YouTube Family Channels/Vloggers

[Stormy]

Is anyone else enamored, fascinated, and/or disgusted by family vloggers? There are the notable ones like Bratayley and Shaytards -- sort of the "first" ones to do this -- but it seems like more and more have been cropping up over the past few years. It looks like it has a lot to do with the influx of YouTube sponsorships being handed down, as a lot of these family channels have whole videos that are essentially commercials. I think this topic would have a place on FreeJinger not only for the notoriety of this in general, but also that some of these families are large, are putting their kids in the spotlight, and/or have questionable beliefs. As one might expect, there are a lot of ethical quandaries about privacy and publicly sharing footage of children who are too young to consent, as opposed to this just being part of where social media is headed.

From my own personal viewing habits, there are ones that I actually quite like (Life with Beans, This Gathered Nest), ones I only really watch to snark at (The Murrays, The Stauffer Life/Myka Stauffer), and ones that give me an icky feeling (The Epik Life, formerly Epik Brandon Family). Again, those are just ones that I regularly view or keep up with, and I'm interested to see what everyone else thinks about this.

(I'm actually really surprised this wasn't already a topic; mods, feel free to move this if there's something I didn't see.)

[Kelsey]

The only YouTube family channel that I watch is the Knorpp family. They are a traveling momron family. I only watch them on occasion though.

[FiddleDD]

I love Life With Beans! I’ve been following them since they were just on Instagram. I generally worry a lot about putting the kids in the spotlight like that, but for them I’m really glad they can make money on YouTube because they are SO young. If it helps them both stay at home I’m happy for them. And so far at least they seem to genuinely be good parents (those kids are so smart. I don’t agree with some stuff  they do but I’m really impressed with how well they are educating the kids so far.). 

[dairyfreelife]

Not big on them, but have come across some. Many have been de-monetized as YT has cracked down on the abuse and exploitation of children thankfully. I like some vloggers, usually small ones like Mommy Etc and Steve Vlogs for example, that I check in on time to time. Other ones just come across like complete shits and seem to love exploiting their family for a few bucks and I've no idea what they'll do when the gravy train dries up and it will. Ones off the top of my head that are loathsome that I've come across include 8 Passengers, Ohana Adventure, Slyfox, Daily Bumps, and the family of 8 Passengers who also vlog. Guarantee there are so many more, but yeah. They use clickbait constantly and ignore their children's privacy for attention. 

[ViolaSebastian]

My latest one (by which I mean my only family vlogger I watch) is a couple named Phil and Alex, who have two adopted little girls and are pregnant with a third child after five failed IVFs. They’re my FJ antidote, because they’re so dang functional and loving it makes your teeth hurt. But they’re both just such good people. 

[Tjay]

Has anyone come across Crazy Middles? It's a LDS family that have and continue to adopt a heap of kids from foster care. Like child collector level of kids. 

At first I really admired them for adopting and reuniting sibling groups from foster care. But as I've delved deeper, I don't know how I feel anymore. They play favourites with certain kids, the frequently leave 10 plus kids home with the oldest kids and only take a couple of the 9-10 year olds while they both run errands. 

Plus they kicked out one kid for breaking a family rule, another kid doesn't live with or talk to them anymore. A foster kid decided to return to a group home instead of live with them. 

They could be great people and I could be reading the whole situation wrong. But who knows?

[TooTired2bOriginal]

@Stormy Myka, yes.  I weirdly like her cleaning videos and find them downright inspirational, but the "homeschooling" (that ain't homeschooling, preschooling...perhaps) and the very publicized & tacky adoption from China, nooooooo. I've got an autistic son myself and would NEVER put up so much private family stuff, especially with the adopted child that I think she alludes to being on the spectrum. Really wrong and invasive of his privacy. 

[Terrie]

I find it kinda creepy. A family is not a brand. It's a family. 

[JenniferJuniper]

Epik Brandon Family aka Epik Life kept popping up on my recommended list. Finally watched a few videos.  OMG.  Fundie lite nutters, especially the mother.

[BabyBottlePop]

I like to watch Jamerill Stewart, who I know has been slightly discussed on FJ before. Her videos are mostly grocery hauls and recipes, with the kids coming in and out. She does talk to her babies in  Michelle voice. Apparently her blogging and homeschooling website supports them. 

[BlessaYourHeart]

I’m subscribed to a few ‘family vloggers’. 

I really like JesssFam. Jess the mum originally started her channel as a teen mum and has kept it up throughout her life. She’s now married with 7 kids (it’s a blended family; 4 are hers from 2 previous relationships (3 of which she has full custody of): 2 are her husbands from a previous relationship (shared custody) and 1 is hers and her husbands. He’s had a vasectomy and they’ve said numerous times, no more kids. The family is really endearing and they really seem to love and treat all kids equally. 

I also watch Our Family Nest occasionally, but the more sponsorships they do and the more they seem to play up to the camera, the more turned off them I am. They’re (well the mum and daughter) very show offy. 

Emma and Ellie is the other one I watch the odd time. I quite like them. The 7 year old kind of annoys me but she’s just a kid so it’s understandable. They’re pretty real imo. 

Other than that I don’t really watch family vloggers. I’ve watched the odd video from a few channels but quite a lot seem to play up to the camera and exploit themselves/kids so I stay away. 

[PoorLoam]

If you ever want to keep liking a youtuber, for the love of god don’t go on the ytmd forums. My eyes have been opened to all the issues with these people but since then I am a bit cynical about any yter being genuine.

Anyone else find the prevalence of lds bloggers kind of freaky? They all try to portray perfect lives but you know there is something off with them. Almost stepford-wivish.

[Tjay]

Sorry to bump an old thread but the child collectors Crazy Middles are adopting two more children from foster care. 

I hope it’s ok if I list their children and ages down below, all of it is public on their YouTube channel. Pleases delete if I’m breaking a rule. 

Jared and Shelly are the parents 

Kylie, Shelly’s biological child, married and moved out. 

Destiny (21) Adopted. Sister of Jonathan and Cynthia 

Weston (19) Adopted, does not live with them anymore, there was some kind of disagreement and he decided not to move with them when they moved. Brother of Spencer.

Jonathan (18) Adopted was kicked out of home a few years ago after breaking a family rule, he has briefly reappeared on their channel after many comments asking where he is and if he would be returning. 

Cody (18) Adopted. Brother of Lacey and Elizabeth. Moved out to attend college.

Lacey (15) Adopted

Elizabeth (14) Adopted

Cynthia (14) Adopted

Spencer (14) Adopted

Harlan (14) Adopted. Brother of Aubrey and Addison also younger brother of Miles who lived with them for a while and was going to be adopted by them but chose to return to a group home. In some older videos Miles’ face is blurred out and then not blurred out. There was a lot of drama and will-he-won’t-he stay that they videoed. 

Jacob (10) Adopted

 Aubrey (10) Adopted

Landon (10) Biological clear favouritism. Once he removed all the door knobs in their new house, instead of punishing him or putting them back on, they decided it was a good time to paint the doors. Which the adopted kids and not Landon did of course.

Addison (9) Adopted

Mason (8) Adopted

Braxton (6) Adopted

Anavaeh (4) Adopted. They let their kids pick out their names when adopted, so when asked in the video what then Serenity wanted her new name to be she said Paige or Abigail. After she was adopted we found out that the parents changed her name to a name that a previous foster child had. Personally that’s a bit weird. 

Kason (4) Adopted had an older brother teenaged brother who they were going to adopt but he decided to return to a group home.

sorry again if I’ve broken a rule, but I need to talk about this family and people in my everyday life do not understand my fascination with large, child collecting families.

 

[Pecansforeveryone]

My new pet fundies are you tube vloggers. They vlog under Tiny Notes from Home and Sounds Like Reign. They are plain dressing, head covering types. They have 4 sons 10 and under. They havent talked about one on the way so I honestly wonder if their natural fertility has just run out. The wife has a truly lovely, simple, straightforward singing voice. They seem to be so functional and they are soothing as all get out. They are like the "anti-Jill and Bro Gary" of you tube. 

[mollysmom]

I've never really watched any vloggers but this past week I accidentally stumbled on one called "Hanging with the Hughes" and I absolutely fell in love with them. It's Thomas & Ashley Hughes from Nevada. They have 4 boys, one passed away at 5 months old a few years ago. They have a set of twins who are like 5 years old and are the cutest things ever! I don't know, I absolutely fell in love with this family. They are so cute & I love her vlogs about her "Dollar Tree finds", also her cleaning routine...I actually found both of those to be very informative and inspiring! 

[Stormy]

@PoorLoam, the old thread bumping is very appreciated, actually! I've been meaning to do so myself and apologize for never interacting with anyone here, but life happened and I forgot about the thread.

Regarding Crazy Middles, I never watched them but always wondered about how continuously adopting children would work with being a popular YouTube channel. I've always been wary of people who adopt 10+ children, special needs or not. They function more like a group home than a family.

@Pecansforeveryone, I actually saw a few videos from Tiny Notes from Home and they actually just had their fifth boy a few months ago! They just didn't market the pregnancy at all (unlike most FV's), which is why you might have missed it.

Speaking of marketing pregnancies, The Murrays are pregnant with their sixth child; for those who don't know, Jon and Danielle Murray are a young, hip, Christian couple who already have five daughters aged 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. They honestly seem like nice people, but I feel myself getting BEC over how this sixth baby is an omg! huge surprise!, just as their fourth and fifth ones were, and yet still use NFP. I have nothing against people who set out to have big families and/or people who have kids back-to-back, but they've admitted to being overwhelmed and stressed out (and financially strained) by their situation. Danielle has also sold her soul to Young Living and, heartbreakingly, seems to believe in it 100%. It's extremely interesting because she is the perfect archetype for someone who gets into these types of MLM's.

[Gobbles]

I follow four families. Phil and Alex who were mentioned above. Something is iffy about them. Ayla and Caleb from Canada. They seem pretty nice. And Living Rosa aka Tara and Mandi, a LGBT couple with three children from Long Island. And last but not least a family named Sundance (afaik they legally changed their last name) from my are in Germany who are on some sort of world tour and don't put their children in schools and what not. They are extremely weird. 

Oh and not a family but still, Mary and Peter from The Frey Life. Because I'm a medical nerd and love learning about CF from a patients perspective. 

 

[TuringMachine]

Oh man, I was actually considering starting a thread on the crazy middles. I guess I'll just resurrect this one lol. They have two more kids now, Brinley and Trey, but I don't remember their ages.  They claim to be done adopting children now. 

A couple of the things that stand out to me about them 

They have camera's in the house. They've claimed that they're there to protect the sleep walkers and to see who isn't doing their chores. They have not responded to questions asking if the cameras are in the bedrooms.

Jonathan was kicked out for some unspecified incident involving violence. 

Shelly has a sister who also collects kids adopts, and has some eyebrow raising things like one child who was never formally adopted then kicked out, another child (maybe over 18 actually) who is also not adopted but they did adopt her infant daughter.

Edited October 23, 2018 by TuringMachine

[llucie]

On 4/4/2018 at 7:38 PM, PoorLoam said:

If you ever want to keep liking a youtuber, for the love of god don’t go on the ytmd forums. My eyes have been opened to all the issues with these people but since then I am a bit cynical about any yter being genuine.

 

I agree with a lot of things they point out, but sometimes they get to hate some of them to a point they critizice them for normal things that everyone does. I guess we do the same here sometimes.

I follow a few youtube family channels, but the one i have been enjoying the most lately has been Five Two Love (a family with quintuplets). I was a bit scared to go see what they said of them on ytmd but even there they seem to love them. They are mormon though, so be aware of that. 

Edited February 14, 2019 by llucie
.

[Belugaloo]

If anyone remembers The Father Know's Best blog, Kendal Rich & family are a vlog I occasionally watch. The change in their family from the blogging days to now is really, really interesting. 

 

In a way I wish shed mention that blog so that I could find out if their beliefs have changed or if they're simply hiding some of it for the sake of having more viewers. I used to think they were mostly hiding it, but, Kendal posted a shopping photo in which she was holding a bikini, which she has previously spoken against wearing, and she also had "7 Rings" by Ariana Grande playing in the back (which she was humming to) in one of her videos, so I find it very interesting. 

 

Her youngest also seems rather adored and "babied" - far different from the level of parenting that she used to portray on her blog. 

[Melissa1977]

On 3/17/2019 at 5:52 PM, Belugaloo said:

If anyone remembers The Father Know's Best blog, Kendal Rich & family are a vlog I occasionally watch. The change in their family from the blogging days to now is really, really interesting. 

 

In a way I wish shed mention that blog so that I could find out if their beliefs have changed or if they're simply hiding some of it for the sake of having more viewers. I used to think they were mostly hiding it, but, Kendal posted a shopping photo in which she was holding a bikini, which she has previously spoken against wearing, and she also had "7 Rings" by Ariana Grande playing in the back (which she was humming to) in one of her videos, so I find it very interesting. 

 

Her youngest also seems rather adored and "babied" - far different from the level of parenting that she used to portray on her blog. 

She was my first fundie so I check her sometimes in instagram and youtube.

She has changed some of her beliefs but is still pro-Trump and anti-choice etc. Definitely, she's not in the fundie side though. I wonder if she leaving fundieland was the reason for her father cutting relationships with her. 

I usually think that stopping being fundie is the best for the children. But I have doubts in this case. The kids had a routine, studied in a co-op and had friends. Then, they moved, start vlogging, lost ALL their privacy (they vlog about the girls periods!!!), lost friends, dad quit the job and now they are everyday shopping and eating crap food. And Kendal is loosing her mind.

[Belugaloo]

4 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

She was my first fundie so I check her sometimes in instagram and youtube.

She has changed some of her beliefs but is still pro-Trump and anti-choice etc. Definitely, she's not in the fundie side though. I wonder if she leaving fundieland was the reason for her father cutting relationships with her. 

I usually think that stopping being fundie is the best for the children. But I have doubts in this case. The kids had a routine, studied in a co-op and had friends. Then, they moved, start vlogging, lost ALL their privacy (they vlog about the girls periods!!!), lost friends, dad quit the job and now they are everyday shopping and eating crap food. And Kendal is loosing her mind.

Great point about the routine and such! this is something I think about sometimes... I am someone who thrives on routine and consistency. Because of that my gut reaction is to agree with you, which is why I wonder- what is more important? Those kids are (imo) clearly being treated well. I see happy kids (with no privacy), a teenager who seems to enjoy her parents, have friends outside of her siblings, etc. A son with special needs who is clearly cherished and not being parented harshly (though as someone in the field of ABA, I cringe each time they repeat his incorrect pronunciation of words rather than repeating it with the correct pronunciation!) 

 

I also wonder... are her girls being taught about jobs, etc or is she still on the mindset of her girls being at home while their husbands work? I Wonder this because she made a comment to Evie in one video about making her own youtube channel. Which technically would be a job, but it fits the bill as a stay at home job.

[Melissa1977]

1 hour ago, Belugaloo said:

Great point about the routine and such! this is something I think about sometimes... I am someone who thrives on routine and consistency. Because of that my gut reaction is to agree with you, which is why I wonder- what is more important? Those kids are (imo) clearly being treated well. I see happy kids (with no privacy), a teenager who seems to enjoy her parents, have friends outside of her siblings, etc. A son with special needs who is clearly cherished and not being parented harshly (though as someone in the field of ABA, I cringe each time they repeat his incorrect pronunciation of words rather than repeating it with the correct pronunciation!) 

 

I also wonder... are her girls being taught about jobs, etc or is she still on the mindset of her girls being at home while their husbands work? I Wonder this because she made a comment to Evie in one video about making her own youtube channel. Which technically would be a job, but it fits the bill as a stay at home job.

I don't think Hampton is being loved by Kendal. She's so cold with him and only started showing him in videos when their fans exposed how much they liked him. When they were still in NC, Hampton was at school while Kendal homeschooled her bio kids. I know that school is the best for a special needs child, but she didn't play with him after school, neither did stimulating activities, she didn't feed him dinner (Daniel did), etc. As a mother I found her (lack of) interaction with Hampton so sad.

Also I don't think vlogging daily is healthy for the other kids. Kendal is acting as if they were celebrities, but once the youtube-families trend stops, they will be a family with 2 unemployed adults. She's egocentric and I think she's having some kind of crisis that makes her act as a twenty-something. She may look nice to her children but they were beaten several times at day when they were little. Everyday. She wrote that in her blog. Are the children being sincere or just showing the happiness mama says must be shown, to avoid punishment?

Finally, Kendal wants her daughters to have jobs and earn money. But she's not pushing the academic side at all. She's taking them to castings and encourages them to be IG influencers. I think she'll be ok with the girls being models or actresses, but they are too shy.

[Belugaloo]

3 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

I don't think Hampton is being loved by Kendal. She's so cold with him and only started showing him in videos when their fans exposed how much they liked him. When they were still in NC, Hampton was at school while Kendal homeschooled her bio kids. I know that school is the best for a special needs child, but she didn't play with him after school, neither did stimulating activities, she didn't feed him dinner (Daniel did), etc. As a mother I found her (lack of) interaction with Hampton so sad.

Also I don't think vlogging daily is healthy for the other kids. Kendal is acting as if they were celebrities, but once the youtube-families trend stops, they will be a family with 2 unemployed adults. She's egocentric and I think she's having some kind of crisis that makes her act as a twenty-something. She may look nice to her children but they were beaten several times at day when they were little. Everyday. She wrote that in her blog. Are the children being sincere or just showing the happiness mama says must be shown, to avoid punishment?

Finally, Kendal wants her daughters to have jobs and earn money. But she's not pushing the academic side at all. She's taking them to castings and encourages them to be IG influencers. I think she'll be ok with the girls being models or actresses, but they are too shy.

 I didnt realize that about her previous interactions with Hampton. I really hate that. On that note- Daniel seems like a really great dad. I wonder if he was the more religious one or if it was Kendal who was more religious before youtube. I know he was the one who wanted to adopt and Kendal originally didnt want to. 

[Melissa1977]

1 hour ago, Belugaloo said:

 I didnt realize that about her previous interactions with Hampton. I really hate that. On that note- Daniel seems like a really great dad. I wonder if he was the more religious one or if it was Kendal who was more religious before youtube. I know he was the one who wanted to adopt and Kendal originally didnt want to. 

Kendal's dad is very religious. So probably she was, too. I think she tried hard to be the perfect fundie wife and wanted Daniel to be a leader, but she's clearly the boss there (except in the adoption issue). 

Is Daniel a nice dad or is he acting? Remember he spent 1 whole day hitting Evie (she was 6 or 7 years all). All the day. And Kendal was proud of it. But you are right that he is bonded with Hampton and clearly has a good, caring relationship with him.