Octomom: My Family Is Too Damn Big For Instagram!

Natalie Suleman is the mother to 14 children. As you can imagine, she has even more trouble than most families when it comes to getting everyone together for a group photo.

The results, however, can be pretty darn funny.

Take a look at the photo of her minimalist family, and read the (former) Octomom’s explanation for the chaos.

Sharing the photo that you’re about to see to Instagram, Natalie Suleman — who no longer uses the names Nadya or Octomom — offers an explanation.

“So THIS is what happened when we attempted to take a fun family photo with as many family members as possible,” she writes.

In the picture, she is seated with only 11 of her 14 children.

“Per usual, Elijah, Amerah, and JJ are absent from the pic,” Suleman explains.

She adds: “(growing up I despised taking photos so I understand and don’t force them).”

There is a lot of chaotic energy in this photo. With some different arrangements and more dramatic lighting, you’d get a Baroque painting.

“Aidan had enough of sitting and threw his head back,” she explains.

The result, as you can see, is that his head flew back dramatically, “nearly hitting mine.”

“So,” she writes. “This may explain why I look, ummm … startled.”

She’s clearly not the only one. Hey, children don’t generally want to sit still for ages. This problem magifies exponentially when you add more children.

She also shared this smaller but much less chaotic photo recently.

This was from when she sent her octuplets back to school.

Like countless other parents, celebrity and otherwise, she snapped and shared a back-to-school photo on social media.

Unlike the vast majority of those other parents … she had a lot of children in the photo. But she fit them all into the frame anyway.

She’s had a lot of practice, just as she did in this image when she was feeding them all vegan tacos.

Even in this image, you can tell that they had to go out of their way to fit into the frame.

It’s so reassuring to hear that Suleman gives her children the freedom to opt out of family photos if they want to.

(If anyone else has ever been forced to wear a turtleneck for an hour at the age of four for a family photoshoot, and still feels indignation at that memory, you can appreciate her parenting choice)

It’s also neat to see that most of her children are more than happy to pose for the photos. And when it’s only the eight of them, things tend to turn out pretty well.

At least, they do in the photos that she chooses to upload. We’re sure that she has plenty of outtakes that fans and followers don’t normally get to see.

You know what? It’s been years since Suleman stopped being Octomom, and we have to say that she seems to be doing well.

We’re so sorry that she got so much negative feedback over supporting her family by stripping. There is nothing wrong with sex work, and she should never have been shamed for it.

Sometimes, when people become famous, they just can’t handle it. Suleman is an example of that, but she seems to have adjusted to things.

Her focus is on her fourteen children. That’s right where it should be.

View Slideshow: 33 Nadya Suleman Pics You Don’t Even Want to See

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Octomom: My Family"s Not Poor! We"re Minimalists!

The sad, sad tale of Octomom may have technically come to an end — because Suleman is a very different woman from who she once was.

So different, in fact, that she"s now going by Natalie, not Nadya.

And, as you"ll see in the video below, Natalie"s lifestyle is wildly different from that of the woman who made that infamous Octomom sex tape all those years ago.

Natalie Suleman is no longer the Octomom, but she"s still the mother of her octuplets: Makai, Josiah, Isaiah, Jonah, Maliyah, Jeremiah, Nariyah, and Noah

And she not only gave an interview to Us Weekly, but also invited their cameras along.

She talks about her priorities as a parent.

Natalie also explains why she gives each of her eight children, born in 2009, just one gift for Christmas.

"I’m focusing on raising the kids to focus on serving other people, to get out of their own head."

She explains the message that she hopes to instill.

"Be grateful for one little thing that they get because they earned it."

Her kids, she says, are wonderful.

"They’re extraordinary kids. I’m so, so, so grateful."

We believe it.

But, as you can imagine, Octomom"s famous financial struggles are also a factor:

"We’re on a budget and we’re pretty much so grateful for every little thing."

Financial hardships teach some very unwelcome "lessons," but it sounds like she"s putting a positive spin on things.

But Suleman says that money issues aren"t the only things keeping a reign on consumerism.

"We’re minimalist, too. They’re all minimalist and I am."

We don"t know how eight 8-year-olds just happen to all be minimalists — at least, we don"t necessarily believe that they"ll all carry that philosophy into adulthood.

But it sounds like Suleman"s embracing that ideal for herself.

"The real me is a minimalist, so I believe that one gift that they really want, you know, they’re incredibly grateful for that."

We"re sure that they are.

This picture that Natalie Suleman is painting is pretty different from the time when Suleman worked as a stripper.

For those of you who don"t know, stripping can be very lucrative.

Unfortunately, because of our sex-negative and misogynistic culture, a lot of unenlightened viewers can"t reconcile the idea of a stripper also being a mother.

(To be fair, Suleman was kind of a mess for several years)

It looks like when the Octomom said she wanted to change, she meant it.

Because she"s clearly undergone a thorough rebranding.

The video below is very sweet, and you even get to hear what all of her children would like to get for their mother.

Suleman"s octuplets all turn 9 on January 26th.

We wonder, though: is Natalie"s rebranding going somewhere?

Will she try to build up a a reality empire with her new, "wholesome" image?

Or … maybe what she"s telling us is the real deal.

 

 

"I’m focusing on raising the kids to focus on serving other people, to get out of their own head."

"Be grateful for one little thing that they get because they earned it."

"They’re extraordinary kids. I’m so, so, so grateful."

"We’re on a budget and we’re pretty much so grateful for every little thing."

"We’re minimalist, too. They’re all minimalist and I am."

"The real me is a minimalist, so I believe that one gift that they really want, you know, they’re incredibly grateful for that."

 

 

 

 

 

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Octomom and The Octuplets: Look at Them Now!

The Octo-Kids are nearly Octo-Teenagers.

Almost.

The eight children made famous by Nadya Suleman back when she gave birth to them all (AT ONCE!) in January of 2009 stopped by the set of The Doctors this week because their mother was on hand for an interview.

And it’s pretty amazing to see how old they all look now.

Which of the kids pictured here is Noah? Which is Jonah? Which is Jeremiah? Which is Josiah? Which is Isaiah? Which is Makai? Which is Nariyah? Which is Maliya?

We’re not sure.

But the kids turn eight years old in just a couple months.

Why is their mother back on television?

Because “my history was haunting us,” Suleman says in her The Doctors feature.

“I left ‘Octomom.’ I went back to my life as a counselor. I went back and my kids had a healthy, happy life. The problem is, it’s followed us, because people never knew what I did.

“They never knew the true story.”

The true story is that, yes, Suleman did porn and posed naked on many occasions back when her kids were young.

But she has 14 of them (Suleman already had six children when IVF treatments prompted her to give birth to eight more) and had been criticized harshly for being on government assistance.

“I ended up selling myself out, Suleman says in this new interview, explaining how she tried to pay for her family herself via these X-rated activities.

Suleman is adamant that she wants to leave the spotlight behind.

No one hates the nickname Octomom more than she does, the former celebrity claims, adding:

“When [people] do come up and say, ‘Hi, can I take a picture with you?’ and ‘Hi, are you Octomom?’ I say, ‘I no longer go by that anymore, but thank you so much.’

“I’m a mom and I don’t do that anymore.”

Nadya Suleman on The Doctors

Suleman also worked as a stripper awhile back.

She has numerous regrets and is still doing everything she can to turn her life around.

“I’m still in the process of pulling my self worth out of the toilet, I flushed it down multiple times,” she says of her past. “Like all human beings, we make mistakes and we learn, we grow, we change.”

Dare we say it? Nadya Suleman sounds reasonable, mature and well-grounded.

Suleman adds that she takes accountability for “being dumb and irresponsible and selfish” by having such a gigantic family.

She says she has no desire to “burden” tax payers by being on welfare and explains that she is working hard to support her 14 children.

View Slideshow: 33 Nadya Suleman Pics You Don’t Even Want to See

She wants to be known as “Natalie” now and she also wants to make it clear: her kids are fantastic.

That’s an important point of pride for Suleman.

“I own and take responsibility for my poor choices, but it doesn’t take away from how extraordinary these kids turned out to be,” she says.

And, in the end, that’s almost all that matters.

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Nadya Suleman: I Hate Octomom! I Sold My Body!

Nadya Suleman bares all in a new interview with The Doctors.

No, not in the way that Nadya Suleman bared all in the past.

There is not a new batch of Nadya Suleman nude photos coming your way below, we promise.

But the viral sensation formerly known as “Octomom” did appear as a guest on The Doctors this week, opening up like never before about her past life.

For example: she’d really prefer if we did NOT refer to her as “Octomom.”

Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever again.

“I never set out to become an ‘octomom,’” the 41-year old says in a clip from The Doctors that was first published by People Magazine.

“I’ve always wanted a big family – not this big!”

In 2009, of course, Suleman gave birth to octuplets via IVF after Dr. Michael Kamrava injected her with 12 embryos.

She went on to garner Internet fame because… well… because she gave birth to eight babies at once.

Many people were disgusted by this notion and then grew even more disgusted because Suleman cost them money by relying on government assistance to pay for her giant brood.

This, she says, is what caused her to eventually pose naked: Suleman needed to pay her bills.

“Rather than go get more public assistance, which I already felt ashamed of, I ended up selling myself out,” she admits in this interview.

“At the time, it was like an investment so that I could support my family. I believe the judgment I experienced was warranted because what were people supposed to believe?

“All they were being fed by the media was negativity.”

Suleman starred in porn, took part in bikini photo shoots and took her clothes off in front of the camera at various times, all so her 14 kids would not go hungry.

(Yes, 14 kids. At the time she gave birth to eight babies, she was already the single mother of six children.)

Suleman – who now goes by the first name “Natalie” – previously confessed that she embraced the “Octomom” persona because it at least put cash in her pocket.

Now, however?

“There’s nobody, possibly, who could have hated ‘Octomom’ more than I,” she says.

So why is Suleman back in the spotlight now?

When her entire point seems to be that she regrets having been so public with her name and her body back in 2010 and 2011?

“My history was haunting us,” she says. “I left ‘Octomom.’ I went back to my life as a counselor. I went back and my kids had a healthy, happy life. The problem is it’s followed us, because people never knew what I did. They never knew the true story.”

Yes, in the end, Suleman regrets a lot.

She wishes she had made some different choices back in the day.

But she can take solace in one very important fact. Which is this:

“I own and take responsibility for my poor choices, but it’s certainly doesn’t take away from how extraordinary these kids ended up turning out to be.”

View Slideshow: 45 Nadya Suleman Pics You Don’t Want to See

Now, if only she could somehow delete the photos above from the Internet archives and our collective memory, all will be forgiven.

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