What happened to Octomom? Her octuplets just reached an age no one dared promise in 2009

Seventeen years after the tabloids declared her a national emergency, Nadya Suleman is a grandmother with a shared-phone policy.

Quick history refresher for anyone who was blessedly offline in 2009: Natalie "Nadya" Suleman gave birth to the first octuplets in history to all survive, instantly became "Octomom," and spent the next several years as America's favorite target. The babies were a medical long shot; the mother was a punchline. That was the deal, and it was ugly.

Fast-forward: Noah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Josiah, Makai, Maliyah and Nariyah are now 17, per E! News — an age that, back in the incubator days, absolutely nobody was putting in writing.

Eight premature babies the world treated as a scandal are now eight juniors in high school. The scandal, meanwhile, aged terribly.

The house rules are not a vibe, they're a regime

Suleman raises the octuplets — part of her 14 total kids — with what she calls old-school structure. She told Fox News she believes she was too permissive with her older six and course-corrected hard with the youngest eight. The specifics, per the same interview :

• no dating until 18;
• no individual phones — the octuplets share one, for communication;
• structure, discipline, consequences, in that order.

The kids have confirmed the regime on the record. Daughter Nariyah, quoted by Fox News:

"She's very strict, and she educates us a lot."

Grandma era, docuseries era

Life kept moving in other directions too. Suleman became a grandmother in August 2024 when her son Joshua welcomed a daughter. The family story got the full content treatment as well: a Lifetime movie, I Was Octomom, and a docuseries, Confessions of Octomom, in which the octuplets speak publicly for the first time.

Not that it's been a victory lap. On her 51st birthday this July, Suleman posted a rare personal update, calling the past year "one of the most challenging seasons of my life" while thanking all 14 kids, her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter.

So what happened to Octomom? The short version: everyone who bet against that family in 2009 lost. The octuplets turn 18 in January. Presumably the dating ban lifts at midnight.