As for last night’s finale, how Jon behaved with Cara and Mady is now revealed to be only the slightest tip of the iceberg after the way he talks in the recordings. The twins were arguing as is natural for 9-yr.-olds. But Mady made the calculated mistake of saying she likes the things they do with their mother better.

Calculated to make Jon mad or not, there were any number of better ways he could’ve handled it, being THE ADULT and all. Not only does he order Mady into the house, he tells her that he’s throwing the poster she’s been working on into the trash. Then, for good measure, he demands that Cara, who at that point is minding her own business and coloring, also stop working on her poster and go inside the house, telling them that neither can participate in the latest publicity stunt he’s come up with.

I’m certainly not against discipling children, but there were so many better ways that situation could’ve been handled. Jon chose the easy way. Fair or not.

It became obvious just how selfless he was being by involving the kids in raising money for the fire department when he immediately observed that there was “lots of publicity” at their lemonade stand. You got the feeling that his real reason for doing it was to be seen by the world with his kids. Later, even Kate questioned his motives and said she’d prefer he simply spend time with them at home.

I found Kate’s response, when asked about what she thought of Jon and Hailey’s relationship, interesting. She said, “That is a symptom of the REAL issue and I don’t envision a future there involving my kids… at all.”

This gave me the impression, dare I go there, that perhaps by “real symptom” she was referring to his drug use.

In the end, TLC avoided making the last episode sappy and sad and I tip my hat to them for that. Although, in the very last scene with Jon and the kids, I found it interesting that he was sporting a large backpack, kissing them in front of the house, as though to say goodbye.

The twins missed out on things on this episode, Jon wouldn’t let them go to a lemonade sale [because Mady said something like "I like the things we do with mommy better" it was too funny I had to rewind to listen to it again, he didn't like that] he had at the local fire dept, which turned out to be like him selling lemonade, the paps and all these people buying the lemonade and just staring at the kids!!!!! Kate took the 6 to the next door neighbors “organic” farm, oh yeah they walked to the farm, walked! with all the paps following them, if they hate the attention when why walk????? The twins missed that too w/Kate promising to take them there some day, yeah whatever.
Cara and Mady are the first to revolt, and the first to be left out.

The kids are still so cute, they all fell in love with a kitten on the farm, but you know Kate had to hold the kitten most of the time, they have done more in the last 3 years than some people do in a lifetime, but what if they were just left to grow up normal, not always going here and there, will they even remember these things in 10 years?

Glad the show is over, TLC has wrung out every drop they could from the family but they will be in the media for ever, they will never go away. Its sad because it became all about money and not the 8 kids.

Why the f*^k doesn’t this guy just die already?