OK, just need a reality check here. On the TWOP forum for Jon and Kate Plus Eight, people are saying that it's "inappropriate" for the three-year-old girls to be given baths by their father, and that their mother should be doing it. Three seems to me like young enough that it shouldn't matter which parent is giving the bath, as long as someone is getting the kids clean.

My main job when Emeline is bathing is to make sure she doesn't get overly hyper, slip, bash her head in and drown. THAT is what I concentrate on.

I also have to say, as a father of a little girl, that I resent the implication (which nobody HERE is making) that I am an uncontrollable sex fiend who will lunge towards any naked flesh I may see in a wild craze.

Granted, I reserve the right to make the above assumption about any teenaged boys that Emeline may date in the future.

Also, people saying that the three-year-olds should be brushing their own hair by now. The boys, maybe, but the girls all have long hair. Do three-year-olds have that sort of coordination and patience to comb through and style their own hair? I'm pretty sure my mom was styling my hair each morning until second grade or so.

If I didn't comb Emeline's hair it would be an unassailable rat's nest of tangled Hell because she herself wouldn't bother to brush or comb it.

so, when I get a cert letter that says I am hearby directed not to discuss this matter with students, faculty or staff, is this something they can legally order me to do? I do not recall signing any kind of confidentality agreement.

What's up, Lawyer Bitches?

I have no idea about the non-disclosure letter, but I'm pretty sure they've just progressed from sheer and utter fuckshits, to sheer and utter fuckshits who are managing things even worse than you'd think was possible.

But apprently bathing a bunch of preschool siblings together is violating their privacy.

Huh. I wonder how many of the people saying that are only children, because I remember "family bathtime" up until I was 7 or 8 and able to take showers by myself. There are one or two pictures out there of all 4 of us in the bath together and none of us look like we're feeling particularly violated. (A little cramped, maybe, but there's big smiles all around.)

Also, amazingly, my spell checker doesn't like the word "fuckshits". Whodathought?

But apprently bathing a bunch of preschool siblings together is violating their privacy.)

My brothers and I bathed together until I was at least four, maybe five. It kept us where one parent could keep an eye on all of us at once. Sound child management, if you ask me.

As for brushing hair, my mom kept mine short. Pixie cut from the word go. Makes grooming lessons very easy on both the parent and the child. I can't say that I was brushing my own hair at three, though. I do know by kindergarten (four, for me) I was combing it in the morning by myself.

Do these people have any idea how tough it is to take care of any human being? The fact that these are small ones notwithstanding, it just ain't easy. It's a huge accomplishment that they get these kids fed, clothed, and groomed, their house is not a total pigsty, and laundry gets done - anybody who quarrels about the means and methods ought to be sentenced to have run a similar household for a week. And then be subject to enormous amounts of pointing and laughing when they fail miserably and/or resort to using any of John and Kate's methods.

And IOparentingN, this product (now available for the first time in the US and making the parenting & food blogosphere rounds) is just about the most pointless waste of money I've ever seen. Babies only eat pureed foods for about 3 months before they move onto picking stuff up with their fingers, so $140 to avoid having to use my microwave and my food processor? Or, you know, A FORK? Whatever.

Hell, I remember having baths with the friends' and neighbours' kids too. It was like going to the pool, but small! And warm!

Well, for laundry, there are several neighbors and friends who help out. Kate washes the clothes, but then their neighbor folds them, and a family friend puts them away. (When the kids were babies, a lot of people were offering to help out, and this neighbor got assigned clothes-folding duty, and is still doing it three years later. Seems odd to me, but she keeps coming back each week, and folds the clothes while the kids play around her, so whatever.)