Would you find 13 kids BEFORE welfare state more difficult than Radfords?

[StrictlyOnIce]

I watch the Radford documentaries svd they come across as a secure, functional family where the kids are happy. It looks to me like they are doing a good job of raising their kids.

However my grandad was raised as one of 13 kids before welfare state and NHS.

So - I’ve often wondered - do you think it’s harder raising 13 kids with no welfare state or NHS or 22 kids in modern times.?

13 kids in a tenement without a working father - much more difficult.

13 kids in a large family home in a mill town, father in a business/ management/ clerical job, mother at home and oldest children in office work much easier. Mum would have had a couple of live in girls to help in return for room and board and material expectations would have been lower across the board.

Obviously pre antibiotics and modern medicine child birth and the early years were much more dangerous.

Children probably went to work at 14 (or younger) and contributed to finances.

I'd rather have 22 now with washing machines/ dishwashers/ online food deliveries/ disposable nappies/ robovac hoovers and clothes that don't need to be ironed than 13 without that lot.

Secure and functional?!

Have you ever seen the early documentaries about them, before they wised up about media presence and realised they shouldn't admit to locking the children up in their rooms over night?

Or when the eldest daughter went to university but was guilt tripped to come back as a live in nanny slave?

Not to mention the fact that the children are feral and late for everything because there is simply not enough hours in a day to give them all attention, nor the emotional neglect they suffer because mummy Sue loses interest in the toddlers as soon as she's got a brand new snuggly baby?

People generally didn’t choose to have 13 children in the times before the welfare state. That the vast majority of people stopped having 13 children as soon as the option to not have 13 children became available suggests that everyone found it pretty difficult regardless of the welfare state.

TBH I don’t think the Radfirds are a particularly good example of people having lots of children. They both come across as a bit potty and they’ve said themselves that they’re trying to create the family they never had as children, they’re emotionally damaged.

I had a friend who was the youngest of 13 ,several of the older kids had left home and even married before she was born
There would have to be at least 13 years between the youngest and oldest sp it's unlikely there would be 13 kids in the house at one time.

I don’t think your opinions about the Radfords will be the same for everyone on here 😬. Anything negative gets deleted anyway.

I'll never know how anyone could have 22 children and not die of sleep deprivation though.

Not to mention her first pregnancy was at 13 - and he was 4 or 5 years older.

My Dad came from a very large family. He left school at 14. As the older dc went out to work in the local factory they had to hand over all wages to parents and get given pocket money back. This continued until they married. My Dad joined up in the Army for the second world war and sent his wages home to his parents. The 2 DD's had to stay home and help with cooking, cleaning and never ending laundry all with no washing machines. The youngest DS was allowed to become an apprentice joiner. No help from the state and no top ups to income. Families had to look out for each other. if families didn't work they went without.

Good point - my grandad’s position was between your 2 examples -

father a docker

Lots of families had lots of children then, it would not have been unusual to have 13 children because there was no birth control.

No admittedly I’ve not seen what you describe here

The Radfords life is an illusion for TV/Social media.
I cannot fathom how they are seen as role models. Sue was in care and 14 when 18 year old Noel got her pregnant.

Yes, lots of people had 13 children. They generally didn’t choose to have 13 children. And when they gained the ability to choose, they pretty much always chose not to have 13 children.

My grandma was 1 of 13.
Her grandfather came over from Ireland in 1817 and lived in the East End. He started a hansom cab business and as the boys grew up they joined the business. My granny worked in a shop until she married her first husband. Until marriage all of the children only had pocket money from their wages. Some of her siblings ended up comfortably off. My granny seems to have married a man who was disapproved of by her dad. He was right.
I think in those days it was just accepted that children worked, gave most of their wages to parents and only left home when married.

Grandpa was one of 8 or 9, but middle class. I think it was largely fine but both parents had died by the time grandpa was about 18/19 (he was third eldest). It was also WW2 by that point. The three eldest got conscripted and the one sister kept the house going and the youngest boys in school.

I would imagine it was much harder back then to have children for many reasons. I guess people just made do and got on with it, not much else you can do.
As for the Radfords they rake in loads of money and freebies by plastering their kids all over the place with zero respect for their privacy. Its shameful showing them off like monkeys in a zoo.

My mum was one of 11, but only 9 survived.

Exactly this. We did some family history research a few years ago: DHs grandfather (born 1908) was the 8th of 16 children, all of them single births. By some miracle 15 of them made it to adulthood, but their mum died when the youngest was 4 months old at the grand old age of 44. She had the 16 children in the space of 22 years so her body must have been shot to pieces.

The eldest daughter, who was 21 and recently married, took the 3 youngest into her own home and raised them herself (they knew she was their sister, there was no pretending she was their mum) to take pressure off their dad who was then left with 11 kids (at that point) at home, though the older ones were working by that stage and contributing.

Life was tough with lots of kids unless you were reasonably wealthy.

Yes it was much much harder … my Nana was one of 13 born 1900s / 1910s. Two siblings died, one from a tooth infection. Every trip to the Dr cost. No free school meals, no (decent) free education past 12/15 , no tax credits, or housing benefit, people had to work at soon as they were old enough.

The Radfords cost the State a lot of money.

That depends on how you parent. If you put them in a locked room over night and ignored them when they cried you wouldn’t be tired.

My grandad was the youngest of 12 kids. He was orphaned by 11, had to be taken in by one of the older siblings who couldn't afford to keep him, and joined the naval cadets at 14 so that he wouldn't cost the family anything. It was a very hard life when you didn't get to choose your family size for a working class London family

Secure and functional they are not. As mentioned by pp earlier series shows quite a different family

a woman that constantly needs to be pregnant and have a young baby is utterly selfish so is a husband who just loves being a dad again the first series showed the reality not the fairytale that is now produced I pity their children there is absolutely nothing to celebrate about the Radford parents at all

of course easier with the state helping you out and free healthcare

for the vast majority of big families parenting was utterly miserable before the nhs and liveable benefits, children and parents often went hungry, women finding out they were pregnant again often resorted to brining on miscarriages, cramped living conditions

reliable contraceptives especially when women could take control freed us form such misery

Pre NHS era (there was welfare of sorts) we are talking 1940s or before.
The children would have left school at 14 and been bringing money in to the household.
The younger children would have been more independent (taking themselves to school for example) and playing outside all day so the house wouldn't have seemed as crowded.
During the war children got free meals at school I think.
Obviously health care was different.