It’s easier than you think.

Ouyang Dan sent me this lovely (and by lovely I mean nausea inducing) post about the difference between “Octomom” and Michelle Duggar.

First, the author, a bright shining beacon of illiteracy and class privilege, can’t manage to use Nadya Suleman’s name, not even once, in the entire piece. She can’t, for even half a second, imagine Nadya Suleman as a human being and instead turns her into some kind of sad cartoon monster.

Then there the whole class privilege shit. The author would be fine is Suleman had money and her kids weren’t going to require assistance to grow up.

But here’s a little secret that Mom’s Logic Julie may not know- most children in this world are born to poor parents. If we followed Julie’s logic, most of us would never have been born. Only rich people are virtuous enough to have sex and risk childbirth.

Oh course Julie thinks that the Duggars are a perfect example of unfettered breeding, no debt, blah blah blah. But the Duggars have used their magic ability to reproduce in order to finance their lifestyle. Diapers are donated (and with 19 kids- that’s no small cost) houses, vehicles, and they get money for being on tv. These things didn’t happen before they decided to have endless numbers of children- but after.

But Nadya Suleman isn’t married. She has a not quite American sounding name. She has, from most reports, a horrible mother. She has a couple of kids with disabilities. She has, by all accounts, a difficult life.

So she did what she thought would make her lovable. She did what we’ve all been told. She embraced motherhood. Not just embraced it, but clung to it long after she should have. Perhaps she was looking for that ultimate meaning that motherhood is supposed to give you, that boundless joy or whatever it is the fetus fetishists think all women have for tiny babies. She was following the rules that society set up- be a mother, be fulfilled. And she kept trying to find that, through each pregnancy.

She doesn’t get the donations that the Duggars do. As a poor, unmarried mother, she is not virtuous enough to shill the products. She doesn’t get a tv series, but a trashy expose’. She doesn’t get the loving letters and beaming press pics, she gets death threats and judgment.

I would not trade places with her for a million dollars and she’s made choices I never would have, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some mercy for her. I also wouldn’t trade places with Michelle Duggar, but there are enough people willing to offer her kindness.