This week, the TikTok account “Jenkins Resilence Crew” went viral over a video of their living conditions. The Jenkins’ are a blended family of six going on seven. Resilient Jenkins, her husband, four children (her two biological daughters, his biological son, and their shared one-year-old biological son) and their future daughter are going viral because they all live in a one-bedroom apartment.
The mother and father sleep in the master bedroom and the children sleep in the living and dining rooms.
@jenkinsresiliencecrew Night vlog. Tonight we took some time to work on manifestation. We started our wish box and all discussed something within ourselves we want to grow and work on. We worked on reading and writing skills as well as character building. And we had a blst doing so. #nightvlog #smallspaceliving #blendedfamily #familyof6 #grateful #resilient #keepgoing ♬ original sound – Resilient Jenkins 🔹🔷🔹
The comments have not held back, with most people accusing the parents of being irresponsible, especially since she is currently pregnant and expresses the desire to have more.
One of the videos stated that her goal was to go viral and change her financial position so that she could have as many babies as she wanted, which is indicative of her understanding that her current living situation is subpar. However, then again, she is still currently pregnant and was last year as well. Some commentators feel that dictating how many children this woman has airs on the side of eugenics, others feel that their actions are extremely irrsesponsible. Either way, it is a bit more nuanced than saying either party is wrong or right. It is an understatement to say that children are expensive and a lot to take care of.
Ignoring the fact that this family may be breaking occupancy laws, what childhood are they relinquishing because they are required to share so much but have so little to share?
Xitter user @anon_sequiturs commented on the video and used their own life experience of growing up in a two-bedroom apartment with seven people and how the fallout of living in that manner led to them having a troubled childhood. While the Xitter user expressed that the damage of their childhood was so severe that they would’ve been better off not being born, there are many children who have survived similar situations and don’t agree.
me!!! 🙋🏻♀️ I’m judging! and I’m allowed bc I was a kid who grew up like this (7 people living in a 2bdrm apt) and lemme tell ya what that meant https://t.co/Rgh737TfxA
— plain jane jones (@anon_sequiturs) October 28, 2024
Both of my grandmothers had nine children each. Most of them grew up to be successful and live fulfilling lives with children who saw better opportunities than they did. However, this was also the 50s, and on the other side of that, I am not sure that either of my grandmothers would have had that many children had they had access to better birth control. Both of my grandmothers had stunted lives and I would not doubt that the amount of children they had was a giant contributor. Additionally, it is true that there is a tinge of eugenics involved in this conversation. Thinking on a national level, it is easy to say that poor people should not have more children, but there are scores of countries where the majority of the population is under the global poverty line.
Should that country’s population forgo having children? What does that look like as a whole? China is currently facing a crisis because of its ‘one child rule,’ which ended the lives of many young girls before they even started. China’s population is decreasing, which was the goal of the ‘one child’ rule, but there are also about 30 million more men than there are women in the country, creating a gender imbalance. Most people are born into the same economic conditions in which they die; should the penalty for poverty be childlessness?
To say that I don’t agree with reproductive responsibility as a childless person is a lie.
I personally know someone with 11 children. Their three older children are now adults, but they have eight children under the age of nine and one on the way. Without putting too much of his business in the streets, he is poly and while two of the children don’t live with him, he and two women raise the other six together; one of the women bore five of the children and is the one who is currently pregnant. I’ve seen them hit rougher times than others, including living in a hotel. The children are all smart and seem happy, but with most of them being under the age of six, how much can they really know about what they may be going without?
It becomes a question of whether their lifestyle is safe for their children, not the being poly part, but continuing to live so close or under the poverty line and creating more strain for themselves as well as their children.
@imreallyjustagurl Its worse than i expected #foryoupageofficiall#jenkinsfamily ♬ original sound – Mia 😛
There is even the argument that the world’s population is ever-increasing and how dangerous that is for global resources. We are already experiencing the negative effects of global warming, and more people on the planet just equals its acceleration. But alas, in all of their cases, it is their bodies and their choices on what to do with them. The matriarch of the Jenkins crew uploaded another video of her receiving gifts from followers last night. Still, at the end of the day, children should not have to endure the tragedies of their childhoods put on display because their mom wants to be a content creator and baby-making machine.
They should not have to depend on the kindness of strangers for the joys of their childhoods. Not having to rough it isn’t the litmus for whether you should have children or not, but what is the argument for continuing to have children if you keep making their lives hard?
