I’m going shopping—oh wait, I don’t have any money. You’re an adult, you could just put it on credit. Season 2, Episode 3 is about as close as we ever get to discussing finances with the Brown family, which is, of course, one of the aspects of this big plural family that people have the most questions about. How do the Bills get paid? How does the division of labor and childcare happen? Do members of the family have the freedom to take from the Joint Financial pot equally to which they’ve contributed unequally? And how did adding Robin affect what the OG3 and Cody had already established?

This was a fascinating episode, especially witnessing Cody and Robin scrambling to justify Robin’s presence in this family with her financial contribution of zero. Honestly, this is probably also a point of resentment for Christine because they tried to tack Robin on as a childcare provider, but we know she didn’t do any meaningful childcare for these kids. She didn’t even provide meaningful childcare to her own kids.

I just recapped this episode on Monday night with James and Amanda, and the thought has occurred to me that without Christine and Janelle, Cody and Robin are almost certainly headed for financial ruin. We have a lot to talk about. Let’s get into today’s video.

Hey everyone, what’s up? It’s Sarah, and welcome back to my channel. One of the things I am looking forward to the most about Season 19 is seeing just how Cody and Robin manage their finances now that the OG3 have pulled their financial support. I’m genuinely concerned that these two are about as fiscally equipped to take on life as Cisu was learning about credit for the first time from the movie Rya.

I’ll be buying this with credit. “Oh, I like that.” Yeah, I’ll be using credit. “Yes.” Are you going to pay for any of that? “Oh, right, right. No, this is on credit.”

After rewatching Season 2, Episode 3, it really dawned on me just how valuable Christine and Janelle were to the fiscal health of the Brown family. Fundamental Mormon polygamy has got to be one of the most complicated ways to structure a family. You have all of the kids and hopefully, you have multiple revenue streams, but you have multiple households with multiple households’ worth of bills. It’s a lot.

And Janelle was not only the worker wife, but she was also the bill-payer of the family. “All right, so I’m going to pay this, and then I’ll pay the power. This one hasn’t been paid this month yet. I have the money. We have the money set aside. I just need to get it paid.”

Janelle was the one making sure the electricity didn’t get shut off because someone forgot to pay a bill. And then here comes Robin. “So, uh, here’s my 30k worth of credit card debt. I’ll just leave this here on the counter.” Janelle kisses.

I seriously doubt Janelle ever received an appropriate level of gratitude from specifically Cody for making sure things like the mortgage got paid, deciding what bills get paid with what paychecks. It’s a lot of work. Sure, Cody can go out and make money and deposit his check into a checking account, but the reason why none of these women subscribed to patriarchy when they married him is because they were all running their own households.

Why would Janelle pretend Cody is the head of her household when Janelle is basically the head of all the houses in all the ways that mattered? I mean, she was the one making sure the lights stayed on.

Janelle and Christine really worked in tandem together to keep the family operating like a well-oiled machine. Resources were finite, but these two always found a way to make it work. Janelle was the one who made sure the bills got paid, and Christine was the one making sure to stretch the family’s dollars as far as possible. “The way that I bring money into the family is because I save the family money by really watching what I shop, by buying in bulk, by canning. That’s how I can help out financially with the family.”

I am positive that Christine’s financial contributions to this family were never appropriately recognized. Not only is she doing about three full-time jobs being a stay-at-home mom to all these kids, but she is also spending a great deal of time finding ways for the family to save money.

When I was growing up, my mom used to spend hours couponing. We had to. That was the way we had to grocery shop. My mom had this plastic container that had little index files, and that’s how she organized her coupons. I remember every week helping her clip coupons. Then she would go through and take out any that were expired, and then she would plan her shopping trip. And even after all that prep and planning, we still spent like 2 hours at the grocery store. I mean, if you’ve ever been grocery shopping while couponing, you know that it takes forever.

I see this clip of Christine in the grocery store, and I know based on my own upbringing that she probably put in at least 6 to 8 hours of prep work before even stepping foot into that grocery store. And did she ever get a thank you from Cody? I seriously doubt it.

I think the closest thing to a domestic compliment she ever got from him was the time Cody told Robin that Christine could show her how he likes his eggs.

And this is why I found it in particularly poor taste for Robin to decide to portray herself as one of the stay-at-home moms. Janelle, Mary, and Cody were all bringing home paychecks. Christine was the stay-at-home mom. Robin, who worked before joining this family, for some reason decided to not work anymore after Mary and Cody. Why? I know she had to move, so she had to quit the job she was working at. But why wasn’t it possible for her to find employment in Lehi? Where was she looking?

I talked about this during my live with James and Amanda, but there is no job I feel like I’m too good for if it comes down to being able to feed my kids or not. There’s really no job I’m not willing to work.

Christine makes this statement, and it’s what I can only describe as a polygamy propaganda statement. In this episode, when she proclaims that she’s so grateful to have another stay-at-home mom in Robin. “This is going to be so great. It’s going to be so helpful.” Literally right before this, McKel was living with Robin, providing Robin childcare. So if Robin isn’t taking care of her own kids, why were we, as the audience, so gullible to believe that she would be offering any kind of meaningful help to Christine?