Needless to say loosing the FamilyOFive Channel was devastating to our family.
The fact that it was after more then a year of rebuilding, more then a year after we made those terrible parenting decisions. More then a year of focusing on healing, moving forward, and PROVING we weren't the parents everyone claimed we were is what really stung. We were in a happy place, our children were doing well in school, they played sports. R was allegedly doing well in her attempts at proving herself so C&E could go home with her like they wanted. We were already out of the picture just like EVERYONE WANTED meaning; it was all up to HER.
After all Jake, Ryan, and Alex have been through they were, and still are some of the best, loving, and most talented kids you will ever meet.
The decision back then to go back to YouTube was not taken lightly, it was a family decision. Jake, Ryan, and Alex were happy and eager participants ready to get back to what they loved. Ready to put the DRAMA, the LIES, THE MANIPULATION that FESTORED BEHIND THEM. The kids were never shown any other way BUT HAPPY AND WILLING, the skits they made were happy AND FUN. They were family outings, pranks between Mike and I, and completely innocent skits. LOUDER FOR THE ONES IN THE BACK; we have never forced them to be on YouTube, it was their passion.
FamilyOFive was in fact their channel REBORN in the ashes, together with Mike, it was their hobby, and what they looked forward to each day. As parents, who learned some very hard, VERY PUBLIC LESSONS, we carefully considered each idea and allowed them to pursue their interests.
Still people couldn't leave us alone. R's Father started a smear campaign on twitter. The drama started with Joy, Rose, and Nick and everyone else because they started realizing things. Even though; I see NONE OF THEM WITH THE courage (the EXCEPTION BEING CHAMBERS) to step forward and dive deeper and actually get to know the Family that they accused based off a FRACTION of poor taste videos, out of 366 or something in total.
Instead of getting to know the truth, they helped a mentally ill, jealous, bitter biological Mom manipulate EVERYONE in to thinking she was somehow the victim. That she didn't abandon her kids, amongst many other things- sigh. I wont go on about that.
SAY what you all want about me, but at least I am not a COWARDS!
At least I have been woman enough to say yes I made some bad choices, some mistakes in judgement.
I have said that I can see how the "perception" looked especially to people who did not know us personally. AND I don't expect anyone to say that their "perception" was wrong. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But to destroy someone's life over your own thoughts, and views. When the truth is you never even took time to actually know the person your accusing. Child abuse is a very strong allegation to have against someone without actually "knowing". If I thought that those ridiculous videos could be put in that context, do you really think I would have put them on the internet? People wanted to make it like it was "for money". The only people that lost financially is the kids. They lost their potential careers, their future nest eggs that could have been built, their exposure for the other areas they want to pursue, and for what?
People acted like without YouTube we wouldn't eat, or live, or survive because we did it for the money. In the last 4 years we bought a trailer, a house, 2 cars, and lived perfectly fine. All without YouTube! So I will say it again. You TOOK NOTHING FROM MIKE OR I. The people you took from was the KIDS.
Look up narcissistic parents, look up parental alienation. Look though all those files, I have seen shared. CONNECT THE DOTS. The other side of this story had a field day with all of this. Look how many lies were told and no one cares. She flat out said out her own mouth, that I forged documents and stole her kids-and that's ok to slander someone like that. When the truth is she abandoned them and didn't WANT no contact with them a document drawn up by HER attorney. Yet I am still painted as the wicked step mom because I called them gingers, and said some curse words on the internet. My Mom - a ginger, my nieces- ginger, so I am guessing I am wicked to them too, or does it only apply to C&E because I didn't birth them?
I held them when they missed her. I wiped their tears. I fixed boo- boos. I planned celebrations for every achievement. I went to all the school meetings, all the Doctor appointments to get their medications straight. I spent an entire month going to physical therapy with E, to try and help her overcome her toe walking habit. I tried to teach her to read after she was so behind, but we wont talk about her missing 26 days of kindergarten or should we? Will that somehow be Mikes fault too? I gave the hugs and kisses before bed when she CHOSE NOT TOO. We did not EVER say she couldn't see them or talk to them not EVER. SHE CHOSE THAT and yet somehow she was able to make the entire world believe that she was a victim
She got what she wanted in this. He is completely Alienated from their lives. She made sure he can't see them "unless they ask to see him" look at our history with her. Even if they did EVER mention us, do you really think we will ever know? And judging from the past, they likely wouldn't even bother who knows what LIES THEY HAVE BEEN FED FOR 4+ years. Even that though wasn't good enough for that family. NO. They still had to keep intruding in our lives.
This world pegged us GUILTY before we were even charged with anything and no one was going to shut up until what happened, happened. As a parent you choose what's best for your kids not what's best for yourself, and that is what was best at the time. - so we thought. Also, every action has a consequence and sometimes you don't always get to agree with the consequence. You can accept it and move on, or cry about it. We choose to accept it an move on.
The easy thing for my husband and I would have been to hide under a rock never to be seen on YouTube or social media again.
What would that have taught our children? That when you make a mistake you quit? When you’re at your lowest point you stay there, or when people BULLY you and tell you how you should feel about yourself it must be true? We just want our kids to always know that there will be times in life that you fall flat on your face. There will be times where you mess up and it is your fault, you live with the consequences and take responsibility- like we did. However, during those times, I also want my children to know that they are strong enough to get up, dust themselves off and move forward.
So we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and REBUILT, only for YouTube to terminate FamilyOFive A YEAR LATER for NOTHING. YouTube could have terminated the DaddyOFIve channel in 2017- they did not. Why wait a year? Our family was given the opportunity to reestablish ourselves on our Gaming Channel and the FamilyOFive channel (Which was formerly MommyOFive).
We created boundaries, tried to be sensitive to public opinion, and gave careful thought to the videos we produced and posted. We even disappointed the kids MANY times when they came up with an idea that we thought went too far. We made sure to have a detailed channel description explaining that we are entertainers, that the videos featured were for that purpose only and that they were staged. YouTube’s decision should have been made based FamilyOFive's current content, and not a sudden reaction to a few loud, self-serving public voices that generated media attention. Phil Defranco, Amada the Jedi ahem AGAIN People who don't know us at ALL. YouTube did not treat us fairly. If our funds weren't tied up in other things more important, we would have pursued a lawsuit for discrimination. YouTube allowed our family to be victimized by larger creators. They have allowed, other creators to take, re-upload, and monetize our old content.
After FamilyOFive was terminated. We began posting on FamilyOFive Content on our website as a way to still reach our loving, LOYAL, FAN FAMILY. They knew our content was staged and they still loved us and our entertaining skits - we are thankful for them. We will forever be thankful to them. Grateful to them for LIFTING OUR FAMILY UP WHEN SO MANY CHOSE TO TURN against us for views.
Then here comes another BOMB. You ask why I am talking about some of this now and this is it. THAT FAMILY GOT WHAT THE ALLEGEDLY WANTED AND STILL COULDNT LEAVE US ALONE.
We went to court to get our "PBJ" as promised as part of our plea. And who is there that lovely attention seeking attorney that literally HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH us. In our "agreement" we said we wouldn't post on social media about C&E, about the situation, we wouldn't post videos containing them, not even PICTURES. We adhered to ALL OF THAT. Even took all the BLOWS that came with it. You know everyone saying. "We didn't talk about them, we must not care", "We erased them from our house, took all their pictures down." etc. So what did R. and family do wrote the Judge saying that we were still making videos containing "children" and she was "afraid" for them or something like that.
So essentially R made sure we had to stop making FamilyOFive content, by complaining to the Judge.
FIRST- JRA all had mental evaluations and making YouTube videos did not affect them in any way.
SECOND- MY kids have nothing to do with her and she shouldn't act like she cared about them especially since later, and prior she said the crap she has about one of them.
The real truth is she couldn't stand to see that we were doing well, and had picked ourselves back up and moved on.
Reality is though, we are good people and God has us. HE ALWAYS DOES.
The Judge I am sure TIRED OF ALL THE BS, basically said no videos of any kind so we could go through with our expungement in the end.
We could have probably argued this, but honestly we were just as tired of it all as the officials were. Then we had to yet again break the kids heart and take down the website videos.
It was then my Mom made them "The Martin Boys" Channel. But everyone knew the kids couldn't do it alone THEY WERE KIDS. The also knew that putting the 3 year gap in us not being able to post would make it hard to rebuild, and hard to tell OUR TRUTH AND HAVE PEOPLE CARE.
Our family remains and will always remain our number one priority. I encourage anyone reading this let us live our lives. Let us continue to heal, let us move on. Let C&E be happy and live their lives with R if they are we don't want to disrupt their lives. The point in this is not to send hate that way. But it is to show that, the world was wrong about us, and how the narrative got TWISTED AND MANIPULATED even further and in order to do that I have to tell you some about the past unfortunately.
ALL WE HAVE EVER WANTED FOR THEM IS HAPPINESS.
If we could reverse some of the decisions we made in the past, we would. In fact, who in this world wouldn’t?
Have you ever made a mistake a parent, or are you perfect? Should your kids lose everything you helped them build because of it?
Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame unfortunately for us there was so many willing to do it at our expense and so many that built their existing fame off of causing other people pain. When your a creator and you cant come up with your own original ideas and you just got to sit around and talk crap about what other people are doing. Are you really a "creator though"?
DO WE MISS THEM? OF COURSE WE DO!
DO WE TALK TO THEM/SEE THEM? NO
WILL WE DISRUPT THEIR LIVES? NO
WILL OUR DOOR AND HEARTS ALWAYS BE OPEN? YES
WILL WE MAKE OUR OWN CHANNEL? NO but Jake intends to make the Martin Boys just like "FamilyOFive" he is still learning so give him time.