21 Kids and Counting.

Do people actually believe this? Are you a poster with multiple identities who enjoys upsetting people?

Are you so brave in the real world when you encounter somebody who was not born here?

I have no gripe with family who work having as many children as they can afford/want. I admire Amanda Owen aka the Yorkshire Shepherdess, I was brought up in Yorkshire & many farming families had large families.

The family with 21 children live in a former B&B so plenty of room & a Bakery business which lends itself to family life if you're well organised. I prefer to hear about families like these in preference to ones who are living on benefits & multiple children by several often absent fathers.

I would love to know what the eldest children do think about having 20 siblings and having to take responsibility for some of their care. I largely agree with merlotgran's observation that the number of children this couple are having has become almost an industry for them. It seems to me that their whole raison d'être is child production. What will they fill their lives with when they are no longer able to reproduce?

And for those amongst us who say that this is no one's business but their own; my response would have to be: if they don't want to attract public opinion, don't keep broadcasting your family decisions via national television.

Get it right Jane10
She has 21 children, not 27.

Mabon1
They will currently be receiving/ claiming £20.70pw for the oldest child and £13.70pw for each subsequent child (stops after the end of their 18th year but 16 if working at that age)
£13.70 × number of children 18 or under × 52 weeks + £20.70 × 52 weeks.
That is the present rate but remember that the rate has been lower in previous years.

Yes I agree Oldbatty the comment made was unacceptable but then the poster has a habit of upsetting people with her posts. Just ignore her.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

*had a
life-jacket.

How can a dose of reality upset anyone? They're facts.

Gabriella I find your comments unacceptable and unhelpful. Perhaps we should just leave the immigrants to drown, because if we did we could employ 5,000 more doctors with the money saved. or would even you find that unpalatable?

This is a thread about a large family, not illegal to. There is a thread about that ?

If anyone who knows and dislikes the tone of my comments, may I respectfully suggest that they skip reading anything under my name. It's really easy and will make you happier.

Chewbacca
???

My thoughts were did she suffer 'morning ???sickness' or if like myself and the Duchess of Cambridge and many more suffer not just morning but 24x7.You have to be desperate for kids to go through this 21 times.

I've been a customer in their bakery shop and it is a small bakery in a seaside village. They certainly won't get the footfall like a bakery in a more prominent position but they have been also running an online delivery service for a range of their products for quite a while as well so they don't just rely on the earnings from the daily customers to the shop itself.
Two of the eldest children work beside their dad and who knows possibly other members of their family will at some point.
The daughter who works there now is training to do something else and said herself on the programme that she doesn't see herself working permanently in the family business.
They were both adopted as children as shown on previous programmes so maybe this is why they decided to have a large family of their own.
To have 21 children takes a lot of patience, organisation and very hard work. They come across as a loving family from the programmes I have seen, and have seen these programmes for a while. I think they are teaching their children the work ethic in their upbringing.
I personally would not have liked to have that amount of children or anything like it, but they seem to be making a very good job of it and the children are a credit to them both.

My theory is that they keep having them to prove to the world that the first baby was okay. It really wasn't, she was a child and he was a man.

Lanslass1 sorry but I disagree with you about child benefit, why should the children suffer just because they are number 3 or 4 in a household. Once the children are here they need to be supported after all its not their fault they are here! I can't see anyone having children just for the benefit, children cost much more than that.
Also child benefit is limited in that if one of the parents earns over 51000 a year it gradually tapers out to nothing

I also found Gabriella's comments about immigrants distasteful. People are people wherever they come from and deserve compassion.

I was never comfortable with this being televised.
I presume holidays and lots of other things are courtesy of Channel 4, £50,000 a year does not cover those expenses. On the surface they want us to think of them as a united, happy family but it may be different behind closed doors.

What will they fill their lives with when they are no longer able to reproduce?
Presumably the grandchildren will have started arriving by then Chewbacca - perhaps she'll be a 'hands-on' granny while the children are all working.
Perhaps she'll join GN then too!

Oh I hope she doesn't use abbreviations if she joins!

MissA

They already have grandchildren. Sophie, the eldest girl, has three children and there may be others by now.

Lancslass - and others who mentioned child benefit
I would like to know how much money they are getting in child benefits which had they limited their family to a reasonable size ,could have gone to other worthwhile causes

One day, when these children are adults and presumably, like their father, working, then they will be paying tax which will pay our State Pensions (if we're still around).

Wasn't that one of the reasons for encouraging young workers to come here from overseas? We were getting to the stage where there would not have been enough taxpayers to support the older population.

Oh I hope she doesn't use abbreviations if she joins!
*MissA]

DC1 , DC2, DC3, DC4, DC5-21
DGC 1, DGC2, DGC3 - ?

?