Did you catch the story about former NFL running back Travis Henry?
You might say he’s the male version of Whittier’s own Octomom – except he’s going to be paying a steeper price for fathering nine children than Nadya Suleman will ever pay for giving birth to 14.
Henry, who played for three NFL teams including the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos was recently ordered to pay $3,000 a month for one of the kids. Additionally he fell $16,000 behind in support for another.
Clearly the child support amounts were determined by the size of Henry’s final contract with the Broncos. In 2007 the team gave Henry a five-year, $25 million contract.
By the time he was cut last year, Henry had received just $6.7 million, according to the New York Times.
Because of positive drug tests and an arrest for drug trafficking, there’s little chance Henry will ever play in the NFL again.
As “baby daddy” to nine children from nine separate women, Henry went to court seeking a reduction in the amount of child support he would have to pay. Some of the “baby mommas” and their attorneys say no way. They point to the shear amounts of money Henry reportedly squandered on cars, clothes and other women.
But is he any more irresponsible than Octomom?
I say no. At least Henry appears to have made some effort to support his kids. Suleman on the other hand has been relying on taxpayers to support her and the brood.
Consider the facts:
Octomom used a combination of food stamps, disability payments and student loans to provide for her first six kids;
She lived with her mother in a home that was nearing foreclosure;
Knowing this Nayda nonetheless decided to have herself implanted with six frozen embryos and brought eight fatherless children into the world on Jan. 26.
I highly doubt she had any intention of paying for these kids on her own. After all, estimates for the monthly care of Octomom’s sickly brood run hundreds of thousands of dollars per month.
Where’s the outraged judge in this case, threatening to lock Nadya up for having kids she can’t support?
Where’s the Department of Children and Family Services that intrude into the lives of so many other Angelenos?
Nowhere of course.
Does anyone think that Dr. Phil or RadarOnline, or Gloria Allred are going to stick around once the audience dries up and the ratings dwindle?
Does anyone believe for a second when these media whores say their interest is motivated solely out of compassion for the children?
I hope not. Because you can guarantee the next time Paris or Lindsay or Britney or Rhianna or some woman who has nine babies and a brood of 15 turn up, the cameras and the money will be gone.
For now, unlike a washed up former NFL running back, the Nadya freak show makes money. But eventually (like it did in Henry’s case) the money’s going to run out and we’ll be on the hook for supporting those kids and their shiftless mother.
Let’s hear it for double standards.
