The Radfords

[highchairhell]

Hey all, after a night struggling with a teething baby and a toddler with chicken pox I ended up thinking about how the radfords cope? There just wasn't enough of me last night to give both the constant attention they wanted, and my DH was helping but it was constant and exhausting.

How on Earth do the radfords cope? Surely their children teeth, get poorly, need advice, homework help, feeding, bathing, one on one time etc so HOW?

I guess my aibu is to think they can't? Surely they can't be in 21 places at once?!

I judge them as being unwell.

So there's threads on here discussing child abuse and sexual abuse. And cases where young teenagers are groomed by adults, and an adult is someone over 18. So here we have case of a 13 year old child, being made pregnant by an 18 year old and these people are celebrated and paraded through the media as an amazing working family when the reality is this man who got a young child pregnant has gone on to impregnate her a further 22 times and he's never been questioned or challenged on this. It seems to me there's a victim of abuse at the heart of this family. And that quite possibly this abuse is ongoing. Just because they stayed together doesn't mean it wasn't completely out of order and has affected her entire life.

I see criticism of Mr. Radford all the time, Fluffy.

For the most part, I think people find the 23 children more concerning than the decades-old statutory rape.

Apologies I just found it disturbing as I'd not really considered it before. I thought I'd better check facts and she was 14yrs6weeks when eldest was born, he was 18yrs and 5months, so I guess technically he was a 'child'.
My point was an older person using a child for sex is abuse and grooming (she was definitely only 13 and a few months so whilst you might say it's statutory rape, it could also have been grooming and abuse.
Aside from that I agree that 21 children is ridiculous. Until this thread is not seen any negativity just constant how amazing she is...

He can consent at seventeen, she cannot at 13.

There was a documentary on massive families few years back. To a man the teenagers were doing a LOT of the childcare and were clearly and openly resentful: it was impacting homework, exam study, and part time jobs. I taught a little boy, one of nine children, years ago and he was so incredibly sweet but so attention starved, i used to get quite upset. In the documentary i did find the parents giggly excitement over impending no 10 upwards immature/a bit odd. Surely it gets routine by that many & it's hardly a novelty by then/theres £, sleepless nights issues etc.

They don’t need benefits. Their pies are between £3 and £13 each. This thread made me google their pie shop. Job done.

It doesn't matter how much the pies cost. The shop has rates and rent costs plus electric, water etc. It apparently pays the wages of mum, dad and at least 2 children.

They would have to sell an awful lot of pies to cover all that without any benefits wouldn't they?

I believe you can't claim tax credits if you earn more than £50,000. The bakery takes just under that apparently!