Kody Brown and his four wives have stirred up their share of controversy through their show Sister Wives, and now, their handling of COVID-19 has fans irate. With his marriages falling apart, and the wives able to hide their jealousies anymore, Kody wanted to move everyone into one house, hoping it would fix the problems. That only led to more arguments among the wives, most of whom don’t want to live together. Then the pandemic hit and put Kody in a precarious position, trying to quarantine while having four families in four different houses is impossible without completely cutting off some of his wives and children. Kody’s solution hasn’t impressed viewers, who have called him out online.
Sister Wives was always meant to be a series that showed people that polygamy is not all the negative things they assumed it to be. Unfortunately, it seems to be exactly what people expected, an unhappy and difficult situation for the wives, with jealousy and competition for attention from their husband. Even Kody has talked about not being an advocate for this way of life anymore as the older he gets, the more he understands the unfair situation he has put his wives in. However, that breakthrough hasn't seemed to change his behavior at all.
With the 2020 pandemic, everyone has struggled to find their new normal. It’s even harder if you aren’t running a single household, but four of them. Kody is used to being the patriarch of all the households, the one who is in charge of everyone, setting the rules for his children and the rules for his wives. Assessing the situation, he decided it would be best for everyone to quarantine apart and stay in their individual homes. But that rule only applied to everyone else, not to him. He traveled between all four houses, while simultaneously telling his kids that they couldn’t even visit their siblings in other houses. Recently, Kody posted on Twitter that “Big families need to lower exposure risk.” Viewers pointed out on social media that Kody could infect all four households that way, even if he was the only one traveling around.
While some people appreciated this sentiment and glad he was taking the risk seriously, others questioned why he thought it was safe for him to go around as he wanted, but he expected his family to stay home. Janelle had at least one child who didn’t have the luxury of working from home, so she made the sacrifice of asking Kody not to come over so there was no risk of infecting the whole family. Instead of accepting this, Kody complained that he was being “punished” and couldn’t understand why Janelle’s kids couldn’t stay home instead, meaning they would lose their jobs.
Kody Brown has always made decisions in life based on what would make him the happiest (for example having four wives), with less regard for his family. The fact that he can have as many wives as he chooses, but all of them have to share only him reinforces the idea that his happiness is more important than everyone else’s. It’s really no surprise that in the added chaos of a pandemic, his number one concern is that his life be as unaffected as possible. While some people are calling him out, long-time viewers simply aren’t surprised.
Source: Kody Brown