If you want to take care of 10 children, I believe that many couples who have become parents will first think: "That is the end of the world".
However, in New York, there is a couple Joshua and Alicia, who have a total of 10 children and have become the focus of many netizens and media magazines. But this is not the most special part of the family, but the "special" of the children, and their "fun" daily life.
Let's start with the "special" of these children. Joshua and Alicia had long wanted to start a family and have children in 2003, but Alicia was diagnosed with infertility, and even if they tried harder, their desire to have children was minimal.
Again and again, it turned into disappointment, and Joshua and Alicia experienced many painful losses of children, and after that, they did not hold out any hope.
In 2010, Joshua and Alicia intended to become parents by adopting a child. At that time, they saw a very cute child on the list: "I liked this 4-year-old at first sight, he has a beautiful pair of blue eyes, red hair, and I am the same." 」
The couple filed with anticipation, but they were in New York, and their children were in South Dakota, too far apart to be rejected. But Alicia did not give up, she showed that she was a special education teacher, and her husband was a coach in the school, and she could definitely give the child good conditions.
After much effort and months of waiting, Joshua and Alicia finally welcomed their first child, Alex.
(Couple photo with Alex)
A few months later, something even more unexpected happened, alicia, who had experienced multiple painful losses, became pregnant with the baby and gave birth to Zoe in 2012.
Joshua and Alicia felt that this was a gift from Heaven after accepting Alex, so in 2013, they accepted James into their family again.
12 years have passed, and now Joshua and Alicia have 10 children, 4 of whom are biological children and 6 are adopted. Despite this, the couple did not treat each other differently for this reason.
And that's exactly what makes their family life "fun" every day. At first, Alicia did all the housework herself in order to take better care of the children, while her husband worked at school.
What is the picture of 10 children? Alicia describes it as "chaos and madness." Isn't it hard to pack up your clothes and wash them? Imagine multiplying this number by 10, and it will not take a day or two to become such a painting style.
Going to the supermarket is also a favorite thing for many people, but it becomes a routine here, and you have to go once a week. Isn't it enough to buy more food at once? Don't be naïve, you need at least four shopping carts to hold the food you need, and even the rear trunk of the car can only barely hold it.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, every preparation was head-scratching. Because cooking a simple meal for 10 children takes a lot of time, Alicia's family must-have is bread, ham meat, cereal and other ingredients that can be quickly cooked into food.
Although the ingredients are simple, but the number is large, the picture is always so that people can't help but want to laugh at it.
After eating, it is said that the next use, although the age of the child is different, the span is from 3 years old to 15 years old, each child's favorite personality is different, but a dress multiplied by 10, a pair of shoes multiplied by 10, all the things used in the child need to be multiplied by 10, this terrible number makes many netizens shout: "Don't say 10, 1 I can't afford to raise."
But "sheer numbers" are not the most noticed places in joshua and Alicia's family, but three characteristics.
The first is that the large family housework is endless, so the husband and wife let the children take care of the housework according to the age of the children.
For example, the 15-year-old eldest son is responsible for vacuuming, the 14-year-old son is responsible for cleaning the table after meals, the 13-year-old son is responsible for taking out the garbage, and the 10-year-old daughter is responsible for tidying up the toy room.
Most of the younger ones are responsible for easier work, or more of a part of assisting older siblings. The 9-year-old daughter is responsible for recycling the items that her brother and sister have packed, the 7-year-old son helps set up the chair before the meal, and the 5-year-old son is responsible for cleaning up the seasoning bottle after the meal.
One of the most noticed by netizens is Harley, who is now only 3 years old. The mother jokes that Harley is the busiest of all the children because she likes to help with all kinds of things big and small, and she also enjoys doing all kinds of housework with herself.
Don't look at her young age, it is not sloppy to do housework, and the burden on her shoulders is not small. Feeding the dog, taking the dog for a walk, cleaning the bathroom, taking clothes to the laundromat to wash clothes, drying clothes, and even going to buy ingredients with my mother.
This also allowed many netizens to leave funny comments under the film: "Harley needs a raise"; "I think this 3-year-old child needs a union representative"; "This three-year-old girl is basically already a mother", etc., which makes people can't help but be funny.
The second characteristic is the "specialness" of these children. Except for joshua and Alicia's four children, the rest of the children all came into the world with diseases such as fetal alcohol syndrome. Not only that, they grew up in violent, alcoholic environments, so these children are behaviorally and cognitively impaired.
It's like asking these kids to clean up their garbage, maybe they'll just clean it up and won't think about throwing it away.
And these chores are able to make children focus on it, memorize instructions, and keep them executing.
The third feature is that Joshua and Alicia did not prevent the adopted children from meeting their own parents, or rather, they would find opportunities for them to find their own parents.
The eldest son, Alex, 15, was able to meet his mother through the efforts of the two, and the reason why her mother gave up custody of Alex was because she had been subjected to domestic violence and drank heavily during pregnancy, and this situation did not change after Alex was born.
(Alex reunites with his biological mother)
Eventually the mother couldn't stand it and gave up custody of the child in the hope that he would get a loving family away from violence. Alex learns of her mother's good intentions and does not blame her biological mother, who and Alicia become a good girlfriend who cares about Alex.
Of course, another thing that makes netizens curious is how this huge family maintains its expenses, after all, the two are just ordinary teachers, and it is impossible to afford the daily expenses of 10 children.
In the beginning, Joshua and Alicia did need support from the local authorities to receive benefits, because the grocery alone would cost thousands of dollars a month.
Later, after the suggestion of friends, I tried to share the daily videos of them preparing food for their children, shopping, doing housework, playing, etc. every day to social media, which unconsciously attracted the attention of millions of fans.
Alicia will receive invitations from various advertisers such as children's clothing and daily necessities to make money and help make up for the family through this way, while at the same time allowing children to get better living conditions, killing two birds with one stone.
Now Joshua and Alicia are no longer able to take good care of 10 children without the support of the authorities.
Not only that, but the family has even become a model family for caring for children with similar defects, as their approach to their children's education has allowed them to develop the ability to be independent, self-reliant and learnable, and thus become a target for other adoptive families.
As Alicia says, "Taking care of children is undoubtedly hard, and 10 children is even more difficult, but seeing their smiles now, raising children is a blessing, not a chore."