WITH 22 kids the biggest question many people want to ask the Radfords is, ‘why?’
The huge brood is an eye-watering thought for most, but and who were childhood sweethearts, were determined to have as big a family as possible.
And, in a rare twist, both were adopted as babies, leading many to wonder if that was the reasoning behind their decision to create .
The couple have always denied that their own adoptions had anything to do with their wish to have two teams of children.
But psychologist Jo Hemmings, who worked with the family on their show 22 Kids and Counting, says that there could be deep-rooted reasons linked to their adoption journeys that may have had a subconscious influence.
She says people who have been adopted often feel a great sense of comfort when they have a child of their own, to finally have a connection with a blood relative.
“That is quite important,” she explains. “Because they are both adopted I think that sense of having their own children together would have had much more significance, but not necessarily 22 of them.
“There isn’t any science to back it up and say that either one or both parents that come from adoptive families are more likely each to have more birth children of their own.
“What there is some evidence of is that adopted children tend to be brought up in better socio-economic circumstances by their adoptive parents, so they are given a really stable upbringing, perhaps better education.
“A lot is put into their upbringing partly because their parents have chosen them rather than given birth to them.
“So there is something in that. If they both grew up in good, stable adoptive families, they feel they have got as much to give back as they had in their own childhoods.”
Despite this, Noel, 54, dismissed links between their adoptions and their huge brood in the couple’s book, The Radfords: Making Life Count.
He wrote in one chapter: “A lot of amateur psychologists may think the reason me and Sue have had lots of kids must be linked to the fact we were both adopted, but I don’t think there is any connection.
“Unless someone comes along and sticks some electrodes on our heads, and says after doing some tests, ‘Oh, this is why you’ve got so many kids,’ we’re just not going to believe any of those theories.”
And wife Sue, 50, agreed, saying: “No, there is nothing in that - because I don’t even think about my birth parents. I don’t give the fact that I was adopted any thought at all, and never have.”
While Sue has always said she has , earlier this year, with their reunion televised in the latest series of their TV show.
Sense of connection
Noel and Sue are childhood sweethearts, having met when she was just seven and he was 11.
Sue fell pregnant with first child Christopher when she was 13 years old. The couple married three years later and then the children kept on coming.
Jo says the couple share a deep bond and work together as a team.
“When you speak to them, they say no it is nothing to do with the psychology of us being adopted, it absolutely is because we felt we have a lot to give, we adore children - Sue especially adores babies,” she says.
“I don’t think their intention was to have so many children, but it worked out for them.
I don’t think their intention was to have so many children, but it worked out for them
Jo Hemmings
“When I have talked to them one thing that comes across is how incredibly gentle and calm they are. You don’t see that in many parents who have three, four or five kids, never mind 22 of them.
“There is just that feeling that they had so much to give, they love bringing up children.
“They don’t claim benefits. They have made money over the years with Noel’s successful bakery business and because their TV series have become so successful they have become , in a way.
“I just think they are a remarkable family who have this presence about them. I’m sure there is chaos at times, but when you see them with their children, you don’t see it.
“They are good, solid, stable, parents, which is amazing.
“They are very straight-talking, they are very resilient. So when there have been problems, you feel that they are a very strong couple together.
“Also they are talkers. They sit down and say, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ They are very open and candid with their children and will talk everything over with them.
“They always bounce back and they have this lovely soft energy about them which makes them work brilliantly together as parents.”
Driving force
Jo believes the Radfords’ incredible skills stem from their own upbringings in their loving, adoptive families.
She says: “Sue was very young when she had her first child. I think their driving force is that they badly wanted to be parents.
“I know they are at pains to deny that it is anything to do with the adoptions, and I don’t want to go against what they say, but knowing that you can give a large number of children a very stable, productive and healthy upbringing would probably have come from the upbringings they had.
“Often adoptive parents put the extra mile in, they over-compensate for the sadness that they didn’t grow up with their birth families.
“I think a lot of it comes from the happiness and security that they had when they were growing up.”
Often adoptive parents put the extra mile in, they over-compensate for the sadness that they didn’t grow up with their birth families
Jo Hemmings
For years, both Noel and Sue had been adamant that they didn’t want to trace their birth families, saying they regarded their adoptive parents as their mums and dads and had idyllic upbringings.
But Jo says their background of both being adopted will have made them kindred spirits.
“I don’t know how rare it is for two adopted people to get married, but it would have been one of the early conversations they had when they first met,” she explains.
“It would have been one of those bonding things, those shared values, that make relationships solid.
“I think having that in common would have been a really important thing for them as they both knew implicitly how the other one might have felt growing up.
“I think they were very similar in their views. I think they had all agreed at the time that they had both had such wonderful childhoods, there was no need or drive to seek where they were from.”
Tragic discovery
Things changed for Noel in 2023 when the couple’s teenage daughter Ellie was found to have the hereditary liver disorder Gilbert’s Syndrome.
The couple were tested and .
He said at the time: “It’s got me thinking, we’re both adopted and we know absolutely nothing about our medical history at all.
“I’d quite like to find out more about my family, where I’m from, just anything about myself.
“It might tell me a bit more about who I am, where I’m from, possibly my birth parents. Now, as I’m getting older, I do think about it a bit more often.”
Fighting back tears he added: “I don’t even know why I don’t like talking about it. I just don’t like it.
“I have a lot of respect for my mum and dad.”
In the opening episode of the latest series of 22 Kids and Counting, Noel reveals he met his birth mother for the first time - and she was shocked by the news of his huge family.
He told The Sun: “It was emotional meeting her and I was nervous beforehand.
“You don’t know what she is going to look or sound like, and how she will react.
“A lot was going through my head, but she was so lovely and so glad to see me. We were with each other for a couple of hours.”
His mum, who chose to stay anonymous in the show, told him she was forced to give him up at 17 after she split from his birth father.
He added: “As I have got older, I have been curious to find her,” Noel explains. “I’m only ever going to have one chance and I’ve got no regrets that I have.”
