The 18th season of Sister Wives is underway and viewers are seeing the Brown family more divided than ever in the wake of Christine and Kody Brown‘s split. Meri Brown and Janelle Brown have since followed in Christine’s footsteps and separated from the Sister Wives patriarch, who is now married only to Robyn Brown, and it’s clear the plural marriages have had an impact on the children.
Christine and Janelle Brown spoke to People about their grown children and said none of them have chosen to pursue plural marriages. “None of our children have chosen to live polygamy,” Janelle Brown told the publication. “We don’t even have any really that are in the Mormon church, the mainstream [Latter-Day Saints] church.”
“When they were growing up, we always just encouraged them to have a relationship with God, and I think many of them do in their own way,” she continued. “I think polygamy is hard, and I think you really do have to have a religious conviction, and they just don’t.”
During the August 27 episode of Sister Wives, Christine Brown’s son Paedon, 25, said they first started doing the TLC show so that viewers could see that “polygamy works.” However, he added, “I don’t think it works in my family anymore.” In fact, his mother told People that some of the Brown children have seen firsthand the difficulty of living in a plural marriage and are now seeing the breakups. “They see how hard it is and they’re like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. No, that’s not for me,'” she added.
Despite the fractured family viewers see every Sunday and the sometimes tense relationship between the adults, Janelle Brown said she was happy that their children are all still close like siblings. She said it was the sister wives’ goal to raise all their kids together like siblings, so she was happy that the “kids are all the same.” She shared that her interactions with all the children haven’t changed, and all the children have the same sibling bond. “With Christine and I, we’re very close, there’s a lot of camaraderie,” she continued. “With Meri and Robyn and Kody, to some degree, it’s still very polite, superficial, not antagonistic — it’s not mean.”
Kody Brown has 18 children in total from his four relationships, with their ages ranging from 7 to 29. Christine and Kody Brown have six children together: daughters Aspyn, Mykelti, Gwendlyn, Ysabel, and Truely, and a son named Paedon. Kody and Janelle Brown also have six children together: sons Logan, Hunter, Garrison, and Gabriel, and two daughters named Madison and Savanah.