Family trees have a way of growing at different rates . People may have kids early and often in adulthood, or they may wait . They may have no children at all. And sometimes, the lines of a family tree can be blurred for all sorts of reasons .
TikToker Veronica Merritt has built a brand around her large family. The 37-year-old is a mom of twelve kids — and recently welcomed her first grandchild into the world.
Veronica has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
With an impressive 204,000 on her TikTok channel ( @thismadmama ) and another 37,000 on Instagram (also @thismadmama ), Veronica has found a way to monetize her brand.
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Her brand, of course, is being a supermom, as she has a dozen kids: Victoria, Andrew, Adam, Mara, Dash, Darla, Marvelous, Martalya, Amelia, Delilah, Donovan and Modi. These kids range in age from nine weeks all the way up to 22.
Veronica had her first kid at the age of 14.
She gave birth to Victoria (now 22) at the age of 15 and has been pregnant for a cumulative nine years since then. She told Business Insider that she originally planned to have 16 kids, but decided to stop after having Modi, who she gave birth to nine weeks ago.
“I’ve given myself permission to stop,” she said.
She’s faced criticism in the past.
Veronica looks back angrily at TikTokers who said her kids came from “11 different fathers,” saying that her 12 kids have only two different fathers. After her first marriage ended in 2005, she remarried.
Veronica is now a grandmother as well.
Her first child, Victoria, recently gave birth to her first child: Maddilyn. This means that Veronica is not just a mother of 12, but also a grandmother of one. Given the fact that Maddilyn has 11 aunts and uncles, it seems likely that Veronica will have many more grandkids in the years to come.
Maddilyn already has a playmate.
Even though Modi — Veronica’s youngest — is technically the uncle of Maddilyn, the fact that they were born only nine weeks apart means that they’re perfectly positioned to be playmates with each other.
They’re “going to grow up feeling like they’re cousins, siblings, or even twins,” she said.
How does she keep track of them all?
With 12 kids — a good nine or 10 more than most couples have — things can get confusing. To that end, Veronica sometimes color-codes her kids.
“The colors reflect their individual personalities, but they also keep me grounded,” she said.
It seems like Veronica’s ready to start life as a grandma.
With 12 kids, nine of them under the age of 15, Veronica has her hands full as a mom. But she’s done having kids at this point, and now has a newborn granddaughter to dote on.
Will her granddaughter be raised differently?
Veronica favors bright colors and pastel hues, but her daughter Victoria — mom to newborn Maddilyn — has her own style. As a fan of Tim Burton films and goth aesthetics, Victoria is more likely to favor bolder, darker colors for her newborn.
Could you handle having this many kids?
Any parent will tell you that just one kid is exhausting, and Veronica has a dozen, plus a grandchild, all before her 40th birthday.
Let us know what you think of Veronica’s story in the comments section!
