“I believe I raised my children in a cult,” the mom of six wrote in her 2025 memoir Sister Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Finding Freedom. “I hadn’t been brainwashed. But just like everyone else, I had a tunnel of thoughts with a particular set of boundaries.”

Christine said she had a revelation when some of her kids “figured it out as young adults,” with her daughter Gwendlyn, 24, coming back from church camp one day telling her how “all these girls want to do is have babies.”

“As I became stronger in my own identity, I thought, God is fine with me, and I am fine with him,” the 54-year-old shared. “I didn’t need to be part of a church, and I didn’t need to buy into ideas about men’s place over women or pierced ears.”