While the majority of the coverage of the septuplets was positive and supportive of the family, there were inevitable some negative reports.
Some called the family irresponsible for having too many children and that the amount of waste generated by so many babies could be damaging to the environment. It didn’t matter to the McCaughey’s though. Nothing could detract from the happiness of having seven new babies.
Publicity
There was much interest in the McCaughey family, and at first, Bobbi and Kenny thought it was just local reporters who were reporting on their story.
As news spread, more and more people became interested in the news of the septuplets, and in December of 1997, just a month after the babies were born, Bobbi and Kenny were featured on the front cover of Time Magazine.
ABC News
It was ABC News Prime Time who was the first to gain full access to the family in a thorough interview and news feature.
There had been a lot of coverage of the septuplets births, but much of this had been reporters retelling what others had already written on the McCaughey family. ABC was the first to get an interview with the family.
The Quintuplets
In 1934 the Dionne quintuplets were born in Ontario, Canada. They were born to Elzire Dionne who came under much criticism for the way her babies were raised.
The children were the subject of much press attention which was sometimes described to be like a circus. The quintuplets who were grown adults by the time the septuplets were born warned the McCaughey's about having the press too involved in the children's lives and urged Kenny and Bobbi to try and be as private as possible.
Load After Load
As you can imagine, one newborn generates a lot of dirty clothes. Now think about how much mess seven babies can make.
The McCaughey's were reported to do an average of 17 loads of laundry a week, and since they had tried to keep their lives as private as possible, it meant many of the house chores, had been done by themselves. Luckily they had two washing machines and two dryers to help with the mountains of laundry.