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Raising one baby is tough, but when you have four, any help is nice. Enter Mark Lottridge and his PR machine.
©Washington Post
May 28, 2002
WICHITA, Kansas -- They won't be able to take it out alone for 16 years, but their car has a snappy nickname: the Quadmobile. Their pictures and vital statistics are available on their Web site. And Peyton, Parker, Camden and Christian also have a logo.
These are the Tetrick Quads, two sets of identical twins born together on April 5: a one-in-25-million rarity. All boys.
And a local public relations firm the parents hired is trying to make them all the rage. Their logo -- the imprints of four tiny feet encircling a star -- is plastered on T-shirts, buttons, press packets and a Web site, www.born4theusa.com.
Everything is red, white and blue -- designed to capitalize on the country's heightened sense of patriotism and on the fact that Patrick Tetrick, the father, is an Army reservist who left this weekend for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"It's an all-American family," said Mark Lottridge of Lottridge Advertising, which devised the campaign. "We saw this as an opportunity to help the family and maybe make something in between."
Going gaga over multiples often results in gifts and help from neighbors and strangers sympathetic to the hardship and stress of having so many mouths to feed.
But Patrick and Christina Tetrick didn't leave things to chance. They signed on with Lottridge before the births to solicit donations and coordinate interviews. The pregnancy forced Christina to quit as a construction engineer, and Patrick took a pay cut when he was called up, so the family's income has been slashed by 60 percent. They had just bought a two-bedroom home when they found out they were having four babies -- a surprise, since they hadn't taken fertility drugs.
"We're just trying to meet our bills," Christina Tetrick said.
Some people who have sent e-mails to the Tetricks believe the whole thing is a bit unseemly. Some assume the Tetricks took fertility drugs, confusing them with another Wichita family, Sondra and Eldon Headrick, who used such drugs and whose sextuplets were born April 6. One e-mail suggested the Tetricks go on welfare.
Christina Tetrick is sensitive to the criticism.
"I'm a really independent person," she said. "It's hard to be in a position where I have to accept people's help."
Most of the response has been positive, Lottridge said. The Web site has had 50,000 hits. The family has use of an eight-passenger Chevrolet Venture from a local dealership. A diner offered two free meals a month for a year. A radio station sponsored the Great American Diaper Drive.
The Web site offers thanks and provides links to the corporate donors. Neither the family nor the firm has said how much has been raised.
Lottridge has invested $20,000 and several hours of staff time. He said the firm doesn't get paid unless he gets product endorsements or contracts.
Some parents, including Bobbi McCaughey of Iowa, who had septuplets in 1997, hire agents to get exposure. Others, such as the Headricks across town, do not but get significant support from their hospital.
"We had agents call us," Christina Tetrick said. "But they wanted to fly the babies across the country, which is nothing we were interested in. It's not like we wanted to stick the kids' faces everywhere."
Jean Bothwell, community involvement coordinator at the nearby Wal-Mart, doesn't mind that the Tetricks have hired a public relations firm. All she sees is a family in need of help.
"Since they are our neighbors and live only a couple of streets away, several of our associates have volunteered to help with the housecleaning and running errands," Bothwell said. "And one of our store managers said he will help with the yardwork while the husband is away.
"They are a very nice couple. They are very gracious about what is happening," Bothwell said. "They did not come to ask us for anything. It was what we offered to do."