The Man with 1000 Kids

Every time I watch a Netflix docuseries with my mouth slack-jawed and eyes widened, I think it has to be the most outrageous thing I've seen, and then a few months later, it's a whole other story of people being awful. This time around, it's a Dutch man who is a serial sperm donor and has anywhere from 600 to 3,000 kids (!). The series is only three episodes, insane from beginning to end, and also kind of icky, with women seeking him out because he had long blond hair, blue eyes, and is (supposedly) Nordic and handsome. I thought he was gross with a serious god-complex, and completely dismissive of the possibility of consanguinity with so many offspring running around. I blame all this hyper-natalism on Elon Musk and other white fanboys, one of whom said they were donating in Kenya so they could "bleach Africa white". Aaargh.

As the documentary is really well edited, you can't stop yourself from getting a disturbed feeling about what this man did. The women in this series can be very proud of themselves.

I hope that after this documentary there will be a better legislation in fertilization. There should be a law-change as soon as possible.

Although it's a tough story to watch, we watched it in one sit. They edited everything very well together.

Although I never leave a review, and even though I'm not the proudest to be a dutchie right now, I think this series deserves one. Also because I saw that there are negative reviews by men who believes that he did a good job.

This is the story of a man that is obsessed with being a father to as many babies as possible. Either by donor and in some cases actual sex. Not only was he registered to 11 clinics in his country, but he travelled all over the world donating. Not only that, but he also donates privately through a website. There are so many siblings in his home country it will be a miracle that some wouldn't meet and fall in love with each other. The documentary follows several parents that were duped by this man who by clinic rules should only donate to 5 different families. What makes it even scarier is the whole community of men that are doing this as well. There's no strict rules in place so these families are trying to change things in an industry that needs way more legislation. It kept my interest and frankly I felt scared for these children, especially the ones that live so close to each other. Things are definitely going to be interesting in the future and not in a good way.

You know what they say, "Look before you leap.". In this case, investigate before you baste.

There are so many unwanted and abused children in this world. It is awful to see people who desperately want to have a child to live be messed with this way, not to mention what this narcissist is as done to innocent children. This creep claims to have spent 50,000 hours helping people. Think about it. Yuck.

They say there is more regulation of animal breeding than sperm donation. Let's hope this disturbing story leads to better regulation.

It doesn't matter how you feel about artificial insemination. Innocent children are involved here. This docuseries gets more disturbing each episode.

This documentary features interviews from a variety of parents who used the services of the same sperm donor without knowing it at first.

The man, Jonathan Meijer, donated sperm through a variety of clinics--signing declarations of exclusivity, but those were not enforced.

He also donated through facebook groups, freeform and without those same contractual restrictions.

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The problem comes in both that he intentionally and willfully breaches the women's trust and that the industry itself did not enforce their own standards.

By not enforcing the restrictions, a statistically unacceptable probability of children of the same donor interacting and perhaps even marrying may take place.

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After a lawsuit, the court issued a groundbreaking decree that restricted Meijer's bodily autonomy and right to donate further sperm, rather than just giving more teeth and punishments based on contract violations with the clinics.

Meijer, whose narcissism created a thousand children, is now precluded from having more.

Meanwhile, as the final title cards note, the industry itself still has the same flaws and cannot seem to accurately promise or enforce any limit on the number of children a donor has.

Since it's a huge industry, this ending left viewers with a feeling that while this one obviously extreme case is solved others (such as those mentioned in passing) are still out there.

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While the tale is cautionary and that's fine, I'd call this mini series "second screen" at most because it could have said the same thing in one segment.

The court case, while ground breaking, also doesn't solve the central issue of the industry's problem.

And as for the serial dad? He's incredibly dull as portrayed in this film. (Not to say that the film should be a hype machine, but if his solo punishment is the focus at the end, perhaps give us more insights on his background and reasoning than a few weak guesses.)

How can Netflix make this dull? Not sure, but they did. Would not recommend.