Name: ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Course 5.

Read the following text and answer the questions.

Full house: Meet the Silcocks

Walk into the California home of Anne Belles and her husband, Jim Silcock, and you’ll see kids
everywhere playing video games, doing homework and getting ready for dinner. There are 30 boys in this
house and Anne Belles is their mom. Belles has wanted to help children since she was a kid. “I was
intrigued by the movie Oliver!” in the 60’s, a musical based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver twist. I told
my mom, “That’s what I want to do. I want to adopt orphans”.

Anne’s boys range in age from 3 to 25. All of them are challenged in some way. “They each have special
needs-physically, emotionally, or at school”, says Belles. She doesn’t focus on what her kids can’t do, only
on what they can. They go to a normal school, take karate lessons, go skating at the roller rink and even
act on television. In an interesting twist, thirteen of her boys are going to be in a local theater’s
production of Oliver!

Raising 30 boys is no small task. Every day, a small army of childcare workers, nurses and volunteers
comes in to help cook and clean, wash 30 loads of laundry a day, and take care of health needs. To find
out how much such a large family cots, we followed Jim Silcock to the grocery store. He spent $880 for
food for one week. Every month they spend $10.000 on dental and medical expenses. There’s also a
clothing, insurance and mortgage payment.

The family receives $26.000 a month from the federal government. All the money is spent on the
children: having new clothes and fancy cars isn’t important to Belles.

How do the kids feel? Antony, 17 year-old says, “The family is there whenever I need something. Under all
this chaos, I feel like I am loved”.

Ann Belles says “Absolutely no regrets: this is perfect. I couldn’t ask for it to be better!

Questions

1. What reason does Anne Belles give for adopting so many children?

2. What special needs do the children have?

3. Why having new clothes and fancy cars isn’t important to Belles?

4. Would you like to be part of a family as large as the Silcocks? Why or why not.

5. Write at least 3 differences and 3 similarities about your family and the Silcocks.