How a Rural Accountant Became Mother to 20 Children
Have you ever tried to buy notebooks for eleven schoolchildren at once or cook breakfast for a football team? Valentina Khromykh did this regularly. Her family consists of 20 children she gave birth to over 23 years. We tell how an ordinary accountant from a village near Lipetsk became a record-holder in Russia and why for her it was never a feat.
«But Why So Many?»
Valentina met her husband Anatoly in 1968. At that time, she was studying at an institute and working part-time at a gas station, while the man worked as a veterinarian and came to fill up his car. The young people liked each other, and word by word, the conversation led to them needing to meet again and go on a date.
In the same year, Anatoly proposed to Valentina, and they got married, and already in 1969 their first son Sergei was born. Shortly after giving birth to her first child, 19-year-old Valentina received her diploma and got a job as an accountant.
A year later, Valentina and Anatoly had another son, and soon a third. The new year, 1976, the family welcomed with six sons. But Valentina always dreamed of a daughter.
— «It happened that people said: »But why so many?« Most often, it was my mother who told me this. I myself grew up as an only child with my parents and therefore envied friends who had brothers and sisters. Probably, that»s largely why I became a mother of many children,« Valentina believes.
«I Went Out to Breathe Some Air and Came Back with a Child»
In 1978, the Khromykh family finally had a girl, whom they named Svetlana. Then, as Valentina herself says, she «continued unabated» giving birth to more children and didn«t stop until she turned 42 years old. Moreover, she didn»t always manage to get to the hospital.
— «I went out at night to breathe some air, and came back with a child in my arms,» the woman recalls. — «The birth was that swift.»
Only when the number of children reached 20, the woman said: «That»s enough.«
«11 Kids Went to School at Once»
Despite frequent childbirths, Valentina did not dump all the household chores solely on her husband. She never took a full maternity leave and soon after giving birth returned to her workplace.
— «We tried to ensure that the children lacked nothing. Although we had difficult periods: for example, when eleven kids went to school at once. Just for notebooks alone, at the beginning, we had to buy 300–400 pieces. But we never asked anyone for anything — we managed on our own,» Valentina states proudly.
While the parents worked from morning till evening, the older children helped raise the younger ones: doing homework, washing, cleaning, putting them to bed. Since the Khromykhs always had their own farm, the kids also had to feed the livestock, clean up after them, and work in the vegetable garden.
As Valentina admits, family quarrels were unavoidable when there were so many people at home. But all of them were short-lived and occurred over trivial matters: someone took another«s toy or ate the last cookie.
«We Always Help Each Other Out»
Over time, some of the children moved to different cities and started their own families. And although on ordinary days only a few of their children remain with the Khromykhs, on holidays the house is packed with people.
— «We never get upset that someone is far from home and can»t help the parents. We always help each other out. It«s already a habit. Someone needs a house built, someone needs repairs done. We can always count on each other,» says the head of the family.
The children come with their wives and husbands, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. So, setting the table in five minutes is impossible — soup is cooked in 10-liter pots, up to a thousand pelmeni (Russian dumplings) are made, and batches of shashlik (kebabs) are grilled for several hours. But for the Khromykhs, all these chores are only a joy.
