‘Welcome to Plathville’ spoilers is a stroll into a world that we don’t often get to see, strict, rigid, fundamentalist Christianity with rules about every little thing. You can’t even enjoy a can of coke or ice cream without getting judged for it.
But now we’ve found out and even weirder tidbit about the Plaths that just seems off the wall and borderline abusive. Apparently, only the two oldest children, Ethan and Hosanna Plath had actual, state-issued birth certificates. The 7 other surviving Plath children were born at home with the help of a midwife and apparently did not have them.
‘Welcome to Plathville’ Spoilers: The Plath kids were untraceable until 2017!
Some might think that it’s customary for mid-wifes not to give out birth certificates for a child, but no, licensed mid-wives are trained to fill out birth certificates at home births. Provided they are indeed licensed mid-wives and not just your average hillbilly cousin which I’m going to assume the Plaths used here.
Sorry, but a licensed mid-wife would have probably encouaged them to fill out a birth certificate. The reason being is that without a birth certificate you can’t drive, vote, or work, at least not legally. So in 2017 when TLC came calling wanting to do a reality TV series about the Plath family, Mama and Papa (Kim and Barry) Plath were forced to formally get these kids recognized by the state and not just in the back of the family bible.
‘Welcome to Plathville’ Spoilers: So why then, of all times?
Because without documentation, TLC couldn’t run their docuseries, at all on the Plaths. Networks can do plenty of things, but it’s illegal to hire someone without a birth certificate so even TLC wasn’t budging on the birth certificate thing, and for the rest of the Plath kids, I am so glad because that gave Moriah and Micah, the two Plath rebels, a way out of their conservative hellhole.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but Moriah said she could never be good enough or be a model child and Micah, well, he needed a job besides one hauling produce or whatever he was doing pre-Plathville.
So why wouldn’t the Plaths want their children to have every opportunity to get out and better themselves? The general consensus is, the Plaths wanted complete control. There’s evidence of this in the way they tightly control their children’s lives, shelter them from the world and don’t even let their older siblings in, if they have a difference of opinion in the way their siblings are being brought up.
But there have been tales of other fundamentalist families using this as control too, sometimes, even when a child does have proper state documentation they are locked away so that they can’t get to them and the kid ends up having to steal their own birth certificate and ID card in order to leave the environment they’re in.
It is also common among Fundamentalist families that they are not of this world, but of God’s world and that the state shoul not control them so they just don’t bother reporting at home births to the office of vital statistics.
Some of these families don’t even know the exact day when the children are born. Of course, this isn’t evident with the Plaths because we saw them celebrate a birthday last year, but some fundamentalist families go one step further and don’t celebrate birthdays because they feel that that exonerates man, and not God Himself.
Did Kim Plath shill out to TLC and get her kids birth certificates so that they could work? Arguably, yes, but it looks like there’s a silver lining to this cloud because now, each and every one of those kids can choose to go to school and better themselves (they don’t have to be approved by Ma and Pa Plath to get financial aid.), they can choose to work, to drive and not to continue the destructive cycle of being too sheltered. So here’s to TLC for putting Mama Plath’s feet to the fire and making her get those birth certificates!
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