The man with 1000 children: mothers speak out: “We just want him to stop”

YoIn 2010, a Dutch woman named Natalie decided she wanted to have a child. “It’s not easy if you’re a lesbian,” she recalls, laughing. “I can’t just go out and have fun and get pregnant. It takes a bit of planning.”

After ruling out male friends, Natalie searched the Internet and weighed her options. At first, she considered going to a donor clinic, but was put off by Dutch law that prevents donor-conceived children from knowing the donor’s identity until they are 16. “I was afraid there could be an identity crisis in the future,” she explains. “That’s something I wouldn’t wish on any child.”

Instead, she turned to a website called “Longing for a Child.” There she found dating-site-style profiles of several potential donors. After a failed encounter with a man named Leon, she found what she had been looking for in a handsome, curly-haired young man named Jonathan Jacob Meijer.

“He was perfect in every way,” Natalie recalls. “His looks, his intelligence, his way of speaking. Everything that was important to me was there.” When they met, they talked about why Meijer had decided to become a sperm donor, and he said he had been inspired by a college friend who was infertile. “He told me he wanted to help five families and that I would be number three,” Natalie says. “That was his story back then.”

With Meijer’s help, Natalie had a son. “The first eight years were perfect,” she says. “There was nothing to worry about.” One day, Natalie’s partner, Suzanne, was enjoying a morning coffee and reading the newspaper when she came across a story about a Dutch sperm donor who had fathered hundreds of children — far more than the 25-child limit imposed by national law. The man matched Meijer’s description. “That’s how we discovered that he had donated many more children than we ever imagined,” Suzanne says.

open image in gallery

Natalie and Suzanne are just two of the many mothers featured in Netflix's shocking new three-part docuseries The man with 1000 children. The women involved are separated by continents, spread across Europe, Africa and Australia, but united by a sense that they were deceived and betrayed. Meijer was found to have donated sperm to multiple fertility clinics in the Netherlands — at least 11 by 2023, according to court records — and they say he had told each of them that he had not donated elsewhere. He also traveled the world to make private donations. The IndependentMeijer admitted he had not been “open” with women, but denied some of the other allegations made about him in the documentary.

For Natalie and Suzanne, the feeling of betrayal was heightened by the fact that they had spoken to Meijer less than a year earlier about the possibility of having another child with him. Suzanne wanted to use the same donor so that the couple’s children would be biological siblings, so they met with Meijer once more. “We asked him how many children he had, and he said, ‘25,’” Suzanne recalls. “We thought that was a lot. He told us that some families had had a second or even a third child with him, and that he had been doing this for a few years. He said it was normal, and we believed him.”

They tried a second insemination, but it didn’t work. By then, the couple was somewhat relieved, having been put off by Meijer’s actions. While he had previously donated his sperm at home, this time he had agreed to meet them in a public place. “I think the lowest point in our story is that at one point he wanted to meet at a mall,” Suzanne says. “He went to a public bathroom. Natalie called me and said, ‘What the hell? ’ I said, ‘This is not right. ’” Natalie squirms beside him. “I felt very uncomfortable,” she says. “It felt like we were doing a drug deal. It’s not the place you go to make a baby.”

After learning the truth about Meijer, Natalie and Suzanne joined a Facebook group full of other mothers who had used their donations. They were stunned by what they saw. “You’d show a picture and someone would say, ‘Oh, that looks like kid A, B, C and D,’” Suzanne recalls. “At the time, it seemed like having an Ikea bookshelf. ‘Oh, I see you have Billy. Great bookshelf, we have that one, too!’ If you have a donor child, that can happen. But on this scale, it’s unheard of. It’s not that we’re worried about our child not being unique, but the implications of that. If the kids meet later in life, they might be romantically attracted to each other — and then what?”

For the mothers, the biggest concern is not that Meijer lied to them or even about the size of their biological offspring, but the potentially incestuous dangers that threaten their children and future generations.

The total number of children Meijer has fathered is unknown. In 2023, he admitted in court to having fathered at least 550 children, before a Dutch judge made the unprecedented decision to ban him from donating to sperm banks. He could be fined €100,000 (£84,700) each time he breaches the court order. In recent videos posted to his YouTube channel, Meijer has claimed that the title The man with 1000 children It is misleading, but in reality even he does not know the real figure, because the international sperm banks he used, such as the Danish Cryos, are not obliged to inform him about the children resulting from their donations.

For example, if Meijer has 500 children, she could be expected to have 150,000 offspring on the face of the Earth in 100 years. “It’s about our children and how this affects their lives,” Suzanne says. “They will never be able to date or have sex with anyone, they will always have to take care of themselves, and even then they may not know they are donor children. It’s a very dangerous and unhealthy situation for these children, and for their children and grandchildren.”

“It’s a public health hazard waiting to happen,” Natalie adds. “It’s not about the number, but about the dangers behind it. The higher the number, the more dangerous it is.”

Suzanne raises another concern: “What if just one of these kids became a donor without knowing it?” she asks. “Or even if they did know,” Natalie adds. “But they think the same as Jonathan: ‘Fuck it! Let’s do it!’”

There are no international laws regulating sperm donation, and the field is largely unregulated. Mothers have little recourse other than trying to spread the word about the magnitude of Meijer’s actions. “That’s why we keep raising awareness and hoping that there will be a government that wants to pass legislation, because it’s something that needs to be done,” Natalie says. “Not just in individual countries, but globally. It doesn’t stop at borders, and it’s not the only one. There are more out there.”

As The man with 1000 children According to Natalie, Meijer may be particularly prolific, but he is by no means the only “super donor” operating today. Natalie later learned that Leon, the first donor she had considered, had fathered around 415 children. She now believes that the two men were secretly behind the “Longing for a Child” website and were competing with each other to have the most children. The documentary series uncovers further examples of men travelling the world to donate unlimited amounts of sperm, including one racist who expresses his desire to donate to Kenyan clinics in a wish to “whiten Africa.”

open image in gallery

“They know each other and they work together,” says Suzanne. “We need laws to prevent this. I know that the HFEA [Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority] “They have issued a statement to say that it is not possible in the UK, but they don’t know what is going on behind closed doors,” says Natalie, nodding her head. “We need a ruling that will allow us to find someone who is punishable by law, so that they think before donating their sperm in these quantities,” she says.

Governments have been generally wary of any laws limiting procreation these days. Suzanne believes it is time for that to change. “We regulate what women do with their bodies,” she says. “We regulate surrogacy. There are clear rules about it all over the world. Why can’t we tell people how much they can procreate? Why not? Because they are men.”

Today, neither Natalie nor Suzanne are in contact with Meijer. He has blocked them both on WhatsApp, so they can no longer talk to him about their son. He continues to post regular updates on his YouTube channel, including from trips to Finland and Zanzibar. In recent videos, he complains that Netflix is ​​misleading people about him. “After all the care we put into the documentary, it’s sad to hear that response,” Suzanne says. “Especially coming from someone who is basically a fraud.”

When asked for comment by The IndependentMeijer said he stopped donating to new recipients in 2019 and denied many of the allegations made against him in the documentary. He says he never collaborated or competed with other donors and denies the most shocking allegation in the series, that he and Leon mixed their sperm together before giving it to a recipient to see who would “win.” “That’s total slander,” he says. “It’s insane. Why would I do that? Why would anyone do that? If it’s in the documentary, get ready, I will definitely sue the entire Netflix team.”

Meijer declined several invitations to participate in the documentary. “She was given the right to respond,” Natalie says. “Her comments are always, ‘This isn’t true and women are just angry mothers.’ We’re not angry. We just want it to stop.”

'The Man of a Thousand Sons' is on Netflix