I do sometimes feel like there's a reluctance here to be critical of the Radfords for having a large family separate from their other issues, because some posters will jump in and tell us about how they can spend time with all of their children and they're not like the Radfords. I'm sure that's true in some cases, but it's also true that large families place on strain on resources and the kids will not get as much attention. There's plenty of other things wrong with the Radfords, but one of my major issues with them is that I have a problem with people having more than 5ish kids in general.
My mum was a single mum to 3 kids. The age difference between me and my 1st sister is 2.5 years and my other sister is 8 years. I also have a brother from my father and our age difference is 10 years. As the oldest I felt like the experiment child, my parents are definitely more lenient on my siblings. Also a lot is expected from you and to quote you have to “set the example”.
I became like a 2nd mum to my baby sister which I actually enjoyed and we were close but my mum even expressed herself that she felt guilty as she couldn’t give me as much attention as my siblings and kinda left me to grow up. Maybe it would have been different if there was a 2nd parent. My middle sister was a very attention seeking typical middle child and my baby sister was a baby and needed nurturing. This is why I will only ever have 1 child, maybe 2 as I wouldn’t want to spread myself too thin.
My childhood was lovely but as an adult looking back I would have liked to spend more time just me and my mum, especially now she has passed away
I do feel very sorry for the older children as it isn’t ‘normal’ family life, I would feel embarrassed if I was them and raising your siblings shouldn’t be your responsibility. I also feel sorry for the younger children because the care they are getting cannot be consistent. I’m not sure what The Radford parenting style is But there is no way there is consistency across the board with the olders having to parent as well the the actual parents.