‘Welcome to Plathville’: Moriah and Micah Plath Talk to Their Parents About Sex and Education on Season 2 Premiere
Welcome to Plathville returned to TLC for the season 2 premiere on Nov. 10 – and the Christian fundamentalist Plath family seemed more divided than ever before.
Parents Kim and Barry Plath raised their nine children on a 55-acre farm in southern rural Georgia. Their strict rules – like no sugar, no dating, no phones, and no TV, movies, internet, or pop culture – frustrated some of their older children. In particular, 17-year-old Moriah Plath and 19-year-old Micah Plath began to “rebel” in small ways (like with their clothing choices, Micah’s modeling aspirations, and Moriah’s desire to go to college) as they got older.
On the Welcome to Plathville season 2 premiere, Moriah and Micah now lived down the road from their parents in the small town of Cairo, Georgia. But, while independence was fun, it had also taught them some hard lessons – like just how unprepared they were to be part of the outside world.
Moriah and Micah confronted their parents about their lack of preparation
Although both still in their teens, Micah and Moriah were kicked out of the Plaths’ home after breaking too many family rules. The brother and sister set up shop in a house together, where they both began to venture out on their own for the first time.
On the Welcome to Plathville season premiere, Moriah and Micah said they’d been living alone now for about a year – and, despite living in the same small town as their parents, they hadn’t seen them in four months. During a visit to the Plaths’ new house in Cairo, the siblings sat down with Kim and Barry for a difficult heart-to-heart about their upbringing.
Both Micah and Moriah lamented their homeschooling education, which they considered subpar. They pointed out that neither of them had gotten a high school diploma. Instead, they had to get both birth certificates and GEDs on their own after they flew the coop.
Moriah wanted to head off to college, but she didn’t feel at all academically prepared for the rigor of higher education. Meanwhile, Micah admitted he resented his parents after learning how much he hadn’t been taught at home.
“In all honesty, I don’t feel like either of our parents tried to give us the best education,” Micah told TLC producers. “They were more worried about ‘the evils in this world.’”
“That’s my biggest frustration with how we were raised,” the 19-year-old told Kim and Barry. “Education was a huge preparation that we didn’t get. Why didn’t y’all prepare us more?”
Kim and Barry claimed that it was the kids’ choice to work rather than keeping up with their schoolwork. Still, they admitted that not pushing their children to complete their homework had been a big mistake.
The Plath parents said they were ‘hurt’ by their children’s comments
Barry and Kim seemed surprised by their kids’ criticism, arguing that they’d tried their hardest to give them everything they could.
“It really hurts,” Kim said of Micah and Moriah’s comments. “We poured ourselves into them to try to give them the best that we could, and it wasn’t good enough.”
But Micah argued that his parents’ priorities hadn’t always been in the right place. Instead of helping their kids get a leg up in life, he said, they’d focused more on shielding them from any trappings of the outside world.
“It’s kind of hard to prepare your kids for the modern world when you’re trying to keep them from the modern world,” the Welcome to Plathville star remarked.
Barry reassured his kids he’d always have “unconditional love” for them. Still, Moriah and Micah admitted they weren’t quite ready to forgive their parents just yet. They were both frustrated that they had to learn so many things on their own instead of being prepared by their family first.
As for Micah, he told his parents he was especially worried about his younger brothers’ and sisters’ education.
“Please give our younger siblings a better chance in the world,” he implored.
Kim warned her children against premarital sex
Now that Micah and Moriah were both in the dating world, Kim was worried about more than their academic education. She was also worried about their sex lives.
“Just be aware, out there, there’s pitfalls and traps,” Barry warned the teens after learning that Moriah had her first steady boyfriend.
“You can’t live in a bubble,” Moriah reminded the Plath parents, adding that she wished she’d gotten sex education as a young teen instead of having to figure out the details on her own.
Micah, too, wondered why his dad hadn’t come to him as a younger man and educated him about sexual health. Barry, looking sheepish, admitted that he “didn’t feel he could approach the subject.”
Kim pressed on, insisting that her kids consider avoiding premarital sex so they didn’t “damage themselves and other people.”
“I don’t know exactly what you guys do in your free time,” the Welcome to Plathville star told her visibly uncomfortable kids. “But that’s the choice you guys are going to have to make, and there’s ramifications to that.”
The conversation ended on an awkward note, with Micah, Moriah, Kim, and Barry coming to a very tentative truce for now. But things will surely get even more awkward in upcoming episodes, when Moriah brings her boyfriend home to meet her parents for the first time.
