Over the weekend I watched Hulu’s recent documentary “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.” 

For those of you who don’t know Ruby Franke’s story, she was a popular vlogger. She started her vlogging series, 8 Passengers, on YouTube. There, she posted tips and tricks for moms of young children and uploaded videos of her everyday wholesome, happy family life. 

At the peak of Franke’s success, her vlog was viewed by 2.3 million individuals and she was receiving upward of $100,000 a month for her vlogs. However, the vlogs often featured her children, who were forced to regurgitate lines she had practiced with them. The children, primarily the oldest two, Shari and Chad, were consistently filmed, even documenting their private moments of learning to shave and bra shopping. The children were given $10 but had little to no say in what they were forced to film. 

It was later revealed if the children didn’t perform on camera as Ruby had hoped, she would beat them, forcing them to clean up their own blood, so it didn’t show in the next day’s video. 

Viewers didn’t see anything wrong with Franke and her picture-perfect life, until Chad revealed in a video that as a punishment, his mother had forced him to sleep on a bean bag for seven months, denying him basic access to a bed and other luxuries. 

That’s when people started to really suspect that Ruby Franke was abusing her children. However, Ruby could’ve cared less. She believed she was enforcing the hard truths of what happens when a child disobeys. 

Her thoughts were only reinforced when she joined a group called ConneXions run by counselor Jodi Hildebrandt for guidance. 

Hildebrandt unfortunately prays on Franke’s fame and the duo begin to run a vlog known as Moms of Truth, where both Hildebrandt and Franke talk about the evil of the world and how as parents you have to do everything you can to get that out of children. 

Other local therapists and counselors describe Hildebrandt as having a cult-like influence over Ruby, convincing her of her children’s wrongdoings, and how they are possessed. 

In Ruby’s religion, any evil, anything not obedient to God’s will that she doesn’t stop, prevents her from attaining the highest status. 

Hildebrandt took those thoughts and amplified them, repeatedly whispering in her ear that the children were bad. 

As a counselor, she saw an opportunity to prey on a client and exert control. It is sad, but what happened to the children as a result, is even more detrimental. To force the evil out of the children, Hildebrandt and Franke bound the children, starved them, and even forced them out in the Utah sun for hours, ensuring they had burns. 

All of this is documented in Ruby’s daily journal, where she writes about how she is trying to achieve the status of a perfect mother. 

Luckily, one of the young boys would escape from a window and notify a neighbor of his situation. The neighbor alerted the police, who arrested both Hildebrandt and Franke, where they have both now pled to four counts of felony aggravated child abuse and will serve 30 years in prison. 

While this story has many facets to it, including religion and possible cult ties, the real problem began when Ruby had this grandeur vision to become “America’s mom” and felt this calling to share her motherhood journey with the world and by proxy achieve this level of perfection that her church envisioned for all their members. 

Think about how many children we see now thrust in front of a camera for their parents to ultimately profit from. 

Have we ever considered what happens if those parents don’t profit from the video? I don’t. 

I have long been a fan of Savannah and Cole LaBrant. I have followed her journey and have always found them to be a beautiful Christian family. After seeing this video and one of Savannah’s recent postings, where her daughter gets asked on her first date, I feel like I have played into another child’s abuse. 

I by no means think Cole and Savannah abuse their children, but I do believe videoing intimate, private moments like her daughter’s first date is only giving them a profit. What would’ve happened if her daughter said “No, I just want this to be between me and him?” 

Is she allowed to say that? 

What if, we, collectively as a society, said “We aren’t going to watch anymore!” 

We just stopped watching and gave her an out. Her mom and dad would not need to video her anymore because they wouldn’t make money off it or us. 

I don’t know if that’s enough, but I will say watching this documentary made me realize the financial pressure and burden that causes arguments between spouses all the time is now put on the shoulders of the children when it comes to family vlogging because if the kids aren’t looking perfect and acting perfect, there’s no money to be made, and someone is going to pay for that (figuratively) and it’s not going to be the dad, because he’s not the one the viewers are there to see. 

As tragic as this documentary was, it woke me up. 

Maybe it took Ruby Franke to wake up the world and see the underbelly of family vlogging and why it needs to be stopped. She may not have been “America’s mom” but she’s the mom that woke America up to the sad reality that we will pay to watch videos of families, and continue to pay, claiming the kids are being abused, but not stop watching and stop financially supporting her means to an end.