The 37-year-old grandmother with 12 children: “They hate me because I have so much and I don’t work”

Veronika Merritt is 37 years old and became a grandmother for the first time and a mother for the 12th time at the same time! She was still a teenager, just 14, when she had her first child, Victoria who is now 22. She is also mom to 17-year-old Andrew, 15-year-old Adam, 14-year-old Mara, 12-year-old Dash, 11-year-old Darla, 8-year-old Marvelous, of 6-year-old Martalya, 5-year-old Amelia, 3-year-old Delilah, 2-year-old Donovan and just 9-week-old Modi.

The 37-year-old who records her life in TikTok constantly uploading videos for her 205,000 followers, she told Insider she was excited to become such a young grandmother. So she will be able to help raise another child, which brings the total number of people in the household to 14! Of course, three days ago, in one of her posts on Instagram, she informed her followers that some people on TikTok reported that she is 13 years old and her account was deleted, losing a large part of the income that helped raise her children.

Veronika, who goes by the moniker ThisMadMama, said her first grandchildMaddilyn Rosalie, and her youngest son will grow up more like “cousins ​​rather than uncle and niece.”

To go for a walk with her children, Merritt takes them by school bus. She admitted that she often gets trolled and called out online by those who disagree with the fact that she receives government benefits and food stamps to raise her 12 children and does not work.

“I honestly don’t care what they say and what they believe. I think the amount for each child amounts to $3,000. I googled it and it costs about $25,000 for each child to go to public school. It’s actually cheaper for the state to keep mine at home,” he says. To those who tell her that she should stop having children, after her son’s cancer, she replies: “What should I do? I was already 7 months pregnant when the disease was diagnosed.” But there are also followers who, as he says, are “incredible and loving”.

The 37-year-old worked as a freelance artist, but put her career on hold to raise her children. After all, he must be by the side of 2-year-old Donovan who is fighting with him cancer. She says she is “proud” but also “scared” of how her son is dealing with the disease. “Now I feel positive and optimistic. I’m often afraid but I try not to constantly think about what scares me,” he said.

Merritt has been married twice and divorced both times. With her first husband she had Victoria and Andrew and divorced in 2005 and with her second husband the rest of the children. And with him she got a divorce. Someone on the internet accused her saying that she has had all the children with different fathers. “Everyone can say what they want, I know that my children have only two fathers,” he emphasizes.

She often chooses to dress her children in different colors of clothing. “The colors reflect their different personalities, but they also keep me fully organized,” she says. As he had previously stated, having so many children “was an impulse and an obsession with numbers, sequences, patterns and colors.”