We Need to Talk About Family Vloggers Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

The second half of Sheri Franke’s book, The House of My Mother, is both more intense and more personal than the first. It is during this section where we witness the downfall of her mother, Ruby, as the authorities finally take action against her abuses and bring charges against Ruby for child endangerment. Sheri chooses not to share the details of her siblings’ trauma, arguing that they will be free to share the details if they choose, but that she doesn’t have the right to make that choice for them. I hope that as we all share our thoughts we maintain their privacy as well.

We have reached a significant turning point in the Franke Family’s lives. Ruby becomes convinced that her spiritual guru (read cult leader) is under attack, requiring her to move into the family home. With little fanfare, Sheri is booted from her bedroom and sent to sleep on the couch so that Jodi can move into her room. We surely can’t allow a person of such importance to be without a bedroom, right? Sheri is heading to college in a few weeks, meaning this arrangement with be, thankfully, short-lived. Even in this time, she notices some significant changes in the household. Jodi and Ruby spend hours locked up in the bedroom, even spending nights together. Ruby’s treatment of her children worsens often at Jodi’s behest. Sheri heads off to college, a time usually filled with expectation and excitement, full of fear for her siblings and worry about the state of her family.

As the holidays roll around during Sheri’s first year of college, she defies her mother in what feel like small ways. She visits her grandparents for Thanksgiving instead of going to Jodi’s. She eats dinner alone since her mother ran late. She expresses concern about the treatment of her siblings at Christmas. Nothing really extreme, but they are the first hints that Sheri will not follow along with her mother’s plans unquestioningly. Sheri returns to school after the holidays with a feeling that things in her family are getting worse.

At the recommendation of her bishop, Sheri starts attending therapy. As an avid advocate for mental health services and someone with anxiety disorders myself, I cheered for her at this part. It will take time for her to open up, but I am so grateful that she had someone in her corner helping her to work through her trauma and recognize the manipulation that she experienced. And it couldn’t have come soon enough. It is something of a hallmark in Jodi’s ConneXions for husbands to be banished from the family home for huge lengths of time to ‘work on themselves’. It will come as no surprise that Kevin, Sheri’s father, called her one day with the bad news. He and the oldest son were being sent out of the family home for at least a year. They would not be communicating with any of the other children during that time. This was devastating. It truly felt like the end of the family to Sheri.

Sheri too, is eventually cut off from her family. Only through her connections with neighbors, including a couple that took her in and treated her as a daughter, was she able to get any information about her siblings. What she did learn was deeply concerning. She repeatedly called social services, as did viewers of 8 passengers, but nothing came from these calls.

And what was going on with 8 passengers? By now the viewers were on to Ruby’s abusive parenting. They were losing viewers and garnering hate comments, but Ruby pressed on. She and Jodi were doing ConneXions videos that excused and even glorified child abuse. The kids were pulled from school and the family dog was gone. None of this was enough to get the children removed from her care. Then Sheri got the call. The police were at her mother’s house.

Many of us heard on the news and online what transpired and I won’t rehash it here. The children were not being treated well, and they were finally free from the abuse. Sheri details the court case and how her mother’s penchant for sharing everything online allowed them to catalog Ruby’s abuse for the courts. Sheri enlisted the people of the internet and they were more than happy to help, filling out a spreadsheet of instances of Ruby’s abuses from videos.

Throughout her journey, Sheri showed an incredible strength. She saw the worst of humanity, but she saw the best of it too. Her book is well worth reading. It will make you feel horrible. It will make you feel hope. Hopefully, it will make us all think a little bit more about the content we consume so casually online.

Someone I talked very little about is Sheri’s father, Kevin. Where was he throughout this entire ordeal? It’s because, while I feel he failed his family on a deep and irreversible level, I think he was also a victim. There’s still no excuse for what he allowed to happen to his children. Sheri forgives him and moves on with their relationship. You’ll have to come to your own conclusion about his culpability.

Don’t miss this book. Get it at Amazon Bookshop * These are affiliate links.