How many children do you need to be happy: The largest families in Russia and in the world

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today it is generally accepted that huge families with 10 or more children are a relic of the past. However, even in our time there are people who see their happiness in numerous descendants. By the way, there are not so few of them in our country. Of course, a family with three children is now considered a large family, by old standards this is not much, but for most modern parents it is already a feat. In St. Petersburg, for example, according to statistics, there is only one percent of such brave men, but in Ingushetia - more than half.

The largest families in Russia

The family, included in the Russian Register of Records as the largest with many children, lives in the village of Znamenskoye, Lipetsk Region. Valentina and Anatoly Khromykh raised 20 children. Valentina gave birth to 11 sons and 9 daughters. Unfortunately, the family lost five children. Now parents with many children are already under seventy, the eldest child is fifty, and the youngest is 26. Of course, there are already grandchildren, they have recently become 12, and even one great-grandson. A mother with many children says that she herself was an only child and was always jealous of her peers from large families. Of course, raising and educating such a number of children is not easy. Valentina and Anatoly recall the years when they had 10 schoolchildren and four students in their arms at the same time, it was difficult financially, so the mother-heroine worked all her life. Even, according to her, she never sat on maternity leave for a long time.

But the Shishkin family from the Voronezh region with the same number of children got into the Guinness Book of Records. On the contrary, they had 9 sons and 11 daughters. Now the youngest daughter is finishing school. Although most of the children have already grown up, the Shishkins still keep the farm: a cow, a pig, chickens, because now we need to help raise our grandchildren, there are already more than twenty of them in a big friendly family. As Elena Georgievna admits,. Although once even the birth of one child seemed a miracle to them, the fact is that parents of large families have an unsuccessful combination of Rh factors. Negative for mom and positive for dad. Contrary to medical statistics, they accomplished their family feat - they gave the country 20 children.

The most large mother in the world, who turned out to be a scammer

Until recently, the modern birth record was recorded in Chile. Leontina Albina Espinoza claimed that the mother of 58 children! In this story, not everything is still clear. It is known that Leontina was born in 1925. She was an orphan, grew up in a church shelter and ran away from it at the age of 12 with a thirty-year-old man, who became her, however, a wonderful husband and father of her children. According to the official version, five triplets-boys were born in a row in the family, then the girls went too. She gave birth to Leontine until she was 55, and in 1983 she entered the Guinness Book of Records as the mother of 58 offspring. However, later the record was canceled, since the birth documents of several children were not preserved. It is also known that the family huddled in a small apartment all their life. In 1998, when the mother of many children died, the Chilean authorities were already investigating the fraud case. The woman was suspected of actually giving her adopted children to her relatives in order to receive benefits from the state. By this time, most of her children had already "scattered" around the world. In any case, this courageous woman raised a huge number of children in difficult conditions. How many of them she gave birth to herself is difficult to judge today.

Historical records

Despite the fact that in the old days no one was surprised by a large number of children, two families succeeded. One record belongs to the British. William and Elizabeth Greenhill raised 39 children: 32 girls and 7 boys. The last child was born in 1669, after the death of his father. It is this woman who, by the way, holds the world record for the number of births. Elizabeth has gone through this challenge 38 times! It is also surprising for those times that all her children survived. One of them, by the way, became a great surgeon.

However, the absolute record holder in the world is the wife of the Shuya peasant Fyodor Vasiliev, who between 1725 and 1782 gave birth to 69 children. History has not preserved the name of this woman, who survived 27 births: sixteen pairs of twins, seven triplets and four times four children. After the death of his prolific wife, Fyodor Vasiliev married again and became the father of 18 more children!

There are no other children

But in the Sorokin family, which lives in the village of Aksai, Rostov region, 76 children have grown up. Of these, only two are relatives, and the rest are adopted. Tatyana Vasilievna and Mikhail Vasilyevich devoted their whole lives to raising orphans, many of whom also had terrible diagnoses: impaired vision, facial deformities, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, oligophrenia, ZPRR, pathologies of the genitourinary system, gastrointestinal tract, musculoskeletal system … This family became one of the first in the USSR to receive the status of a family orphanage, and later - a foster family. The Sorokins help all their grown children to get an education, look for housing, try to arrange their personal life, in total 36 weddings have been played in a friendly family, 62 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren have already been born. All children received the medical care they needed. With the help of leading Russian doctors, he underwent about 50 operations, more than half of the diagnoses were removed as a result.

This amazing family welcomes everyone who needs help. There were cases when mothers themselves brought their children. Tatyana Vasilievna told about one such case:

But Kostya from the Irkutsk orphanage saw on TV a program about a large friendly family and wrote a letter to Sorokin himself. A couple of months later, they took him and a couple of his comrades from the orphanage. Several years ago Tatyana Vasilievna took in the sick mother of one of her adopted children. This is not the first time, before that two grandfathers and one grandmother lived in the family, because everyone needs warmth and care!

For their incredible kindness and such difficult work, the Sorokins, of course, have already received many awards: the Order of Merit to the Fatherland and the Order of Honor, the title of Veteran of Labor and many honorary awards. And, by the way, we can say that this relay race has been passed on - Tatyana Vasilievna's brother and several of their adopted children also took children into foster care, and the first of the adopted girls became a mother of many children, she gave birth to and is raising five babies.

If it seems to you that giving birth to twins is an incredible heroism, watch the photo session of five twins born in a large family.