This past week, I got the chance to reconnect with former co-workers, which is always a treat. We still work for the same employer, Hillsdale College, but I have been working remotely since Jim and I moved to Pennsylvania last year. It was great to catch up and has made my home office feel much quieter the last few days.
I say quieter because my office is still buzzing with voices. My two office mates demand a certain degree of attention and insist we take walks at lunch. They are, of course, our dogs Charlie and Pipit, and they make great companions. But they aren’t much for conversation. For that I have my faithful podcast playlist. The list primarily consists of political pundits and cultural commentators, but last year the algorithm decided I needed a break from all that and introduced me to Cheere Denise. Cheere describes her channel as long-form style reviews of pop culture, books, and shows “with humor and sometimes insight.” She reminds me a lot of my favorite co-workers: funny without being mean, insightful without taking herself too seriously, and organically authentic in her references to her faith and general outlook.
Unlike most pop culture channels I indulge in, listening to Cheere rarely leaves me feeling as if I have consumed a guilty pleasure. She’s definitely more of a one-scoop-of-frozen-yogurt than a three-scoop-of-Ben-and-Jerry’s kind of experience. Not exactly health food, but she’ll rarely make you feel worse off for listening. That is until recently.
To be clear, I didn’t feel bad because of anything Cheere did. Rather, the topic she explored exposed a shameful habit of my past for which I now sincerely repent.
A couple of weeks ago, Cheere started to read Collin Gosselin’s book In the Shadow of Eight to her audience. She has done this many times, choosing a book on a topic of interest and reading along with plenty of pauses for her witty commentary. Initially, I was just curious about what Collin might have to say about his experience growing up as part of a family that was more of a franchise than a familial unit. I watched the show Jon and Kate Plus 8 fairly regularly for the first few seasons and had pursued tabloid headlines in doctors’ offices and grocery store lines through the various dramas of their squabbles and scandals.
I won’t get into the various allegations of abuse levied at his mom by Collin because, frankly, while they are horrific if true, they are only half the story. The horror I felt as I listened to his story was less to do with his mother’s behavior and more to do with my own. Again, if Kate Gosselin has done those things, shame on her. But Collin’s story brought tears to my eyes long before he recounted his accusations of neglect and abuse. My feelings of remorse began with his descriptions of the reality of living as a child “reality” star.
As a regular viewer of this show, two minutes of reflection could have told me how harmful this was for children. I saw them as characters to be enjoyed and to entertain, but these were real children whose privacy was being invaded daily and shared with millions, all without their consent. Given what we know about the treatment of child actors, I’m not sure it would have been that much better if they had, in fact, been playing fictional characters, but at least that would have maintained a clearer line between real life and fantasy. Instead, Collin, his siblings and many other young children had their birthdays and vacations, first days of school and milestone moments, their greatest joys and biggest meltdowns served up for our entertainment. Whether or not Kate Gosselin is guilty of the crimes of which she is accused, we are all witnesses to her failure to protect her children in the most fundamental of ways. She threw open the curtains of their lives and invited the world to parade by, as if her children were exhibits in a museum. And before we start to point our collective finger too vigorously in her direction, let us examine our own behavior first. For we not only watched it happen, but we demanded more. More access, more spin-offs, more drama. Shame on us. Shame on us for acting like voyeurs, peeking into the windows of someone else’s home like the worst of peeping Toms.
Perhaps you can say, with a clean conscience, “But I never watched that show or anything of its kind.” Good for you, truly. But let me ask you this: when was the last time you watched a toddler melt down on YouTube or oohed and ahhed over a kid singing in their living room? Shows like Jon and Kate Plus 8 aren’t nearly as popular anymore because who needs a network and a camera crew when you have social media and a smartphone?
I stopped posting on social media years ago when I saw how it made the moments we were enjoying with friends and family feel less like memories to be cherished and more like commodities to be exchanged for public adulation. I try to stay off it as a viewer because I want to be present in my own life and not an observer of the lives of others. I share this as a confession, not a judgment, though I hope it will spark some thought in others. Let us choose not to live in the shadow of anyone else’s life or expectation and rather live in the sunshine of our own.