Kate Gosselin and Fame - Collision Course or Just Being a Good Mommy?

I'm going out on a huge limb here because I didn't watch the train wreck Dancing with the Stars and missed the "I haven't had sex in over a year" oversharing and am not up to speed on the latest custody or labor issues against her, but I'll say it, l'm still a Kate Gosselin fan.
Here's why. I've been writing about fame here at the Huffington Post for several months now and to me Kate Gosselin is a perfect example of someone who did not seek fame because she wanted attention but because fame was a means to an end. I continue to believe that she's doing this for her children.
I started watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 on TLC in the early years and from the first time I saw her lining up those little coats and cutting those carrots and taking pictures of those first successes in the potties and yes, telling Jon Gosselin to get with the program I saw a woman whose maternal instincts were the very core of her being. Just listen to that voice - it's got that flat surety and authoritative command of a mother who absolutely knows best because, well, she said so. The kind of mom growing up you were half scared of and half wished was yours. Someone you'd want in charge of your birthday party. A sixth sense (literally) of what is going on with these children at any given moment and a laser-beam focus on running a household.
Even nowadays when she dresses up in one more "what not to wear' makeover look after another, she still looks like someone's mother doing this. MILFy maybe, but still starting with a capital M.
I think someone profound happened to Kate Gosselin when she found out she and her husband were going to have 6 babies at once in addition to the toddler twins already home. Kate Gosselin basically manned up and dealt with it. When the TLC reality series on their lives became a way to make money that would ensure not only the basics of food, clothing and a roof but also trips, clothes and college funds she realized this was their living and their support. And the two became inexorably entwined - her children and the presence of cameras documenting their lives together. Reality television is sort of the only way she's known how to handle the reality of their reality.
Yes she's a control freak - probably was one from the start and then realized it was the only way to cope - but I never got the sense this has ever been about her. Nor do I think the making of Jon and Kate Plus 8 hurt any of the children - she simply wouldn't have allowed it, plus it's always seemed clear to me that everyone involved adored these children.
Fame tore this family apart, no question. The best part of the show used to be Jon and Kate going over everything that was going on in that big cute chair together and it's very sad to see that their marriage was unable to withstand the huge changes their celebrity brought to their lives. Fame brings a predatory cadre of people out to share in the limelight as well as all kinds of temptations and pitfalls that this young couple could never have anticipated or prepared for. Nor were they spared. But I still think Kate continues to seek the limelight because it's how she takes care of her children - her voice and her intent has not wavered since the babies were born - this is about and for them. Whether this is going to end up at all well remains to be seen. The whole family has paid a price for its celebrity status but it's not hard to see why she thinks she can't quit.
Kate Gosselin alone in the spotlight is not why we tune in, but why many of us still root for her. She thinks she needs it to be a good mother.