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Christmas presents for 12 kids.
Every year in our city there is a program where you can "adopt" a family who is underprivileged at Christmas who can't afford gifts/traditional dinner and buy those things for them. Our work adopts one, and this year we got a single dad with 12 kids.
They list their ages and what they want and clothing sizes, and they range from ages 3 to 18, including 3 10 year olds and 2 11 year olds.
Honestly all I can think about is how someone should buy this man condoms for Christmas, obviously he can't afford to support his kids. I know it's not the kids fault, but I kind of wonder if this is just a guy who knocked up a bunch of women who wants someone to buy the presents for him, and if he even has custody of them. Even if it was just one woman who had twins, then triplets the next year, I feel like it was irresponsible to have 4 more kids after that. I think it's a great program to help make someone's Christmas more special, but I totally side-eye this guy. I know that it would be difficult for most people to provide gifts for this many kids, and I just hope that on an every day basis the kids are properly provided for.
Re: Christmas presents for 12 kids.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Are you certain that this guy fathered all twelve kids? Could it be that some of these children are children that he is a guardian to? Seems like a strange situation.
I know things were different 70 years ago, but my mom is the youngest of 12 kids, all from both my biological grandparents. It is possible for him to have had a large family with the same woman. I don't know if I'd side eye him just yet; at least not before knowing his situation. It is possible he could have had 12 kids with his wife only to be widowed a year after the youngest was born. Or like PP said, a guardian; or maybe a foster parent. The possibilities are endless.
I used to work for an agency that had families that were adopted. Since some people really want to donate to families that have girls or babies, we would sometimes have to "create" a family to satisfy the donor's desire and still fulfill all of the kids' needs. We would match up unrelated kids and call them a "family." (I think a lot of people like to buy really cute girly things, or baby things or something...plus, 14 year old boys can be difficult to shop for).
So, maybe some sort of administrative error occurred to land you with the 12-child family...but that still seems VERY odd. Maybe they were a happy, large family that adopted additional kids and the mother died/left this man? Maybe she died in childbirth with quads? (Hope that's not true!).
Another possibility is that he does not really have 12 children but is trying to get more presents for the ones that he does have.
I used to work in a nonprofit that organized things like this and there was definitely abuse of these kinds of things. One example I can think of is that every year before Thanksgiving we would get a bunch of turkeys donated (about 50). One of the things we did was run a food pantry and so that is why the turkeys were donated to us. People were always trying to get more than one turkey. We noticed and cracked down on that but having had that experience, that is where my (cynical) mind went. I mean, does he really have a set of twins AND a set of triplets? Anything is possible but I doubt it.
Bottom line is that whether he has 12 kids or 6 kids, he can use the help.
I agree with Sapphire here. Could he be working the system.... probably... but we will never know for sure.... but what we do know is he needs help.
Sara, Friend?
glove slap. I don't take crap.
My mom used to volunteer as a tutor for homeless kids. Often, when the kids were placed, it would be with another family member. So one boy was in a house with 5 kids - - him and his brother, plus the three (bio-)kids of his aunt. He and his brother were the same age as two of her children (boys), so they all shared a bedroom (2 kids to a bunk bed). If you got his profile, I'm sure you'd think "if that woman had two sets of twins, shouldn't she have gotten her tubes tied?" Meanwhile, the woman took in the sons of her sister, who died of AIDS.
Who knows why this man has 12 kids listed. Maybe he is milking the system, maybe he has taken in quite a few kids that are not his own - and that's why he is in need.
Thanks everyone,
It never occured to me that they may be foster's or he may be a guardian to other kids. A lot of the charities here are very abused (I have seen a lot of stories, have a friend who is a social worker), so I am automatically skeptical. For example there are "coats for kids" programs where people donate winter coats, but a lot of the kids partcipating will take off their jacket if they are too warm and just leave it there because they know they can just get another one. I have also heard a lot about people with basements FULL of dirty clothes because instead of doing laundry they just go get new (free) clothes from programs, and teach their children the same. I know I can't tell if this is the case with this family or not, I just question what their story is.
I also wondered because in the same sentence it said they couldn't afford to send lunches to the kids at school, but what they wanted most was games for their ds's, ps3 and xbox. Since there won't be any other information available about the family I will have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I honestly hope though, whatever the case, that the kids are properly cared for for the other parts of the year and have enough to eat, etc despite being part of such a large family.
I worked with a guy who was from Guyana; he was one of 18 kids.
One dad, one mom -- 18 kids between them.
There was a family on my block that had 13.
I'm a social worker and pretty cynical too but here's yet another option. He had 12 kids was able to support them and had no concerns about providing for them. Then the economy tanked and he lost his job and now he needs help. Maybe there is more than one mom, maybe not. Maybe she died, maybe she walked away. We hear about dead beat dads all the time but there are dead beat moms out there too. I had a friend in college who's mom walked out and it destroyed the family financially. The only reason she was able to stay in school was that her grandfather had died and left her a trust specifically for college.
Multiples do sometimes run in families so it's not that crazy that a woman could have had a set of twins and a set of triplets.
I think I need to break out my Jumping to Conclusions Mat for this post.
Honestly, if you're spending this much energy side-eyeing people you don't know based on total speculation, you should probably keep your money and not participate at all.
My mom's one of 15 and there's a lot of double ages because of death, remarriage, and another death. My dad's one of 5, and both of DH's parents are from families of 7, all biological. So there's that to think about.
And as far as abusing programs goes, I get pretty upset when I hear stuff like that. I work with an extremely poor population that can't get medicare, food stamps, TANF, or anything. And things are only getting worse since the economy has been down. Even things like bus passes to low income families so they can get to the grocery store are down (although there are almost no food stamps left in my jurisdiction even if the families could get to the store). I'll stop my rant here, but it's Christmas.
You obviously have Christmas spirit because you're helping to sponsor this family, and thank you thank you thank you for helping out the less fortunate! Just if you really want to get into "does this family need my help?", maybe also look into "why does this family need my help and will they still need it in January?"