked dejected and beat down as they were belittled and sent away…for the television audience’s viewing enjoyment.

Her M.O. has always been to hide in the kitchen while volunteers and paid ‘helpers’ t
ook care of her children. In the early days, the twins would get off the school bus alone and come inside the house to find Kate ‘busy’ in the kitchen while their six brothers and sisters were caged in by the front window entertaining themselves. She couldn’t take the five or ten minutes like a normal mother and come outside to greet her children as they arrived home from school. Kate invents reasons to have to be in the kitchen so she can spend as little time with them as possible. She is an awful cook, baker and even dishwasher but the kitchen has always been her escape from the reality that is being a mother.

If you look at photos or video of Kate when she is with her children, she always looks angry, sullen, disapproving and mean. When you see photos of her when she is away from her kids, either on one of her “business” jaunts or for any other reason, she is always smiling broadly and is positively beaming. Whenever she is with her kids, she tweets like there is no tomorrow. When she is not with her kids, she barely tweets at all.

In a related sense, Kate’s idea of fun is anything that doesn’t involve her children. Everything we have seen of her actions indicates that she is fulfilled only when she is the center of attention and when others are complimenting her or gushing about how wonderful she is.

Maybe this is because she resents the fact that it is her children who made her famous. But time and time again, she is slapped with the reality that exposing her children’s private lives to the world is the only reason anyone outside her immediate circle of life even knows she exists, and the only reason anyone has ever been, or will ever be, interested in her. She has traveled numerous paths to try to find
fame on her own, but try as she might, she just doesn’t have the talent, personality, intelligence or likeability to succeed in celebrity endeavors on her own. Since she can’t shake those cute little albatrosses from around her neck, she must continue to wring every last drop of money-making usefulness out of them as she can.

“I need to look at, ‘what’s best for the kids?

What’s best for the kids?’

That is what I say to myself constantly.”

– Kate Gosselin

“
Their protectivity of me is so dear!

I honestly loved how they took such protective care of me!”

– Kate Gosselin

That’s beautiful, right? The way Kate talked about her parents in the above quote? Only Kate wasn’t talking about her parents when she said that. Kate hates her parents, especially her father, Kenton Kreider. That quote was taken from one of Kate’s journal entries in which she was discussing spending time with Dr. and Mrs. Glassman during her tummy tuck surgery back in 2006. Here’s
how Kate described it in her journal:

August 2006

Kate said that she felt like they were her parents and it felt so good! She said that
she never had that as a kid and she enjoyed the feeling.

There are only four entries in Kate’s journal where she mentions her parents or her childhood. That isn’t much considering she wrote down every minute detail of what was happening in her life during this period. These are the first three paraphrased entries:

September 2006

Kate
remembers her grandmother and all of the pure bliss that she and Kate’s grandfather tried to create in Kate’s bliss-less life as a kid and actually as an adult too.

October 2006

Kate talks about her grandmother’s funeral and how it’s so hard to believe that she’s gone. She was the perfect example of unconditional love. Kate said that her own mother tried to preach to her and her brother and sisters through her tribute to her grandmother and none of the kids appreciated it!!!

December 2006

Kate said that her parents were being crazy as usual but doesn’t disclose any details.

The final entry
is from May 2007, when she wrote about pulling Collin up by the hair. She said that she saw her dad in herself today and that really scared her!!!!!

When Kate was making the rounds during her great church scamming tour, she talked about being born and raised in a Christian home and about being “saved” when she was 8 years old. Her father, Kenton, was an assistant pastor at a local church in Pennsylvania. She said that when she was growing up, she knew Jesus loved her, but the focus was more on a punishing God.

I did a lot of research, trying to understand what it means to be “saved.” The best definition I could find is that being “saved” simply means that you have accepted Jesus into your heart as your savior. I have no idea if something specific happened to Kate when she was 8 years old, but it sounds like she grew up in an atmosphere of fear, being told that God would punish her if she got out of line.

A child living every day in fear and dread is unhealthy and tragic. Just ask the Gosselin children. It makes me wonder how much from Kate’s childhood shaped her adult behavior. Certainly, neither Kenton Kreider nor Kate would be happy to engage in a public debate about her real relationship with her parents or what really happened between them. Nobody would win that one, I suspect, so they have both opted to remain silent on the matter.

In
Multiple Blessings
, when talking about how much she loved her grandmother, Kate did take what could be construed as a shot at her father when she said, “Grandma didn’t just preach God’s word; she lived and breathed it!”

Whenever Kate was asked about her parents in interviews, she would give a very brief, very carefully crafted, very Discovery-approved response: “They changed and had opinions on how to raise the kids.”

During the 2009 TLC special,
Kate: Her Story
, Natalie Morales asked Kate about why her parents are no longer part of the children’s lives. This is some of that conversation:

“I was one of five kids. I was the middle child.
The forgotten middle child
as they say.

It was definitely; it was a strict upbringing I would say. Um, I went to a Christian school, kindergarten through 12
th
grade.

NM: so was it a loving home?

Yes, my parents um, did their best um, my mom was the ever present parent who saw to it that our meals were cooked and our you know house was taken care of, um, my parents struggled um, I would say, um, I, I’m famous for telling my mom growing up my whole life, “mom five kids is way too many, there’s just, you lose something in the details…”

NM: What is your relationship now with your parents?

My parents email me um, I email them back, they’re very different from me, um, nobody’s right.

NM: Have you changed or have they changed?

I think both of us have changed, um, there was a lot in my childhood that was not um, happy you know.

NM: Like what?

It would probably take me ten years to figure it out, so to say that I talk to them on a daily basis is not accurate.

NM: Are they involved as grandparents in helping with your children?

Not so much, and that’s probably
more by my choosing at this point then by theirs
. Is it out of the question forever? No, probably not

I think the change came after our (6) babies were born. That was the beginning of me realizing that everybody has an opinion and um, sometimes those opinions aren’t my opinions.

NM:
Do they not approve of you putting your children on television? Was that part of the issue?

No no it was before television, and at that time I felt like it was just best to step back and take a break.

NM:
Do you miss having them in your lives?

There’s definitely something missing when you don’t have supportive parents nearby, um, and your kids don’t have supportive grandparents, absolutely.

In March of 2012, despite her earlier words to the contrary, Kate engaged in a Twitter conversation where she disputed the fact that there’s any problem at all between herself and her parents.

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 do u ever wonder since u have no relationship w ur parents what that is teaching them about future relationship w u?

no facts in your question, just your opinion so no I don’t wonder…:)

xxxxx @xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 Thank u @xxxxx that is my point. K8 is choosing to not speak to parents

ha ha you’re wrong! Again

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 The only “fact” @xxxxx assumed was that it was your decision to not allow your kids to see your family. True?

nope!

Kate’s tweets contradicted what she had said in the Natalie Morales interview. When Natalie asked Kate if her parents were involved as grandparents in helping with the children, Kate specifically said that it was “probably more by my choosing at this point then by theirs.” So when Kate’s tweeties talked about it being her decision to not speak to her parents, they were just going by the information she had provided in her interview.

Kenton and Charlene Kreider are the grandparents that took care of Mady and Cara while Kate was in the hospital giving birth to the sextuplets. Beyond that, not very much is publicly known about Kate’s relationship, or lack thereof, with her parents, other than what she has stated in interviews. The widely accepted story explaining Kenton and Charlene Kreider’s absence from Kate and the children’s lives is that Kate’s dad asked the members of his church for donations after Jon and Kate had the sextuplets. His church members responded by donating lightly used baby clothes and several cribs. Instead of being appreciative and grateful for the generosity, Kate decided she only wanted new, matching cribs and clothing, not used ones. She told her dad she only wanted cash.

Obviously, Kate’s parents couldn’t go back to the church members and tell them their daughter had refused their donations and was only interested in cold, hard cash. When Kate said on
Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht
that her parents “don’t know how to help us,” what she likely meant was that, since she didn’t get the cash she wanted, her parents wouldn’t be seeing the family anymore.

The real issue that made Kate furious with her father wasn’t about the lovingly donated, “gently used” clothing or the “non-matching” cribs. It was about the money she thought she should receive from her father through his church. More accurately, the issue was the lack of money.

Where was the money!?, Kate demanded. Her money!? She knew that the collection plate was passed for her and her children, so she questioned why the only things she got were some “dirty clothes and used cribs.”

Push finally came to shove, and Kate accused her father of stealing
her
money and banished him to the depths of Gosselin Hell. She did the best thing she could do to hurt and punish him and her mother: She vowed to never let them see their grandchildren again.