19 kids and counting.. gender ratio of Britain's biggest family

Thought id post this as i know some of you are interested in seeing how things work out gender-wise in very large families.

The Radford's are Britain's biggest family, they welcomed their 19th baby in july this year

in total they have had 10 boys and 9 girls, very sadly one of their boys was stillborn so currently with them at home they have a perfectly even split of 9 blue and 9 pink!

Mum Sue was 14 when she had her first baby and is now 41, all the kids have the same dad-her husband Noel, and they aren't ruling out number 20! just to add Sue breastfeeds and with the exception of the first 2 all of their babies have been born with very close age gaps.

gender order for them has been..

:DS: age 27
:DD: age 22
:DD: age 21
:DS: age 19
:DS: age 17
:DS: age 15
:DD: age 14
:DD: age 13
:DS: age 12
:DD: age 11
:DD: age 10
:DS: age 9
:DS: age 7
:DD: age 6
:DS: age 4
:DS: age 3
:DS: (stillborn, would be 2)
:DD: age 13 months
:DD: age newborn

Slightly off topic but I always wonder why more isn't mentioned about the fact that she was 14 when she had her first? Wouldn't/shouldnt the law have brought charges somewhere? Again sorry for the off topic, I will delete if offensive to anyone:)

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Originally Posted by ELP

Slightly off topic but I always wonder why more isn't mentioned about the fact that she was 14 when she had her first? Wouldn't/shouldnt the law have brought charges somewhere? Again sorry for the off topic, I will delete if offensive to anyone:)

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not offensive at all ELP ive wondered the same thing, especially as her husband is older than her and was i believe about 17 years old at the time.. i know its not uncommon for 14 year old girls to have babies but in this case these 2 were together and stayed together so he couldnt deny being the father.
but at the same time ive not heard of any teenage lads been prosecuted for getting a teenage girl pregnant, only when the man is much older and the 2 of them are in a relationship that is deemed inappropriate does it seem to end up in court.
only thing i know about the radfords is that they were both given up and adopted as children and not wanting to do the same to the baby was the main motivator in them keeping their son.

Golly gosh that is a lot of kids! Do you notice they had a boy then a girl and could have stopped there!! She must love babies/children AND must have patience of absolute steel! Im wondering how im going to deal with 3?! :)

It is interesting to see how the genders came in pairs or triples. Only three kids don't have a sibling of the same gender born directly before or after them. I am also surprised with so many pregnancies she hasn't had any twins.

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Originally Posted by squigglepink

Golly gosh that is a lot of kids! Do you notice they had a boy then a girl and could have stopped there!! She must love babies/children AND must have patience of absolute steel! Im wondering how im going to deal with 3?! :)

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yeah! i think originally they had planed on having 3 but enjoyed having kids so much that they just kept going and going!! they had a TV show following them which ive seen some of, they do seem a lovely family but my god it is a lot of work!! the washing alone! ARGH!! :)

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Originally Posted by GirlieCat

It is interesting to see how the genders came in pairs or triples. Only three kids don't have a sibling of the same gender born directly before or after them. I am also surprised with so many pregnancies she hasn't had any twins.

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yes that is interesting isnt it, is the likelihood of twins influenced by the number of children you have? i dont know much about multiple pregnancy, i thought it was more that twins tend to run in families?

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Originally Posted by 4blue2pink

yes that is interesting isnt it, is the likelihood of twins influenced by the number of children you have? i dont know much about multiple pregnancy, i thought it was more that twins tend to run in families?

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Yes the more you've had, the higher the rate of twinning. Weird huh!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ELP

Slightly off topic but I always wonder why more isn't mentioned about the fact that she was 14 when she had her first? Wouldn't/shouldnt the law have brought charges somewhere? Again sorry for the off topic, I will delete if offensive to anyone:)

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My mother in law was only 12 years old when she got together with my father in law who was almost 17!!! It seems so shocking (and I was terribly shocked when I realized that) but like these people they seemed to have a happy enough marriage. I would have had a coronary if my 12 year old daughter was hanging out with a 17 year old!! (Hubby would have gone for the shotgun no doubt. :p)

On the other end of the gender ratio spectrum my favorite large family is allboysbut9.com. They have 1 son (the oldest) and 9 daughters, including two sets of identical twin girls! All their children are lovely and they seem very happy.

I also read a sweet article recently by a (happy) man with seven daughters, also including twins: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...athan-franklin