21 Kids and Counting.

I was 13 when I had a sexual experience with a 19 year old.
I remember turning 19 and looking at 13 year olds and wondering how a 19 year old could see them as anything other than children.

A man who firstly wants to, and then most importantly does, have sex with a child, is no gormless innocent boy in love

notanan2, she did not act or look like a 13 year old girl. She wasn't made up to the nine's or anything to make her look older, she just acted/behaved like a mature young lady most of the time. When I found out how young she was, I was surprised because I would have easily put her at the same age as my step son. He had the same drives as any other boy which he really should have resisted but he really did believe she was the love of his life and when they broke up, he broke his heart. We'll just have to agree to disagree but I don't think it is always black or white.

I haven’t seen the programme but I did see the one on the Yorkshire farm where I think they had 9 children. I felt sorry for the elder daughter looking after some of her siblings before her time. Having said that the children were delightful and not an IPad in sight.

I think it is totally greedy for one family to use up so many resources that should be more evenly distributed over the general population.

I would be concerned if the wife was being abused by her husband ie some type of coercive control. As I have not seen the programme I cannot comment.

People may not agree with what Gabriella or anyone else on this site says
however surely everyone has the right to express their own opinions without being criticised. I would not like people’s entries deleted because others objected. We are supposed to have free speech here.

Don't any of you worry about these poor children? I couldn't care less about the resources, the benefits etc but I am concerned about the children. With the best will in the world they WILL be suffering neglect. They may be kept clean, fed and shod BUT how much attention do they get? I mean real individual attention? 1-2-1 attention? Precious little, if any. Its cruel to have that many children

I love this family..each child was wanted and conceived with love. I follow them on Facebook and have bought pies from their online shop. They are delicious by the way. People should mind their own business.

People should mind their own business.

Then they shouldn't invite cameras into their home to film every aspect of their lives should they? If they wanted privacy, they've gone a very strange way about getting it.

Pippa when someone makes an overtly racist comment yes their posts should be removed Hate speech should not equal free speech

mally you say each child was wanted & conceived with love... So were my children but sometimes we have tough choices to make even if we want more children. My DD2 would have liked a closer age gap between her 2 children but waited until she & her DH were in a better financial place to give up work for a while and have a second child.
From what I understand from this thread, but do not know, this couple have produced several children and, whilst it appears they are able to 'fund' them, have thought more about their own needs rather than those of the kids they keep producing. Or maybe it was all part of a business plan? If the bakery is successful, and it appears to be, then maybe dad is just a great entrepreneur and saw the commercial opportunity in a large family.

People should mind their own business.

Well you're not minding your own business by following them on Facebook!

If the parents are putting their children all over national TV and social media do you really expect critics to keep quiet?

Bluebelle, I completely agree. There should be no place for racism on this forum.

Sue can't go on having babies for ever so presumably their agent is negotiating future documentaries to keep the money rolling in. Channel 4 programme makers will know that the end is nigh in terms of viewers' interest in yet another baby.

The constant cry of 'Not claiming benefits' makes me cross. Why should that be something to be proud of? Why not just stop adding to your family when you've reached the limit that £50,000 can support?

But that would have left them way short of the target for Britain's Largest Family.

Anyone who rapes a child, and that's what she was at 13. That's not just legally wrong but morally wrong. Should never see daylight again.

As the older children leave home/ education then the approx £14k per annum in child benefit will reduce.
Still I can respect the ability to house, clothe, feed & entertain 20 plus kids on £60k pa.

Interesting and varied comments on MN regarding the Radford family. Criticisms regarding environmental impact from such a large family, costs to the public purse in education and health care, etc and also that the tide of public interest will wain now that it's public knowledge that Sue was only 13 when she first became pregnant . One post in particular caught my eye when it suggested that at some point in the future, at least one of the children will write a book about their experiences of being a child in the family and it will be "an interesting read".

They're not doing it on £60,000 per year, PECS

Their TV appearances and 'freebies' earns them way more than that.

One advantage of being a sibling from a large family, is that if you will always find one or more you get on with as adults, and the parents will definitely have at least one or two who still visit when they are old. When you read some of the posts on here about the misery caused when a child won't visit, or two siblings have blacklisted the third - when you have 12 more siblings to link up with that's not such a big deal.

merlot yes I expect that is the case which is why I suspect they saw the commercial value of baby production.

Anyone who thinks they can draw any conclusions at all about the functionality or otherwise of this fsmikybgtom TV programmes and social media posts is mad

family from

But I think you can draw common sense inferences on the difficulties both practical and emotional of bringing up an endless stream of children and also wonder why they have such a pathological desire to keep having babies who are then passed on to the older children to care for.

Well, if she grew up in foster care, and was happy there, then her experiences of happy family life will be a procession of new kids passing through the family. First coming in, then being nurtured, and then being passed on either to other foster homes or back to their parents. So what you describe, Maryeliza, seems to fit that exactly - with the difference that instead of going to other homes they are being passed to the older kids.

Working with the elderly for years, I met more than a few women who had never married or had children, due to having come from a huge family.

A lot of them had been the older siblings, and had quite enough of child rearing and all the work entailed, which had been foisted onto them.

A consequence of this is that they had no support from anybody as they aged, and often ended up in homes.