"I have 13 siblings – we went through 35 loads of laundry a week and still live within 30 minutes of each other" - video Dailymotion

SWNS

A woman with 13 siblings says they got through 35 loads of laundry a week and now refuse to live more than 30 minutes apart so they don't "miss" each other.  Sarah Van Reeth, 24, grew up surrounded by her big family and is “best friends” with all her brothers and sisters.  She has seven brothers – Ryan, who passed away aged 25, Matt, 30, Josh, 27, Nate, 25, Mike, 21, Jon, 18, and Andrew, 15.  Sarah also has six sisters – Meghan, 29, Becca, 22, Nicole, 19, Emily, 16, Danielle, 14, and Laurel, seven.  The older siblings still live within 30 minutes of their family home in New Hope, Pennsylvania, US, and see each other once a week at church.  Sarah says her mum, Kim Wilson, 59, cooked for them all growing up and did up to five loads of laundry every day.  Sarah, a PE teacher, who lives in Hamilton, New Jersey, with her husband, Mark Van Reeth, 25, said: “It was so fun growing up.  “We’re all best friends.  “Everyone is within 30 minutes of our parents.”  Kim and Cuck Wilson, 60, a pastor, had always wanted a big family but hadn’t expected to end up with 13 children.   Sarah said: “They wanted a good amount but God kept giving them more kids.”  The family adopted Laurel, seven, when their son Ryan, 25, passed away, giving them 14 children.  Growing up the family had six bedrooms and they each shared a room.  Sarah said: “Everyone shared a room growing up.  “I didn’t have my own bed until college.  “I didn’t like being alone.  “The hardest part was being away from my siblings.”  Sarah said her mum still managed to cook for them all every night – and she says they still do when they all reunite.  She said: “My mum is a superhero.  “She made us all dinner. She did all the laundry – four to five loads a day.  “She can multi-task.”  Sarah married Mark, who works in video production, in August 2022 and the pair moved in together.  Sarah said: “I don’t like being alone now. It’s really quiet.”  The siblings have never got each other presents for their birthdays – so the cost isn’t too high – and do a secret Santa at Christmas instead of gifting lots of individual presents to everyone.  Sarah said: “We’re not a presents kind of family.”  The family all still go on holiday together for the 4th July and see each other on set days around Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Sarah says strangers thinking having so many siblings must be “horrible”.  She said: “It’s not like a circus.  “I’d never change anything about our childhood.  “We operated as a very normal family.”  Sarah loves being able to hang out with her younger siblings, six nieces and nephews and older brothers and sisters.  She hopes to have a large family herself one day.  Sarah said: “We all prioritise seeing each other.  “I definitely want a big family – probably about four or five kids.”

Transcript

00:00 I have 13 siblings. Of course my dad's a pastor.

00:03 I have 13 siblings. Of course I slept on the ground until I was 6.

00:07 I have 13 siblings. Of course I slept in the laundry basket as an infant.

00:11 I have 13 siblings. Of course we were homeschooled.

00:14 I have 13 siblings. Of course I have a shopping addiction because I never got new clothes.

00:19 I have 13 siblings. Of course my best friends are my siblings.

00:22 I have 13 siblings. Of course I'm overly competitive.

00:25 I have 13 siblings. Of course I can never be alone.

00:29 I have 13 siblings. Of course I became an ant lover.

00:33 Hi guys, we're here with my mom and I'm going to be asking her a bunch of questions that you all want to know.

00:40 So how many kids do you have?

00:42 14.

00:43 14. Why did you decide to have 14 kids?

00:46 Well, I didn't decide to have any.

00:49 I wanted kids but I didn't know how many kids I would have.

00:55 Do you ever think that you were going to have this many though?

00:59 No, I never thought I would have this many.

01:01 I thought I would have three because I grew up in a family of three.

01:06 So when you grow up with three kids in your family, you think you're going to have three kids.

01:10 How many was the hardest to have at a time out of like all 14?

01:14 The hardest time was when I had, you were two.

01:23 So you were the sixth. I had Becca two years later.

01:27 So you were two. I had Becca. The next year I had Michael.

01:31 The next year I had Chickie and the next year I had Johnny.

01:34 And Johnny and Chickie, so what number is that?

01:36 7, 8, 9, and 10 when I had my tenth.

01:39 Because I had four kids under four years apart.

01:43 And they were my seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth.

01:46 So ten kids is the hardest everybody.

01:49 What was the hardest thing about homeschooling all of us at the same time?

01:54 The hardest thing about homeschooling all of you at the same time was that everybody was on different levels.

02:01 We did everything together except for reading and math.

02:05 The hardest part was having toddlers while you're trying to homeschool the older kids.

02:10 That was the hardest thing.

02:12 I know you know all of our birthdays, but do you remember how much we all weighed?

02:16 Maybe not to the exact ounce, but yeah, I know. I think I pretty much know how everybody weighed.

02:22 How much did I weigh?

02:24 You were 6'3".

02:26 6 pounds, 3 ounces, okay.

02:28 What age is your favorite out of all the ages? To 18, obviously.

02:33 Favorite ages are newborn, after the terrible twos, like before terrible twos, whatever it really is, terrible threes.

02:45 Each kid is different.

02:47 And then right after that, preschool ages.

02:50 And then I'm going to say when you're past teenagers.

02:56 I was going to say, are the teenage years as bad as you think they're going to be?

03:00 As bad as everybody says they are?

03:02 No, it depends on the kid. All the ages are depends on the kid.

03:05 Some kids are easy as a teenager, some kids are hard as a teenager.

03:09 I don't really have any hard teenagers right now. No, I do not.

03:12 I've had a lot of really hard teenagers in my life, but not right now, I don't.

03:17 So I'm enjoying nice teenagers.

03:22 So you guys heard it here first. If you have more questions, just comment them and I'll ask them. Thank you!

"I have 13 siblings – we went through 35 loads of laundry a week and still live within 30 minutes of each other"

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended