19Dec
Off

Where Does She Find The Energy?

Have you heard about Michelle Duggar, the Arkansas woman who just gave birth to her eighteenth baby?

Eighteen kids. Holy crap!

As my son hops, twists, stomps and races around the house this morning thanks to a “snow day”, I’m sitting here realizing that I’ve got over two more weeks of this non-stop noise now that his Christmas vacation has started early. It’s only 11 o’clock in the morning, but I’m already wishing for a Valium and a cocktail to calm my frazzled nerves.

Then I read about Michelle Duggar’s brood and imagine that noise, chaos and incessant demand for attention multiplied eighteen times. Talk about nerve-wrecking! Then again, perhaps that kind of stress explains why a woman who’s popped out that many kids doesn’t have the hips and abs of a woman who’s popped out two entire baseball teams.

Of course, I can’t begin to imagine how they can afford it, and I’m not talking simply about feeding that many mouths. Can you imagine what she must have to spend on incontinence products?!

Posted by Chubby Mommy in Living With Fat
  1. wg says:
    December 19, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    Good God.

    After you get past the first two, though, you start having the ability to depend on some of the older kids for help, built-in-babysitting, etc. Red says she’s watched that family’s show, though, and the two eldest daughters do pretty much everything around the house that Mom doesn’t get done.

  2. Donna B. says:
    December 20, 2008 at 11:12 am

    Families that size have never been common and there’s a reason for it – the average female body can’t take it!

    There were 13 in my Dad’s family, but it took two women to produce that many and several were married with families of their own when the younger ones were born.

    Then I look at a map of where they and their relatives lived in the 30s and realize that they were all within 2 sq miles of each other. Now that’s a support network.

    Does this family have a commercial dumpster for trash? How many washing machines? Bedrooms, closets? sheesh, I really can’t quite imagine it.

  3. Chubby Mommy says:
    December 21, 2008 at 11:57 am

    I can’t picture it, either, built-in babysitters or not. The noise level alone would drive me insane, not to mention trying to keep track of everyone’s schedules.