Watching documentary about the family with 22 kids!

[mothersdayhmm]

The Radley family. How do they do it? They seem to be really good parents actually. I cannot imagine how you cope with so many kids though. My blood pressure is through the roof just watching this! There are multiple dogs as well! I have 2 kids (adults now) and that was enough for me. How will they cope if all 22 go to Uni? My brain is fried!

Where can I watch this?

Exactly. The older kids look after the younger ones. And none of them could ever get enough 1:1 attention.

They never seem to read. No books in the home!

Years ago I remember one of the older ones dropped out of university to help the mother raising the younger ones as she felt guilty, no young adult should do that.

Awful family. The dad groomed the mother from a very young age, got her pregnant and that’s ok because they’re still together 🙄 or it’s ok because they were both in care - except they didn’t grow up in care at all, both were adopted as babies and had normal childhoods. Can you imagine the amount they have cost the nhs? The school system? The benefits they receive (though fans are adamant they don’t 🤣) the council houses the older children get despite the parents spending hundreds of thousands a year on Disney holidays (not exaggerating) seriously just read Tattle - the truth about this bunch is shocking.

It intrigues me... four children here and financially we were able to afford for me to be a SAHM and give them all a great childhood with lots of experiences and attention, but even in those circumstances I was pushed to give them all the individual time that I would have liked to, so I think any positives of having 22 is far outweighed by the negatives. No regrets because I now have four great adults who love spending time with each other, but I doubt any of them plan to have four children.

I don't think they come across as good parents at all tbh. Just monetising the fact they have so many kids and the publicity off the back of it. She's obsessed with babies (has said so herself) so as soon as she pops one out then she's desperate for the next.

I can’t understand how they afford trips to Florida for 20+ people. Surely YouTube doesn’t pay that well?

I think large families have become so uncommon that people forget they were usual not so long ago. My parents were ones of 5 and 6. Their parents probably weren’t great (again only by modern standards) but nobody was getting murdered.

That many kids is well past ‘big family’ and into some sort of birth/baby mental health compulsion. It’s impossible to care properly for 22 children in the way I would want to as a parent, and I do feel sorry for those kids growing up in such a madhouse. For every child who thrives on it, there is another who will be drowning. But with 22 of them, who will notice?

Without wanting to sound rude, I doubt any of them will end up at uni unless they are naturally bright and self motivated .... they aren't exactly encouraged with their education from what I've seen. How can you possible focus on helping with reading/writing/homework/revision etc at home with that many kids and the chaos.

They’re not good parents. I would wager that none of their children will be going to uni. They are narcissistic and neglectful and the female children have been tasked with raising younger children while the mum has yet another baby. There is never never never a good reason to have 22 children in this day and age when there is contraception available. It is purely because you are an attention seeker addicted to being needed by a young baby. If you gave the slightest shit about your existing kids you wouldn’t do it.
it’s made them lots of cash though 🤷‍♀️

The parents can't possibly even know their own kids on a deep personal level.

The problem now is grandchildren annd adult children also.

22 children. Even if the argument is only 12 or so live at home or young enough to need full care, surely people usually carry on parenting adult children to an extent?

I mean not day to day care with adult, but you have interest in life events, help with house move or diy, or illness, or help them with grandkids, or offer to collect from airport or whatever.

With 22 kids. Even if everyone has only 1 child ( some already have 3, others might have none). But that’s 44 people now. If each is living with partner, that’s 66 min at any event.
You can’t invite 66 people out to the beach for a walk, or take 22+ grandkids to zoo, or visit 66 people for birthday tea.

Pre 1960s that was usually because the contraceptive pill wasn’t available and family planning was harder yet people still didn’t have 22 children. Since contraception and abortion has been available people have been having much smaller families. These simpletons have an addiction to new babies and they also lie through their teeth about being self sufficient and their equally simple fans just lap it up and believe it.

Not everybody is desperate for their children to go to Uni. Some of the children may have no interest in attending Uni, and if they are, there are such things as grants available.

Kind of crazy to think how huge their gene-pool will become in just a couple of generations, if the children also want large families. If they stay local it might become quite difficult to find a local parter that isn’t a cousin of some sort!

It’s quite sad when you put it like that. The family is so huge it’s not really like a family at all.

Grants for uni? It’s not 1988. Anyway the older ones seem as unambitious as their parents so I don’t think we need to worry.

So young people today can choose not to be saddled with £60,000 of debt and simply get a grant instead?
When did this change happen?

They rely on the older kids to parent alongside them

Awful. The young children don’t know any different but the older ones resent it to varying degrees because they don’t get any alone time and are expected to help bring up the little ones.

The parents exploit their situation - and children as a result - for money. They deserve all the judgement they get tbh.

Sorry, I am not up to date with what it is called, but a loan for Uni would be open to them, just like other people, is what I mean. The OP is framing like the parents would have to pay for however many of their children wanted to go.

Yes.

There are already 11 grandchildren and half of the children haven’t even reached adulthood yet.

I've watched a documentary about them years ago.

One child really enjoyed having such a big family.

One of their sons said though that it was "hell" and he seemed very unhappy.

It made me very sad for him.

I think some children just get lost in this setup.