Nadya, the Octomom, is getting hammered in the media right now. Last night I saw a clip with reporters hounding her as she tried to get to her car. Both large and small press outlet seem obsessed with her and are digging up as much dirt to discredit her.
Now granted, she is a bit…ummm, different. Why would any woman, much less a single woman, want to have some many children? Why bring them into the world with no way to support them? There are a million questions that can be raised but none of them will change the situation.
What Nadya needs are solutions right now. She needs guidance and a dose of reality. She is the sole provider of these children as far as we know. She is the one who will have to raise them to become citizens of this country.
If she has her eyes on fame through a reality show it seems that she can pretty much hang that up. Unless, of course she gets picked up by VH-1’s reality outfit. Remember that they brought us the Flavor of Love and I Love New York type reality shows. Not necessarily my cup of tea but it’s about the ratings and they seem to thrive on drama, controversy, and all out mess.
So Nadya needs a gig and I’m here to help by suggesting a few ways she can make some money to hopefully support all of her 14 children. There are a couple challenges that she faces right now which makes it difficult to go out and work. 1. The octuplets are too small and need her at home to care for them. She can’t afford a sitter and putting them in daycare is out of the questions because of the cost. 2. She is going to be time-strapped. I’m sure there are other obstacles that I haven’t discovered but if she is as clever as I think she is, she will find a way around them.
Here are a few ideas to get her going.
*Create a baby food line
*Invent a baby feeding device for multiples
*Clip all the news articles and collect all video from her drama and set up a webpage then add Google and other residual ads
*Start a blog and chronicle the ups and downs of her life as a mom to multiples
*Write confessionals and submit to confessional-type magazines
*Start an ironing service
*Plant a garden and sell the harvest
With a lot of creativity and self-motivation Nadya could become the picture of single mom perfection, because she is taking control of her life and providing for her children.
What do you think she could do to start making her own money? Share your suggestions in the comments.
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
Those are certainly interesting and good to make some of the money she’ll need.
I do agree she can rise above the negativity and show what single moms can really do. Why do only the negative stories about single moms come to light?
I think the woman is insane but what I really got upset about was that people kept focusing on the fact that she was a single mom. There’s single mothers that raise more than 14 children alone before, think of the past…fathers died or left and these woman raised their kids and did what they had too. I know if she were that type of woman she could somehow survive but unfortunately I don’t think she is. SHe doesn’t seem to want to work and it is very upsetting that she is having the state flip the bill.
I agree Patrice. My great grandmother had 10 kids that she practically raised alone. Granted none for them were twins or other multiples but they were very close in age.
Times were different then and she was a hard worker with no handouts. She had a good work ethic and did the best she could. Ms. Nadya is a different breed (no pun intended) and really needs to get it together for those children.
…and yep, the media does focus heavily on her single mom status. It is very unusual and she is putting her kids at risk. This just feeds into the negative single mom persona.
The negativity about single moms has been in the news a lot lately. Ms. Coulter is the front runner. Despite how they became single moms, be it though the death of a spouse, divorce, or a decision, women who parent alone will always be villified in public. It goes back to the days of Hester Prynne and the Scarlet Letter. It seems that single moms pose a threat to society for a variety of reasons. There is a lot more that I can say about this so I’ll save it for a blog post ;-).
Great suggestions! She does have a website (don’t know if she started it or someone else did) where you can actually donate money and/or leave a comment. Perhaps you should leave those suggestions on her site. If you google her name the site will pop up.
I agree that the backlash surrounding her situation has been extremely ridiculous and disrespectful… but then again, that’s the media, which is why I no longer wanna pursue a career in journalism!
But anyhoo… hopefully she will find herself in a better financial situation that she is now so that she and her family can have the best lives possible. The children are adorable and as you and others have pointed out, she isn’t the first to have more than a few kids and trust me, she wont be the last… and she definitely wont be the last single mother with more than a few kids, lol.
I wish them all the best.
I don’t get all the hate spread her way. If you don’t agree with her decision, that’s fine, but she’s not hurting you personally. People need to calm down.
I think these are great suggestions. But I think the media has portrayed her as a little…um, crazy? So I don’t know if people will take her seriously from here on out.
I don’t think the fact that she’s a single mom is the problem. I think it’s the fact that she’s unemployed. Now, granted, just by carrying that many children, you’re going to be out on some type of leave, but it seems like she just expected everything would be okay once she had them. (Ultimate faith in God or just plain crazy, I don’t know.) But the point is, the kids are here now and she’s going to need all the help she can get!
Tara you are so right. People really do need to calm down. It seems that dissecting (and criticizing) people’s lives is the new form of entertainment. I personally think it’s insane to have that many kids and not be married, heck even if she were married it would still be insane.
But she has put herself out there and is now open to the media firestorm. Right now she does need solutions and frankly unless people are finding a way to help her solve her “problem” all yammering on and on is pretty much a waste of good oxygen, kwim?
Maybe she’ll come across this post and start creating a realistic plan of action for herself and her kids.