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Writer's pictureRachel Ulatowski

8 Passengers: YouTuber's Children Cleaned Floors & Got No Christmas Gifts

Updated: Jul 30, 2022

A family vlogging YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, made headlines in 2020 after parents, Kevin and Ruby Franke, were accused of abusing their children. However, it seems the Franke family has not learned anything from their abuse scandal, after Ruby revealed in a shocking video that she pulled her children out of school to clean floorboards all day and gave them no Christmas presents on Christmas 2021. The 8 Passengers first came under scrutiny in 2020, after revealing that their teenage son, Chad, slept on the floor for 7-months as a punishment for pranking his younger brother. They also received criticism for letting their kindergartener go without lunch the whole day, as punishment for her forgetting to grab her packed lunch on the way out the door. The scandal sparked a CPS investigation, which was closed for a lack of evidence. However, the grim second part to their abuse scandal has seemingly surfaced on YouTube.


No Presents For Christmas?!


Ruby and Kevin Franke have recently stepped back from YouTube and have joined ConneXions, an organization that seeks to provide mental health counseling to individuals and couples. As part of her ConneXions role as a "life coach," Ruby has been partaking in several "workshops." These "workshops," are short 3-min YouTube videos in which Ruby and/or Kevin speak out on real-life instances to provide advice for others. On December 21, 2021, the official ConneXions YouTube channel released a video titled, "Christmas with no presents? [Live Couple's Workshop]." The video features a solo Ruby discussing her extreme punishments for two of her children. However, it is not just any of her children - it is her two youngest children, Russell and Eve, who are 10-years-old and 8-years-old, respectively.


Ruby Says Her 10 & 8-Year-Old Are Selfish


Ruby starts off the video expressing fear (rightfully s0) of what she is about to say. She then goes on to say that the two youngest of her six children (while not named, followers of 8 Passengers can easily tell this is referring to Russell and Eve) have been showing patterns of selfishness. Ruby claimed the two young children had made "egregious choices" that they refused to "repent" and "show sorrow" for. She indicated that the two children had expressed selfishness for months and months, resulting in a need for her to cause them enough pain to make them repent from their ways.

Russell & Eve; photo credit @passengers.kevin

Pulled From School & Cleaning Floorboards All Day


Ruby revealed that she pulled her 10-year-old and 8-year-old children out of school and made them clean floorboards all day to bring them enough "pain" to make them want to change their behavior. When the sweet kids expressed enthusiasm at getting to spend all day cleaning floorboards, Ruby decided that they needed a more serious punishment.


Santa Came For Your Siblings, But Not You


Ruby was disappointed that Russell and Eve didn't experience enough pain from being denied an education and made to clean floors all day long. She said that it was because they were "numb" and needed a more devastating experience to "wake them up." As a parent, Ruby expressed that she is willing to do "anything" to make her children repent, unlike most parents. As a result, Kevin and Ruby sat the children down and told them they "would not be visited by Santa." They "prepped" their 8 and 10-year-old children, by telling them that their four older siblings would receive Christmas gifts on Christmas morning, but they would not. Instead, they would receive the gift of "love" from their parents, essentially telling them that their parents are gifting them with a painful experience to make them realize the error of their ways. She claimed that Santa not coming for the 8-year-old and 10-year old children was because Ruby and Kevin were giving them the gift of "reflection of truth."

Eve Franke; photo credit @8passengers

 

All that can be said of Ruby's shocking revelation, is that it is deeply, deeply disturbing. To begin with, an innocent 8-year-old and 10-year-old child, are spoken about as if they are criminals and monsters. As for the two children being selfish - well, they probably are! So what?! It is completely NORMAL for an 8-year-old and 10-year-old CHILD to be selfish at that age. As for the two needing "repentance," "sorrow," and "pain" because of their choices - absolutely NOT. A child of that age is not capable of making "egregious choices" that would warrant such extreme measures on a parents' part. What Ruby seems to be demanding of her children, is for them to "repent" for being children and being prone to the tantrums, selfishness, and childishness that is normal at that age. Meanwhile, Russell and Eve likely couldn't even comprehend why or what they were being punished for, thus, they took to cleaning floors with a delighted and happy, child-like spirit. Thus, Ruby decided that she had to completely crush the spirits of her children by giving them no Christmas presents. Not only that, but all four of their older siblings - aged 18, 16, 14, and 13 - received gifts on Christmas morning. It was only to the two youngest, most impressionable children, who still believe in Santa and to whom Christmas is the highlight of the year, who were denied Christmas presents. Ruby Franke let her 10-year-old and 8-year-old children sit and watch their older siblings open gifts on Christmas morning while they got none, as punishment for them being children.

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