Ruby Franke’s oldest daughter has authored a telling memoir — and a cautionary tale for family vloggers

An eyewitness account of Ruby Franke‘s misdeeds has arrived on bookshelves nationwide. Shari Franke, the oldest daughter of the disgraced family vlogger, shares recollections from the Frankes’ Utah home in The House of My Mother, a memoir that became available on January 7.

The allegations against Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrant — which ranged from “physical torture” to “severe emotional harm,” according to court documents — unfolded into a widely covered case. The trial and Franke’s subsequent guilty plea raised ethical questions about the practice of family vlogging and children’s involvement in it. Franke and Hildebrandt are both facing prison sentences that could last as long as 30 years.

By the time Shari Franke left her mother’s house to attend Brigham Young University, she had already faced “really scary” behavior that included “physical” retribution and psychological abuse, she said during an interview with Good Morning America. “I think that she’s as sorry as she can be,” Shari said of her mother. “What she’s done is so bad that I don’t think her mind allows her to fully comprehend the guilt of all that.”

Shari used her personal Instagram page to document her family’s fraught life for more than 500,000 followers. Now, as she prepares to graduate from BYU, she’s speaking out about the predatory and exploitative nature of family vlogs. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she stated her belief that those channels cannot be produced ethically. “Making money off your kids [with] no oversight as to how much the kids are getting paid — there’s no way to do that well for me,” she said.

Some states, such as Illinois, have passed laws that require parents to allocate a portion of social media revenue to the underage children who appear in those posts. Shari Franke testified in Utah when her home state held a hearing to determine if it should adopt a similar measure to the Illinois law.

Even if a law of that type went into effect nationwide, Shari would still sound the alarm about family vlogging. “The consequences of it, growing up with your whole life online, I don’t think any amount of money would justify that,” she told Rolling Stone.

Ultimately, even if children are compensated for their appearances on platforms like YouTube, viewers can’t see the environment in which those videos are produced until it’s too late. That duality is something Shari Franke knows well, as her mother only rolled the camera on a “very selective” basis. “I don’t like to watch old vlogs because I don’t really remember the things that were filmed,” Shari said, “but I can remember the behind-the-scenes of like, “Oh, this was the day that Ruby was yelling, and that wasn’t shown, but that’s all that I can remember about it.”