Alison Sullivan
A woman named Veronica Merritt, who posts under the handle @ThisMadMama, is in the creator fund on TikTok for her popular videos about managing a household of 11 children. Meritt is 36 years old and had her first kid in the 8th grade. Her first two kids are with her boyfriend at that time, and the rest are with her current husband.
Merritt receives a lot of criticism for producing so many kids, which is part of why her videos do well—comments are comments to the algorithm. But a recent video is spurring a bigger discussion than usual.
In this TikTok video she admits she was “having an off day” because she is currently pregnant with baby number 12, and decided to feed her kids carby junk food, like ramen, mac and cheese, and cereal.
“Today, I made no effort to cook anything fancy for my 11 kids,” she wrote over footage of the meals. “I know it was all sugar, salt, and junk but I’m tired, pregnant, and cranky. Go ahead and hate on me, I don’t care, I’m human, I have off days. At least the kids ate!”
She added in the caption, “Honestly I’m not sure I want to keep sharing what we eat since people will bully me no matter what I make.”
Merritt probably does get criticism no matter what, because 11 children is a whole lot and even moms in the most normal circumstances get criticism because standards are impossibly high…but she also really didn’t have to share any of this. If you’re having an “off day” maybe sign out of social media for a few hours.
Since she didn’t, I can only assume Merritt is trying to drum up some traffic on the old page and decided some mac and cheese dinner was the perfect way to do it.
Lots of commenters called her irresponsible for having more children when she can’t feed the ones she has now properly. Somehow, I don’t think this woman is going to stop having kids anytime soon, no matter how much hate she gets, so maybe hit the unfollow button.