Photo: getty
He already has 18 kids.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Jan 28, 2020
The polygamist Brown family on TLC's show Sister Wives has one husband, four wives, and eighteen children. But it's possible that husband Kody Brown wants to take his show up to nineteen kinds and counting.
Unlike the Duggars, where only one wife has had all those kids, the Brown family has spread the childbearing out among four different women. First wife Meri has one daughter, second and third wives Janelle and Christine have six children apiece, and fourth wife Robyn has three kids from a previous marriage, whom Kody officially adopted, as well as two children she and Kody had together.
The Browns even have two grandchildren, now that daughter Madison and her husband have had babies in the past couple of years. But being a grandfather isn't stopping Kody brown from considering adding more children to his already-large brood. Robyn, who's his youngest wife, hasn't ruled it out either but there's also the possibility that Kody might want to marry another woman and have babies with a whole new wife.
Are Kody and Robyn Brown having another baby? Read on to figure out what's going on with this family.
1. The Brown family already has eighteen kids.
As we noted, the Brown family is already huge. The five adults are parents to a dozen and a half children. The oldest is Logan, who is 25 years old and completing grad school. The youngest is Ariella, who is only four years old.
In the middle are kids ranging from 8 years old to 24 years old. Several of the oldest kids are married and daughter Madison and her husband have two children of their own. It seems likely that the other adult children will add to the family in the coming years as well.
The Brown family at daughter's Mykelti's wedding.
2. Kody Brown recently said he thinks about having more babies.
In a recent episode of the show, Brown mentioned to his family that he wasn't sure he was done having babies yet. While his current kids scoffed a bit at the idea of their 51-year-old father hitting the reset button and going back to parenting newborns, Brown says not only could he father more children, he might want to.
“A lot of people, a lot of my peers, are looking forward to an empty nest. I’ve never been that person,” Brown told cameras. “I’m constantly debating with myself whether Ari’s the last or not. I realized that I’m 50 and so by the time Ariella is done being my little girl, that I’ll be 70. I was either looking forward to being a father, or a father, for the past 35 years. It’s a weird thought for me to think that I am not gonna have any more kids.”
3. Which wife would have more children?
Fans of the show know already that first wife Meri has struggled with infertility and has a history of miscarriages. She was able to carry one baby and then never got pregnant again. Not only that, she and Kody have been struggling to even keep their marriage going in the past few years.
Neither Christine or Janelle has expressed an interest in having more kids. Janelle even took to Twitter to explain how their faith ties into making sure they feel ready to be done having babies.
"Our faith teaches that our families have some pre-destiny," Janelle wrote. "We choose whose family we want be with before birth. We feel a great calling to make sure that our families are complete when we are having children. I had something like that with my Savanah." Janelle is also 50 years old and Christine is 47 so childbearing would not be as physically easy as it was when they were younger.
Fourth wife Robyn, however, is only 41 and she has not indicated there's any reasons she couldn't conceive. On the show, she even said that she and her husband still talk about what it would mean if they decided to have more children.
"It’s like he’s trying to say, ‘I’m young enough to have more kids if I want to.’ Kody and I are always trying to make sure that our family is complete and there isn’t some sweet little spirit in Heaven waiting to be born to our family,” she explained. “We just want to make sure that Ari really, truly is the last of our family.”
4. Robyn may be less open to having more kids than she suggested, however.
While Robyn might be more open to the idea of kids right now, a year ago she was pretty sure she was done. A friend of hers told reporters that her last pregnancy hadn't been easy and she was done having babies.
"No, Robyn is not having another baby. She had a really hard pregnancy the last time around and she gained a ton of weight. She already has breathing issues so she has a really hard time losing weight,” the source said.
5. Would Brown get married again to have more kids?
There have been rumors that Brown might add a fifth wife into the family. A few years ago, fans wondered if Brown as courting Robyn's niece Mindy Jessop. Jessop had been living with Robyn and acting as a nanny to her youngest kids. If there was any talk of courting, it fizzled out before the family could make it public.
More recently, there were major questions when the Brown family Wikipedia page showed another wife in the list of parent names. The entry listed Leah Marie Brown as Brown's fifth wife. She was allegedly 28 years old and had gotten married to Brown in 2019.
The name vanished from the page not long after it appeared, and neither the family nor TLC ever said anything about it. A woman that young would almost certainly want to have kids.
Is four wives enough?
6. So what are the Brown family's plans for the future? Are Kody and Robyn Brown having another baby?
At this point, it's not possible to say whether there are more wives or babies in the future for this reality family. They're great at tossing little tidbits like that out to keep audiences coming back for more so this may all just be for publicity's sake. Or maybe they really are planning to make their big family even bigger.
Sister Wives airs on TLC on Sundays.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.