Kate Gosselin responds to Jon’s claims their kids are “developmentally” impaired
Jon Gosselin recently gave an interview that’s getting a lot of play in which he admonishes his own kids’ behaviours. He says, because they grew up relatively wealthy and famous, they have developmental issues including problems with how they interact with adults and other kids.
“It just became stressful on the kids and became stressful on me,” Jon told Oprah of his Jon & Kate Plus 8 days. “I saw my kids not growing up normally, like I grew up, and having community.”
He adds, “Yes, they got to travel the world, and yes, they got these fabulous things, and yes, they’ve got trust funds, and they’re taken care of educationally, but developmentally, they have problems with their peers, and they have problems with talking to other people, and they have problems with wants and needs and manners and morals.”
The kids’ mother, Kate, Jon’s ex-wife, is obviously not pleased with this admission. Moreover, she says in an open letter, it’s not even true, nor accurate, and it’s cruel to label and degrade them.
Here’s Kate’s response in an open letter she posted to her blog.
I find it very heart breaking that my children’s father chooses a public forum to discuss his current opinions of the “development” of our children. These opinions are, in reality, value judgements made about our children and they are based on his limited visits (albeit mutually agreed upon) with our children.
Because he has spoken negatively about our children, I feel I owe it to them to respond on their behalf. Each and every one of our children has met and continues to exceed all physical, mental and emotional developmental milestones throughout their lives. Their normal development is regularly monitored by myself, their pediatrician and school staff, as is usual within any family.
It is also very normal in a family, especially a large family, to have a full range of personalities, abilities, talents, hobbies and struggles. Ours is no different. However, anyone who has personally met our children all have the same thing to say: they are the most normal, pleasant, polite, loving and well adjusted children they have ever met. Most even go on to say that they are a “a delight” to be around.
When our kids grow up, they may see their father’s latest interview and wonder why he made untrue and hurtful statements about them. I know that I risk stirring up an unwanted public and private “frenzy” by commenting on this, but, if our children ever stumble upon that interview, I want to be able to point them to this statement so that they know that I publicly set the record 100% straight on this one, for their sake.