If I am Nadya Suleman right now, I'm thinking 14 kids under the age of 7 is going to be the easy part.
Dealing with all the anger that is raining down on her is what's tough.
The wonder that greeted the news that Suleman had given birth to eight reasonably healthy babies quickly gave way to intrusion, ridicule, resentment and violent threats. Some of those threats included the phrase wood chipper, if you can imagine.
And there has been a new and disturbing headline just about every day since the octuplets came into the world on Jan. 26.
The mother is divorced, and the man whose sperm fertilized her eggs is just now finding out that he has 14 children.
She is unemployed and used a huge disability check to pay more than $100,000 in in vitro fertilization bills. She is on food stamps, and three of her children are disabled and receive checks from the government.
She lives with her mother, who is spending all her retirement income on her grandchildren and is quite willing to give television interviews venting her resentment and criticizing her daughter.
Did she or didn't she have plastic surgery to give her the lips and nose of celebrity super-mom Angelina Jolie? Is she sending the actress mash notes?
And last week, some eager reporter discovered that Nadya's mother, Angela Suleman, is 10 months behind in mortgage payments on a home she purchased in 2006 for $450,000. Her mother has also filed for bankruptcy, listing $1 million in debts.
In an unhappy coincidence, during an economic crisis triggered by over-ambitious homebuying, Angela Suleman faces foreclosure and the loss of her home to auction in May.
The fact that the public may end up paying more than $1 million for the medical care of the octuplets - and that their mother has received government support - apparently makes all this horrible scrutiny OK.
She is picking our pockets - at a time when they contain not much more than lint - to fulfill her dream of having a huge family, and we are so furious that of course we can be excused for holding her up for public ridicule.
Jon and Kate and their eight get a fourth season on reality TV. An Arkansas couple who have 18 kids - produced in more orderly fashion - get a TV show, too.
The McGaughey septuplets brought their parents a new house, a van and round-the-clock support from fellow parishioners. But those were squeaky clean kids from Iowa, and Suleman has a vaguely Arab-sounding name and she chose to be a single mother.
