Rep. Michele Bachmann's Guide to Parenting 28 Kids

By Alina Kleineidam May 20, 2014

Hallmark Channel/ Crown Media

Parenting 28 children might sound like chaos. But not for Michele Bachmann.

During a recent appearance on the Hallmark Channel's "Home and Family" show the retiring GOP congresswoman from Minnesota argued that "the more you have, the more order you have in your house."

In the interview, Bachmann opened up about what it's like to be a mother figure to five biological and 23 foster children.

"This is really what I wanted more than anything, was to be a happy mom in a big house," Bachmann said. "That's what I wanted - just to have a house full of kids."

Despite having an average of nine children at once in her house at any given moment, Bachmann insisted that thanks to the buddy system she developed, taking care of things in the house gets easier with more children.

"You pair an older child with a younger child and everyone has their chores," Bachmann said. "You can literally get the house clean within 20 minutes."

Through growing up alongside foster children, Bachmann's biological "kids learned that they weren't the only people in the world, that the world is a lot bigger than just them."

When asked how she and her husband got the idea to parent foster children, Bachmann said: "In our church was another couple that had a foster daughter. She was expecting a baby and they were intending to keep her and her child and help her learn how to parent. And our hearts broke for this girl and we thought, you know, that's something we could do."

"We decided to stretch ourselves and see if we could do this so we opened ourselves up and we took our first girl," she said.

"Our job at that point was to let her know you mean something to us, we're crazy about you. We want you to succeed," Bachman said.

Bachmann proudly said that despite the low high school graduation rate of foster children, "all the kids graduated."

Apart from talking about her experience as a mother, Bachmann showed off her napkin folding skills, showed how to throw tea parties at home and shared her recipe for healthy apple pancakes.