How Amanda Owen juggles 9 kids AND farm life by ditching parents’ evenings, banning ‘snowflakes’ & giving birth alone
AMANDA Owen is no conventional mum - the TV star, who fans will recognise from Our Yorkshire Farm, not only has a brood of nine to look after but a whole farm to run too.
It's no surprise then that she's got her own way of doing things and Amanda often has fans marvelling over her unusual day-to-day.
Shepherdess Amanda, 46, shares nine children with her husband Clive, 67 - Raven, 20, Reuben, 17, Miles, 15, Edith, 12, Violet, 10, Sidney, nine, Annas, seven, Clemmie, five, and Nancy, four.
Not only did she recently confess that she spent 15 years breastfeeding all of her kids as they grew up, but she ditched heading to hospital to give birth to her eighth child and she juggles all the usual parenting duties with spending her days out in the fields hand-rearing sheep.
Her world is a far cry away from the conventional mum life we're probably more used to and it's all been captured on TV in her family's Channel 5 series that's a hit with viewers.
Amanda also gives fans an insight into her day-to-day on her Ravenseat farm on social media through her Instagram and it will honestly leave you in awe.
Giving Birth Alone
Forget relying on your partner to get you through childbirth, as Amanda decided to brave it alone after already going through labour seven times previously.
When her eighth child came along, Amanda opted to give birth at home with her dog for company.
She said on This Morning: "The thought of just staying at home was a really good option. I got fed up of ruining people's picnics, so I put the kettle on, stoked up the fire and just had her by the fire with my terrier as a birthing partner."
"I woke up my husband, but the matter of fact is, quite simply, he's seen me give birth to seven children before," she said.
For Amanda, her local hospital is in Middlesborough, 69miles away from the farm.
"On these roads, that takes a long time, so by baby number eight - I thought, 'Sod it, I'll do it myself.' I knew the baby was in the right position, so when I felt the familiar feelings I went downstairs and had the baby in front of the fire," she told Radio Times.
In fact, she was pretty chuffed with her decision to do so and said that out of all the times she's given birth, going it alone had been the "best".
Breastfeeding for 15 YEARS straight
If juggling the school run, fields full of farmyard animals and a household to keep in check wasn't enough to keep you busy, then Amanda had to factor in feeding her nine kids as they grew up.
Opting to breastfeed them all, she decided it was easier than turning to a baby bottle - even if it meant she was breastfeeding for around 15 years in total.
Sticking with breastfeeding allowed her to always feed her kids on the go, with Amanda telling Country & Town House: "Why wouldn't I [breastfeed]?"
She said: "It's easy, the right temperature, and when you're out lambing, what are you going to do? I'm no earth mother and I don't evangelise about any way of life. You do what you got t'do."
Hand-rearing sheep
Amanda has been a shepherdess since she was 21 years old, when she joined her husband Clive's farm back in 1996, 25 years ago.
Since then, she's found herself with not only nine kids, but 2000 acres to work with, 1000 sheep, 40 cows, six dogs and four ponies.
Just a quick scroll through her Instagram and you'll see she spends most of her time out in the fields, tending to her animals and hand-rearing sheep as they give birth to lambs.
Her kids are often seen helping out when it comes to bottle-feeding the newborn lambs and in one post, shared in April, Amanda is seen telling fans how she rescued a sheep and its lamb, who had given birth in a river.
No day is the same, but every day is full on and to put her life into perspective, she told the Northern Echo: "Today I've had one lamb with stinking foot rot, I've had a dog that I've rescued, made umpteen cups of tea, baked scones, and now I can look forward to not having electricity all day so I'll be cooking on an open fire."
That's one set back of living out in the sticks, nothing is easily accessible.
Usually, Amanda will be up at the crack of dawn cooking and baking to feed her family, while she stocks up on other produce from neighbouring farms and cupboard essentials whenever she's close by to a supermarket.
No-nonsense parenting
Amanda's no-nonsense attitude to parenting means her kids are always getting involved with the running of the farm and that's how she likes it to be.
She previously explained: "It's never been a case of, 'That's your job, that's my job', it's always been a question of us mucking in. The children help.
"People might frown on that, thinking I'm rearing my own workforce, but it's not like that. We take a great deal of pleasure and pride in what we do. We work really hard."
Thanks to the pandemic, last year meant Amanda had to add homeschooling to her long list of duties - but she says she was only strict with it for about a week and decided that letting her kids fend for themselves would be a lesson in "independence".
"We logged in for about a week. Then I threw it back to them. Children have to be independent. I can’t be a helicopter parent," Amanda told Yorkshire Live.
She hasn't attended a single parents' evening and admits she did "pretty poorly" at her own exams growing up, but is proud of what she's achieved since.
Not a fan of the "snowflake generation", she claimed: "They don’t know anything about how to look after themselves, or a work ethic, all of that has gone out of the window. It’s our fault as parents.
“If you put your child on a pedestal, with no sense of independence, and think you have got to entertain them the whole time, what can you expect?"
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