The Radfords addressed the public’s most frequently asked questions about being parents to more than 20 kids in a recent upload to their YouTube channel.
Over the years, the 22 Kids and Counting stars have faced jeers and troll attacks over the size of their family, with many claiming they cannot look after all the youngsters – something which Noel, 52, was keen to correct.
Naming it as the biggest misconception he’s heard about himself and wife Sue, 48, he told the pair’s 362,000 subscribers: “If someone [suddenly] said, ‘Here you are, here’s 20-odd kids,’ you’d struggle, whereas we’ve adapted over the years.”
Sue gave birth to her first child Chris aged just 14 in 1989, while her youngest, Heidi, was born in 2020, meaning that their brood has grown over the course of more than three decades.
“We’ve adapted how we spread all our time with the kids,” Noel reflected, adding: “It’s never one-on-one, because they generally don’t want that themselves.”
He continued: “It’s usually two or three of them sat with us and just doing things – drawing or colouring or cooking – it’s always that a few of them want to get involved.
“No-one says ‘I just want it to be me’. You never get that. They’re so used to being surrounded by brothers and sisters and things [that] they’d always want them involved with whatever you’re doing anyway,” Noel reasoned.
Meanwhile, Sue chimed in with her own thoughts about the most common misconception that people had of their family, adding that others assume they are not financially independent.
“[People say] ‘You can’t possibly pay for all those children’,” she explained.
“I don’t think people realise that we don’t just have our bakery – we have YouTube, a TV programme – there’s different incomes!”
The pair are keen to clarify that they don’t claim benefits, and although they’ve outgrown the 15-seater van they bought to transport their big family, they still manage to organise their lives.
One of the few things that they may be missing out on is holidays as a family, with Sue and Noel agreeing that the younger children wouldn’t be interested in the same travel activities as them.
On a recent holiday to New York, which was a surprise gift from Noel in the run-up to last Christmas, just Sue and three of her daughters went on the trip.
However, even when they’re a small group, they still have to deal with some chaos, with Sue revealing on Instagram that their luggage had gone missing and hadn’t initially showed up at their destination.
Meanwhile, Sue has shared her excitement about buying a new family home – the family’s first since the 10-bed property they purchased in 2004, which they have long since outgrown.
The ecstatic TV personality teased a sneak peek at their new abode on Instagram, explaining: “It’s the house we’ve been dreaming of for years and years.
“It’s got a nice big garden all around it and there’s plenty of land for what we want. It’s a house where we can put our stamp on it.”
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