It’s a vagina, not a clown car
One of the things that contributes to the stereotype of southerners being uneducated hicks is the oftentimes mistaken belief that southerners have very large families. For the most part, the stereotype is a load of bull, however….
Arkansas Couple Welcomes 17th Child
17 children? How does one manage to support that many children? Even more important, how can the mother’s body stand up to such strain?
From the article: “…Michelle, 40, has been pregnant for 126 months – or 10.5 years – of her life.” The mother has spent approximately one-quarter of her life in a state of pregnancy. By my calculations, 17 brats times 9 months comes out to 153 months, or 12 years and 9 months. After taking out 18 months to account for 2 sets of twins, this leaves 9 months missing from the article’s estimate This, in turn, means that quite a few of the 17 brats in question were at least a month premature. That seems to be a lot of risk for the mother and for the children in order to decorate the house with even more drooling and dripping fashion accessories.
Of course, daddy’s name being Jim Bob doesn’t exactly help with the whole negative stereotyping either.
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A full term pregnancy runs 40 weeks. A baby is considered ‘term’ at 37 weeks and can be induced at that point if medically necessary or convenient, depending on the doctor.
40*7=280 days in a full term pregnancy.
280*15=4200 days in fifteen pregnancies.
4200/365=11.5 years of pregnancy. Not including leap years. Still quite a bit.
Or if you substitute 37 for 40, you end up with 10.64 years of pregnancy. Either way, it’s longer than the majority of Arkansans probably spend in school.
My guess is that the article took the number from the Discovery Channel ‘fun facts’ which may not have been updated since #17 was born. And since it’s a reporter, why would they bother actually checking facts?
I remember watching an interview with the family after #16 was born – I was pregnant with my daughter and on bed rest, TV was really all I got to do. The kids are actually well-spoken and seem to watch out for each other (they were keeping each other in line while the mom and dad talked to the reporter). I’m not much for people who breed and breed and breed, but I think this family has it pretty well together despite their ginormous family size.
That said, your headline had me snorting coffee through my nose.