A 65-year-old mother of 13 children is pregnant with quadruplets. A Canadian family has 18 children. A U.S. couple’s video defiantly announcing their fourth pregnancy makes us wonder: Is the size of someone’s family really anyone else’s business?
By Sonia Verma
National Editor
All this month, momstown has focused on siblings. The fighting, the dynamic between them, how to treat them as individuals, you name it.
So the Huffington Post and sister site ParentDish piqued our interest when they republished an article on the Ionce family of Abbotsford, B.C. The Ionces have 18 children—10 girls and 8 boys, and not a twin among them.
The youngest of their children turns 7 this year, so we figure the HuffPo brought the Ionces back into the news this week because big families are in the spotlight now that a 65-year-old German woman with 13 children is expecting quadruplets after undergoing fertility treatment.
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Annegret Raunigk says she's doing it because their 9-year-old youngest child wants a baby sibling. Savvy Mom editor Brandie Weikle points out SOMEone always has to be the youngest. So maybe there’s another, deeper reason, one that Raunigk is not sharing with the inquisitive public.
And that’s cool, because maybe it’s not really anyone’s business, either.
So long as the family is able to provide for everyone, and all the kids are safe and healthy and happy, is it really our concern how many or how few children anyone has?
One U.S. family seems to want to pre-empt questions about their rather personal choice to have a fourth child: Check out their Miley Cyrus-sendup pregnancy announcement.
[video:https://youtu.be/JbFzOzuQedY width:400 autoplay:0]
What do you think? Should we care how many children a family has? Is it everyone’s business?
