How a Holiday Text Chain Between Sister Wives Kids 'Spiraled' Into Nasty Family Feud

Sunday's season premiere took place around the 2022 holidays, as Kody Brown's family continued to splinter around him. While the reality TV star is father to 18 children with four women -- onetime wives Robyn, Meri, Janelle and Christine Brown -- they've been drifting further from one another in recent years, following accusations he favors his family with Robyn more than the rest.

After Thanksgiving -- which only Kody, Robyn, Meri and their kids celebrated together while Christine and Janelle spent it with their own children, respectively -- Christine was seen meeting up with son Paedon, as they spoke about some of the ongoing "issues" with Kody and the family at large.

"My mom's kids and Janelle's kids have chosen a side. To the best of my knowledge, we chose my mom," said Paedon in a confessional, making it clear they're supporting their mother following her permanent split from Kody. At the time of filming, Janelle and Kody were also separated, but no final decisions about their future had been made.

Paedon then went on to claim that a few weeks prior, Kody and Janelle's son Logan started a group chat for the siblings about doing a possible gift exchange amongst the kids. They decided to then loop in the parents as well, with Paedon saying Robyn kept trying to get them on a video chat to discuss specifics.

"I was pushing for the video chat for the sake of the kids," she said, explaining that she started getting "pushback" from the other children. "I finally went, 'Why am I trying here? I'm out, this is an effort in futility,'" she continued -- while the other mothers pointed out how difficult it can be to try and get such a large group on Zoom at the same time.

Christine went on to claim that, at one point, Robyn said her kids "don't even remember who their siblings are" -- before saying the whole situation "got blown out of proportion that they didn't want to hang out and all these hurt feelings about when Robyn first came into the family came out and it's like, oh my gosh."

"It turned into this whole big squabble between my kids and a bunch of the other kids," said Robyn. While Christine said that her daughter Gwendlyn "tried to lighten it up a bit," that didn't go over well either -- adding, "then it went really bad."

"It just kept spiraling and it was done. With some of the things that were said and expressed, I don't know if we ever come back from it," added Janelle. No other specifics about what was said were shared.

In tears, Robyn said it was just "a horrible day" and "another example of them not wanting to be family with us." She said that's how it's felt for her "from the beginning" and added that, when the blowup was all said and done, her oldest children "did not feel comfortable with the gift exchange anymore." Bah humbug!

"I think Robyn jumped to conclusions too fast," said Christine, before her son Paedon pointed to a larger issue. "When we first went public, the purpose of going public was to say polygamy works," he shared, before adding, "I don't think it works in my family anymore."

As he and Christine continued to speak, Paedon said that he wouldn't consider Kody "a distant father" because he always knew where he was or how to reach him. That being said, he didn't necessarily always need his dad, because he had "so many brothers, so many moms and so many support systems" that were always there for him as well, which, he said, "helped a ton."

"It's his responsibility to create a good relationship with his children and it always has been. Once again, I feel like our family is just dividing," Christine said of the present situation in a confessional. "I think we're looking at a permanent separation."

"I left Kody because I could see he has favorites. When you have a wife that's a favorite, the other kids are gonna see and they're gonna have a hard time with that," she added. "It doesn't mean they're not going to accept her, but they didn't accept her as much as Kody did I guess."

Kody didn't have much to say about all this, but was seen doting on daughter Aurora -- his eldest with Robyn -- as he took her to get her ears pierced. He said he made it a mandate in the family that none of the women could pierce their ears until they were 18, before admitting he had no idea whether any of his other daughters followed that rule. Aurora was the first and only child he actually took to get it done.

"I've had a deep appreciation for how much Aurora has respected my authority as the father and head of our home," he added in a confessional. "I just appreciate the respect she's given me at that level."

New episodes of Sister Wives drops Sundays on TLC, MAX and Discovery+