At some point in the last year, a friend’s Facebook status referred to something called “Jon and Kate Plus 8.” Disconnected as I am from pop culture, I had to google the term to figure out what she was talking about. (And then I had to google “Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek” when another friend bemoaned their breakup. Yes, I admit it. I never watched Malcolm in the Middle. See, Google taught me well.) It turns out (so that those even more clueless than I am don’t have to google it — I’m nice and caretaking like that) that Jon and Kate Plus 8 is a reality TV show about a couple and their (gulp!) eight children. (All born at the same time? Some large subset born at the same time? I gathered something like that but didn’t delve that far.)

I don’t watch Jon and Kate Plus 8 for two reasons (and one of those reasons is not that I’m so above reality TV trash, because back when I used to work in an office, I totally won the office Survivor pool):

Reason 1: Well, obviously, I never heard of the show until recently, but now that I have, I’m too busy blogging about not watching it to spring for fancy channels I can’t watch because they cut into my blogging time. And don’t tell me the episodes may be available online. Do you want me to finish this post or go googling for answers?

Reason 2: I don’t watch shows involving parenting because they piss me off. The last time I watched a parenting related show was when Supernanny was “helping” the parents of an autistic child by berating them and making them cry. Supernanny traumatized me through the screen and triggered my own perfectionism and fears of judgment so much that I wanted to punch her in the nose. I decided I should go pray and meditate until I was so spiritual and confident and accepting of my own imperfections as a parent and well, generally fixed that the thought of Supernanny didn’t make me want sneak tacks into her bed. Years later, I’m not there yet. Supernanny is on my resentment list. High up. In all caps. Bold. Italics. Right next to my high school history teacher.

Still, in spite of the fact that I don’t watch it and know next to nothing about it, there is something about Jon and Kate Plus 8 that interests me, and it’s not my opinion on the show or any of the drama surrounding it. (Opinions? Of course I have opinions, in spite of knowing nothing more than what I’ve gleaned from my friends’ gossip and a google search. There are kids, there’s parenting, there’s potential infidelity involved. I’m all about opinions on that.) But what interests me is my inability to talk to anyone about it.

You see, if I were to end this post about here and put it out into the wide world even beyond this blog — say, on the New York Times blog Motherlode (um, no that couple is not me) or Salon or anyplace else — I predict that 100% of the commenters (or somewhere close to 100%) would pick a side and tell me why I was right or wrong not to have watched it. (Come on, you thought about it yourself. Admit it. I know I would.)

Included in those comments there would be — spoken or unspoken — judgments about me (good and worthy person for not watching trash TV vs. bad and ignorant person for writing about shows I know nothing about), judgments about Jon and Kate (evil greedy money mongers selling out their family vs. nice folks just trying to give their kids a future in an imperfect way; along with some: they deserve what they get for choosing to be on TV vs. no one deserves to be treated that way regardless of choices), judgments about the other commenters (worthless people who watch inexcusably trashy TV vs. snobby, awful people who don’t get why the show is interesting and worthwhile). And implicit in many of those judgments will be the assumption that there is a right way to do, be, look at everything (and my way is the right way, of course).

Six years in to working on my communication skills and my own unhealthy habit toward things like judgment and perfectionism, I find I’m at a loss for how to engage with others on this topic (among others). Because I recognize that getting into what I think about Jon and Kate or the show or their kids or reality TV or TV at all isn’t really relevant. The whole thing about Jon and Kate isn’t really about Jon and Kate.

In fact, you may have noticed that I already told you (a bit) what it’s actually about when I said why I don’t watch the show. It’s about my own parenting fears and fallibilities. It’s about my anxiety around how people judge my life even though it’s not on TV and how many more would judge it if it were. It’s about the judgments I make about other families and children without knowing or understanding them. It’s about the fear and frustration that comes from my inability to control people around me whose actions and decisions and craziness impact my life. For someone else, it may be something different, but that’s what it’s about for me.

But start a conversation about all that? A conversation where there aren’t right answers only our own individual truths? Yikes! I’d be vulnerable and that would be scary. And I’d probably get triggered and annoyed and frustrated.  It’s easier to argue about what I think about Jon and Kate. Only I haven’t watched the show. That’s ok, maybe the episodes are online. Then when I tell you what my opinions are, they’ll seem more credible and you’ll see how totally right I am about them.