This father reveals the secret of his success as to how he handled eight children alone after his wife dies of cancer.
Ian Millthorpe’s wife Angie died in 2010, but his wife sorted out any problems he might have had in raising eight children alone.
She made a list of parenting essentials, a few days before she died of cancer.
Ian said: “I can never replace Angie and I would never want to. But I wanted to make her proud of us, and fortunately, she made it easier for me.”
The 15-point plan contains points like “Only one hour on the computer” and “don’t let them bite their nails,” but these things have made parenting so much easier for Ian.
He said that he is fortunate of having such caring and hardworking kids. “Not a day is passed when she is not mentioned, everything that she used to say and do is engraved in our hearts forever,” he added.
Ian and Angie met in a park in South Yorks when they were just 14, fell in love, and got married in 1985.
The couple had three children together, Ryan, who is now 32, Damon, 29 and Reece, 27 when Angie was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. She was just 29 at that time.
Five years later, after getting an ‘all clear’, the couple had five more kids. 19-year-old Connor, the 15-year-old twins, 12-year-old Corey and 10-year-old Ella.
However, in 2008, once again she was diagnosed with cancer, which was incurable. This news made her write the list.
This list has worked so well that it has been passed on to the next generation–Isaac, Ryan’s seven-year-old son, Warren and Cohen, Damon’s 11-year-old and 17-week old son and Reece’s three-year-old son Jaxon and one-year-old daughter Willow.
But now this father is fighting with his health problems. He has survived a brain hemorrhage in 2004 and is now battling a chronic lung disease.