The Man with 1000 Kids is a shocking Netflix documentary miniseries about an especially extreme case of fertility fraud, and there are many shocking twists and turns to the tale as it progresses. Even on the surface, the scenario is difficult to believe, but as more details come to light, what Jonathan Jacob Meijer did to so many women across the globe almost sounds as though it’s from the world of fiction. Unfortunately, what happened was very real, and many pieces of information that arise throughout the documentary series are very worrying.

The Man with 1000 Kids is one of the best documentaries on Netflix right now, even if the shock factor can venture into the deeply upsetting at times. While it’s not among the group of documentaries that would make a particularly good movie, The Man with 1000 Kids does something much more important than simply entertaining its audience. It highlights the wrongdoings of one man but also brings focus to what may be an international blindspot for many individuals.

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There Is Very Little Regulation Concerning The International Sperm Donor Limit

Donors are free to hit the national limit in any country they visit

One of the first biggest reveals in the documentary is that Jonathan Jacob Meijer has been playing the system in The Netherlands for years, circumventing the sperm donor limit of his homeland. While The Netherlands limits sperm clinic donors to 25 children each, Meijer maxed out his national quota at several sperm banks across the country. He did so with relative ease, and then went international with his scheme to father as many children as possible.

“There’s no international limit for the amount of offspring that one donor can have.” – Eve Wiley

During The Man with 1000 Kids, fertility fraud victim and activist Eve Wiley talks about how there is no upper figure on how many children a sperm donor can father on a planet-wide scale. While domestic efforts to limit single-donor donations are at least in place – if not seemingly easy to sidestep – it all falls apart when a donor steps into another country and is allowed to start the process all over again. This unfortunate loophole is part of what allowed Meijer to do what he did on such a massive scale.

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Jonathan Jacob Meijer Relentlessly Continued Donating Despite Being Exposed

The subject of the Netflix docuseries showed no remorse

The documentary’s subject clearly knew that what he was doing was wrong, or he wouldn’t have kept it a secret. However, when the mothers he had wronged worked out he’d been intensely dishonest with them, he showed no sign of remorse or guilt and continued donating his sperm as if nothing had happened. Not only did he carry on traveling the world and donating in every country he reached, but he also continued to advertise his services on the relevant websites.

Meijer didn’t cower from the limelight ever, as he continued to document his travels via his YouTube channel, so it was always clear where he was in the world at any given moment. It took a carefully executed court case to get him to stop – a case he was sure would fail and didn’t seem to take seriously until it became clear he was about to be punished for his actions.

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Jonathan Jacob Meijer Was At Large For Over A Decade

The mass donor started to really enact his plan around 2013

Meijer had plenty of time to spread his genetics across the world. When his victims all reached out to one another and pooled their resources, they discovered that his plan started to really come to fruition in 2013. That year, there was a sudden boom in his donations and subsequent successful pregnancies. While he was donating before 2013, it was clear that this was the year he started to commit to his scheme.

Jonathan Jacob Meijer only had his right to donate sperm removed in 2023, meaning he had 10+ uninterrupted years to keep spreading his seed in sperm banks and via private donations. This period would have been when the bulk of his progeny were produced, and almost nothing could be done to stop him. While Meijer has now thankfully been prevented from returning to his old ways, the damage is already done.

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The “Longing For A Child” Site Was A Front For Jonathan & 1 Other Man

Leon was the site’s administrator and possible father to some of Jonathan’s children

The Man with 1000 Kids addresses a popular private donation site in The Netherlands, the name of which translates to, “Longing for a Child.” The site lacks much in terms of identification, as it doesn’t initially require a profile to include a picture, nor does the user need to use their real name. As such, using the site was carefully considered by several mothers before they decided to go ahead. The documentary reveals many of the exploited mothers in The Netherlands found Meijer via the use of this site – and there’s a good reason for that.

While the Longing for a Child Site offered the illusion of choice from various donors, most if not all the profiles linked back to either Jonathan Jacob Meijer or the site’s administrator – Leon. So, no matter who a mother would choose, it would almost always turn out to be one of the two men. Furthermore, seeing as Meijer was deemed the most aesthetically pleasing of the two, prospective mothers would often reject Leon after a meeting and seek out an alternative – who was usually Meijer.

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Meijer & Leon Would Often Mix Their Sperm Samples Together Ahead Of Donation

The partners in crime played “sperm roulette”

The wrongdoings of Meijer and Leon went far beyond setting up a fraudulent website and misleading aspiring mothers into thinking they had a wide choice of donors. The Man with 1000 Kids also reveals that the women wronged by the two men eventually discovered their children may not be Meijer’s genetic descendants at all. Instead, they may be Leon’s and only a DNA test could confirm one way or the other.

Meijer and Leon would meet ahead of donations and combine their sperm samples in the same pot. This way, not even the prospective fathers would be aware of who was the true donor until years down the line. Their actions added yet another layer of abhorrent deception to a scheme that was already far beyond the pale. The documentary confirms the lineage of certain children being Meijer’s offspring, but no mention is made of whether Leon was the father to any of the kids.

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A Sperm Bank In Kenya Reportedly Aims To Make 200 Babies Per Year From The Same Donor

Kenyan donor laws appear to be much less strict than in other parts of the world

While many countries do take steps to try and limit how many sperm donations one person can make, The Man with 1000 Kids reveals that Kenya doesn’t appear to be concerned with such regulations. There are claims in the documentary from another donor that the goal of the Kenyan clinic was to create 200 babies per year using his sperm. If true, this would bring the total number of offspring from a single donor very quickly close to Meijer’s estimated total in a very short space of time.

The clinic in question was actively seeking European donors and was also offering them an “All-expense, two-week trip to Mombasa“. During this time, a video advertising the trip stated each donor making the trip to the Kenyan city, “Must do six collections on alternating days at the clinic.” This is an intense donation schedule when compared with some other countries, which suggests the clinic is trying to maximize the fatherhood of each donor.

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There Is An Incredibly Toxic “Mass Donor” Culture

Racism permeates part of this movement

Jonathan Jacob Meijer is not alone in his desire to father as many children as possible. In fact, The Man with 1000 Kids reveals there is an entire sub-culture of sperm donors who revere Meijer for what he’s done, and aim to follow in his footsteps. The attitudes of the people in this movement are very similar to Meijer’s, in that they seemingly have no intention of ever meeting the children they’re helping create. Instead, they’re only concerned with increasing their own tally.

There is also a white supremacy, race-based aspect of this movement. These men travel to nations like Kenya not only for the chance to spread their genetics even further, but also because they believe their Caucasian genes will benefit the Black populace. So, even though Meijer has now been sentenced to a life of no more sperm donation, his genetic legacy and the movement he was part of remain an ongoing issue for the future.

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Meijer Had A Database Of His Children That He Wouldn’t Share

Jonathan Jacob Meijer supposedly kept the list of his offspring on his laptop

One of the biggest risks of Meijer’s actions is mass consanguinity. This is when two people with a shared ancestor enter a sexual relationship, and it is illegal in many parts of the world. Procreation with close genetic relatives can lead to issues such as birth defects that could have otherwise been avoided. Because Meijer fathered so many children in such close proximity – especially in The Netherlands – there is an ongoing risk that they will unknowingly enter an incestuous relationship with one of their half-siblings when they mature. Meijer had a way to reduce this risk but refused to help.

Many of the mothers in the documentary were fully aware of the risk of consanguinity, with one of them even telling the story of her young daughter developing a brief crush on one of her many half-brothers. So, they continued to ask Meijer if he had any kind of record of the names and ages of all the children he had helped bring into the world. It turned out that he did, but he refused to make it available. So, the risk of inbreeding remained high in certain parts of the world.

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Jonathan Jacob Meijer’s YouTube Channel Seemed To Be His Method Of Remote Fatherhood

The mass donor in the Netflix series had an unconventional approach to imparting fatherly advice

Many of the deceived mothers made several comments throughout the documentary that suggested Meijer claimed he planned to be involved in the lives of all of his offspring. However, given the sheer number of donations he made and the swathes of children he fathered from afar, such a task would be impossible. Instead, Meijer quietly embedded life lessons into his YouTube blogs that many figures in The Man with 1000 Kids interpreted as fatherly advice.

Many of Meijer’s YouTube videos don’t directly address parenthood. Some are related to his musical endeavors, and others focus on cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, other video blogs from Jonathan Jacob Meijer are much easier to look at as an attempt to leave behind a catalog of videos, so his offspring can get to know him in some way and learn his values. Some might see it as a noble gesture, but given the context, it could also be viewed as a little twisted.

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The Man With 1000 Kids Reveals An Astounding Estimate Of How Many Kids Meijer Fathered

The Netflix docuseries states Meijer could have up to 3000 children around the world

The donations Meijer made to official sperm banks can be tracked, although the documentary doesn’t reveal an official figure. Instead, a figure approaching 600 is given for how many children the subject of The Man with 1000 Kids has helped father. However, Meijer’s private donations are not nearly as easy to track, and so the actual figure becomes much more difficult to calculate.

The ending of the documentary places the true number in the incredibly wide bracket of somewhere between 600 and 3000. The lower end of the spectrum is from Meijer’s admission during his court case, while the higher estimate is based on calculations that take into account all of his donations – not just ones that took place in an official sperm bank. So The Man with 1000 Kids is very likely to be inaccurately titled, it’s just unclear whether the figure is higher or lower than 1000.