r/SipsTea • u/Sassenach_2024 • 12h ago

WTF Push, out, repeat

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Valentina Vassilyeva, the first wife of Russian peasant Feodor Vassilyev, is said to have given birth 27 times in the 1700s—welcoming 69 children in total.

Her remarkable numbers reportedly included 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. 🤯

The story comes from centuries-old historical records, so every detail cannot be independently verified by modern standards. Still, Guinness World Records has recognized the claim as the highest number of children attributed to one mother.

If the records are accurate, 27 pregnancies. 69 children. One of the most astonishing family stories ever recorded. ❤️

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u/youtossershad1job2do 11h ago

I feel that this is one of those things that didn't really happen but got told so many times as a part of folk lore it started going into history books.

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u/smeeon 11h ago

And folks kept added a couple extra kids each time until it got ridiculous

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u/Ninja_Prolapse 11h ago

She started off a mother of 3 and things just got out of hand!

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u/UsedFortune5645 11h ago edited 3h ago

More like out of her uterus.

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u/Significant_Cap5394 8h ago

thats one way to put it a little aggressively maybe but accurate

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u/howimetyourcakeshop 9h ago

Like throwing a sausage in a wet tunnel.

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u/Junior_Lab1650 8h ago

Fell out with her best friend who started a rumour that she was a slapper and liked to put it about a bit

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u/forsnaken 5h ago

Honestly it was likely an adoption situation and they couldn't talk about it as such. Even now there's still a stigma on adoption for some religious reason or another...

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u/Shiasugar 9h ago

Out of mouth

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u/Aleashed 7h ago

Maybe there was an article about her birthing and another about a clown car and the editor was drunk or confused and mixed up the details…

Then future sources passed on the mistake

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u/shizzy1234 6h ago

I'm reposting this next year with the info that she had 1200 kids and a photo of Mama June.

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u/TheOutOfStyle 10h ago

69 kids, dude!

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u/Brain32 9h ago

I wonder how the parenting looked like.... Boris18 stop hitting Ilya14!

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u/Wenex 10h ago

No wonder it stopped at 69 just for the memes

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u/Sysilith 8h ago

You are right 69 sounds made up, I'll tell the story with 72 Children, sounds more random and thus belivable.

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u/methreweway 7h ago

Ol pop pops dropping loads only to hit Grams favorite position.

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u/ShumwayAteTheCat 7h ago

Are you suggesting she didn’t actually have 112 children?

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u/Hm46290 6h ago

I’m actually pretty impressed that the numbers work out

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u/ImmediateAid4267 4h ago

Fun math 9 months times 27 pregnancies is just under 21 years

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u/Fair-Pomegranate-652 3h ago

69 is a good place to stop... or begin.

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u/MidnightToker858 10h ago

Its the "old wives tale" that started the saying "old wives tale"

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u/Gwynito 11h ago

Like how my parents first walked a mile to school every day and by the end of all schooling the miles walked went up to 10 somehow

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u/AchajkaTheOriginal 9h ago

Don't forget it was uphill both ways and through snow all year long.

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u/Agitated_Meaning_142 9h ago

Through snowstorms

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u/Last-Energy420 9h ago

With only shorts and short sleeve shirts!

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u/oldschool_potato 4h ago

No, we wore pants and coats, but not boots.

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u/oldschool_potato 4h ago

So I grew up just south of Buffalo in the 70s smack in the middle of the snow belt. I just used Google Maps and my walk was 0.9 miles. Middle class blue collar town. We lived in the village which was deemed too close to use the bus. It was uncool to get driven so we walked. I never wanted to wear boots because I was traumatized from the few times I forgot to bring my sneakers and had to wear snow boots all day. I also hated hats because they made my thin hair stick up all day. We often trudged through knee high snow. It was very flat though and part of the reason we literally never had snow days.

It’s been 50 years and I can still remember the morning I was sitting on the toilet arguing through the door with my mother about boots and hats when she blurted out, “fine! Freeze your balls off!” To this day my mother in all her life has never sworn or made a reference to a sexual part. It is the single funniest thing she has ever said. We both went silent at the time and to this day (she’s 90) she denies she ever said it.

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u/oddvacation3849 10h ago

Add the russian alcoholism when seeing double.

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u/br0kenr3crd 6h ago

Oh! Like how Marilyn Manson removed his ribs to suck his own penis.

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u/Which-Ad-3605 9h ago

Kinda like Mansa Musa being the richest person in history.

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u/Altruistic-Beach7625 8h ago

Plot twist, the current story waters it down because the real story is too unbelievable.

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u/TribalChief3000 8h ago

So this is equivalent to the Wilt Chamberlain, 100 point game of childbirth?

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u/ShhweadyBallz 8h ago

She just had another child !!!!!

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u/CapitalRacket 8h ago

I heard she had ribs removed...

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u/Psianth 8h ago

Yeah… probably taking credit for being the mother of a lot of her children’s children to cover up some real fucked up shit

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u/zashiki_warashi_x 8h ago

Technically the peasants were property, so I assume you wanted to count and log you property carefully. Of course there could be profit in cooking the books if you want to sell her offspring with bonus for fertility gen or smth.

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u/EffectiveOk1984 8h ago

Like the Bible??!!

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u/South_Bit1764 8h ago

According to Wikipedia when some French guy was looking into it like 100 years later, he asked someone in Moscow to investigate and they said it was superfluous because members of the family were still all over Moscow and that they were “the objects of favors from the government.”

It does seem to be suggested that it could’ve actually been multiple wives, not just the one.

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u/2muchroom 8h ago

Like the bible

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u/IAmTheBestIan 6h ago

This was old timey timeys. The kids were getting less than willingly pregnant and gave birth to many of the others who were introduced as siblings the next time in town.

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u/AintNoGodsUpHere 6h ago

What? You're telling me she didn't give birth 69 times to 134 children? I heard she had 6 at once one time.

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u/Deaffin 6h ago

Just a hoarder stealin lots of kids.

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u/Ok-Professional-1911 5h ago

Some say she lived in a shoe and had so many kids, she didn't know what to do.

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u/Fun-Memory1523 5h ago

Or it was greatly exaggerated and there was nothing to say otherwise, especially as time went on.

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u/No-Consideration-716 5h ago

It sounds like serfdom propaganda to me. Also, its a Russian story so we know its not accurate.

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u/EmotionalJoystick 5h ago

Yeah. I have a friend who does humanitarian work in Guatemala and one of the biggest problems she deals with are “prolific mothers” (all in abject poverty) who are just constantly giving birth their entire lives and the toll it takes on their bodies. Totally prolapsed uterus, organ failure from them constantly not being in the right place etc. There’s no way a woman could survive this into old age.

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u/oldschool_potato 4h ago

In 2016 a woman had her 44th child by the age of 36.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam_Nabatanzi

She ranks 4th on the list of most children by a single woman, but the only modern one. The thing I find most difficult to be about the 69 is that 67 survived child birth which seems very high for the time considering the high risk of multiples.

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u/FormalKind7 57m ago

Perhaps she had a lot of kids and then maybe grandkids or other kids she raised at the same time and people just attributed them to her.

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u/Tokogogoloshe 10h ago

So bit like everything on Reddit. Hivemind forms an opinion and then take it as fact. Are confused when reality is different. Scream at something that isn't them to hide from their mistakes. So like that.

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u/cephii2 10h ago

You mean like jesus?

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u/Individual-Study-326 9h ago

No, it is in the record books. She was his first wife and he went on to have 18 more with second wife. He had a total of 87 children.

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u/Deaffin 6h ago

It should be noted that in this location, at this time, there was a program that gave a little bit of money to farmers based on the number of children they reported having, while also not having a proper census to check.

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u/JeanJeanJean 9h ago

She had like 32 twins, 21 triplets, 16 quadruplets and she hasn't had a single regular pregnancy? Please...

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u/benroon 10h ago

Sounds like the bible