The Cason family are expecting their 17th children.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
1 How old is Christy Cason?
2 What are the Casons' children's ages?
3 Is Christy addicted to having children?
4 How many of the Casons' children live at home?
5 Who is in charge of the family's finances?
6 What does 'eight' refer to? And 'twenty-one'?
7 Why do the Casons have a large family?
8 How does Christy feel about her new pregnancy?
Mega mom Christy Cason has a massive brood of sixteen children and she and husband David expecting baby number 17.
I'm Christy Cason and I'm 41 and I'm a stay-at-home mom.
With their children's ages ranging from 23 to 2, Christie took fertility drugs to conceive her 17th after struggling for over a year to have a baby.
Actually, I get asked that a lot if I'm addicted to having children and it's kind of a hard question to answer. Do I love being pregnant? Yes. Do I love feeling the baby? Yes. Do I love watching the pregnancy test turned positive? Yes, and all of it yes, and do I want to do it again? Yes. I don't feel as though I'm addicted to having children but I enjoy it.
Apart from our eldest daughter Jessica, who’s just had her first baby, the whole family live under the same roof with daily routines need to be run with military precision.
At about 6am I wake up and I get them ready for school and then, you know, you're just cleaning all the time because they're always making a mess somewhere.
And once I'm home, you know, I kind of take over for her, you know, she is having a breather for a little bit, you know, I try to get the older kids help out and they do, most of them, and we get things cleaned up and try to get ready bed and then I go to sleep and get up and do it all over again.
And the logistics of running a household for so many people means that Christie has to keep a close eye on what the family spend.
I have to plan out almost everything you can think of: hair cuts, school clothes, you know, school trips and your breaks, your tyres, your oil changes, you have to think ahead. You always have to be planning and thinking and budgeting.
The family get through a staggering eight kilograms of hamburger meat, seven pounds of chicken and three dozen eggs each week.
We go through 14 gallons of milk a week and if they're out of school we go through 21 gallons of milk a week and I would say about six loaves of bread. We go through about three hundred diapers a month.
With so many mouths to feed the parents have come in for criticism for their ever-expanding family.
The way we live our lives, people, people don't understand it. People don’t understand why we have lots of children? This is what we choose to do and, and we do what we need to do it.
It's not religious-based. We just… we had the children because we wanted them and, you know, as we had more, the family just didn't feel complete. I would use birth control. I don't have anything against that, just have a large family because we want one.
Now at the age of 41 Christy is expecting her 17th child.
How do I feel about being pregnant again? I'm scared, I'm excited and I can't believe it. I'm still in shock. I know now people think that I would be used to it but especially this time it's been, you know, a long time I wasn't sure if we’d have any more, so I'm excited, happy, scared, worried, thrilled.
But despite the struggle, the couple plan on having even more children in the future.
Some people think it's because we're crazy so… you know, sometimes I lean towards that being, you know, maybe they know something we don't know.
With four children under six and another on the way, Christie and Dave have their work cut out for them but with 20 years of child-raising experience, they are well placed to handle the challenge.
I don't really feel like I have a large family. To me, it's just my family so… doesn’t seem like a large family to me.
Except when we're buying milk.
Key:
1 41
2 they range from 23 to 2
3 no
4 15
5 Christy
6
they comsume eight kilograms of hamburger meat every week; they consume
twenty-one gallons of milk every week when the children are out of
school;
7 they want one
8 excited, happy, scared, worried, thrilled
