Octomom’s eight youngest kids are teenagers now.
Nadia Suleman, 47, dubbed “Octomom” for her history-making pregnancy and delivery of eight babies, has posted a photo on Instagram that shows her children half-way through their 13th year.
Noah, Maliyah, Isaiah, Nariyah, Jonah, Makai, Josiah and Jeremiah are now in the eighth grade, which was the occasion for the photo.
The back-to-school picture and accompanying story appeared in the New York Post on Wednesday.
Nadia called her kids “exceptional role models” in her post, stating, “Be proud of yourselves kids for being kind, respectful, and helpful to all your fellow peers, teachers and staff.
“You are exceptional role models to the 6th and 7th graders. I love you.”
Suleman has six other older children: Ameerah, Calyssa, Elijah, Jonah, Joshua and Aidan; she wrote that the older siblings did not want a ‘first day’ school picture posted, so she respected their choices.
The proud mother has posted various compliments to her eight youngest over the year, noting their “rare and unique” characteristics in January when they turned 13 and saying, “ You are all growing into some of the most kind, humble, grateful and loving human beings I have ever known.”
She added that her teens love to serve “the less fortunate,” and finished up by saying, “I do not know what I could possibly have done to deserve being blessed so bountifully.”
Suleman attracted a lot of attention when the babies were small but in a New York Times story from a few years ago she said she had not wanted that notoriety.
In fact, said Suleman, “I was pretending to be a fake, a caricature, which is something I’m not, and I was doing it out of desperation and scarcity so I could provide for my family.”
And she said, “I’ve been hiding from the real world all my life.”
Once she could escape the pretending, Suleman said, “I was able to be me.”