the "RV family" lifestyle sounds like a nightmare... | Internet Analysis
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- let's discuss the RV family lifestyle... // Thanks for sponsoring, Scentbird! Use TIFFANY to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird - sbird.co/3DBtcar
This month I received:
Vanilla Embers by Eauso Vert - sbird.co/3H6GqwG
Rise by Goodhabit - sbird.co/3iXnPv7
Cabin Retreat by Memoire Archives - sbird.co/3kG6EP9
Moonlight by Ariana Grande - sbird.co/3HacU9a
Red Panda by Sanctuary - sbird.co/3kxRgEa
PATREON: / tiffanyferg
Full video episodes of Internet Analysis are available to watch/listen on SPOTIFY! Follow the show here: open.spotify.com/show/1lec8eA...
♥ Instagram: / tferg__
♥ Vlog / Second Channel: bit.ly/tfergvlogs
TIME STAMPS:
0:00 - intro
2:53 - digital nomads
3:37 - (these critiques are not directed at Traveler communities)
4:06 - The Family of Nomads
5:35 - the sleeping situation: beds, bunks, lofts??
8:39 - is this ok for kids & teenagers? (privacy and personal space?)
10:46 - what about friends?
12:03 - thanks to today's sponsor!
13:55 - potentially toxic situations
14:54 - Addison's bday wish to stay in a hotel
17:08 - have they outgrown RV life?
20:32 - anti family vlogging
25:00 - another case study: the Paskowitz Surfing Family
29:50 - thank you for watching!
MY RELATED VIDEOS:
Van Life & the Housing Crisis - • Van Life & the Housing...
Family Vloggers are Ridiculous - • Family Vloggers are Ri...
The Dark Side of Family Vlogging - • The Dark Side of Famil...
B-ROLL, RESOURCES, & REFERENCES:
RV (2006) Official Trailer - • RV (2006) Official Tra...
We're the Millers - Official Trailer - • We're the Millers - Of...
"The Wild Thornberrys" Theme Song (HQ) - • "The Wild Thornberrys"...
"How one teen is urging legislators in Washington state to help protect kids from being exploited on vlogs" (by Morgan Sung) - www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-m...
Surfwise - Official Trailer - • Surfwise - Official Tr...
TIKTOKS FEATURED:
thehappycaravan - www.tiktok.com/@thehappycarav...
fuelyourwander - www.tiktok.com/@fuelyourwande...
trynsomethingnew - www.tiktok.com/@trynsomething...
family.of.nomads - www.tiktok.com/@family.of.nom...
red.white.and.bethune - www.tiktok.com/@red.white.and...
kidgitalnomads - www.tiktok.com/@kidgitalnomad...
heartandsaultravel - www.tiktok.com/@heartandsault...
Tiffany Ferguson (she/her), 27 years old. #internetanalysis #rvfamily #digitalnomad
Business Inquiries: tiffanyferguson@select.co
Captions / video transcription by: / slowxmoxpanda (She is looking for more caption work, so feel free to reach out to her on Twitter!)
FTC: This video is sponsored by Scentbird. Links with * are affiliate, meaning I am compensated monetarily if you join or make a purchase. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Use code TIFFANY to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird - sbird.co/3DBtcar. What's your favorite fragrance?? Share your recommendations :-)
💖💖💖
Gucci Bloom and love dont be shy by kilian!!
Wood Sage and Sea Salt by Jo Malone and Black Orchid by Tom Ford ❤️
I think I'm being scammed by someone claiming to be you.
@@sadem1045 That’s been happening a lot on TH-cam lately. People pretending to be TH-camrs & telling their fans to contact them usually on telegram or WhatsApp. So if anyone mentions either of those, it’s probably a scam. Be cautious & never send them money.
One of the things that bothers me the most is it seem the parents all have a massive queen/king bed and the kids sleep in a coffin with no privacy . It’s so wrong.
So true
I guess people have this idea that kids can just tolerate that type of shit (coffin bunks and sleeping on the floor), since they're young and able. But this is a horrible way to live. These people don't see their children as anything more than more intelligent dogs, with simple needs.
@amimir1561 So true and because of that, they also don't realize that making them sleep that way every single night for months or years can cause severe back problems when they're older. The kids are probably gonna be like 18 & wondering why their back hurts 24/7 one day smh.
I mean they need the privacy to make more kids
@@neffyg35Doesn’t sound like these selfish, immature ‘parents’ were ready to have any kids in the first place, never mind more.
In my opinion, RV life is more suitable for single ppl and childless couples, not families.
This unless they are facing homelessness or something
I was just going to comment this. I think living in an RV would also help save money due to how everything is SO expensive. Due to inflation and minimum wages is not a livable wage. Everything keeps getting more expensive but wages keep staying the same
Maybe with one child when they were toddler age for a very limited time it would be ok. Otherwise not so much. Poor kiddos 😮
If ur willing to live on wheels and do not have a choice are very different things
@@MelanatednNature that’d be surviving, not living
This life style screams "daddy/mommy had a manic episode and made a rash choice" energy
💯💯💯🎯 this
Please don't denigrate people with manic depression to make a point or a joke
@@bajorekjonI have it and I think it's funny
I hate that these parents always say their kids are happy. Most toxic and abusive parents don't think they are abusive. Most horrible parents think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread.
That's so true.
Should've sliced something amirite 😂
I am still routinely aghast at how selfish and immature so many parents are.
@@lornarettig3215some parents should just not be parents. Get a pet if they want to be a “parent”.
Those kids say they're happy on camera to pacify their parents because it's what the parents wanna hear. I think a lot of us know the feeling
This is just another chapter in the book of “things that would be considered trashy if you were poor”
✨this✨
For sure. Privileged people choosing a lifestyle that other less privileged people have no choice over living
Or “things that would be considered shady, antisocial, abusive and criminal if you were black”
It’s trashy for anyone lowkey
@@heythisanimalcantalk dystopian asf
You don't "escape the rat race" if you still need to post content everyday, film, edit, look for sponsorship, etc. You're just living a different rat race. In an RV.
Damn!!!! 😭 perfectly said
100%. I've worked as an influencer for myself and as a Social Media Manager for a brand as an employee. Working with content and strategy for social media is a rat race no matter what.
Let me tell you, I hugely prefer to earn less as an employee that have other people that deal with HR, business economics, and organizational tasks that I don't like. Also you have so much more safety in when you work and what you earn. Which is really is nice if you want to start a family. I dont do social media at all anymore but that experience from a brand gave me so many opportunities for other marketing jobs. The work I did as an "ifluencer" would not have set me up for the job I have today.
Also give up your privacy!!! Don’t forget that!!!
Escape the rat race to enter the possum race🏁
Such a good point
“They make friends everywhere!” As a military kid who has a lot of friends who were also former military kids, I can imagine how painful it is for RV family kids to constantly make and then lose friends. There’s no sense of stability.
Additionally, as a person with autism, sharing a space with my family 24/7 sounds like a NIGHTMARE. For a lot of autistic people, we really need a quiet place to calm down, and there just isn’t one in an RV.
Same, except my dad was an Electrical Engineer. Same nomadic life, tho. Those temporary friendships were devastating to me because no one wanted to be friends with the new kid after the age of 8, so I became a very lonely child. I also have ASD. And my mom and sister had BPD, so living in an RV would have been a literal nightmare whenever the violent rages started with no place to escape to. It was hard enough growing up in a big house with that. The thing I've noticed about myself and my siblings is that once we had the chance to settle down somewhere stable, we did so immediately and stayed put. We're all very distant from each other and don't communicate often, but we all did the same thing: abandon the nomadic lifestyle as soon as humanly possible. If there's a kid that enjoys it, I've yet to meet them.
My husband is a military kid and he is exceptional at making quick friends in awkward situations but absolutely terrible at preserving any kind of meaningful relationship with them because as a kid his friends were always moving and he would never see them again.
@@jazcaddell2443 My spouse grew up the same way. Similar issues.
Same! This is absolutely terrifying to me. I feel so sorry for those kids 💔
Yes that's exactly it doesn't really matter that they can make friends everywhere if they lose them every few months( if that)
I'm interested to hear all of these kids' stories in 10 years and know what really happened and what they really felt
It’d be real interesting if they did some kind of like “self-made documentary” (i hope im using the right words) from bunches of kids who had van-life experience growing up.
@miauuu124 omg yeah, that would be really interesting, I would want to see that
My mother and brother and I all lived in a VW bus for 2 years from the ages of 8-10 back in 2007-2009 and I agree with a lot of the things in this video but also I never felt socially isolated because I would meet kids my age at camp grounds who I would befriend. Today, I find that I’m really good at making friends and conversing with new people. Even though I didn’t have much schooling at that time, I’m now a chemical engineer and i don’t feel that my education was compromised. For me, these years were some of the best years of my life. I am extremely close to my family because of it and I got to explore nature every single day. To this day, I prefer being outside over watching tv.
More like a year or two
I’m so scared that this RV model could be used to hide abuse- This has the potential to completely isolate a kid from ANY outside help. Like not even give them the option to escape an abusive situation. No trusted adults to report things, concerned neighbors to overhear, worried friends who will listen, teachers, or extended family? And where would you run? You’re in a new place everyday. Your abuser lives on top of you. No hidden money with no job, no formal education, and maybe no legal documents. You might not even realize that the situation is wrong if you have nothing to compare it against. This mode of life- like not having any stable community (unlike other traveling people who travel with their entire community) just seems so…. optimized for abuse.
that's already a problem with non-rv homeschooling. I remember googling as a teenager "what to do if you think your parents are abusive" and every answer was "tell your school guidance councilor or a teacher you trust." so I was like "damn guess I'm screwed". an rv would be so much worse. you wouldn't even really have the privacy to google that with parents constantly over your shoulder with a camera.
This is extreme but I'm thinking of those heartbreaking murder/disappearence cases involving little kids where no one seems to have any idea the kid even existed or kept track of them in any way.
There is the Opelika Jane Doe case where a 5 year old was found murdered in a trailer park almost 20 years ago and to this day no one has any idea who she was or who killed her. That's because the child wasn't allowed to form social bonds other than with the people who were abusing her and who eventually killed her. No one recognizes her now because no one knew her when she was alive.
A nomadic van lifestyle would be the optimal background to commit a crime like that and never have anyone find out. The Opelika Jane Doe killer is still living their life out there having literally murdered a child in their care and people are none the wiser.
This! I've started my teaching career (middle- & high school) during the 2nd Covid lockdown my country had, and many colleagues told me that they've never before had to report so many cases of possible child abuse and demand so many police check-ups for kids who had basically gone MIA since they hadn't been able to come to school. Those kids were robbed of safe spaces away from the abusers in their homes, not just school, but also just things like being able to head to a friend's place. There is data confirming that, while abuse has always been happening before, too, many new cases of spousal or parental abuse during the Rona years could be linked to the fact that people had to spend a lot of time together in their cramped apartments. No matter how pretty the RV looks and how many cool trips they show on social media, it's also an extremely cramped space, and these kids have no school friends or teachers or guidance councillors or what have you that they could possibly turn to for help and emotional support.
Also interacting with people on the regular from school, apartment building, neighborhood, etc gives you perspective and insight. Like no, not every adult blows up when a kid drops their cup
This is true even if someone noticed something the parents could just pack up and go
As a former RV kid, I honestly think there is a degree of narcissism associated with traipsing your children all across the country just because you don’t wanna pay a mortgage. Children NEED stability for healthy development.
On the one hand, I agree with you, but on the other hand, I was in a family like this growing up, and the van BECOMES the stability. It's the "home" you go home to. And while I became friends with kids all over the US (and am still friends with many of them), I really became best friends with my sister. And we're still best friends now at almost 40.
Yeah, I watch videos with homeschooled kids who are touring the world and parents were bragging they had been to Disneyland 42 times. So that meant the kids were completely happy with their situation. Like yeah, okay trips can be fun and educational, but the oldest only looked like 7-8. Like are they even really registering all these experiences when the youngest looks 3-4 ? It doesn't seem like the healthiest thing for them to visit 12+ countries minimum in a year.
@@Ojo10 The kids look happy because they're kids; once they hit 17-18 it starts to hit them that they don't know who they are, they don't know what to do with their life, and they have no real education. I know because it happened to me and my brother (who ended up not finishing his HS education and is now trying really hard to get his GED while disabled)
This! This is what I think of when we watch wife swap and I see kids who are kept at home all day, every day.
Yes. I am a child of two narcissistic/sociopathic parents and if they had the funds to do this to us, they would have LOVED all that extra control
these kids are going to resent their parents for sure once they're older... also i think about the family vacations when i was younger and we definately got sick of each other if we were sharing a hotel somewhere for more than a week
I grew up with an incredibly toxic family, and literally every vacation ended with tears in someway or another, even if said vacation was only for the weekend. Because the kids had absolutely no saying what was going on, my parents would decide on everything. We had to all follow the schedule, even if the kids were exhausted, we were still forced to go. If we wanted a break from our family (whether it be mentally or simply just do the physical exhaustion), we were chastised and berated for our abhorrent behavior, and then forced to “be a part of the family” (which I’m sure you can only imagine what was like). If we still refused, we weren’t allowed to partake in the rest of the vacation, were locked in our rooms, and then were grounded when we got back. And this all would happen, sometimes and a span of less than two days like clockwork. I can’t even imagine what life would’ve been like if my parents have been the type of dumbasses to throw away their house and get an RV. I probably would’ve actually gone through it and killed myself. I pray that Addison survives her family. And I can’t even imagine the tension that the two little kids must be feeling, because I’m guessing Addison and her mother don’t exactly “get along”.
I wouldn’t say my family got sick of each other on vacation, but it did heighten personality conflicts, and the quality of family vacations dramatically increased when I was out of high school & the occasional family vacation might be one of the few times in a year the family was all in the same place at the same time
The furthest I've ever been was 5 states away from home usually we went to the next state over talk about getting home sick by Wednesday I think it was because I missed sleeping in a bed that pull out couch was uncomfortable I was happy the day we came home it would be a a year before I went out of state again after that I got home sick easily but had a great uncle and aunt who helped keep it at bay though you couldn't tell unlike the 5 states away trip as that trip was a nightmare for me no privacy no bed to sleep on always awoken early in the morning never asked if I wanted to sleep on a bed couldn't go home as it was to far away I ended up doing something I never did before I started acting out and got spanked for it because my parents always got to choose and everyone was against me about my comfort in the end I hated the trip didn't like it and hated everyone because of it which I was also a few years from hitting teen years close to preteen so that could have been some of the problem feeling insecure
I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t already resent them. And if they gave up their bed and lived in one of those coffins maybe they would stop bringing more victims I mean kiddos into the world.
This is about the Family of Nomads:
Their oldest child is 15! I was fifteen just a few months ago and I would have HATED having a space that cramped. Teens need their privacy and having a loft in an RV where you can be heard by your family all the time is not enough privacy!
Especially with stuff like periods, those need time and space in order to properly handle the symptoms.
Okay, but the fact that their teen was finally doing better from a mental disorder then they ripped them from their home and friends. Sure they’re stationary now, but it does not make sense how an ED could go unknown in this way unless something is being ignored
Bruh I'm almost fifteen and I still need privacy lol. How is their child dealing with this?!
This would have been 15 year old me’s worst nightmare
Yeah. I am 12. And LakinMae5 made a great point in the reply section. And because we don't have a room, me, my brother and my father sleep on a twin sized bed and my mother sleeps on the floor with a mattress. But at least I have privacy. As soon as a child hits puberty, they NEED privacy
“They have tons of new friends” yeah, friends that they will never see again. The worst part about vacation is leaving your new friends, but at least with vacation, you get to go back to your hometown friends. These kids don’t have a base to go back to
As a extremely anxious person the unstableness of it all would probably cause a panic attack that would kill me
As someone who went to 11 schools. Yep…I am jealous of people who knew people from kindergarten. Heck. Even middle school…
New friends mean nothing if you can’t keep in contact with them. Part of the fun of having new friends is that eventually they would become old friends
Also, with vacation - they would be able to stay friends when they want through writing each other letters. Because they would have a stable address.
It's honestly so hard growing up as a kid without a hometown. You never feel like you belong anywhere. No matter where you go, you're always an outsider.
“Our child finally started to feel like they had a more stable mental state after five years of feeling terrible and so to celebrate we thought we’d take away everything and everyone that helped them through that process so that we can live MY dream to be constantly driving around and never having any stability”
Yikes. When you word it like that it’s even worse.
One way i thought how Addison could’ve been feeling is “i haven’t spent 5 actual years with my parents or siblings, as long as im near them and they’re happy I’m happy” but how long can they rely their emotions on their family’s emotions
Don't forget that for their birthday, all Adison wanted was to sleep in a hotel room.
@@samiacool9 I know and they couldn’t even give them that :/
@@duckzork3670 yeah basing your emotional well-being on other peoples’ emotions is a recipe for disaster. I’m just thinking that they probably had more than just their family that helped them through that long process of 5 years and so i don’t think it was a good idea to suddenly change their environment. I get where you’re coming from though!
I feel like theres a high correlation between calling your child Enoch and being insane
the venn diagram is a circle
I wasn't brave enough to say it myself, but this is so fucking real
Hahaha
I second this
Enoch is the name of one of the kids in mrs peregrine's home for peculiar children
the saddest bit about addison is that they’ve struggled with an eating disorder and wasn’t on camera for a long time, when asked, the mom went on to say “anorexia is a disease and has no cause and can happen to anyone”, when often in anorexic patients, they struggle with a lack of CONTROL over their life… which is really telling :)))))
Precisely!! My family had to stay with my grandparents for a year while we looked for a house & I shared a room with my sister. This was when I was fifteen. The lack of privacy and the fact that my mom was constantly arguing with her parents contributed to such massive instability that I developed an eating disorder because it was the ONLY thing I felt like I had control over.
Something I've seen a lot in these videos is that the parent's bedroom is usually huge with even closets and a full bathroom, meanwhile the kids sleep in those coffins. Like... what a way to show your kids that their comfort is worth less than yours
LITERALLY which confuses the hell out of me because even in low income families where small space living is a necessity, sometimes the parents will take the sacrifices like sleeping in the living room just to make sure their kid/s have a bedroom (obv not all do this, but it’s the fact that these rv ppl try to romanticize it all as a “fun choice” that baffles me and then give their kids the short end of the stick)
I did the math on one of these families for a reddit sub recently.
Said family have said their bus is 217 square feet. 217 divided by 9 equals 24 square feet per person, not considering how much of that is covered up by furniture and fittings, so it's probably more like two thirds of that, I'm gonna say like 18 square feet each.
"The International Committee of the Red Cross recommends that cells be at least 5.4 m2 (58 sq ft) in size for a single cell accommodation (one person in the cell). However, in shared or dormitory accommodations, it recommends a minimum of 3.4 m2 (37 sq ft) per person, including in cells where bunk beds are used.[1."
A standard American prison cell is 48 square feet.
Those kids likely have about ONE HALF the space recommended by the red cross as bare minimum for a communal prison cell, and like a third of that recommended for an individual prison cell.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_cell
But it gets worse. This family lock their six kids in a tiny room at the back of the bus much of the time. I asked for estimates for the size of just that back-room from people who know about this sort of stuff. They estimated about 18 square feet. 3 square feet per kid.
If true, that's ONE TWELFTH of the legal minimum for a shared jail cell, about ONE TWENTIETH of that for a single cell, and ONE SIXTEENTH of the average. Those parents should be in prison.
@@dgo333 THIS THIS THIS
say it louder ong, it's always for the parents, the kids are an afterthought
red white and bethune got roasted for this! as they should have been
a friend of mine (he grew up very wealthy) did one year of RV life as a kid. They still owned their home, but they spent one year visiting national parks and being home schooled. He said it was a great experience, but I'm sure part of the reason it was so great was knowing that it was kind of like an extended vacation and their house was still waiting for them when it was over.
YES! I've seen some homesteading vloggers do this with varying degrees of success, but they all had homes to return to at the end of their trip!
@@dpauline4482 Unfortunately, I realize that investing in an RV and leaving your job for a year just isn't possible for many families without selling their home. I'm sure a lot of families would love to keep their home and travel for a year to bond and go on adventures but literally just can't afford it.
Yea omg that sounds awesome
I actually lived the nomadic life style from ages 6ish to 13/14ish but instead of an RV is was like a legit mobile home hitch. After 13 I settled in one place due to my moms health and still live in that same area so having two perspectives of it…there are pros and cons to both. I think these parents in the video are shoving WAY too many people in there (my sitch was me, my two older siblings and my mother in a two bedroom set up) plus we would usually rent land in rural areas so having privacy wasn’t always a big deal, like you could go walk in the woods lol I know my mom did it out of poverty in the 90s and also being a cosmologist she could find work pretty much anywhere. I think pro wise I did get to see more of the US and was exposed to and lot of cultures and growing up around in that environment was normal, but the cons were like couldn’t have long term friends, and even now I think I have a different perspective of friendship compared to a lot of other people because it was so normal to have people for a fun time not a long time. I do remember my older siblings being upset about it at time when they were teenagers because the not having long term friends thing, and I do have memories of like one move in particular I was tore up about because I had made more than a surface level friend at that location. However I also love my childhood, I learned how to grow food, make clothes, in really rural areas we would rent livestock to help feed us. Some of the best memories of my childhood were in the woods with my family just pocking stuff with sticks and building stuff. I also think my ability to understand people live differently came from that because I saw so many religions so many cultures and so many different ideologies while growing up I realized that everybody is uniquely different. In these set ups with these bloggers is usually a big concern because I still went to public school, I wasn’t homeschooled, and they usually have set ups smaller than mine with twice as many kids. Even in the late 90s my mom knew it was important that everyone get their own space and privacy (if only to cut down on any potential fighting about the issue) I think it can be a good childhood but it comes with it’s own cons like having a stationary childhood does as well, and it takes a parent that is very aware of those cons and knows how to navigate it in order for the children to felt heard and cared for.
@Flower Fabuki I am so glad that you had a parent who cared about you and made that experience good! I've known a lot of kids who moved frequently bc of military families, oil families, state department families, Etc. I did meet these kids in school, though, so they weren't homeschooled. I did know one guy who was from a military family and homeschooled until high school, but whenever they moved, he would join local sports teams and attend church, so he was still making friends. Moving frequently isn't inherently bad, and especially now, with the internet, you can keep up with friends you make along the way. I definitely agree with concerns about space, privacy, and education. Thank you for sharing your experience. Do you have any places you found particularly beautiful that are often overlooked?
I grew up in an RV. It had 0 privacy yes, also hoarding combines with it terribly, but really importantly "the whole world is your backyard" is a massive lie: you cannot go frolicking in the grass when on the road for hours!
My mom made me live like this. Wanna know what i did? I put all my videos on full blast and i said "if i had my own room, this wouldnt be a problem" and then we moved into an actual house
I’m sorry you had this experience. It sounds like you lived at least for a while in a situation that was very hard for you. Hope you’re okay now.
@@happykitch.n thanks so much! I’m okay now. We lived in that van when i was 9 then moved out 12. We had a lot of money why waste it on a tiny van?!
Like on TH-cam?
gonna steal this idea so i can get my own room
with the Family of Nomads, literally the ONE THING that their kid wanted for their birthday was to stay in a hotel. if your kid begs desperately to have their own room for just one night, you know there’s a problem. as someone who struggles with sensory issues and can’t handle much of my family in a single day, RV life sounds like hell on earth.
It’s worse at night.
and, that same child, they just posted is in treatment for mental health. i think there could be some sort of correlation with their hectic lifestyle and lack of stability to their mental health
Right! I haven't even thought of that. It's pretty bad for me as well and I still have my own room next to one empty room and corridor, so pretty isolated
Totally agree I NEED my space. I mean I love my family but you need privacy
As an adult i struggle at family gatherings getting stressed out, i can't imagine being a teen with no privacy
Living in an RV sounds like a fun thing to do once you’re retired, without having to worry about having the best environment for your kids while in an RV.
Or if your childfree and just want to see the world. I've seen solo vanlifers who have it more put together and actually want it. (ToriDelori is one I think of immediately)
I live in an RV and lived on a boat for 3 years before that and no, I wouldn’t do this lifestyle with children. It’s only enough space (in my opinion anyway) if its just you or a couple.
Same. It’s an item on my bucket list; travel the country in an RV (or similar) for a year. No kids, maybe an SO if they’re on board.
It does seem like a fun thing to do for a summer or a couple of weeks in summer, but living like that full time seems exhausting. 😅
exactly, thats why my parents want to move to their cottage once all of us have moved out. We own a cottage besides a farm and a lake, and my father grows crops, my mother is a nurse, they said theyll sell our current house for money so they can fix up the cottage more and have some money to be stable.
As a ND teen yeah, this whole situation is terrible for the kids. There was this kid I knew when I was little who was depressed because he switched schools and lost all contact to his friends. The mother, oblivious, just kept on changing this kid's schools making him lose any friends he made over and over. I can't even think about how isolating and torturous, especially for ND kids, this 'life' is like. These parents should be arrested.
One last thing: I DREAD staying in hotels because of the lack of space. And these kids WANTED to stay in a hotel for the privacy. Do you know how sad that really is? Hotel rooms are one of the least private family spaces but it was somehow BETTER than their actual home.
Who wants to make bets that the kids are running out of there the moment they hit 18?
North Dakota?
@@coyee2801 neurodivgergent (autism, adhd, etc)
Run to where? That's the normal problem with kids who grow up in say Amish communities. No education, no social structure (on the outside of the group), no useful skills. There is a good reason why people who try to leave groups like that drink themselves to death.
The family went to an AirBNB, which is a rented house.
Problem is, where are they going to run out to? They don't really have any idea of what the world is like due to being so cut off. When they leave, they'll be in a completely unfamiliar area because they move so much.
As a social work student who spent hours learning about child development and the importance of a private space to retreat, exploring on your own, stability and the importance of peer groups at any age, this makes all of my alarm bells go off.
You mentioned issue of isolation of these kids, but I want to point something out.
With this kind of lifestyle, nobody is there to check on the child. With regular lifestyle, you have neighbours, kids' teachers, local doctors, parents' friends/ workmates and A LOT other adults that see that kid on regular basis and can react if they feel that kid needs help.
Imagine if one of those VR parents beats one child. Who's gonna notice that new bruises keep coming? Random people that see this kid for few hours and then never again?
All those kids have are their parents. There is nobody (like neighbour or teacher) for them to seek help or advice, so if there is anything wrong... they are just f*** up.
That’s a really really good point. You know what they say, it takes a village. Kids need MULTIPLE adult advocates!
That was my first thought as well. I couldn't help but wonder if these parents are hiding something and that's why they're isolating their children from the world pretty much. Even if nothing is actually going on, I still feel it's inherently abusive to force children to live a lifestyle like this.
If you've ever seen the Rodriguez family (they're fundies in the same branch as the Duggers distantly related by marriage) they specifically traveled in an rv because they were reported to CPS and fled their first home.
They are isolating their kids for control. They have full power over everything these children do. They will never be able to get jobs in the real world while living in these vans therefore they will have no independent income . They will never have friends or family outside of the car they can rely on. It will be significantly harder for them to move out of these when it comes time for them to be adults.
They have barely any access to healthcare. That, to me, is especially worrying when related to the family with a child who was apparently extremely sick to the point they thought their kid could die. My sister has a lifelong disability that has been life threatening to her. Having access to her doctors that we have known her whole life, that already have her medical information, is absolutely critical. I do not know what condition specifically their child has/had, but if your kid has an issue so serious, they need stability even more so than other kids. If their child were to relapse or fall ill in say; the middle of the fucking mountains, surrounded by nothing but trees in a state they don’t know much about, the kid can straight up die and there’s nothing you can do. Pretty fucking dangerous and irresponsible.
I was wondering about the children's doctors, especially after the family said they uprooted their old life after one of the kids got really sick. And on the topic of sickness, I couldn't imagine being sick/feeling unwell and having to climb/cram into a bunk bed.
Yeah, when I was a kid, I was afraid telling my mom that I didn’t like cream cheese would hurt her feelings. I’d never have been able to say, “hey parents, I’m gonna need you to buy a house bc I don’t like traveling anymore.”
This comment is perfect! So true about worrying that I would my mom’s feelings more than my own comfort
Yes! My mom liked dressing me up in pink frilly clothes which I absolutely hated and couldn’t take anymore once I was around 12 or 13, but because of how much she loved it I felt like I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want to wear that anymore. After years I finally was able to tell her why I never seemed to wear the cute girly clothes she bought me but blamed me for not telling her sooner. Even after telling her she still tried guilting me by acting all sad when I wouldn’t wear her clothes she picked out and saying she wished I was still her sweet little girl. I’m an adult now and I still have so many issues when telling people “no” because I always seem to have to explain myself
@@skipperringo I relate so much to your comment. Saying no because that makes me uncomfortable should just be enough, but sadly some people don't get it. It hurts especially when people close to you do not understand your perspective and try to fish for a reasonable excuse for them, while keep pushing what they want.
so well put and also hilarious, that was so me as a kid too hahah
My sister and I did the same thing with our mom except with Strawberry Kiwi Caprison. It’s not that we didn’t like but that it was the only flavor our mom bought. It took us a year to work up the courage to let her know we wanted to try a different flavor.
As someone who is currently going through all of what the oldest kid is going through, autism diagnosis (im getting tested), an ED and being non-binary, i dont know how they're able to even cope at all with this living situation without freaking out on their mom 😭
Same. I have no idea how that kid is doing it.
Symptoms of asd:
Having trouble with change
Needing constancy
Being distressed when plans change unexpectedly or last minute (Which invariably happens when you travel, if they even have a plan)
Aforementioned sensory issues
CAUSING
Overwhelm/shutdown/meltdowns which require dark quiet alone space to recover (which they almost certainly do not have)
However fun or interesting the experience, even just for a vacation, travel is a hellish experience when you have asd. To be constantly traveling? That's my worst nightmare.
Oh, I have a feeling that poor girl and her mother have a horrible relationship. If it’s anything like the relationship I had with my mother, it’s incredibly toxic and abusive, and her mother probably manipulates her, gaslights her, and hurts her, all while blaming the problems the mother creates on the daughter.
Even for just any teenager, it is so hard to not get isolation. Teenagers need that time alone with themselves!
Get off of tiktok and try to fix your relationship with your dad and things will work themselves out. You don't need silly pronouns that are "so hot right now" thanks to Chinese Spyware
As someone with sensory issues I would go absolutely insane being around so many people all the time.
Same. Because of my sensory issues, having to share a room with my sister made me develop anxiety around sleep that I still deal with to this day. And we had a decent sized room, I can't even imagine how these kids must feel.
I can barely stand being around my own family luckily there's only three of us living in this trailer dad my brother and I and they both work nights so we don't see much of each other outside a few hours a day and the weekends
Yes, same thing !!! Having a personal calm and non-sensory exposing space is absolutely vital, as an autistic person probably more for me than most but still for anybody ! Having a place in which you feel safe, in control and can call your own is so important !!!
I love my family but I need physical privacy. I need at least an hour every single day where no speaks to me, or even looks in my direction.
i just don't understand why it's always the families with the most kids who decide to go down the RV route
Christians
Complete control over their kids. They get their own fiefdom and the more kids they have the more people they get to control (or abuse)
Selfish
@@UrMissingSock most of them don't even believe in religion...
Outliers in society
Something that makes me angry about this is that the parents have the privilege of knowledge and experience. They know what it's like to go to school, to live in a house. Do the kids have that knowledge? A lot of times they don't. How can they "choose" RV life or homeschool, when they don't know any different? It's just a vague concept that literally means nothing. That's not real choice.
I was thinking about this specifically with the doctor at the end. He said his children didn't need schooling and learned from doing, but he was a freaking DOCTOR. How can he say anything about only "learning from doing?"
@@brendaburks188 Exactly! 😤🤬
@@brendaburks188 When I was home-educated we learnt a lot by doing, but our "doing" included doing workbooks, learning on the internet, going to museums, etc. It's very stupid and hypocritical of him to not let them learn like this!
So at what point do we all pull our kids aside and ask them: "well you've went to the same school and lived in the same house, wanna try nomadic homeschooling now?"
Exactly what I was thinking. Parents have LIVED. They have a home, friends, human experiencies. Yet the kids are forced into the RV living style WITHOUT having lived their individual experiences. It's not a choice for them and it's so infuriating, if I were them I would have lost my mind.
Coming back to this after Family of Nomads has recently decided to move into a house!! I can’t believe that for once they are making a good decision for themselves and their children. Jess definitely seems to be the most sad about it.
Of course she's the only one that loves rving
These RV environments trigger a level of claustrophobia in me I never knew I had.
It's baffling to me when the children have chronic conditions and the family still puts their lifestyle first. Getting regular medical care and meds is almost impossible if you're always on the road.
This. I’m happy the family is finally at a stopping spot and I hope they realize they can’t continue on like this. Medical needs regular constant care.
Especially when the child’s chronic condition is basically OCD/an eating disorder, which seems to be what PANS is. I know that people with OCD just love having constant, uncontrollable change to their environment and no private space to themselves!
Because it'll be cheaper when the kid mysteriously goes missing and they find out mom and dad either got rid of the kid, by dumping them somewhere alone, or murdering them and hiding the corpse.
No.
These monsters really are that capable. The mom of Family of Nomads was fine, if Addision died apparently because her ED wasn't "important" to her, the vlogging was. Momm'ys narcissim was more important.
Hey, Bad Mom if your reading this, YOUR A BAD MOTHER.
this!!
Yes, it totally is.
My jaw still drops when I learn how much of kids personal ( especially medical) information is just thrown around as content.
I’m in the autistic community, and the Neurotypical “autism mommies” FILMING AND POSTING their childrens autistic meltdowns is so disgusting to me. I can’t even imagine my parents posting such a vulnerable moment in my life.
My mom would talk about my medical issues like this when i was younger. I love my mom but it really sucked and was very violating.
It shouldn't be aloud to post anything about kids until they are at least 14yo. And kids should not have access to social media at all.
YEAH THAT WAS SO ICKY
One important thing to note though is that they are very respectful of addison like the first few months she was in hospital they didn’t share anything she chose to share it to try and help other kids.
Whenever I see RV families I think “well didn’t we all used to be nomads? Weren’t a lot of native Americans nomadic, packing up and moving all the time?” But the difference is that nomadic people didn’t move every day, and they weren’t confined to a shipping container. Portable housing structures were larger, people would sleep in bigger communal sleeping areas, and they’d stay in one place for weeks or months. AND the groups traveling consisted of an entire village worth of people, not just one family. So there were still social structures and people to learn from.
yea, there’s a difference between “say goodbye to everyone you haven’t shared a “room” with” every week, and basically picking up your neighborhood and putting it somewhere else once or twice a month
Yeah, not to mention that at the very least, the childhoods you're referencing *actually* prepared them for adulthood. The way they lived as children would be how they lived as adults. The work they did and the relationships they would need to maintain stayed the same.
So not only did they get to travel with a whole community, but it was their community for life.
Unlike these RV kids...even if they manage to cope living like that, it will come to an end when they become an adult. The community they will end up needing to rely on in adulthood will be completely different. To fit into their actual society, they will need an education and a stable job, which requires stable housing, while competing with adults who have way more experience living like that and fitting in. They won't just immediately move into another RV and continue doing what they did as a kid. Their social media success wasn't actually under their control and due to work which they can replicate on their own channel immediately (even if they wanted to). They basically built a business for their parents and got nothing out of it, not even a resume boost. If anything, it hurt their future prospects.
the fact that she’s been diagnosed with an ed aswell really says something. most of the time when someone developes an ed it’s because they feel they have no sense of control or safe space so food becomes something you control and your safe space.
They*
I’m shocked the family told the whole internet about their child’s diagnosis. That’s a lot to share. Even if the child said it’s okay, it just seems so odd to reveal so much to millions of strangers.
But regardless of whether the kid said it was okay, they’re still a child - a minor. I personally worry that there’s no protection the way there is with child actors. Even with laws protecting child actors, we’re seeing a lot of them come out with tell alls saying how abusive it is.
It’s a big problem as of late for parents to share their children’s diagnosis for sympathy and brownie points.
“Look at how brave I am-raising a special needs child! I’m such a good parent.” Like tolerating their children for being disabled is not the bare f*cking minimum.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Now you’ll be seeing where parents are unnecessarily sharing their kids’ diagnosis.
It. Is. Everywhere.
Most recent one for me was a mom sharing about how her son made cookie. Oh sorry, her AUTISTIC son made cookies. She couldn’t forget to add that 😂
Sick kids = views = money
I think in terms of education and searching for parenting with kids that have specific illness it good to make the content out of it. Share a story that make people dont feel alone. As long as their purpose is good. if it just an excuse for wrong doing, hell nah. Especially for gain sympathy and make it like a way to run of from every consequences
Well what would a child know? They're a child! Even if they somewhat understood, social media has ruined many peoples perception of what's actually ok to share. The parents are taking advantage of their innocence. -
Re: Addison’s ED: the mom said EDs “have no known cause and there’s no way to prevent them.” EDs are EXTREMELY COMMONLY KNOWN to be a trauma response to a lack of control in your life. I heard that they had an*rex*a and my heart sank- because I completely predicted it. And then I heard their mom give that complete BS excuse, and my heart broke in half because I knew they would NEVER receive the support they need to recover. I hope they survive this. An*rex*a kills.
She then proceeded to say on an ad that her kid’s eating disorder was caused by social media. I guess EDs can be caused by something but only if a soap company gives you enough cash.
That's partly how my ED started. I lived with my dysfunctional parents who couldn't get their sh*t together, and it really messed me up when I was a teen. I just needed something to control and even during flare ups now, it goes back to that need for control.
And it's literally almost entirely preventable!! 😢
Why are you censoring anorexia?
@@leacnnmn because it can be triggering, but mostly because algorithms catch the uncensored word sometimes.
The main issue I have with RV life is that you have to park in places where RV’s park to sleep at night. So like truck stops, parks, random parking lots and streets, etc. A truck stop may be safe for an adult male truck driver but would not be the safest place for kids. Same with things like wal mart parking lots.
You know they make campgrounds right? What you're referring to is boondocking and that is not a super common thing.
@@Mlp-cutie-Mark-330dont you have to rent those places
@@loveu8910 yes, you have to rent a spot at a campground but not if you're boondocking.
it's especially weird considering that they supposedly moved because of the realization they got from Addison's illness but it seems like Grace is the favorite, Addison cleans the largest bathroom while their youngest boy sweeps and mops the entire RV, while despite being the middle child Grace does the smallest bathroom as her chore which is clearly the easiest. Also how she has her own larger "station" for her makeup and skin care compared to both other kids. Weird 🤨
Hold on, she wanted to stay at a hotel for her birthday and her entire family comes with her. Then she "misses her bed" and is the only one to go back to the RV? SHE WANTED TO BE ALONE LOL.
Youre right but allison goes by they/them lol
It was the mom I think that went back to sleep in the rv
It was the mom that went back to sleeping in the rv. Not the kid
Sounds like mom wanted to be alone if she's the one who went back into the RV
@@sofarber5158 well she’s one person and has a vagina so is that in make believe world?
“They have a lot of friends and have friends all across the country”. As someone who kept transferring schools and always had to constantly leave behind and make new friends. It was absolutely devastating growing up for me, cause I learnt that I shouldn’t invest in relationships as I’ll just be forced to leave them. I developed social issues and took me YEARS to catch up. Children NEED stable and permanent friends.
(I went to a total of 11 different schools and I have extreme difficulty making friends and can’t even invest in romantic relationships cause I developed major commitment and attachment issues)
I'm the exact same way, I have no idea how to transition an acquaintance into a friendship.
Same bestie. My dad's in the military so we had to move every year, then he has the audacity to ask why I don't make any friends lol
My mum wasn't an RV kid, but her family kept moving throughout the 60s and 70s between Britain and Hong Kong, and she said that she had to constantly build up friendships before moving across the globe again, which was very upsetting. Today, she's lived in the same house for nearly thirty years and she never wants to move again, partly because of her childhood. So yeah I can confirm on her behalf that it's not healthy for children especially to be constantly moving.
wasnt an rv kid but moved alot and its honestly horrible. i envy the friends i do have who have had the same stable healthy friendships since childhood knowing ill never have that and have to learn how as an adult
yesss. and even if they have some campgrounds they return to regularly, thats still not enough to form a truly stable and lasting bond unless your staying for most of the summer, and its still not the same as freinds you can see year-round.
god I’m so glad my family was too poor to buy an rv. my mom was OBSESSED with buying an rv and traveling around, and now she’s obsessed with tiny homes too, AND she insisted on homeschooling and unschooling us as teenagers, so we absolutely could’ve been like one of those families, and it would’ve been BAD. she and my sister get along like oil and water, and as it was there were massive screaming fights in a _regular_ house. my sister has lots of sensory issues, diagnosed adhd and possible autism, and I can’t imagine how bad it would’ve gotten with the four of us crammed into a tiny rv. genuinely i think it would’ve broken our family apart irreparably
seems like a fun summer, if youre already an outdoorsy sociable bubbly family... after that it would be a living hell for anyone
It seems fun for a week or two in the summer. Not a home.
As someone who actively is a teenager in this situation right now. You are absolutely right it's impossible to make or keep friends and the amount of control the parents have is suffocating and being alone is very rare
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Please know that you’re loved and worthy of things like consistent friendship and stability. You don’t have to live like this forever, just make it until you’re a bit older and you’ll be over the worst of it 💛
Hang in there, it's not forever. You deserve better than this.
I'm glad you're a teen, at least. Not much longer man.
I'm really sorry your parents are doing this to you.
As someone with autism I can totally understand the feeling of having little privacy and time to unwind. I can’t imagine how stressful this is for you and I hope you make it out.
dude i am so sorry for you and only wish the best for you and your situation , sending good vibes to you
I grew up this way, I lived in an RV from birth until college, fully nomadic for 6 years of it and then partially nomadic for the rest. I would be willing to do an interview on a stream or something about it because I'm super passionate about this topic but have no platform. It was awful. Pretty much everything you said is spot on, and I was in one of those best case scenario options where I only had one sibling and we both had our own semi-private spaces. But there's legitimately no real privacy, I overheard so many of my parents' conversations that I shouldn't have, and I always went and walked around outside for my own calls and conversations because I knew that everyone can hear everything. My parents were small business owners and I worked for them, which is essentially what these influencer kids are doing. With work, school, and family all being in one big bundle in a tiny space, there's no physical or emotional boundaries. It's so selfish to choose this lifestyle when you have kids. Some people have to of course, but if it's just your dream and choice, then don't have kids or do it after they grow up.
@tiffanyferg I would def watch this interview!
I hope she sees your comment!
DON'T HAVE KIDS OR DO IT AFTER THEY GROW UP!!!!
So many people have kids so they can live out some fantasy life, & see the kids as part of the fantasy rather than as real people with autonomy. But there's a difference between wanting to HAVE children & wanting to BE a parent. One is about fulfilling your own desires to play an idealized role in an idealized relationship. The other is about fulfilling the needs of another person & teaching them how to do so for themself, even when their needs conflict with your desires. That doesn't mean sacrificing your dreams for the sake of the kid. But it does mean asking if & how your dreams may or may not be compatible with raising a (physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually & financially) secure child.
I hope Tiffany sees this, it would be so interesting to hear your first hand experience!
I’d love to hear about your experience
I have a unique perspective on this. My parents moved our 7 member family to slab city CA in November of 2014. We were getting evicted from our house in Oregon, where we had all grown up. Our family and friends and all we knew, we had to leave. Me and my siblings were all under 10 at the time. We had to sell half our stuff to make enough money. This all was my dads idea he wanted to move back to his hometown and said we'll "figure it out" when we got there. I remember being so stressed that we were moving so far away and we didn't even have a plan or house lined up. This lead to 4 years of off-grid living in the desert. This was absolutely my dads dream that he forced on all of us. Whenever we would bring up moving somewhere else, he would say "Why, we're doing it!". He was extremely abusive and my mom eventually got us away. I can't even begin to explain the effects this kind of lifestyle has on kids growing up. The no stability, no privacy, no life, friends, family. It all comes together to destroy a childs mind frame and sanity. I was a completely different kid before we moved there and now I'm just trying to heal. Well away thanks for listening. 💕
i feel so sorry for you and your family, that’s no place any child should be in. i hope you are doing well now, thank you for sharing
Thats absolutely horrible. A father is supposed to be the rock of the family, the pillar that keeps the house up and safe. Not ruining his family for his own dreams.
Slab City is no place for children
I really feel for these RV kids. You hear a lot of these RV parents talking about how much they had to "downsize" to live this life, and I can only imagine how many sentimental items the kids had to give up.
I remember reading a NatGeo story about these "apartments" in China (I believe) that were roughly the size of some of these bunks. In another analysis of RV life, it was noted that the parents have always seem to have a full size bedroom with a king bed and adequate storage whereas the kids sleep in coffin style beds (or the floor). I have lived in a very small, contained space before and it was hard for just me, I couldn't imagine that living arrangement with a family of 12!!
I remember running into a video of one of the families you showed, specifically the child Addison, who on their birthday, literally only asked for a few days in an airbnb and they played it off as cute and funny and insisted at the end that they miss their RV, but man it just made me so sad. That kid literally asked for a few days in a real house for their birthday. It's so sad
I saw that as well! Absolutely awful. Van/RV life is a very cool concept, but making kids live like that is insane.
I was about to comment this!!
@sewer~rat I legitimately had a few people imply that I was the one abusing THEIR KIDS by expressing sympathy for how hard it must be, I didn't even really come for the parents, just said that I feel for a kid who'd ask for something so small as a big birthday gift and want time in a house so bad. But I didn't say anything about the parents specifically because I didn't know anything about their situation enough to judge. But everyone took it as an attack and assumed that "fake sympathy targeted at kids you don't know for the crime of being different and implying they're life is sad is what REALLY" causes distress to these kids. Ended up deleting my comment over all the people who freaked out
im waiting for the SLEW of kids who were previously famous from youtube, tiktok, etc to come out about their abuse 10 years from now as older teens/young adults. I predict the amount of kids from famous family vloggers in the future speaking out about how they were treated to be over 30+
@Sarina Bina it's already starting, some of the older kids who are just starting to move out are telling their stories, and I wish I could say I found them very surprising, it's about what everyone predicted it would be
Oh as soon as you mentioned the 15 (?) year old being autistic and having an eating disorder…. I’ve had an ED on and off for 10+ years and I’m autistic too, and this lifestyle seems like a NIGHTMARE to me. I would bet money they have an eating disorder as a way to have control over something in their life, and then having no personal space, having to probably deal with sensory overload in such a small space, etc etc….. sounds absolutely awful, and my heart breaks for these poor kids omfg
That makes so much sense! Even worse than just having the ED, the entire Internet now knows and that is something that is so deeply private and personal; both when you have the ED and when you’re recovering. Eating disorders come with a high degree of shame and guilt and it’s such a huge violation of privacy that their parents are choosing to broadcast it instead of giving them space to recover peacefully.
@@user-ju2ut2dj1l Yesss that’s so true, almost no one in my personal life knows i’ve had an ed, it’s like… it shouldn’t be embarrassing to talk about but it is anyway, and being 15 and having the whole internet having access to your mental health problems??? these poor children
@@clairebear-96 In my experience, sharing out any mental health issues invites people to speculate on your appearance and behavior; and if its people that don’t know you well, it takes a lot of support and mental fortitude (ironically lol) to handle it. Its already hard as hell when its just a couple ignorant/inconsiderate people in your social cirle doing it, I can’t imagine having to deal with comments from thousands of people on the internet. At FOURTEEN years old. That’s just so young. And now they can’t even trust the support of their family because their parents will blab about it for views. Jeez, it gets worse and worse the more I think about it.
Agreed. This is totally unacceptable and a complete violation of their personal and medical privacy. I’m sick for them, and hope they are able to get the help they need and find a measure of peace.
Yeah, totally. As autistic, having people near for too long feels physically painful. This must be absolute horror not being able to escape this
I have an aunt & uncle who raised 5 kids while driving around in a van, then later a motorhome. They were all homeschooled and sheltered. To be honest our whole family thought they were crazy. Of course, this was years before social media.
On the neurodivergent topic, I myself am neurodivergent with a not so understanding family, and I have to say, my room is the ONLY escape I have from them right now. I absolutely NEED to be alone sometimes and to let myself unmask and have my moments before I can appear ok again. Living in the RV lifestyle would be horrible for me, as a constantly changing surrounding, close quarters with family, and 0 privacy or friends would honestly (and sadly literally) DESTROY me. Am I saying that the child mentioned is the same, absolutely not, but a lot of the time we need more care and compassion which, sadly, I don't know if this situation would be good for. Especially if they had parents such as mine, it would be an awful experience (my parents are pretty horrible, so I hope that this isn't the case for them). I really hope they are truly ok, because that amount of moving, crampness, and closeness is usually seen as VERY uncomfortable for neurodivergent individuals :<
EDIT: I would also like to add, school is important not only from an education stand point, but from a social standpoint. Children who are homeschooled often describe how miserable, difficult, and socially awkward it is and how they do generally prefer normal school. NOT ALL INDIVIDUALS, ofc, but most of those who I talk to share the same sentiment.
Yes!!!!
As for the schooling, I wish I could say that public school was a blessing for me, but it wasn't. I was relentlessly bullied for my neurodivergence and I'm still in therapy working through that trauma to this day. I begged my parents to let me do online school but as both had jobs they couldn't do that. Luckily my grandpa was able to teach me some self-defence strategies to help me avoid serious physical harm from my bullies, but I still wish I'd been able to do online school rather than have to deal with that. And I'm not faulting my teachers for this, as managing a group of 40 prepubescent kids is no easy feat for an already overworked and underpaid person to accomplish. And managing 40-80 teenagers is difficult for a different reason. But still, especially for someone who had plenty of other opportunities to socialize with other kids my age: at church, at the park, and at extended family birthday parties, I believe I would've had a much better childhood than the one I ended up with if I had done online school instead.
My husband and I are full-time RVers and we definitely waited until our last child graduated and left home. This is not an easy-breezy lifestyle all the time. Not only that but everyone needs their own social circle, space, and privacy. I don't see how this can be good for kids for a long period of time. I am a digital nomad, and it pays all of our bills plus we are still able to save and travel. I love, love, love this lifestyle, I don't ever want to go back to living in a house. But again, I'd never do this with children over 4.
i appreciate that!
Your the prime example of what most of these people should do, good on you for waiting, and may you continue enjoying the RV lifestyle
Ok ok io😅 poo😊
I think a lot of people are choosing this because mortgages, rent and the cost of living is so expensive. I know a lot off young adults that do this to avoid rent. But they are childness, not so nomadic and usually just drive the van from parking lot to parking lot or between the same handful of towns. But I can see it filtering down to young families. In Australia a lot of retirees buy these and go travelling around the country.
Your kids are going to take amazing care of you when you grow older
“Our kids wanted to do this, we communicate openly and they like it” my parents said the same thing about homeschooling me. I begged constantly to go to school with other kids. Being homeschooled for Christian fundamentalist reasons fucked me up so bad…
Gd dude I wouldn’t wish that on my enemy
“Hey, do you kids want to go in an RV we think it’ll be cool”
(Yes across the board)
(Years later)
“Yeah you didn’t actually have a choice btw why are you so antisocial and why do you hate our rv friends?????”
I see a lot of Christians doing this because they are worried about "indoctrination" of worldly ways. I think it's better to teach your kids that they are going to encounter different viewpoints in the real world and to teach them a sense of self so they know who they are amongst others. I went to a Christian college and some of the kids were raised so strictly that they went off the rails when they got a bit of freedom. One who was a pastor's kid said she no longer believed in God after getting a taste of freedom. Not exactly what her parents were expecting sending her to a Christian school I'm sure!
How are you doing now? I hope you're good.
This is happening to me now :/ my mom keeps saying it will be good for me when I grow up but I don’t like it and I just want to have a normal life with friends at school. My mom is a Christian and I go to a homeschool. I don’t like it at all and wish my life was different..
Mom: what do you hate about your bunk?
Child: it's like a little coffin...
Mom: AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA
When I was 13, my mom was offered a temporary position in Switzerland by her job, and asked if I wanted to go with her. From the start, we knew it would be 2 years and I would travel back to the US for like a month or two in the summer to visit my dad. It was an amazing experience for me because we travelled a lot, I got to meet a ton of other kids from different countries, etc. But I definitely noticed that when we moved back just before my junior year of high school, it was awkward to make friends because those groups had already been established for a couple years (ie since freshman year) so I was inserting myself into already established dynamics. Luckily I’m a fairly charismatic and not shy person, so I was able to make friends, but I can’t imagine only being able to make temporary friends- really acquaintances- and not having the stability of going to school. I’ve also seen the impact of normal homeschooling on my friends that I made in college; they definitely weren’t as developed socially as even my more awkward but traditionally schooled friends and they had a harder time because of it.
Can you imagine spending your childhood fighting an illness for YEARS and you finally on the other side of it and you're so excited to be able to just live your normal childhood again after all you've been through.... and your parents sell your house, shove you in an RV, make you sleep in barracks, and then tell people they did it BECAUSE OF YOUR ILLNESS THAT YOU BEAT????? 😢💔
"beating" a mental illness isnt the same as beating physical ailments either. stress *will* bring an eating disorder and ocd symptoms back n its typical for ppl to recover and relapse and rinse and repeat for a very long time. its basically going "well we havent seen ur symptoms in a while. so that means we get to introduce a bunch of triggers and lifestyle changes yay!!!" the amnt of neglect here is rly astounding. i feel so bad for her
THIS!!! A formerly chronically sick child doesn’t want to travel with their entire family - they want a normal life of going to school everyday, hanging out with their friends, being like all the other kids. They want the stability and predictability they weren’t guaranteed when they thought they were gonna die. Those Nomad parents, a few of their shorts started to pop up for me a year ago. I watched them and immediately felt 🚩🚩🚩. Selfish parents!!!!
THIS!!! Imagine the pressure on this girl😢
how do we know she doesn't enjoy this lifestyle? we don't so people shouldn't make assumptions
@@olleheyb I don't agree. Kids get bullied really badly and rejected for being different. I bet you their siblings and parents are their best friends. Being sick inside and not being able to do anything except watch TV probably, and feel awful....and now they get to see amazing things all the time, and share joy and excitement with the people they love the most. Everyone's a critic and wants to assume the worst. There's no normal life when you've got a chronic illness or you're not neurotypical, and trying to fit it to a society and a routine that wasn't built for you and being rejected or failing every day is traumatic. Accepting that different is ok and finding the full beauty in the possibilities that lie in your difference is so healing.
There is a wife swap episode about this!! The RV dad gets super pissed with the ‘new’ wife makes them move to a house, but the kids are super excited and they end up moving into a house full time after the show!
There's also a Wife Swap AUSTRALIA episode around this where there's a wife in a home with kids that go to a private school vs a mum who homeschools/un-schools her kids in a bus (not an RV). Basically, in the end, the way it was edited showed that the "Bus life mum" was putting her own childhood trauma ONTO her kids and taking away their agency to choose versus looking at herself. The mum from the home-life opened the bus life dad's eyes. I always wondered what happened to that family (as it was filmed over a decade ago)
Who knew that show's premise could have good consequences lol
@@hamolton1 sometimes some families need outside perspective 😔
@@VanessaChats do you remember exactly what trauma it was?
@@sophiagonzales8974the van mom didn’t like and do well in school, so she decided that her kids shouldn’t be schooled either. her 18 year old couldn’t read.
As someone with autism who had to move out of my parents house due to sensory issues and other autism related issues - this would be my worst nightmare.
The name "enoch" told me everything I needed to know about the parents
The privacy bit sounds so tragic to me.....these kids don't get physical privacy because they're in a cramped small space with their entire family but they also don't have any digital privacy/agency. At least if they were regular family vloggers, the kids have an opportunity to leave the house or hide in another room if they don't want to be on camera but there's nowhere to go or hide for the RV kids.
How does anyone in the RV have sex (mastrubation or otherwise) with everyone else in earshot!
The most traumatic part to me was that my bed folded into the dining table. I didn’t have a permanent bed. Every morning I had to wake up and convert my bed to the table so everyone would eat. There was absolutely zero permanent space that was mine. No where to take a nap, no where to just exist in my own space. Never. No privacy. Couldn’t even lock myself in the bathroom to cry without my parents unlocking it and forcing me out.
Although tbh the most traumatic part was probably the kids who threw rocks at me on the bus, screamed “TRAILER TRASH” every chance they could and stopped being my friend when they found out I lived in an RV. That was probably worse.
@@orthenight I'm so sorry, you didn't deserve this!! I hope you find peace, it's not your fault and the shame isn't yours to carry💚
Well maybe but usually when you live in an RV you are out in nature.. so you can just go outside and be by yourself or get away. There is pros and cons. But they can definitely get away if they want. Just not at night when it's time to go to bed 🤷
Let's be real, even if the kids hated it, the parents would still do it. Because ultimately the parents are in control financially, not the kids. If it was a financial reason for this, no other choice the kids would deal with it. But if having your own space, and a steady friend group is still an option, I think that 9 out of 10 would not choose this life.
also these are kids and as a parent they should know asking them if something not in their best interest is ok doesn't mean they fully grasp it. Were constantly talking about how kids and teens aren't fully aware of the outcomes of their choices and thats why they can't consent to sex. Asking a 6 year old if its ok to go on a super fun trip and lose their home sounds fun until 6 months later they miss all their friends and are sad they can't have an animal and a familiar place outside of the vehicle. Then when the kid says they hate it the parent will say "but you said you liked the idea!" no shit. its a kid. they aren't thinking of all the posibilities and outcomes and you convinced them it would be fun.
I once watch a mini documentary about a family sailing around the world. It was the dad's dream. They had 3 kids. The oldest was 14 and said he didn't want to go. So they went aheahd with the project but the kid went to boarding school... why didn't the parents do the trip before having kids? Or wait 10 more years when the kids are in their 20s? So selfish. No one forces you to be a parent but once you decide to be one, you have a duty to your kids wellbeing. Don't want to compromise? Don't have kids and enjoy your life! Or, instead of uprooting your kids, do the rv life only 2-3 months every year.
Let me start out by saying I don't think this is a healthy lifestyle to raise kids in.
But I'm pretty sure most kids would chose to nit go to school and get to travel.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 and then have no personal space and no community to rely on or go to for help? never really have friends or an adult that’s not your parents who you can trust?
Maybe don’t breed shitload of times when you can’t afford it lmao🙄
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls would be a good read for more perspectives on the effects of a nomadic lifestyle on children as they grow up. It can be a pretty harrowing read but a very insightful one.
my mom and dad during the pandemics high were really into RV life and were trying to convince me and my siblings that it would be so much fun, but me and my siblings never get along, me and my parents dont get along when we are together for to long, and making friends is really hard for me and not having any friends whatsoever sounds like a nightmare. my friends are my source of happiness mostly, so being long term friends with people seems really hard. also im a teen so having my privacy is a necessity. in the end we never had the RV life they wanted and i could not be happier about that. plus like i dont want to be homeschooled i was in 2020-2021 and i wanted to die it was hell.
also the whole 9th part of this video is relatable school is basically the only place i can get away from my dad besides the days hes on a work trip but like being in a confined space with my dad who has a short temper and is really easily aggravated and me who is the same i would much rather be in the hell hole that is school where i hate all but like 3 people then be around him 24-7-365
I saw very little of the nomads but what alarmed me was they showed Addison immediately leaving an ED treatment center and said that EDs had no known cause. I immediately tapped that “don’t show me this channel.”
Good lord. I would do similar. Like lady, that doctor definitely mentioned the words "stress" , "pressure" , "unable to cope" , "feeling like you're lacking Agency in your life" like girl why are you so brazenly lying for money and putting your child in the middle of it??? Honestly family blogging is just evil.
Yes I remember seeing this, it pissed me off. I believe Jess's words were " Nothing causes it and nothing can be done to prevent it" Not to mention that it took the parents so long to notice even though they live in close quarters.
That family is the shadiest i swear. One time it was Addison's birthday and all that kid wanted was a night at a hotel. But somehow they "couldn't afford it", or i'm not sure what happened exactly but they end up settling for a nice stay at an apartment-like room.
I think that was the happiest faces i've seen on those children. All they wanted was a spacious bedroom for their own and a dining room that isn't miniscule
They did worse.
They checked her out.
Which you can't do unless you do it against medical advice, because Addision was obviously undergoing treatment. They couldn't even walk from how much weight was lost but mom didn't care and said "I noticed it, but I didn't think it was IMPORTANT."
yep and addison was diagnosed with autism and imo constantly moving around would be overstimulating for any child, but especially a child with autism.
"Addison just wanted to stay home and watch movies with the family for their birthday"... umm did they really have another options? They don't have local friends to go and celebrate with.
Nah but fr tho what did they expect that kid to do??💀
Being in such close proximity to siblings, especially at that age would be awful for me and my sister. Of course I love my sister now, but as younger teenagers we hated one another and in such a small space that would've been so much worse
I lived in an RV for about 3 months with my brother and parents because we were doing a cross-country road trip. Those 3 months were some of the worst months of my life and the lowest period of mental health I've ever had. My family generally gets along okay (we have issues now but at the time it was alright), but even then the lack of privacy/space had us at each other's throats. I became so stressed that I bbegsn to SH and would literally climb a tree and stay up there all day long just to get away. And that was only 3 months with 4 total people!! I cannot imagine what these kids are going through. It's so important to have stability, structure, and the ability to make long-term friends. I sincerely hope that they'll be alright when they grow up and find somewhere stable to live
I’d rather get thrown into oncoming traffic than live in an RV with my entire family. We can’t even swing a 3 hour day trip without a brawl breaking out.
SAME LMFAO
literally
fr i would do a barrel roll out of the car 😭
Ok but that just sounds like your family has issues, rv or not
@@verybarebones That's just a very common family dynamic, especially with younger kids. I've always loved my family very much, but when me and my younger siblings were younger, we argued a lot. Since becoming adults we have grown out of it, but when we were kids/teens we needed a lot of space to get along.
FamilyOfNomads literally JUST put out a video stating that Addison is back in treatment. Between that and Addison's wish to spend a few days in an AirBNB, it is genuinely upsetting and frustrating that the mum specifically seems so blind to the fact that it is DEFINITELY RV life that is making Addison feel so bad. Like, oh jeez, of course the kid forced to be in this cramped space with little to no real privacy is not doing good mentally! No matter if you did it "for them" or not - and by the way, what a shitty excuse that is. They got sick so your solution was to remove yourself from your previous life entirely and isolate them from friends with no education?! Are you nuts?! The mum ALWAYS goes on and on about "missing their bed", it seems - she did that a video where they went to Disneyworld too. She's being ridiculously selfish.
Without getting too into speculation - I would say that the constant filming and cramped space are possibly the causes for Addison's ED. It's probably a subconsious thing to "stay small" so they don't get even more cramped in that awful space. They can't even sit up straight in there. There's no space for them to do anything. They can't do normal teenage things like dancing around in the room to music, for example. Maybe I'm extra upset because I'm an autistic trans person too, but I can't help but want to sock the mum in the face and tell her to actually pay attention to her kids and the BLATANT signs that they are giving her that they want OUT.
The saddest thing is, if Addison gets bad enough to be sectioned, that’ll be the closest thing to privacy they’ll get... and that’s in a high-security institution
Right like “let me blast my child’s diagnosis all over the Internet but ignore the incredibly glaring common denominator!” Like if your child wants privacy so badly all they want for their birthday is to stay at a fixed location with a locking door, that should tell you something.
I don't think it's a far reach to speculate. It's unfortunately common that when children feel they have no control in their life, they turn to the few things they can control and sometimes food is the thing. Food restriction is a form of regaining control (in a not so healthy way).
@@andromeda7758 Yes, ED is normally about control over your life and body.
In the past, I struggled with eating. I will not claim to have an eating disorder as I was never diagnosed with one - however, I was avoiding food and actively disgusted by it. I could not agree more that it has to do with control. When you lack the ability to make any decisions or change in your life, you will find ways to control something, anything, including eating. At Addison's age, I doubt her ED is stemming from body image issues. I think it is most likely because she does not have any independence or control over her life at all. Again, speculation, not facts.
I never had a room of my own growing up, and I often slept in the same bed as my sister and my mom out of necessity (and overall it’s more normal to do so in poor Asian families) but I think what boggles my mind is theconscious choice to do this rather than like a “happy with what you got” situation. I would have loved to have the choice to have my own room, but I just knew that wasn’t an option.
RV life seems cool as a temporary lifestyle. Like I'm considering moving out of state and leaving in an RV so I don't have to rush the house hunting process & still get to be comfortable in my own space + I can drive around and go wherever I want still. Granted, I am a single 24 year old woman with no kids so it would be peaceful bc it would still be MY OWN space. I think I would go crazy living in an RV with my mom though.
If you thought it was bad being a teen isolated in the suburbs with no independence. Then being a teen stuck in their parents' RV adventure lifestyle will absolutely crush your soul.
@@agutier2023 if you are under 18 your parents must send you to school by law in the us and uk
@@mikiwilliams4133 that's not true in the slightest for the us
@@mikiwilliams4133No, it is not. (US)
It depends heavily on the state you legally live in, and most of the ones whose school system I know of either have little to no homeschool requirements or no checking of said requirements.
In one of Nomad family’s new videos Jess talks about how she is so tired of being in Florida and so ready to start traveling again. Even if her kids don’t feel the same way, they sure know how mommy feels about it. If I were Addison, I would feel terrible that my medical issues were “holding up” mom’s travel plans.
And especially if you’re autistic, changing settings constantly can be difficult. It can really kick in if you’ve stayed in that place for a while. If you’re changing the setting that frequently, it can really fuck you up and ruin your sense of stability :(
yeah I hate when someone is sick and they talk about "lost time". Unless they're in a coma, you can spend time with a sick person. In fact you should probably spend more time with them. My idea of fun is watching TV, playing a board game, or playing video games. I can do all that from home/a bed. It sounds like the parents wanted to go out and do fun things and they couldn't when their child was sick so now they have to make up "lost time" that they were prevented from doing and use that as an excuse to want to travel and say its making fun memories with the kids. I never wanted to go on vacations with my family. I just wanted them to do things together I liked doing and getting them to do anything together outside of going on a vacation or going to the movies was like pulling teeth.
This begs the question, too, how do they receive medical care? Kids should be visiting dentists and doctors often and see a stable PCP....
As someone who is chronically ill I cannot imagine being on a never ending trip. Literal hell. Sick people need a quiet place to live, private too.
@@xxmakeuplover05xxI don't watch a lot of the Nomad family, but I think I saw a short once that said they go back to their "home" state and town every few months for medical, and they have some kind of insurance that covers dental anywhere in the state?
If it's not them, it was one of these travelling families that said that. Which...it's pretty weird, they were talking about "it's just a plane ride back to they're primary if it's urgent lol" or something like that. Like they returned to their home state for specific things and medical was one of them
The family of nomads are living in a house and sending their kids to school now! so relieved to see
And mom and step-dad have broken up.
The Family of Nomads bought a house and sold their big RV! The mother said that it was never meant to be forever, but as a reset for the family :))
Yeah right more like the rest of the family voted no to continuing RV life
The definition of child abuse/endangerment/ etc changes depending on how much money the family has. Being a vanlifer is basically gentrified homelessness.
yes!!!
That's such a good point. A lower class family living out of a van with their kids is child abuse and neglect. A rich white family doing the exact same thing is "cool" and "exciting"
Homelessness with a home? Gentrification that doesn't limit access to resources?
@@verybarebones it limits access to a normal sized mattress
@@verybarebones also living in a van =\= having a home. you don’t have an address lmao.
"They spend so much time outside" BECAUSE THEY DONT HAVE PERSONAL SPACE OTHERWISE.
I would probably end up having a break down if I were forced to live in such an enclosed space with so many people.
Thank you for bringing up the disclaimer about the Romani and Roma.
living in an RV is only fair if you do it alone or with a partner who's also willing to do it. when you bring kids into it, it's messed up.
i feel so bad for the kids as it's clear that their parents are projecting their own dreams on their kids, and tend to speak for their kids rather than letting them speak for themselves
Also they probably won’t want their kids to speak negatively about them online or in videos. Especially if they are trying to create and maintain a image of a healthy happy family that never argues and everyone is happy. Kids will be pressured to be positive in situations like that especially if they can’t easily escape from their parent’s watch since they have no privacy in their rooms or at school away from their parents.
100% the reason we lived in an RV was so my dad could follow his dreams and passion projects. Those were more important than us having a house.
But parents do get to decide the child’s lifestyle and their childhood. when kids grow up they get to live their dreams and their lifestyle.
@@gPrussia11 That's not really the point. Parents are supposed to do what's best for their children. And it seems like these two are only doing what's best for themselves.
Family of Nomads is clearly a case of someone projecting their dreams onto their kids. You can tell that those kids want stability, but Jess spends all her time defending it on tiktok to strangers that “they love it!” I’m sure they love aspects of it, but they are probably afraid of speaking up about wanting something else.
The we talked to our kids about the “I’m an rv kid I hate my life” thing that went around really said a lot for me…
I hate how smug so many of these parents sound. As if their kids are better just because they live in an RV
The fact that their oldest child wished for a hotel
@@sophiagonzales8974 And not just a nigh or a weekend in a hotel, but a whole week in one.
@@carlycrays2831 I guess that says something about how much the kids don't really want a van.
The book Wayward by Alice Greczyn talks specifically her growing up in an evangelical home. When she was 11ish years old (If I remember correctly), her parents had this notion of 'following where god told them to go' and uprooted themselves and their 5 kids to essentially live in their car and pop up camper going from home to home of others evangelicals and sometimes family for some number of years. She really goes into detail about how much she disliked it, the instability, the lack of knowing how long they'd be somewhere or where they were going next. When driving long distances she mentioned that her only real source of privacy was her Walkman that she listened to, as it was really the only way she had to mute the noise of her parents and siblings.
It's a very interesting read and goes into a lot of those same issues mentioned in your video. I enjoyed this a lot 👍
Just as a update: the family of nomads have settled down and are no longer in the rv, i saw a random video of theirs pop up on my feed a bit ago.
When I was 13, my parents sold my late grandfather's home that we were living in and moved into an RV. My mother had been in the pursuit of becoming a content creator since the early 2000s, and had gone through many different things to try and succeed. She blogged about us (at the time, very young children), made videos of us, made us our own blogs, did cooking videos with us, you name it. So much of my life was spent wondering why my mother was behind her phone all the time. It is incredibly important to note, I was unschooled my entire life. She hated common core, and threatened us with sending us to public school, saying it would break us. What broke me was RV life. She was already a negligent, incredibly unreliable parent and her trying to put up a pretty front for content then turning around and neglecting the three of us was the cherry on top. This lifestyle is dangerous. It opens the door for indoctrinated, scared children who don't know how things actually work. I had to enroll in college with no high school diploma, and will never be able to explain the mental and emotional gap between me and the people who went to normal school and grew up in the same place all their lives. The parents don't know the damage they're doing, and it pains me to see these children go through the same shit I did and know that they're probably just as powerless to stop it. Fuck unschooling, and fuck RV life.
I worry about the "unschooled" kids. When I got pregnant my co-worker suggested I unschool because her sister did it. She said the kid got to pick what he wanted to "study" and it was video games. Oh hell, no! lol! My kids go to regular private school. Even homeschooling can be weird. My brother did a year and would meet occasionally with other homeschool kids. Most of them seemed really socially awkward and out of it - living in their own weird worlds. In my opinion the social aspect is equally important to the academic aspect of school. In retrospect, a lot of what I learned in school I don't need / use on a daily business. English, yes. Math, somewhat - but not the super advanced stuff. But social can really cause you depression and problems at work if you don't know how to interact with other people. The social aspect can make or break you career-wise.
@@LAStrangerLA Also, it's a pretty sad and dangerous view of life to only care about learning stuff if it's useful for you. It leads to a society of ignorant people who can't understand anything outside of their own little bubble of daily experiences. It also leads to more malleable and naive people to manipulate. I don't need to know what the DNA is in my daily life or what the Holocaust was and I didn't particularly care about it in school but at least if someone tries to convince me that vaccines will change my DNA or that the Holocaust didn't happen I can tell it's bullshit
Do you mean homeschool? I interpret unschool as the parents literally aren't teaching their child any math, English, or history
@Sophie M I do not mean just homeschooling, and that is very much what that was. My mother gave us history lessons probably twice, and she never taught us math so I had to play math catch up when I was 16 and realized "hey I know like no math"
@@LAStrangerLA I think it could work with the right child. I was "homeschooled" through the district in the last two years of high school, due to medical conditions. As soon as it became clear I could teach myself out of books (I had been doing that for years and then using class to do homework or write fanfic), they dropped down to just enough time to give me tests and answer any questions I had. It was great at the time, as I no longer felt like I wasted all my time sitting in classes where I could get the same info for less work. But I liked learning new things. I still watch a lot of educational TH-cam for fun, as an adult. It really, really takes the right sort of kid.
As an ex military kid who moved every 3 years or so, I HATED not having a stable friend group. I have always been envious of people who have a best friend they’ve known since they were little and stay friends as adults. I find it harder to have friendships as an adult.
Same here! Long lasting effects of socialization and the lack-there-of still linger in my adulthood
Damn that’s me but on the other side of the relationship. My civilian ass went to middle school on an Air Force base.
I feel this so much and now that I’m older it’s harder to make friends cause of jobs and higher education and you feel like catching up because of the lost time but now you have all these new responsibilities so it seems almost impossible
Same here. No military parents, but my dad’s job required him to move a lot. Never had stable friendships, and when I would get close, I would have to move again. It has affected me in so many ways and has made me really isolate myself. I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I can definitely relate with being jealous of people who’ve had that long-time childhood best friend. It’s hard to make friends now. Adulthood is a nightmare.
My dad was an air force kid and said the same. When I was 6 years old he turned down a job on the other side of the world because he didn't want us to have to do the same.
The first TikTok that family doesn’t live in a trailer I think that’s when they just go on vacation.
It looks exhausting for the kids. When she said they have lots of friend, it reminded me of the friends you make a camp. You say you'll write or call but you never do. Also having friends was my only way to confirm that other people do or don't live the way I live. I was unaware that alot of the "punishments" I received were not common place until I talked to my friends. You can be surrounded by tons of people and still feel isolated.
“All she wanted was to be in a hotel for her birthday, but we all missed our beds by the end!” Notice it’s always the mom saying the kids love it, not the kids.
My mom moved four hours away and lived in a hotel room for two years to keep her job so that she didn’t have to uproot me during my last two years of high school. She was 100% right on this - I was undiagnosed ADHD and having a hard enough time managing tough classes and relationships in the town and school system I’d been in my whole life. Adults who are all, “kids are natural nomads, they love traveling, they love constant change!” are self-centered, oblivious, and have apparently never met a shy, anxious, introverted, or neurodivergent kid.
My mom was an army brat and grew up everywhere. When my parents got divorced she bought a house three streets away from my dad and commuted to work three hours each way. She didn’t have to. But I appreciate it.
Kids thrive on routine. Ofcourse sometimes changes are inevitable and they do build resilience, however, moving around the country with your parents and homeschooling is not healthy.
the problem isn't RV life or van life. the problem still is abusive and narcisist parents.
as someone who was homeschooled my whole life with all my 6 siblings, i can confirm that we did not have friends 💀
moving around a lot and “making friends all over the country” just teaches you that relationships are not dependable and not to be trusted or to get invested in. :/ socializing MORE isn’t necessarily better if you’re not in one place long enough to form actual friendships
Like after the first couple of stops I’d probably just stop trying to make friends altogether
I was an RV kid. I went to 6 different elementary schools. Also I’m an only child. I’m GOOD at making new friends everywhere I go. Didn’t mean they stayed friends with me when I lived in an RV. Throwing rocks at me, screaming “TRAILER TRASH” and just 100% stopped speaking to me once they found out I didn’t live in a house. So even if you’re good at making friend, it doesn’t mean they’ll be kind.
I agree. I moved a lot because my mom was poor so we were couch to couch my whole childhood, and while I see the value in meeting lots of people, I never learned how to invest in a relationship, or how to discern what relationships were worth investing in
Yesss quality over quantity
One of my cousins had a very unstable nomad life growing up and what it taught her was to choose partners like her parents (abusive narc hippie types) for her first serious romantic relationships. And to be somewhat manipulative, exploitative and afraid of being abandoned. Which she's had to unlearn. Like yeah, she's really independent but because she raised herself.
My case was very similar but with a lot of parentification, neglect, tyrannical, conservative narcs for parents who wouldn't even let me leave the house and wanted to control my every move. And same, I had some nightmarish ex friendships because I was befriending people who reminded me of my parents and of that cousin (only friend during first years of childhood).
We're not independent, freethinking, empathic people due to our upbringings, but in spite of them.
It’s starting to feel like one of the best gifts you can give a child is keeping them off of social media as long as possible.
I must admit it was a good thing mom made me take down my Myspace as a teenager.
I think it's just weird to think that my one year old would have a story online before she can properly speak. I even hate the idea of anyone finding my blog posts from uni years. Grandparents sometimes posts about her but I've asked them not to post her face. There's a lot of weird pressure about giving children social media presence.
I cant imagine having to share a room with a sibling as a teen, I did for until I was about 12 and my sister and I almost constantly got in fights in the years before we got seperate rooms.
@sewer~rat That sounds like hell! My sister and I are 18 months apart so both equally as able to be a menace to the other, but having a younger sister? Damn lol
As an autistic person I can confirm, most of us need even more privacy and alone time than your average person, this includes having our own space. My psychologist literally told me that even my family's 2 week caravan stays are not good for (most) people with autism, so imagine a situation like that being your whole life. On top of that, things constantly changing before you can even get used to them isn't helping either. "RV-life" sounds like nightmare fuel to me lmao
Entire family for many is like 3-4 people, but for some reason the entire family for these people is mom, dad, 10 kids, grandma, auntie, 2 dogs, 3 cats, and a goldfish. And somehow mom and dad get a king bed, but the kids sleep on the couch or floor, and grandma sleep on the roof 😭
Not the roof😂 the auntie sleeps outside🤣
😭😭😭☠️☠️☠️☠️
This feels oddly accurate... And I don't want to make wrong conclusions in terms of correlation and causation, but most high education families reduce the amount of children yet mostly rv families are big families
Make of that what you want 😉😉
Goldfish sleeps on the dashboard
@@c12486 nono IN THE DASHBOARD, it's such an old bus that there's water inside of it
Last year a teenager from an RV vlogging family posted an anonymous Reddit post about how terrible it was. Many suspected it was Adison from Family of Nomads. Whoever it was, was so sad and frustrating to read :(
The original post was deleted but the thread is still there and you can find it read on TH-cam too ("I’m a teen in a full-time RV living vlogging family and I can’t fucking stand it.")
Yes I found that one too! It’s really sad - I can’t imagine essentially hating my life but being forced to seem happy & excited about it on camera
It was fake
@@soveryeri2 how do you know?
@@soveryeri2 Suuuuure
the original post was also uploaded on the wayback machine if anyone wants to read it
I'm currently in an RV life situation, and have been since January of 2021. The hardest part(s) are the socialization and the space/privacy. Being a teenager the entire time I have lived in the RV with my sibling, parents, and dog, friends have been my #1 thing. While traveling, I don't really meet any new friends. We were traveling every 2-5 days at one point, so it wasn't like I could build any relationships. Plus, many people don't have teenagers. It's mostly old people (we don't stay in large RV parks usually, which is where the kids are) Luckily enough for me, for the first year of living in an RV, I was travelling back to my hometown once a month for a week or so for volunteering commitments, so I got to see some of my friends then. Now, we only go back once a year.
With the space/privacy, my sister and I each have a bunk bed. When my dad built the bunks, he put into consideration the fact that we're teenagers and built them like little bedrooms. Each "room" has a sliding door. Our mattresses are smaller than twin sized by a little bit, just slightly thinner. I have two windows in my bunk, and have decorated it with lights and paintings and pictures. My sister, on the other hand, doesn't have any windows. She likes it though, so it's not a big deal. The only issue with privacy is just the fact that we don't have rooms, we have beds with doors. (Better than some RV families for sure, but still)
Before we moved into the RV, I was in school public school. (Up until September 2020, then we decided virtual learning wasn't that great and started home school) I have friends from school, and my older brother's friends who became family. (this brother moved out before we moved into the RV) They make it more okay, but that's not what I started this paragraph for. Homeschool/Outschool/Roadschool/whatever you want to call it. It's not that bad, when you have a good curriculum that you're following. The state that I moved from had pretty much no homeschool requirements, so I haven't done any type of state testing or anything in years. I have learned a lot though. I am learning Turkish and Spanish to better communicate with some foreign friends we made as a family. I have done better in history/science/ELA than I did in school bc I was always very stressed with all the tests and keeping my 4.0 GPA. I was a good student, but hated school and was constantly worried about my grades. Homeschool stopped that, and it's definitely been better for that. Math, however is harder than it was when I was in school. I am supposed to be through geometry and Algebra 1, but I'm still (re)learning some pre-algebra. I am fortunate enough to be able to get help from various people. I always get asked how I am going to get a job without a high school diploma, and it is a good question. I'm going to get my GED (also called HiSET in some places). This way I can be done with school and start college or working early if I want to.
In the next few months, my family is moving into a house though. Just so that my sister and I can focus on our studies and getting jobs. I am very happy for this because I will be able to live my last few years as a teenager as a proper teenager.
In total, RV is fun af when it comes to the traveling and experience, but if you have 10+ year olds, I don't recommend. (Unless you have just one kid, that's a lot easier) The parents can control so much more than you would even think living in an RV, socialization isn't there unless you're an influencer who has other "digital nomad" besties, and sometimes the education just isn't there. RV is a great thing for small families/couples/families with little kids. Also! Don't let this make you rethink your desire to travel in an RV! It could be absolutely amazing and nothing like what I've explained