These days, things are tense at best for the Gosselin family.
Jon Gosselin is going to court over custody issues, an added complication to an already fractured family.
However, he marked a very special Throwback Thursday this week with an astonishing throwback clip from a dozen years in the past.
In addition to showing the eight children when they were very young, it also showed the bitter exes when things were arguably happier.
“You look up and it’s 12 years later,” Jon Gosselin captioned the grainy throwback video.
The video was a relatively short clip of ABC footage featuring their family.
Jon added the tags: “#wow #wheredoesthetimego #timeflies.”
Many of us find it very relatable how he marvels at the passage of time.
It’s one thing to think “2010 was 12 years ago” and quite another to understand that “someone born in 2000 is old enough to drink.”
But for Jon, this is more personal, because he is appreciating — on a bittersweet note — how much his children have grown.
Speaking of people born in 2000, Cara and Mady were born in October of that year.
Four years later, their medium-sized family exploded into a supersized sideshow with the birth of their sextuplets.
Hannah, Leah, Alexis, Joel, Aaden, and Collin were born in May of 2004.
In the throwback clip, Jon speaks lovingly about his children.
Some of his descriptions of the children and their respective personalities aren’t just accurate — they’re downright prescient.
It’s remarkable how wildly consistent the Gosselin children’s personalities have been, even going back this far.
“Cara, she’s the oldest. Very quiet but she’s super athletic,” Jon raved about one daughter.
Notably, this is the very same daughter who has since gone on to participate in college athletics.
Similarly, if a person had been burdened with the knowledge of what TikTok is all of those years ago, they could have guessed which twin would perform well on the cursed app.
“Mady is the polar opposite of Cara,” Jon described in the ancient clip.
“Artsy, music, singing, dance, drama,” he listed.
Like we said, Mady has maintained this spark into adulthood.
Jon listed his daughter Alexis as “the first-born of the six.”
He characterized her as “wild and crazy.”
Meanwhile, little Hannah was described as being “very mothering.”
Jon praised his son Aaden as having “probably the biggest fan club on the planet.”
Collin was described as “the engineer of the bunch.”
Jon described his son as being both “meticulous and organized.”
Leah earned the description of being both “cute and cunning” by Jon’s estimation.
Joel, the last of the sextuplets to be born, was simply characterized as “very complimenting.”
Jon noted that Joel would praise people, even adults, in a polite and very mature way.
Jon has had custody of Hannah and Collin since 2018.
The two of them were finally at an age at which they are considered old enough by family courts to have input in their own custody situation.
Hannah went with her dad right away. Collin took longer, in part because Kate had shipped him off to an institution.
As for the rest of them, however, things are pretty bittersweet.
Jon has not been able to speak to his twins in years.
It’s not for lack of trying on his part. Cara and Mady are not interested in a relationship with their dad. Neither are the other four sextuplets.
It’s a complicated situation, because Jon is certainly a flawed man and father.
Sometimes people are mistaken for being “Team Jon” simply for describing Kate as the toxic nightmare that she is. It’s not quite the same thing.
At the end of the day, all of us — except for Kate herself — just want what’s best for the eight Gosselin kids.