JD and Brittany Lott- American Family Road Trip

[Xan]

Bottom line:  The Lotts should have gotten the baby looked at right after he was born.  There shouldn't even be discussion on this.  There is a lot of screening done with newborns for health problem, digestive issues, etc.  If you catch them early, many times you can do something about them.  You can't just weigh a baby at UPS and go on your merry way.

I am in no way diagnosing anything about the baby.  I am assuming he's fine.  I'm just saying that it was completely irresponsible to decide that you don't need any medical intervention at or after a birth.  For that matter, Brittany should have been checked too.  Maybe they're trying to save money. Whatever the reason, it was stupid.

And the way she jumped on this being about their faith was weird and irresponsible.  I don't know enough about them to even qualify them as fundie.  I would have made the same comments about people of any faith who forced their children to live in a bus and didn't get them medical attention.

Edited July 25 by Xan

[justpassingthru]

Here's a rough timeline because I can't find every post about them on Reddit:

They were in Florida through at least April 28, and then went up to Georgia.

They were then in NOLA on May 10, Texas was May 12, and by May 16 they were back in Florida. 

She says she doesn't post where they are that day but she specifically said that on May 10 and their paid subscribers get access to an itinerary which is ???

Edit: she snarkily made a comment on May 8 that he had been seen at a hospital and given a clean bill of health. We now know the context for that.

4 minutes ago, Xan said:

And the way she jumped on this being about their faith was weird and irresponsible.  I don't know enough about them to even qualify them as fundie.  I would have made the same comments about people of any faith who forced their children live in a bus and didn't get them medical attention.

They were at least fundie lite when they started. I linked to an interview and they were very faith driven. It seems like they drifted from that for more views and the God talk dropped significantly. 

Edited July 25 by justpassingthru
Thougts

[justpassingthru]

This does read like a phishing thing my job would send out.

[theotherelise]

The reason I don’t think the report was made by someone they interacted with IRL is because I don’t think there is anything reportable about having an unassisted home birth in Florida. What is the UPS guy going to say, they have a bunch of kids and filmed them? There was never any jaundice or lethargy or probably even any sunburn. They’re not good parents, but no random stranger or family member is going to call CPS because a newborn baby isn’t photogenic. 

I hate that I’m on the side of defending them, but that whole sub is obsessed with this baby and their idea of his many maladies. This is so far from being as bad as ruby franke even if you just look at her before she met Jodie. 

That subreddit is under a mass delusion about Boone to the point where they think he’s so sickly that a park ranger or camp site neighbor would report it to CPS. 

[justpassingthru]

They (CPS) don't take reports from the Internet seriously either.

Here's this master list of "concerns"

https://www.reddit.com/r/FundieSnarkUncensored/s/ncB4a7PQF3

[justpassingthru]

One brief thought: we're taking them at their word that CPS investigated for "sunburn, lethargy, jaundice" but it could have been for something else entirely and they are trying to control the narrative. 

What if it was an incident someone witnessed at the campground with one of the other children? It just seems hella odd that the concern was for Boone, but that's what Reddit has been about. 

They could say it was Reddit and Boone when it was a neighbor at the campground calling about something he saw with Swift (for example).

[FunFunFundie]

They are for sure fundie and they for sure don’t talk about it much, I assume for the page views. Because I don’t follow a lot of people on instagram but I do follow them, so I see when they engage on other people’s pages and they spew a lot of the same hateful shit or agree with it when, like, Karissa posts it. The narrative Britney puts out is that she just wanted a lot of kids and a crazy adventure. She very carefully crafts their image, which is why I am fascinated. Because I think a lot of it is bullshit.

Like, she has said that the kids do not babysit each other and they are in no way parentified. “That’s my job, I’m the mom.” But then she has time for long runs and the parents go on dates without kids, and they don’t have anybody around most of the time to help other than the kids.

She says they are careful stewards of their money but they bought everybody tickets to Brazil, and then back again on short notice. She says “this is how we choose to spend our money, instead of youth sports and fancy toys” and it just doesn’t add up. Youth sports, even for all their kids, wouldn’t cover multiple Disneyworld trips.

She says she never posts where they are but I think that’s a lie. I haven’t cross-referenced but I think there have been obvious moments when she is posting where they are like at the Disney half marathon. Well, and when Boone was born. Oh! A few weeks ago she posted in Utah and it was coming down hard and then I saw a news report about major floods in Utah that same day.

I think her appeal is that she’s pretty, young, and seems to be living a life that anybody could live if they wanted to. You don’t have to have money! You don’t have to be fundie! You don’t have to parentify the kids!

She’s kind of like Abby in that way - she’s selling a make-believe version of themselves.

But between the lines, they have money, they are fundie, their kids have zero friends or stability (she talks about this as a selling point, but Kinsey especially must have it rough), the big kids shoulder considerable responsibility, they have no regular medical care or social interactions. She’s not skirts-only but I would bet ten bucks that she spanks and expects immediate discipline. He scares me and I’m not completely sure why.
 

Oh! Another thing that made me mad was that she mentioned something the other day about a beloved toy she still had from her childhood and there is no way any of these kids can keep ANYTHING. 

I think she’s carefully selling a dream, and people are buying it. 

I don’t know what I think about Boone. She doesn’t show him that much. There are videos where he seems very much like he’s not tracking what’s going on, but I don’t think he’s featured enough for anybody to know - like, maybe she only posts videos of him when he’s exhausted and docile because he’s otherwise screaming because he’s colicky or something, who knows.

I’m sure the CPS thing pissed them off because they are selling a dream that I think even they believe. The fact that they posted one short video per day was such a performance. It’s stuff like that where I think you can see between the lines. It is alll carefully crafted for views.

[justpassingthru]

2 minutes ago, FunFunFundie said:

She says “this is how we choose to spend our money, instead of youth sports and fancy toys”

I thought at one point they were going to SC because of football, so the kids could play. Also, Gunner has his 3D printer and Kinsey has a keyboard.

 

3 minutes ago, FunFunFundie said:

She says she never posts where they are but I think that’s a lie.

May 10 she posted from New Orleans. 

 

5 minutes ago, FunFunFundie said:

but Kinsey especially must have it rough

I wondered if Kinsey wasn't the reason for CPS call. She's entering puberty with no privacy and at least one brother who's post pubescent. People are having their eyes open with large families and abuse thanks to the Duggars.

 

8 minutes ago, FunFunFundie said:

The fact that they posted one short video per day was such a performance.

The fact she's been wearing the same thing in the videos and the stories today is telling. It's an attention grab. They want to be famous and have been trying for years. Nobody would have known about CPS if they didn't blab. It's not a police report people could find. They could have brushed it away but no, they went full pick me. Now they are grifting. As an attention grab it's working for right now, eventually they'll get called out.

[hoipolloi]

Reddit is obsessed with these people. While it wouldn't surprise me if an idiot on the r/fundiesnark sub notified CPS, I doubt that was the only or major basis for a CPS inquiry. If it wasn't the chiropracter or another mandated reporter, it seems more likely that someone in their travels saw something *in person* (maybe many somethings) about the children's lives that didn't look right. Can you imagine running into these people at an RV park, parked next to you? Then watching the parents repeatedly rehearse the kids for their IG reels? I also wouldn't put it past Britney & JD to brag to anyone who would listen about their "influencer" status on IG. 

Bottom line: The parents are fucking assholes and their children deserve so much better.

Edited July 26 by hoipolloi

[FiveAcres]

If they were checked out by CPS in Florida, it is hard for me to imagine that it was based on Internet reporters who have not directly observed abuse. Protective services in Florida are just too underfunded and overwhelmed.

I found this: https://www.myflfamilies.com/sites/default/files/2022-10/mandatedreporters.pdf

Chapter 39 of the Florida Statutes (F.S.) mandates that any person who knows, or has
reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is abused, neglected, or abandoned by a parent,
legal custodian, caregiver, or other person responsible for the child's welfare shall
immediately report such knowledge or suspicion to the Florida Abuse Hotline of the
Department of Children and Families.

Hell, since the Lotts do the date night thing, it might have just been some irritated people in a trailer park observing that the children had been left on their own (possibly including a newborn) while the parents were out living it up. I doubt it was the chiropractor, since I suspect that any chiropractor they would take a newborn to was just as dodgy as the Lott parents. 

 

 

[llucie]

The most worrying thing about them is their sleeping arrangements, dont seem safe to me at all. And of course there is educational neglect. But i have been following fundies for too long to think CPS will be doing anything about that.

About the baby, he did look sunburned for a while, and by their own admission they were treating mild jaundice putting him on the sun. That was a worrying situation and i understand the original concern but i feel like reddit then got too carried away. They were so sure he had something wrong with his eyes, that he was blind or deaf or paralised. Even now that he got checked by a doctor on CPS mandate that has said he is healthy there is still people saying its not true and that they must be lying.

[justpassingthru]

The sleeping situation scares me because I'm constantly reminded of the Copeland's. They lived in a bus with their four kids and one night it caught fire. The middle kids escaped outside but the eldest and youngest and the father all received burns as they tried to get to safety. I can't imagine a scenario like that for the Lotts

[FilleMondaine]

@FunFunFundie I hope so much that you do get to go to Brazil one day. And to enjoy it, unlike these guys.

My family is not an exact parallel, we are a military family that has to regularly move. Still, I see in my own child and other military-connected children the impact of place instability. Some kids like it, and other kids don’t. Some kids develop serious mental health issues. Fingers crossed for the Lott kids.

I agree with @justpassingthru about the CPS call. The sleeping arrangements are problematic, and they cannot cite poverty as a reason. 

[justpassingthru]

We weren't military but we moved every couple years and it was hell. Making friends was never an easy task. By the time I was a senior in high school I was so done with school. I did what I could to pass and graduate.

As an adult, I moved a couple times but the longest duration was 10 years in Georgia. I didn't want to move again but we were able to move "home" to Texas (home is used loosely) to be close to friends and family. 

Every couple years I get the itch to move. I don't actually want to, but it's like my mind has been trained to think that way. 

[Howl]

Military kid here.  The three-year cycle:  The big move was a transfer to my dad's new assignment.  We would live in civilian housing for around 1.5 years until base housing had an opening.  So, new schools and new friends (if things went well) every 1.5 yrs.  

For an introverted kid like me, it was not ideal.  

[Alisamer]

13 hours ago, theotherelise said:

The reason I don’t think the report was made by someone they interacted with IRL is because I don’t think there is anything reportable about having an unassisted home birth in Florida. What is the UPS guy going to say, they have a bunch of kids and filmed them? There was never any jaundice or lethargy or probably even any sunburn. They’re not good parents, but no random stranger or family member is going to call CPS because a newborn baby isn’t photogenic. 

I hate that I’m on the side of defending them, but that whole sub is obsessed with this baby and their idea of his many maladies. This is so far from being as bad as ruby franke even if you just look at her before she met Jodie. 

That subreddit is under a mass delusion about Boone to the point where they think he’s so sickly that a park ranger or camp site neighbor would report it to CPS. 

I think it's important to remember that what we, and those on Reddit, see is carefully curated. We only see what the Lotts want us to see. We only know what they tell us (including the CPS thing - no one would know if they hadn't decided to fundraise off of it!). So we really don't know what people might have seen. And don't underestimate what a random Karen might decide is CPS report worthy! 

I'm fairly sure the Lotts themselves mentioned the baby had mild jaundice and they were putting him in the sun to treat it - traditional way of handling such a thing, and alone not that big a deal.

But. Say someone at the campground called in due to something - disturbed by the baby crying, the unassisted birth, kids running around unaccompanied or late at night, yelling from the parents, having that many kids living in that small a space full time, literally ANYTHING. Probably nothing there, but the report is noted. Then maybe someone at the UPS store calls in just to check what the rules are, because they are in there weighing a newborn on their scale and that is deeply strange. Nothing there, but noted. Then maybe a family member, knowing the baby was 2 weeks late and born unassisted in a bus and at a fairly large size, calls in just to see if a welfare check can be done, because they know so far the baby has only seen a chiropractor (as the doctor visit with the "clean bill of health" was only reported AFTER the CPS issue apparently was going on, as best I can tell). Then a mandated reporter happens to be near them at some point when mom is dangling the baby barely holding on while a crowd of kids mill around and mom is obsessed with her phone, and is concerned enough to call. Maybe someone with experience with babies sees the little one and interacts with them, then googles them, and what they see concerns them enough to call.

Maybe there IS nothing, but I can see how several "nothings" can add up to "we better at least check because this family's name keeps coming up."

So yeah I agree the piling on is a LOT and there very well may be nothing to be concerned about. I think from what I've seen them show I'd be making sure the kid got a checkup to be sure, but it's possible there's nothing. But I can also see how CPS could possibly have checked in with them, because their situation IS concerning in some ways and they could have gotten calls about them from people in real life.

And I think it's interesting that apparently the CPS issue was just weeks after his birth and they're just NOW talking about it and making a stink. Which makes me think they're grifting to help fund their next trip abroad.

I personally am one who, when I was considering having a kid at one point, was leaning toward the more natural, less intervention, learning by experiences and living, etc sort of path. I don't have a problem with homeschooling or home birthing (done safely as possible and preferably with a licensed skilled midwife) or traveling a lot, or any of those things. I do have an issue with the kids' sleeping arrangements as a permanent situation and the fact they seem to have no real stability, with them seeming to not bother to have an actual new baby check after the birth, and with how cagey they seem to be about some things.

And these are the parents who didn't get their other kid's eyes checked until many people online pointed out his eyes weren't aligned correctly and he clearly needed a checkup, and yep, he needed glasses badly. So I'm not sure I trust their judgement, you know?

12 hours ago, FunFunFundie said:

They are for sure fundie and they for sure don’t talk about it much, I assume for the page views. Because I don’t follow a lot of people on instagram but I do follow them, so I see when they engage on other people’s pages and they spew a lot of the same hateful shit or agree with it when, like, Karissa posts it. The narrative Britney puts out is that she just wanted a lot of kids and a crazy adventure. She very carefully crafts their image, which is why I am fascinated. Because I think a lot of it is bullshit.

I notice that lately they only mention being Christian when it benefits them by letting them claim persecution by "hate groups". They seem in practice to be about as Christian as Lori Alexander, which is not very, IMO.

I think claiming Christianity gives them an excuse to live the life they want, have tons of babies whether they can adequately parent them or not, gives them a religious excuse for their odd beliefs whether they are actual beliefs or just laziness, gives them a way to cry persecution when they are criticized, and gives them a built in audience to grift from when they decide they want to or need to. And it gives them a sense of superiority, too. Look at them, so Godly. So Godly that people are persecuting them! So Godly that all their babies are absolutely perfect no matter what anyone thinks. So Godly that they refuse to work real jobs and instead go around traveling to random spots whenever they feel like it God tells them to.

Whether there's anything wrong with baby Boone or not, I find these people definitely pretty snarkable.

[closetcagebaby]

Boone’s birth, by their own admission, sounds fucking awful. 30 minutes, unassisted, in a bus bathroom and JD had to “pull him out”??? Sounds traumatizing to everyone including the kids who had to witness that. 

[justpassingthru]

25 minutes ago, closetcagebaby said:

including the kids who had to witness that. 

She's contradicted herself describing who witnessed. She says everyone slept through it except Kinsey and Gunner. But then said Kinsey slept through it

[FunFunFundie]

There have been times at campgrounds when I have considered calling the campground authorities just because the people next to me are loud and obviously have more than the allowed number of people there. Actually, come to think of it, I just made reservations at a campground that the Lotts went to (*because* they went there - it looked beautiful and is in a region I want to take my kids to), and 100% for sure the limit per site is six people. Which is not the same as calling CPS, but even if things are exactly as Britney says, they are constantly breaking the rules based on sheer numbers, there are a bunch of kids who are surely unruly or at very least unsupervised often, and they are in places where people go to find peace and quiet. It wouldn’t take much to piss off a campground neighbor, who then might be on the lookout for a reason to report.

[FunFunFundie]

I did not until this moment think of the horror of being 13 or however old Kinsey is, waking up to your mom screaming in the tiny bus you call a house, watching your dad pull a baby out of your mom’s vagina amid all the other shit that comes out. When the bus is the one thing in your life that is somewhat stable, and the only people you can count on are in the  middle of that chaos. And then to be constantly gaslit about how “the kids are fine” and “thanks for checking on us” and “childbirth is so beautiful” and “adventure!” My kids get upset if they wake up and I have a bad cough.

Again, even if things are as they say they are, which is doubtful, it’s AWFUL.

[justpassingthru]

Kinsey is 11, almost 12. Gunner is 13

[Giraffe]

9 minutes ago, FunFunFundie said:

I did not until this moment think of the horror of being 13 or however old Kinsey is, waking up to your mom screaming in the tiny bus you call a house, watching your dad pull a baby out of your mom’s vagina amid all the other shit that comes out. When the bus is the one thing in your life that is somewhat stable, and the only people you can count on are in the  middle of that chaos. And then to be constantly gaslit about how “the kids are fine” and “thanks for checking on us” and “childbirth is so beautiful” and “adventure!” My kids get upset if they wake up and I have a bad cough.

Again, even if things are as they say they are, which is doubtful, it’s AWFUL.

Someone once brought up a family that lived a similar way. Apparently one of the children wrote about the trauma of it once they entered adulthood. If anyone knows who I'm talking about I'd love a link if you find it. 

[justpassingthru]

Wavewalker was a memoir wrote about living on a sailboat

Wayward is another one

[BensAllergies]

It looks like he may have deleted the tweets, but JD has posted in recent months about switching the bus for a boat. When they were in Florida, they posted about looking at some boats. I really, really hope that they aren’t going to jump on that impulse.

@justpassingthruI added that book to my reading list when it was first mentioned on a different thread, but I opted to read the Coyote Sunrise fictional books first. Not Christian and entirely made up but a relevant read about bus life.

[justpassingthru]

So another page shared the Lott's story and this is a comment on that post. People believe "Fundy Snark" is a person. There are at least a couple other comments that refer to the sub as a person

 

Edited July 27 by justpassingthru