This mom who invited the media into her life now complains she’s being railroaded. Some advice for this reality star: Get real!

Am I the only one who cringes at the mention of her name? You know who I mean: the woman who, with then husband Jon, decided to trot out their entire family of eight children on a reality show, exposing their personal lives for the world to see. The woman who says she’s a mother first, but didn’t stop to think about whether or not her kids would want to live their lives in front of the camera. The woman who whines about how the media is always ragging on her. As she put it recently on Dancing with the Stars, she wakes up and reads the newspapers to find out what her nightmare will be that day—a nightmare of her own creation, I might add.

Kate Gosselin, if you don’t want the media talking about you, get off TV! She opted to sign up for Dancing, yet she kvetches on every episode about how hard, how terrible her life is. She also signed up for a new TLC reality series called Twist of Kate. She even wrote a book about her life with her family—and then another and another. Call me insensitive, but I find it hard to see her as a victim.

She says she lives her life in the public eye to make a living to support her kids. I guess there are no other ways to make a living. Come to think of it, I help support my family without appearing on TV, and so do millions of working moms across the country. And Kate, weren’t you once a nurse? A noble profession! So go back to it.

But no, that couldn’t possibly make her enough money to live the lifestyle to which she’s become accustomed. So the rest of us mortals have to put up with seeing her name and hearing her voice—even when we try not to. I confess, I do enjoy watching Dancing with the Stars. But I actually like the dancing. I especially like when the pros dance together in their specialty numbers. They’re amazing. They’re talented. They’re supposed to be on TV. But Kate? Not amazing (unless you consider giving birth to sextuplets through fertility treatments amazing—I guess to some it is). Not talented. Not, in my opinion, supposed to be on TV. If she must grab every media op she can, she ought to stop complaining about the attention.

Let’s go back to her children for a moment. I’m a mom and a longtime parenting editor. I also used to be an actor. I know that most children don’t thrive growing up in the spotlight. Some of them choose it; they really want to act or model and beg their parents to let them. But when kids are forced into the limelight by their parents, that’s when I get mad. Think Kate and Jon’s eight. Think Balloon Boy. The chances are pretty slim that these kids will emerge unscarred.

So Kate, I know you have a lot of fans (otherwise you would have been axed from Dancing already). But start to really think about your children first, instead of just saying you do, and remove them and yourself from the glare of the public eye. You’ve had your fifteen minutes—and then some. Get off reality TV and get real, Mom.