Our Long National Nightmare Is Finally Over.

"Jon and Kate Plus Eight" will mercifully end its television run Monday night.

It's about time.

As the couple's marital troubles became more and more public my son said TLC should rename the show "Jon Plus Four, Kate Plus Four".

Jennie and I watched the show when it began, captivated by the family's story.  And by the fact that the parents were professing Christians.

The series showed them going to church, talking about God in their lives, and the love they had for their children.  Then it got ugly.

Eventually, the truth about anyone will come out, almost always in a crisis, and usually at the worst possible time.  And everyone will end up knowing.

In the Gosselins' case, looking back, it appears they were asking for it.

Kate, the Baby Momma, came across as petulant and whiny.  Early on you could attribute that to post-partum depression.  But I'm reminded of a scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when Steve Martin and John Candy are waiting for a cousin to give them a ride.  Now this is not verbatim, but the cousin drives up, gets out of his truck, spits, and orders his wife to get in the back of the truck with the young'uns.  When Martin's character protests, the cousin spits again and states "She's had a passel of young'uns and never screamed or nuthin'", at which point the wife and kids get in the truck bed with the hogs.

Kate could've learned from that movie.  Instead she chose to berate and emasculate her husband in front of the whole country.  What a woman.

On the other hand, Jon, the Baby Daddy, appeared wimpy and whiny as well (do you see a pattern here?).  He seethed silently while grudgingly spending time with his eight children, barely tolerating his wife or them.  After a while it was painfully obvious that he didn't want to be around his kids.  Or his wife.

The couple had twins first (with some help from a fertility clinic) and then came the other six.  The Gosselins said they went back to the clinic because they wanted one more child.

Surprise!

(As an aside, Jennie and I were talking this morning about when her younger sister was born--Thanksgiving season.  She said her mama thought she had a stomach virus.  Some virus.)

Just a thought here.  If you couldn't bear children on your own, couldn't that be a sign that maybe you weren't supposed to have any?  Sounds cold, I know, but hindsight lends validity to that theory.  I'm just sayin'.

After a while the show deteriorated into what looked like a house full of preschoolers, from the babies to the parents.  It was like they were taking crazy pills.  I know I felt like I was.

Stuff like that just wears you out after a while.  He said, she said, and eight innocents caught in the middle of all of it.

Fast-forward ten years, when the children are teenagers.  This saga isn't over yet.  Consequences of our decisions reverberate through generations if someone, somewhere, doesn't step up, take responsibility, and stop the madness.  Parents have to stop being selfish, grow up, and give their kids a different legacy than the one that's being handed down here.

So maybe our viewing the nightmare has finished.  But I fear for these children it's far from over.

And "Kate Plus Eight" is scheduled to begin production in early 2010.  Great.