Bonnie Asks: Is Kate Putting Self-Promotion Ahead Of Parenting On Her Priority List?

Here’s why I ask this question: the mom of eight is promoting her perfect bikini body on the cover of People after leaving her kids behind for a four-day photo shoot at an opulent Mexican resort.

After dissing ex-husband Jon Gosselin’s visitation time with their kids on Live With Regis and Kelly last Friday (Sept. 10), it sure seemed like a pot-calling-the-kettle-black move when Kate boarded a flight later that day, headed to the fancy photo shoot in Mexico.

Leaving the eight little Gosselites back in Pennsylvania with the dad she had just criticized, Kate took off with her bodyguard Steve Neild on a four-day trip to the luxurious Casa Dorada Resort in Cabo San Lucas. That in itself seemed just a little hypocritical after Kate told an astonished Kelly Ripa and fill-in co-host Anderson Cooper that she was ALWAYS at home while her children visited with their dad… except, she almost whispered, when she was traveling or working.

Am I the only one who thinks it odd that after stirring up an unprovoked storm of media attention for her public Jon lashing, she was irresponsible to get on a plane and leave her ex-husband and kids to deal with the fallout?

The little Gosselites may be young but they are old enough to hear from their friends that their mommy has just attacked their daddy on national television.

Furthermore, their mommy left them to do a six-page photo shoot and cover story about her newly trim and buffed-up bikini body. Plus, their mommy also used People to let the world know that she’s looking for “Mr. Right.” “It would be nice if someone noticed me…” she told the world. “There’s nobody out there who’s come forward, and it’s depressing.” Where is he? “All I can say to this mystery man is hurry it up,” she urges in her interview.

Jeez — is she auditioning to be the next Bachelorette? I bet you she is! In any case, do her kids really want the world to know that their mother is desperate to start dating? I doubt it. That’s just gross and scary for them.

And I bet that Kate would say that she HAD to do the photo shoot and might HAVE to do The Bachelorette in order to support her eight children. Well, I respect her need to earn money to care for her family, and I understood her decisions to undertake Dancing With the Stars and the new Kate Plus 8 — the only way she knows how to make the big bucks is on reality TV.

But I don’t think her career is enhanced at all by lashing out at her ex-husband or by flaunting her “perfectly” retouched body on the cover of a magazine.

Instead, I think these choices are a turn-off to women like myself, who used to be her fans.

Kate built a fan base with the original Jon & Kate Plus 8 by sharing her trials, tribulations and joys as an ordinary mom, trying to cope with an extraordinary situation — having both sextuplets and twins. Her kids were presented as her top, top priority.

Now, it appears as if stroking her own ego is her top, top priority. And as for the eight little Gosselites, well, Kate, I guess you think it’s OK to leave them with your supposedly incompetent ex –- when you have something better to do than parent. Yes, that would be, to self-promote!

–Bonnie Fuller

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I totally agree. I admired Kate because she did what it took to take care of and do what was best for her kids. Jon’s not the greatest father, but now she’s starting down the same path. I don’t see how posing for photos in a bikini in Mexico while her kids are at home is good parenting. Maybe she’s looking for a sugar daddy so she doesn’t have to work. Kate and Jon both need to grow up and realize that what they do is going to have an extraordinary impact on their kids for life. You’re parents first not celebrities.

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Finally, Bonnie! Are you FINALLY getting through your head EXACTLY what kind of self serving non parent Khate really is? I got so sick of reading your articles praising her while ignoring what she actually says and does I never expected you to glom on to what Khate really is. I’m shocked. Absoulutely gobsmacked that you may have finally seen the light of day concerning this woman. I suggest you do research, both pro and Kon concerning Khate, so that finally you will realize how wrong you were about her, writing articles supporting her while the kids worked their childhood away to support Khates lifestyle. She sold her kids down the river – they will never be able to get all the dvds back showing them abused ( Child made to lay on cement floor while sick, child getting impacted stool – impacted! what kind of parent allows their kids intestinal health to get to that point? – removed ON CAMERA IN PUBLIC by the father as the former nurse mother is “too busy” shopping for beds ad nauseam.) and those disks will ALWAYS be available for stalkers and pedophiles. And for what? For money for the “mother”(and I use that term as loosely as possible.). Do you realize that all eight kids get only 10% of the money THEY EARNED; the “parents” (once again, as loosely as possible.) get the rest of the paycheck. That is less than $1000.00 per child per episode(for the series, NOT the specials.). I hope your eyes are opening, and not only do you realize what kind of explotive “Parents” these people are, but also your complicity in what has been done to these children. Articles like yours not only wrongly influenced peoples perception of these “parents” and ignored how they were using these kids, but also, I believe, were part of the public rating system TLC used to determine if this explotation of the children for money was to continue. Perhaps, if you come to see fully what is really going on, and you feel badly about adding to these children being exploited, you will do a article apologising to the eight children for your involvement in this horribly abusive situation.

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