Are the Radford's massive piss takers?

I guess in the early days it was too complicated (and possibly out of budget) to take so many children to activities at different times/places when they always had 3 or 4 babies and pre-schoolers in tow.

I wondered how they managed at the doctors/dentist/orthodontist/optician etc having to take multiple children to any appointment. Or how they keep on top of all the school admin?
Primary school was full of dress up days, assemblies, bring in a pringle tube for craft,wear this colour for charity, bring party food on that day, bring your bike for cycling proficiency, bring x,y or z for a school trip etc etc

The house looked fairly chaotic in the first few series on channel 4, and I feel you'd need to be super organised with eg 4+ kids let alone 20! (There was more than 1 passport drama I seem to recall) I watched 1 or 2 on channel 5 but they seemed completely set up and staged, less fly on the wall.

You do realise that’s 99% of working class people’s lives ?
I have a friend whose daughter is a child model absolutely stunning little girl and she makes money from Next catalogues that kind of thing. None of the money goes in a bank account towards this child’s future. It’s spent on Day trips for the three not so successful sisters and clothes and exactly as you would expect live life love stickers for the living room.

I suppose they are never encouraged to attend anything extra curricular and the family are so insular

Yes she wasn't exactly encouraged by Sue who probably used emotional blackmail

No the boys are left to fester in their bedrooms on their x boxes 😔

@Coffeemmmmcoffee I think one girl did go to university but left to come back and look after their siblings

And that is another thing, it is usually down to the girls to help out, not the boys

I've never liked them or been remotely interested in them. She clearly has issues and he enables her (at best).

Obviously, it's their choice, but in the city where I used to live, there was a street in the centre with about 6 separately-owned antique shops, pretty much next door to each other.

I always used to be baffled as to why anybody would see a row of 5 antique shops and think "Hey, I know exactly what this street needs right here!"

Similarly, I just cannot get the mindset of already having 6, 8, 12, 15, 20 children and then, still every time, thinking "Ooh, I think I know what our household is missing" !

The getting new baby stuff every time is insane.

I can understand if you end up with a surprise baby ten years after you've given away or sold the pram and cot etc.; but they very clearly know what their MO has been for a very long time, and that they'll continue having more and more babies until she physically cannot have any more.

Even then, they'll obviously be having shed-loads of baby grandchildren needing the equipment!

I presume the baby gear companies must just keep giving them new stuff every time, so they can be seen on TV using (and thus promoting) the latest model.

I know that they fund their own lifestyle themselves and aren't scrounging, however, I feel like they quite often come across as bragging which is why I'm not keen on them.

She was abused from 13 onwards so she's mentally stunted at 13. It's so obvious the way she's always falling out with her children and unfriending /blocking them. The kind of things you'd expect a teenager to do 🤦‍♀️I heard there was a fight at Millie's wedding recently. Not the happy family they like to portray.

When they were first on TV (I think about 10 years ago) I'm pretty sure they said Noel earned under the CB threshold.

At the time they "only" had 15 kids but even then the maths didn't add up. Thry spent 250/wk on food (which is not a lot for that many people, even then, but adds up to 13k over a year) ....150 per child on birthday...and then Xmas presents. All the teens had phones, several had games consoles, they got a new pram each time a baby was born....And all this was covered by the pie shop. That's before taking into account mortgage, bills, clothes (they don't hand down clothes) fuel, school trips etc etc.

In one programme they were laughing that a tv had been broken (so add new tv to the shopping list) and a hole punched in the wall , and they had no idea who it was or how it happened. Having lots of kids isn't the same as parenting lots of kids and I just don't think its possible to support that many children practically or emotionally. or financially if you're relying on 1 wage from a small pie shop

Obviously now they've got multiple social media and tv income streams but some people are still deluded that they're supported by a pie shop....which if it was the case, someone self employed supporting about 15 people (if we assume the older kids pay their own way ) would likely not be able to take that many holidays away from work.

Interesting... considering that the older kids will know very well what it was like when there were far fewer of them; whereas the younger ones won't ever have known anything different from being part of a massive family.

Well the birth rate is falling dramatically so I don’t know what the problem is! We need young workers! If everyone had 22 children then of course it’s an issue, but there can’t be many families with this number!

Workers? Ha ha, did you miss the bit where most of them are spongers?

All that money to go on holiday every few weeks and not one of them has bought/rented their own home, they are all in social housing. The latest one to have a baby, I think she is about 21 got her own flat. How is that fair when they spend tens of thousands every year going on holiday to America and Dubai etc?

I think it speaks volumes that none of the older kids seem ambitious or driven in any way.

No higher education, no apprenticeships or even careers to speak of really. I don’t see any sporting achievements or musical instruments being played, none of them have excelled in drama or any extra curricular interests.

The kids used to just appear feral and weirdly anti social in the earlier days and now just seem spoilt with crap food and holidays on which they buy more Disney tat to take home.

But none of them seem to be given the basic guidance and parenting to actual make their own lives fulfilling. No doubt total lack of support/time as individuals has really impacted them and left the older kids aimless.

The girls just seem to get a boyfriend in their late teens then start having babies and get their own council house.

We only have one child, and we're often conscious how our time, attention and money would have been divided if we'd ended up having two or three.

To put it bluntly, having that many children means that they WILL massively miss out on your time and attention (possibly not money/material goods if you happen to be loaded) and not receive anything like as much as they need and deserve.

This may be controversial, but I believe it to be automatically a case of deliberate child neglect, choosing to have that many, however naively well-intentioned you may be.

I personally couldn't give a shiny shit about the benefits they may or may not receive but I think it's very distasteful to have more children than you can have time for in reality. Be realistic, most families do not have that many kids - it's fairly unusual to have more than 3. And they are flogged on social media for likes and free shit.

The one documentary I watched on them showed the younger kids loving their big family but the teenagers absolutely hated it and spent all their time in their triple bunk beds (because most of them shared with at least 2 other siblings) to get away from the chaos. Says it all really.

I get the impression that they don't necessarily have large sums of liquid capital in the bank, but rather they get given loads of free stuff, holidays etc. by the TV company or other 'sponsors' as and when they ask for them or, more likely, when being seen using/enjoying them will make for more exciting television or lucrative product promotion.

The multiple holidays and trips out are usually content for TV, so they won't pay for those (or for the majority of them anyway). They also do quite a few ads on social media getting paid/free items from that. I don't think the bakery makes a fortune, but I do think they have other avenues for making money and freebies.

Child benefit before the cap has been mentioned a couple of times on this thread - there is no cap on child benefit.

The two child limit for benefits like UC does not apply to Child benefit.

The amount of CB over the years will be a staggering amount!

Not to mention the tax credits

I don’t think they’re as loaded as everyone thinks. The dad got a speeding fine recently with a £900 fine plus court costs (I think it all added up to circa £1500) He’s paying it off over 3 months 🤷‍♀️

Indeed! The pie shop that provides for all!

My grandma was the oldest of 11. She was a nanny from about age 5/6 constantly looking after babies. It was a sad childhood for most of the children and her youngest sister said she never got much attention or care.
22 is impossible!

Well the birth rate is falling dramatically so I don’t know what the problem is! We need young workers! If everyone had 22 children then of course it’s an issue, but there can’t be many families with this number!

And at least the Radfords will have offspring who are well socialised and used to sharing and getting along in a group. Those are all useful skills in this day and age.

I don’t know why everyone is so against them. Not every family has to be a carbon copy of the next. And everyone’s house goes through a messy stage when they have lots of toddlers about. And family houses tend to get tidier and more organised as the dc grow up. All very normal as far as I am concerned.

Mum has imo mild learning difficulties and having babies is her thing as she doesn’t think she can offer anything else. She was targeted as a child by an adult man. It’s a shame.