I find the lack of toys and games we see in that house of 6 kids really odd. Watched Heze’s 10th birthday video and he had a decent sized pile of gifts, but every single thing was clothes/shoes. Not one toy or game, but they aren’t buying him clothes as presents because they can’t afford to buy non-essentials as all the clothes were Nike etc so expensive stuff. The only ‘fun’ thing they bought him was hair dye, again though that’s just encouraging this excessive vanity they have over their hairstyles. Even the gifts from relatives were clothing, the only one gift he got that would lead to a play activity was a bag of water balloons. If it was left to his parents he would have had nothing that wasn’t vanity/clothing related. There is also a moment where, I think it was Rue, moved the football away from Heze’s side, and Heze looked genuinely panicked in getting it back again.
Skimming through some of the other birthday videos, it looks to be similar that most of what they buy the kids is just encouraging vanity. Halle’s birthday they were in new pyjamas sat in tepees looking at themselves in mirrors, for Hosannas it was a trip to a nail bar for the girls.
Heze’s 11th birthday was the best, a quad biking experience, but only Hosanna was tall enough to join in. At the start of the video, in the background Ella and Heze can be heard having a conversation about his football, as Heze can’t bear to be parted with it, so he had to wear a backpack during the quad biking purely so his football was still attached to him, that was bizarre…why not just tell him to leave it at home as it’s not a place he can play football. Does he sleep holding a football as well? It’s like a comfort blanket and very unhealthy.
For Houston’s birthday there were some toys, but then aged 1 maybe she is allowed to play more then the others. The secret Santa was a mixed bag, Heze and Rue got toys (chosen by siblings not parents), and Houston got a toy ‘Walker’ which was probably something she was going to need anyway. The 3 girls all got toiletries. Another interesting thing, when they shopped for the secret Santa (not in a toy shop, it looked like it was somewhere such as b&m), a random family approached them and said they watched their channel. Ella and Tim were very happy about that and happy for all the kids to pose for a photo, the kids waved etc, but were quite quiet and at moments looked frightened. Tim even said to Hosanna ‘don’t be scared’ when he asked her to move to stand in place for a photo with this other family’s kids. I think the grown up, confident nature of their children, is only when they are with their own family…they aren’t used to socialising with other children and can’t cope with meeting strangers.
It seems to me that Tim and Ella don’t want their children to play games like children usually do. I haven’t yet seen any videos of them playing board games, building lego, doing jigsaws, art toys or games for the sake of experimenting, no chemistry sets, they don’t seem to even have cuddly toys, no video games or pokemon cards. Nothing that most children ask for. They clearly spend a small fortune on clothes and their appearance, so it’s not a cost issue. I think they so it intentionally, in order to keep the boys focussed on football and the girls focussed on being mini housewives. I think this could be why Hosanna, for example, is so helpful around the home and even cooks roast dinners willingly…because she doesn’t have any toys or hobbies to occupy her time so otherwise she would be extremely bored, there is only so much time she can spend looking in the mirror and dancing for tiktoc, and the homseschooling as we know is is just some basic workbooks, which for a bright child as most of them seem to be, is not going to fill up much of their time.
it’s does show lovely attitudes of the kids when they get gifted things that aren’t any fun, such as as when Hosanna and Halle squealed with delight at being gifted lynx body wash, but I do question why those kids aren’t feeling that they are missing out on normal childhood pleasures. They do seem to have bikes, so at least that’s one way they can get out and have some proper fun. Tim and Ella, on the path they are taking those kids, will end up with extremely vain adults incapable of seeing past their own reflection in the mirror.
So by the sounds of it they viewed either a 3 or 4 bedroom house.
she really didn’t have much to say in Rochelle’s documentary. 