Sister Wives Captures The Complicated Beauty Of My Upbringing

Which sister wife are you feeling like today? Luke texts before I even have time to drink my morning coffee. This is his version of a good morning, beautiful text and immediately makes me laugh. With a busy day ahead of back-to-back meetings and working on my thesis, I reply:

Janelle for sure wbu?

Christine, of course, he replies. This means hes feeling like himself, the kind of person who would drive two hours just to get me a cold brew. 

Sister Wives, the iconic 19-season-and counting TLC reality show, is the source of the new habit Luke and I have formed to help gauge our daily emotional barometers through the lens of each sister wife: Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn. Janelle represents a career-oriented woman whose family synergy is her north star. Christine, who self-identifies as a basement wife, represents the glue of the family, the loving homemaker who gets family members to rally for special gatherings. Meri represents the original queen wife in the Brown family who evolves into the comedic relief and an outsider. Robyn represents the new order of the Brown family, known for manipulation veiled as peacemaking to secure new queen wife status.

The long-running series follows the polygamous Brown family spearheaded by Kody Brown, his four wives, and their 18 children, as they paint a saccharine image of what a progressive polygamist family can look like in the 21st century. The new season premieres Sunday.

I first heard about Sister Wives years ago from my Aunt Annmarie, who, when speaking of the show, became so animated youd think she was watching the Super Bowl. The only other time I had seen her react so passionately about television was when Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) finally got his head run over in Season 6 of The Sopranos. Of course, my aunt and I enjoyed The Sopranos because it was comparable to our Italian familys insular mentality, minus, of course, the mob relation and murderous endeavors. 

Growing up, I was raised as an only child in a loud, loyal, matriarchal family consisting of my mother and her two sisters. When my mother got divorced two decades ago, she moved back into her childhood home with her two sisters for extra support. This it-takes-a-village mindset, similar to Christine and Janelles dynamic in Sister Wives, allowed my mother to build her career while securing free child care. My aunts, who were also dedicated career women, spent much of their extra time, money and love raising me. 

As someone who is a non-religious, nobody-will-tell-me-what-to-do-ever New Yorker, the last thing I expected was to relate to the women and children of Sister Wives who most people assume are Kodys weak subordinates. However, that assumption couldnt be farther from the truth.

Once Luke and I decided to watch the first episode in his Bushwick apartment, we were hooked. In Season 5, Episode 2, when Kody and the wives head to parent-teacher conferences, I couldnt help but turn to Luke and say, Wait, this is literally what it was like for my moms. 

Then, I went on a tangent about my childhood. Since I was accustomed to playing peacemaker, emotional translator and referee between my mothers, many scenes on the show felt familiar to me despite not being Mormon. I couldnt help admiring both the early-season communal gatherings on Sister Wives and the later-season fights between the women because it felt real and dynamic. 

Over the years, I became acclimated to how my happenstance matriarchal family composition was viewed by society. Most people are fascinated by the all-female household I grew up in, which, of course, didnt come without its emotional rifts and theatrics. Some are confused when I say I have three mothers; curiosity sparks in their eyes about how siblings could live together well into their 50s. Others slip moments of judgment into conversation when they question, So neither of your aunts or your mom are married? 

In high school, I read authors Rebecca Traister and bell hooks, then wrote rigorously about single women, women who are childfree by choice and different types of love. In college, my research also gravitated toward how television and film construct and regulate the category of woman in the first place. Today, as I watch Sister Wives, I find myself again eager to understand, converse about and amplify people who are socially invisible and are often on the fringe because of their anything-but-nuclear lifestyles. 

What I hadnt expected when watching Sister Wives with Luke was how it would strengthen our bond and act as a touchstone for my relationships. For much of my life, I didnt dream about being married and sometimes viewed relationships as a weakness. But Sister Wives broke the ideal of monogamous romantic love and captured other versions of love. 

It was some time after Kody revealed he was never attracted to Christine while they were married when I heard Luke scoff, shake his head, and exclaim, What is his problem?! I couldnt help but laugh and tell him I loved him. It was an emotional episode, and I thought: Heres this person whos in touch with his emotions and would follow me to the moon and hes more engrossed in Sister Wives and its implications than me.

Then, there was the season when Meri infamously gets catfished. Luke sided with Kody because he felt he was betrayed by Meri. However, I didnt think it was that simple, seeing how desperately Meri needed a friend to talk to. 

Dont you see the way he is treating her? Of course she looked elsewhere, she was suffocating! You know what he reminds me of? How poorly my mother was treated in her marriage, I thought.

This was one of many moments Sister Wives sparked debate between us. It opened doors for us to critically discuss our relationship to marriage, monogamy and adultery.

Looking back, I see the lines were very blurry for me for where Sister Wives ended and my family dynamic began. I was feeling for Meri what Ive felt for my mother: the rippling effects a narcissistic partner could have on someones self-esteem, self-perception and happiness. I was feeling what my mother mustve felt as a content single mother who was still looked down upon. By speaking aloud to the TV and to Luke, I was advocating not only for the wives of the Brown family but also for my three mothers and the struggles they overcame.

Constructing an identity through television characters isnt new; ask any New York woman with an anxious attachment style and a man in finance, and shell probably tell you shes a Carrie. But using Sister Wives as a personality test presented new challenges, mostly because they were real people with real personalities that evolve dramatically. What did it say about me that I resonated more with the women in Sister Wives than Sex and the City? Was it my upbringing as more of a fourth sister than a child that matured me so far beyond my years?

Probably. The more obsessed with Sister Wives I became, I realized I was less in touch with the glamorous tension of being a 20-something and more seduced by the martyrdom and sacrifice I saw play out in the Brown family. I was well-versed at understanding narcissistic parents, nonromantic intimacy and fears surrounding maintaining self-identity in a relationship more than the serpentine dating scene in New York City. Selfishly, I watched Sister Wives like looking into a crystal ball for answers about how my future would fare. 

For much of my life, my family felt controversial because the American family unit I knew consisted of a divorce and two single women who were both childless by choice. As a young woman not driven by romantic relationships or religious ideals, it felt somehow controversial to enter into my first monogamous relationship with Luke. Yet, as we watched Sister Wives, I grew more confident in revealing my nontraditional upbringing to Luke and embracing other nontraditional paths to take. As Season 19 approaches, Sister Wives looks very different: divorces, new marriages, new revelations. 

For Luke and I, we will be watching from the road while on a yearlong road trip. Its another unconventional path Im excited to walk. 

Sister Wives airs on TLC on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.