Through it all, she “stayed strong” for the children, she continued: “My kids know what I did as Octomom, I tell them the truth. I’ve told them I’ve done some very bad and shameful things and they say, ‘It’s okay, Mom, we love you anyway and we’ll always love you.”
She added, “They know I did it for them. We don’t have kid conversations, we have deep and intellectual conversations about all of this. They are so smart and so aware.”
The Fullerton, Calif., native had a bachelor’s degree in child development and she was working by then as a family counselor.
Her typical day started at 5 a.m. and there were four stops on her morning school run. Then she worked, did afternoon pickup, made dinner, bathed the younger kids in pairs and was in bed at around midnight. A two-hour nap once a week was her big indulgence.
She went vegan in 2016 and had her kids adopt the lifestyle as well, writing on Instagram that December that she chose to “raise them AWARE, and most of all compassionate toward all living, sentient beings.” (She no longer recognizes it as Thanksgiving, but a look at her Native American Heritage Day dinner in 2023, courtesy of “head chefs Jonah, Nariyah, Noah, and Jeremiah,” showed a meat-free table.)
