Kody Brown Moving His Family From Las Vegas Was Decision-Making at Its Worst

When Sister Wives premiered, no one expected the show’s plural family to fall apart. But now, it’s easy to see what led to the fallout. Everyone who has followed the Brown family knows that Kody Brown’s bias toward his youngest wife, Robyn Brown, pushed the rest of his family away. When his first three wives, Meri, Janelle, and Christine Brown, realized that Kody would never prioritize their needs, they distanced themselves from him. But with a closer look, it’s clear that the problem was more than just Kody’s favoritism. While many fans see Robyn as the main antagonist of Sister Wives, Kody had a bigger role in everything that went down. Kody’s role as a patriarch was meant to be about fairness and leadership, which are not his skills. And moving the family to Flagstaff was the final bad decision Kody made.

Kody Brown Never Came Clean to His Family About the Move

The Brown family has done many questionable things, but their move from Las Vegas to Flagstaff was as financially destructive as it gets. Happening in Sister Wives Season 13, this was more than seven years after the family had moved to Las Vegas after facing the threat of prosecution due to Utah’s laws against polygamy. But unlike the first move, buying a gigantic piece of land on a whim doesn’t seem logical. And the fact that they moved before putting all four houses in Vegas on sale didn’t make much sense either. The way Kody manipulated his entire family into the move doesn’t sit well with many fans. The Brown family patriarch kept insisting that his wives consider the idea of moving without addressing any of the consequences. According to Kody, the market was perfect for selling at the time. But that argument falls flat when you realize they ended up in an even more expensive area.

His Disregard for the Children Was Unbearable

The emotional toll the move had on their children also played a role in Kody’s separation from his first three wives. Moving as a teenager is hard enough, but moving because your father thinks it’s time to switch things up without a solid reason comes off as careless. Kody showed no empathy for his high school-going children, uprooting their lives and expecting them to finish their junior and senior years in a brand-new place. Gabe and Gwendlyn Brown expressed their unhappiness with the decision. Gabe even lost a potential wrestling scholarship because of it. But Kody wasn’t concerned with what his children had to say.

Did the Browns Relocate Twice Just To Make Robyn Happy?

What’s more upsetting is that Kody’s desire to move to Las Vegas was fueled by Robyn, whose son Dayton Brown was going to college there. During Sister Wives Season 13, Robyn made a big deal about wanting to help Dayton through the transition and claimed she had to be near him. Yet, Robyn was actively involved in Dayton’s college applications, so she could have easily made him apply to schools in Las Vegas.

It seems Robyn wanted to move to Flagstaff. Suspiciously, the conversation around the move began soon after Kody started spending time with his and Janelle’s daughter, Maddie Brown, and her son, Axel. Robyn could never handle Kody focusing on anyone but her and her kids, so the move could have been a strategic move to isolate him, and it would be the first time. Even during the family’s first move, Robyn accidentally revealed that her father lived there, suggesting that Kody packed up his family’s lives twice because Robyn wanted it. In both cases, Kody’s decision-making seemed to center around her convenience. While the rest of the family had other ties elsewhere, Kody’s picking a place no one else but Robyn’s family resided was a major red flag.

The Unintended Consequences of Moving to Flagstaff

Despite the drama, the move to Flagstaff became a blessing in disguise because it gave Meri, Janelle, and Christine the strength to walk away from this toxic dynamic. After the move, it was impossible to find a home that could accommodate their family structure while their Coyote Pass property was under construction. As a result, Kody’s four wives and their children were spread all over the city. Not to mention that Kody mostly lived with Robyn during the COVID-19 quarantine, which gave the other wives plenty of time to become independent and realize that they didn’t need Kody.

Moving the family to Flagstaff came across as Kody’s desire to keep his family on their toes whenever they would start getting too independent, which highlights his need for control. But the irony is that the decision completely backfired! The intended physical distance made Meri, Janelle, and Christine comfortable with all their autonomy when Kody and Robyn weren’t breathing down their necks. If Kody made this decision, maybe things wouldn’t have ended the way they did.