The supermarket magazines that once shouted “Octomom!” in neon ink have moved on, but the eight tiny babies who arrived all at once in January 2009 are still here—only now they have driving permits, varsity hoodies, and opinions about TikTok. Noah, Isaiah, Nariyah, Maliyah, Jeremiah, Josiah, Jonah, and Makai Suleman turned sixteen in 2025, and their birthday cake required two full sheet pans to squeeze in all the candles. Their mom, Natalie Suleman, marked the day with a low-key backyard barbecue instead of the media circus that once camped outside the hospital nursery. She posted a single photo collage on Instagram: eight smiling teens in matching plaid shirts, arms slung over one another’s shoulders, captioned simply, “My heart, walking outside my body.”
Life inside the Suleman house today looks nothing like the frenzy of their first years. The family lives in a modest three-bedroom ranch in Southern California, downsized from the chaotic McMansion that bankruptcy took away in 2012. Bedrooms are shared—boys in bunk beds, girls in loft beds—but the walls are covered with whiteboards scribbled with calculus problems, soccer schedules, and one shared New Year’s resolution: “Run a 5K together.” Natalie works four ten-hour shifts a week as a substance-abuse counselor, a job she trained for during the quiet years after the adult-film offers dried up and the boxing matches stopped calling. The paycheck isn’t large, but it comes with health insurance that covers all fourteen kids, a blessing she still mentions in nightly prayers.
School mornings start at 5:45 a.m. sharp. Natalie lines lunch boxes on the counter—eight identical brown bags, each stuffed with a turkey wrap, apple slices, and a handwritten note she rotates through inspirational quotes and inside jokes. (“Jeremiah—don’t forget you ARE the storm!”) A 12-passenger van, bought used and held together by determination, shuttles the octuplets to a public charter school that blends online coursework with twice-weekly labs. Three of the teens take honors biology; two are on the debate team; one, Jonah, has already been scouted by a junior-college soccer coach for his speed as a winger. Teachers say the “octos” (as classmates call them) are fiercely protective of one another—if one gets teased, seven voices answer back.
Money is still tight, but the family has turned thriftiness into a game. Grocery shopping happens once a month at a warehouse store, with the older kids pushing two carts in tandem to hit the coupon limit on cereal and pasta. Clothing comes from thrift-store raids the twins organize—Amerah, now 21, color-codes the haul by sibling and posts “fashion shows” on a private family Instagram. Birthdays are shared: each teen gets to pick either a small personal gift (a new skateboard, a video-game controller) or a group activity (last year they chose a day at the beach with boogie boards and tacos). They know their origin story—Natalie sat them down at age ten and walked them through the IVF controversy, the revoked medical license, the years she posed for tabloids to keep the lights on. “We don’t hide the past,” she says. “We just don’t live there.”
The octuplets themselves have mixed feelings about fame. They laugh at old YouTube clips of their diaper-clad chaos, but they politely decline interview requests unless Natalie approves. Their focus now is drivers’ licenses, college-prep courses, and part-time jobs—Noah already tutors math at the library; Makai walks neighborhood dogs for cash. On weekends they volunteer together at a food bank, sorting produce in an assembly line that reminds them of their own synchronized childhood. Natalie watches from a distance, wiping tears without shame. “For years I wondered how I’d feed you,” she told them on their birthday. “Now I watch you feed others. That’s the real miracle.”
