Ruby Franke, the mother of six behind the family YouTube channel “8 Passengers,” has been charged with six counts of felony child abuse by the Washington County Attorney in Utah, a spokesperson for the attorney’s office confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday.
Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were arrested last week after law enforcement found Franke’s 12-year-old son emaciated and with open wounds and duct tape on his wrists and ankles. The boy had climbed out of a window of Hildebrandt’s home and ran to a neighbor house for help, according to a probable cause affidavit acquired by NBC News.
Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was found at Hildebrandt’s home in a similar malnourished condition, according to the affidavit. Officials said the condition of the children was so severe that they were transported to a local area hospital. Franke’s other four children were taken into the care of Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services.
Hildebrandt was also charged with six counts of felony child abuse. Each count carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000, the county attorney told NBC News in an emailed statement.
This is very common homeschooling education.
Homeschooling doesn’t automatically mean child abuse. I was homeschooled and knew a lot of homeschooled kids, and none of us were ever abused.
A child abuser will abuse children and good people don’t. It’s as simple as that.
Not every homeschooled child is abused, but when I worked for CPS, a HELL of a lot of abusive families used it as a means to keep their kids away from those pesky mandatory reporters.
That’s fair. I definitely think it needs better oversight, if it’s to exist at all.
Absolutely, not only for child welfare, but for basic education standards. I’ve seen homeschool be everything from structured classes for 8 hours, to sit here and read the Bible for 8 hours.
That you know about. You can’t speak for what other kids in other families might have been going through.
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For sure, socialization is super important, and you need to be very intentional about it with homeschooling. Personally, I grew up with both a very tight-knit group of friends from other homeschooling families (and actually a few that weren’t homeschooled). I also went to what’s called a “co-op” for a time, which is basically like a school run by a bunch of parents that take turns teaching classes and such. I also did attend a normal school until I was 9, which I’m sure affected my early development of social skills. And on top of all that, I went to university and worked a number of very social jobs, all of which helped a lot.
But yeah, homeschooling is certainly not without its own issues and personally I’m not planning on homeschooling my own son, which I’m sure tells you plenty.
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As someone who was homeschooled and now holds a master’s degree, I will proudly own the ‘weirdo’ title and make no claims to normalcy. And I suspect most of my 7 siblings would do the same.
But saying we’re all ‘likely retarded’ is a bit peculiar to me. Most homeschoolers I’ve met (which I suspect is more than most folks, being from inside the community) come from high-functioning or highly-religious families, with very few notably ‘retarded’. How many homeschool kids have you actually known?
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I’m very against homeschooling. It breeds religious zealotry, stunts communal empathy, an open mind, and critical thinking skills.
All this talk about grooming, and that’s what I see homeschooling as (though not really in the sexual sense).
Eh… I see where you’re coming from, and I’m generally against homeschooling as well. For various reasons, I wish I hadn’t been and wouldn’t do so for my child.
That said, I’m inclined to disagree. It only promotes what the parents put into it - which, yes, often is a lot of religion, but it isn’t intrinsic to the practice. The religious component I suspect is where you get the stunting of open-mindedness and critical thinking ideas, but fwiw I and several of my siblings have since left the faith for atheism, and even those who still participate in religion are mostly rather progressive. I do fully recognize that I and my siblings are probably the exception in this regard, so in those aspects I think your opinion generally represents the actual outcomes of homeschooling as it exists in the US, and probably is not that unpopular outside of homeschooling circles - but I would reiterate that I don’t think it’s intrinsic to homeschooling; rather, I think it’s a result of who in the US tends to choose to homeschool.
As for the idea that it stunts communal empathy, I’m a little bit baffled. I work in a mental hospital, one of my sisters has spent a year volunteering at orphanages in Ghana, one of my cousins (who was also homeschooled) runs a rural mission hospital in Bangladesh, etc… My observation is that most homeschooling families are rather pro-social and fully embrace the concepts of community and communal support of one another (even if they have eaten the socialism-is-bad propaganda; their rationale then is just that charity should come from the community itself rather than being subject to government mandate and bureaucratic inefficiency), so I’m curious what gives you that idea.
not the person you replied to, but someone with similar opinions: of your 3 examples, only you are still working in the community you presumably grew up in and live in. homeschooling can make it difficult to feel tied to your local community; often, they are perceived as “other” and feel themselves separate, at least the ones I’ve met. you may all feel driven to work for “communal good”, but it seems like it’s often done as an outsider to the community. there’s no “communal empathy” because you(generally, the home schooled) aren’t part of the community.
I have awful social anxiety - when I was little it was just called “painfully shy” - and my mother considered home schooling as an alternative. my grandmother was an elementary school teacher in the local public school system, and said the most valuable thing they taught in school was how to navigate socially. everything else can be taught outside school, but it’s extremely difficult to give kids the opportunity to learn societal norms and how to deal with peer groups when they aren’t interacting with people outside their small group on a daily basis. I’m honestly not sure how well I’d function in society as an adult if my mother hadn’t listened to my grandmother. I learned a lot of my social skills at school, more than I could in church or clubs where the peers were fewer and our similarities greater.
Appreciate the reply. Perhaps my view of homeschooling is all hyper-religious families who tend to be the evangelical type, as a whole I see that population of people as lacking empathy, critical thinking skills, etc.
I just don’t see the need for homeschooling as it just perpetuates this evangelical religious fervor. Besides, we live in a society of different backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities. Schools are a good place to meet people who are different than you.
Probably the “highly-religious” part.
Being around other kids helps kids learn social skills.
Most of us do that in school. Homeschooled kids can lack that depending on how the parent socializes their kids. Some homeschooling parents realize that they have to socialize their kids. Those parents put their kids in sports or scouts or other places where the kid can socialize. Other parents are oblivious that social skills are learned, then you can end up with some really awkward people out there.
I get you’re going for the literal “retarded”, like the “developmentally delayed” kind… but man that was a bold choice to use the word literally in the same sentence as calling them weirdos lol