Octuplets.

That’s eight.

It’s all over the news, the marvel, the ethical dilemma, the train wreck that makes up this octuplet story. We love the multiple, multiple births, We’re fascinated by them. We eat this stuff for breakfast.

But amidst the myriad interviews and tabloid fanfare, we cannot forget that we’re talking about octuplets here. Oct-uplets! That’s eight. Eight people.

One Mom. No discernable Dad (perhaps a Petri dish?). Eight. Newborn. Babies.

Just picture the scene a month or two from now. The media realizes they have drained the last drop of juice from this story for now, saving tape for the inevitable anniversary hoopla. The telescoping satellite dishes are unceremoniously screwed back down into vans. Signs are removed from local store windows, headlines return to the important issues: the economy and Christian Bale. No parades. No Huggies trucks. Just a regular little house on a regular little street in a regular little town.

Filled with a thousand screaming, eating, puking, shitting, sleepless babies.

The freak show nature of the situation itself, coupled with the all-out, round-the-clock media blitz, has naturally elicited questions: What kind of doctor would implant countless embryos in a woman with such limited means and several other mouths to feed? Doesn’t this situation beg a psych eval before aggressive fertilization? Is all of this remnant of an Angelina Jolie fetish? Is Billy Bob Thornton involved?

And how will this mother, allegedly on food stamps, meet the needs of all of her children? How can one person, even with family and neighbor help, feed, clothe, change and entertain such an enormous, um, litter? They say God doesn’t present us with challenges we cannot handle. With that in mind, I guess we just do. After all, what choice does this mother have?

And what of their emotional needs of all these children, now and in the future? How will they know they are cared for and loved? How will they know, growing up, that they have someone who is unequivocally available to them?

Most of us can remember families in our neighborhoods growing up, with numbers of children somewhere in the teens. In my very Roman Catholic parish alone, I can think, off the top of my head, of three such prolific families. How did they provide for the Availability needs of their children?

A couple things come to mind. In one of these families, the Whites we’ll call them, Mom and Dad clearly made raising their children their top priority. I remember the White girl in my class (there was, of course, one in EVERY class), describing family dinners every night. Here’ the entire family has an opportunity to demonstrate availability to each other, an infrequent occurrence in many families a fraction of the size! She also said that she had date nights on occasion with each of her parents, just the two of them. Think of how special this must have felt, an available parent in the storm.

Another family, the Reds let’s say, constructed what I would today call an Availability Pyramid. Because of the more than 20 year spread in their childrens’ ages, the older group was, by and large, put in charge of the next “generation”, who were surrogate parents to the generation behind them. I envision trickle-down availability, in which each group is taught to care for and be available for the group behind them, a literal Big Brother/Big Sister program. You go to Mom or Dad with the big issues, but to Big Brother or Big Sister for the rest. This was, I assume, the only way such a family could work economically and efficiently.

And we also hear of professors who can inspire large groups of students through their oratory, their one-on-one caring, their availability to their students. I have talked to many students who engaged in certain classes solely due to the availability of the professor. Word spreads, of course, and college students tend to flock to courses taught by these professors, even though many agree that the subject matter would never hold their interest ion it’s own. This shows that a person can in fact be available and inspiring to many others, sometimes all at the same time! Is this a suitable template for a parent of so many?

Well, a few words of advice for you, Nadya Suleman, mother of octuplets, I encourage you first to clear up the Angelina thing. I don’t know if you can properly care for anyone, yourself included, if you are not right with yourself and feel a need to emulate another, be she pouty-lipped and famous, or not. Second, you need of course to ensure the physical well-feeding, well-changing, and well-being of your children, all of them. Perhaps they’ll offer you a volume discount at the pediatrician’s office. Or better yet, a drive-thru (and what does one drive with such a brood? A stretch minivan? A bus? A U-Haul?).

And some quiet evening, in the not-too-distant future, once you have tucked in the last of the fourteen, I would love for you to consider availability: How will you provide your children with a comfortable setting to discover themselves? What help will you need to ensure that each of your fourteen receive the unfiltered, uninterrupted attention they each deserve from competent, loving, caring adults? How can you ensure that your own ego wants and fears will not get in the way of their normal, happy development? How can you bring joy to each of their lives?

I realize these are not questions that should just be directed toward Ms. Suleman, arduous as her set of tasks would appear to be. I think all of us, whether we have only a single child or a football team’s worth, need to consider availability as we parent. Each of our children deserves such consideration.

Our availability is as urgent as medical checkups and full bottles of formula.