Not to mention, the youngest of the Bringing Up Bates crew still have some high school diplomas to collect before they can court the future mothers and fathers of their children.
Much like the similarly outsized Duggar brood, the evangelical, conservative Christians embrace a more is more philosophy when it comes to growing their family.
“We both came to the conclusion that we just wanted to trust God with how many children we had,” Gil explained in a 2011 Nightline interview, a year before they welcomed youngest son Jeb Bates. “But we never really thought we’d have 18. We thought maybe one or two, maybe three.”
Instead, they filled their 4,000-square-foot Tennessee home with an entire baseball roster and—after several appearances on TLC’s hit series 19 Kids and Counting—invited cameras to capture all the chaos.
“Every year, you know, there was—just add another person,” eldest son Zach Bates explained to Nightline“it doesn’t feel abnormal to me.”
Of course now, he and his younger siblings are the ones going forth and multiplying. A full decade after their Up TV series wrapped its 10th and final season, he and his kin still continue bringing up new Bates offspring.
Keep reading to meet their squad.
