The Man with 1000 Kids

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.

Unbelievable how many commentators here on IMDB call these women the most nasty things possible. Who do these sanctimonious people think they are? Calling them unnatural, bad, disgusting etc etc. And some are supporting the sperm donor, Jonathan. These commentators are evil. The women in this documentary trusted Jonathan. And others trusted the fertility clinic or the website they found online. Then they are confronted with a defunct system. Fertility clinics not being in contact with each other. Not syncing their digital files. Jonathan lying to these women. Lying about that he just helped so and so much women. And then these women are considered selfish? Unnatural? If these women behave unnatural then going to a doctor to be cured from a pneumonia is unnatural also. The nerve of these commentators. I think IMDB has a duty to monitor these comments and to remove their comments. These people are insulting the women who participated. They are ideologically and politically biased. And probably religiously. And the misogyny of some of them. My goodness. Supporting or giving advice to spermdonor Jonathan, even. This documentary shows how we just can't trust fully the medical system around us. We always need to check and double check. When sperm donors promise on a piece of paper that they won't work with other fertility clinics or with other women or couples, it should be under supervision of a notary or within some other legal context, where when the donor is behaving against the agreement he risks jail time or he will be punished financially. It's 2024 and that this was recently possible in a well organised society, says a lot about how badly our societies still are organised.

I do feel for the couples who went to the legitimate donor clinics and ended up with this psycho who obviously wants to leave his genetic legacy to the world. I also feel sorry for the thousand children who are his progeny, particularly the ones whose mothers just randomly decided that it would be a good idea to go and procreate with a total stranger, because he had nice blond curls. The IQs of these poor kids will probably prove to be quite the number...And maybe they did it because it was free?

I have absolutely no sympathy for the people who reached out to this random stranger and accepted his word that he had only fathered three or four children, oh no, maybe 25 children because now he was helping with second and third offspring for the couples that were already successful and had one child, so the lies just changed. No vetting on their part of his medical history (only what he told them), actually agreeing to having sex with him, so it would "work better" (I think one woman agreed to that I'm just so disgusted I have no words), waiting at the mall for the "sample"; commenting on how gross that is, because he is obtaining the sample in a public bathroom at the mall, but taking the sample home anyway...I'm sorry, you are trying to conceive with a complete stranger, and you want a child so badly that you don't care to look into his background.

Now your child has 50% of this narcissist's DNA. Good luck to you and to your poor children.

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 man must be permanently stopped, anywhere in the world. And the donor system must be better regulated since he isn't, and won't be, the only one.

At the risk of sounding like victim blaming, however, sometimes some people can be a little shallow with looks - the most cliché form of beauty propagated endlessly by media - and they can be easily duped by cheap compliments. You could hear them talking how they might feel it's wrong or even disgusting at times, yet they went through with it because they're charmed. After learning what's transpired and that there could be intentional mixed-ups, two of the parents were even relieved that both their children got their DNAs from Mr. B&B whom they've selected from an online menu. I'm sure for them the decision to have a baby was made with utmost gravity, but the way some of them went about it - similar to that of marketplace online shopping - suggests otherwise.

The irony is that we might repeatedly teach our kids "it's the inside that counts," yet when we want to conceive, we might be obsessed with a certain type of beauty. This has to stop. After all, this is NOT the first time that our obsession with blond hair and blue eyes has brought us horrible chaos in the world - one very notable, terrible event that happened in the 20th century needs no reminder...