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.)

Oh yeah, as a child, bathtime was a party! Got a friend spending the night? Into the tub she goes! Good times, good times.

As for brushing hair, my mom kept mine short. Pixie cut from the word go.

I have crazy-ass super-fine hair, and when I was 3, it was down to my waist (which, given how tall a 3-year-old is [or, rather, is NOT], isn't like an adult having waist-length hair).

Anybody else here have super-fine hair? Literally every morning when I brush it, the accompanying commentary is "Ow...ow...ow...FUCK!!! Ow...ow...owwwwww!" And that's regardless of if it's short or long(er).

So as a kid with waist-length hair that tended to get snarled up and knotted at the slightest provocation -- HELL NO, I didn't brush my own hair! And it was so traumatic when my mom brushed my hair (she's not known for having a lot of empathy, and would just YANK the brush through my hair -- it was awful, seriously).

Therefore, when Dorothy Hamill cut her hair into that cute wedgey thing, that's what I got, too.

If I could still get away with not brushing my own hair, I would. I actually know people who don't need to use conditioner when they wash their hair, and it always leaves me agog. I use not one, but two conditioners -- one in the shower, and then a leave-in conditioner once I'm out of the shower.

And that's really WAY more than anyone here wanted to know about my hair, but there you are.

I stand in solidarity with the lovely and spirited Em.