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THIS fearless family of five are rejecting city life to live "off-grid" in the jungle. Parents Thelma and Josiah grew up in the jungle themselves when they were younger and are now teaching their three sons William (9), Brandon (5) and Brian (1) to "survive in the wild". Their boys have never gone to school; instead, they spend their days running through the thick forest and climbing trees barefoot, despite the presence of snakes and spiders lurking in the shadows. As Thelma admitted, the dangers don't end there: "We have heard of people getting eaten [by jaguars], but none of us got eaten!" Instead of shying away from the risks the jungle possesses, Thelma and Josiah are equipping their young sons with survival skills - even teaching their eldest, William, to handle a full-size machete. When the parents started sharing videos of daily family life in the jungle on social media, they quickly developed a huge following - but this also brought scrutiny regarding their parenting choices. Many online have accused the parents of putting their kids "in danger" by allowing them to run barefoot and feeding them "raw cow's milk". But Thelma and Josiah are adamant that "they don't know what they're talking about because they haven't experienced this". And their boys seem quite content with the life their parents have provided for them - with William telling Truly: "In the city I can't run around, I could hardly breathe. I think more people should live in the jungle because you can go exploring whenever you want!"
Follow the family's adventures in the jungle:
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0:00
Our kids run barefoot in the jungle
0:02
So what? Yes, there are snakes and spiders. We have heard of people getting eaten
0:07
Do you know what to do if you do see a snake? A cherry or a bat
0:12
We teach our kids to climb trees and use knives so they can survive in the wild
0:17
I don't let them go to school. I'd rather do it here. Don't chop your hands. People accuse us of putting our kids in danger every single day
0:25
This is so not safe. I really worry about your kids. people are too comfortable in their lives
0:31
How are our sons going to learn if they don't take any risks? Well, that's a sharp machete. Hey boys, let's go in the woods and get some breakfast
0:39
Yes, yes. My name is Josiah. This is my wife, Thelma. And we live out here in the jungle, off-grid, with our three children
0:47
The oldest, he's very talkative and loves to engage with people in the middle
0:51
He loves plants. He's like a botanist, but he's not very much into people. The youngest is just the baby
0:57
He's very loving and kind. He likes to hug. So when you guys are going out for breakfast, what do you bring with you
1:02
A machete and a vibe. A lot of times I do get to use the machete
1:07
Most times my daddy uses it. What do you use it for? Opening the fruits and stuff
1:15
All right, you guys ready? Yeah. Let's go. I see the kids nowadays glued to their phones and I see it very detrimental
1:25
So that's why we decided to take a different stand against it
1:29
Oh wow, you found some wild berries? We don't send our kids to public school because we think it's important to teach them how to live off-grid and to do stuff for themselves
1:40
Alright, you ready boys? Woo, yes, let's go gather them. Alright, pick them up
1:46
I'm okay with them going barefoot and I'm okay with them running free in the woods
1:50
That one's for the baby. A lot of people are worried if we let children run around barefoot, they might step on a snake or whatever
1:58
But the more important part is to teach them what to do when there is a snake
2:04
Look, boys, this worm. This is very painful if you come against this
2:10
Don't touch it. Don't ever touch it. You see these in the woods? Just leave them alone
2:14
Don't try to pet it. It's not a nice fuzzy animal or something. So you both kind of grew up in this
2:20
I grew up here. We didn't even have electricity. My parents, they raised us completely off grid without any modern convenience
2:28
Not even lights. Not a light. And that was all my childhood. And I knew him since I was like four
2:34
He lived six days down the river. We had to plan a trip months ahead
2:38
There's no cell phone service. No internet. No radio. Everything that flows from this side is clean
2:51
There's a lot of snails. Doesn't it bother you to drink water where a snail is living? No
2:57
He's thirsty. OK, you good? Sometimes there's places in the woods where there isn't fresh water like that
3:07
And then if you find one of these unha de gato vines, they always have fresh water inside of them
3:11
Let's hold it up. It'll drip out. OK, stick your mouth under
3:16
There's water. Open your mouth. Yummy. That's good for you, water. The main reason we're here is because we love the jungle
3:26
We like the woods here, and it's tropical year round. Hello! And acai
3:32
Ripe acai. Should we get them? I love to know that I can provide for my own meat
3:38
We like to know where our food comes from. We like, yeah
3:42
We have 36 hectares and the rest of it is just natural forest We harvest wild fruits as well as raising our garden All right
3:58
Woo-hoo! Okay. And? Tired
4:09
Yes, I'm tired. Good job. But it feels good. Oh, look at all that
4:14
Even the baby's getting into it. How often do you climb trees
4:17
Pretty often. Like every other day. Lots of times actually just for fun
4:24
I remember I taught him how to climb the first tree. When they're a young age they have no idea they want to climb as high as they want to go so you have to sort of monitor them and watch them
4:35
But then when you can see that they're ready, we let them climb higher trees
4:40
And up against the trunk. Yeah, like that. Maybe you can pull it like that. There you go
4:46
All right. Tell us to sit down. I always stand underneath them still just to make sure that they won't fall
4:52
And if they do fall, I can catch them. Has that happened? With the little one, yeah. That has happened before
4:58
Just like a little slide, a little fall, like nothing big. This is the berry
5:03
and there's the flesh and right there is the nut. When you chop, you do just a little bit of an angle like that
5:13
and then another notch here like that and give it a shot
5:20
Okay, I'm going to stand back out of your way a little bit. Your older son can use a knife
5:27
Yeah, well a knife is just like anything can be dangerous but the most dangerous thing is if you don't know how to use it
5:33
The benefit to living like this is teaching them how to survive, how to fend for themselves, how to work
5:40
I know that it's very good for them to go barefoot, for them to eat the wild fruit, for their immune system to get strong, for them to get stung by wasps
5:47
Boys, are you guys ever worried about snakes or bugs or anything? Not really
5:52
But do you know what to do if you do see a snake? What do you do? Do you play with it
5:56
The nearest hospital is three hours away from us, and sometimes I am worried, like if something major were to happen
6:05
there's no emergency room. But we're very careful, and we take many precautions
6:10
If you don't know if a berry is poisonous or not, what do you do? Well, you take a tiny bite
6:16
Take a tiny bite. See if you get sick or not. Like, eat a little bit more, a little bit more
6:22
It's not so much dangerous stuff. I mean, we've had trouble with jaguars eating the cows
6:28
That could be something, you know. All right, let's gather up our harvest
6:32
Are you scared about jaguars and your children or not necessarily? I'm not really because I feel like we're very connected to nature
6:40
and we can, like, feel like, I think the jaguar respects us
6:45
We have heard of people getting eaten further down the road. Yeah, there was a person, but none of us got eaten
6:53
Okay, what did we get for breakfast? Do you have the phone
6:59
Yeah, I have it. Let's make a video about it. This morning we went in the woods and we found all this fruit
7:04
Look, we found maho, we found acai, and palm heart. And now we're going to make breakfast
7:09
Give it a good whack, but don't chop your hand. Yeah, just like that
7:13
I'm teaching him how to use the machete safely. From a young age, I try to teach my kids how to use a machete and a knife
7:21
and bigger machetes to defend themselves, to gather wild fruit. Why did you decide to start making these videos
7:27
One, two, three, go! We just decided maybe to inspire people to, you know, go do things for themselves
7:33
Welcome to my outdoor kitchen. It's Lonely Day in the creek today
7:37
And part of the reason, of course, was just to, you know, earn some money here
7:41
so we can finish our house and do that In April we be celebrating one year of reading Facebook and we already have one million followers Mmm yummy
7:52
Right in the middle. Yeah, he's very strong. I'm just going to throw this out
7:58
This is the edible part right here. Alright, let's drink acai. We're not going to eat first, huh
8:08
Did the kids previously go to a regular school? They've never gone to a regular school
8:13
I can teach them just exactly what they can teach them, so I'd rather do it here
8:19
My oldest son wants to be a scientist when he grows up, and we told him it's totally he can go do whatever he wants when he grows up
8:24
We're just giving him the basic education. Does it concern you in any way that they're not socializing with other children
8:31
It doesn't concern me that much. We take them to town occasionally, and they learn how to socialize with people
8:38
If they were completely isolated, then yeah. Yes, they would hide when people come
8:42
Then I would be concerned, but they don't do that. They're friendly, so. Do you like eating in restaurants in the city or not so much
8:48
Not so much. It's a nicer here. When we're traveling and stuff, when we have to eat street food and stuff, it's like, we get very sick
8:55
Our stomachs are not used to eating it. Well, what about Coke? You probably miss Coke, don't you? No
9:01
Would you rather have Coke or acai? Acai. Acai. It's way better
9:04
Our land provides us with more food than we can even eat
9:09
As far as animals for food, we have cows, milk, cheese, butter, meat, yogurt
9:16
And I have a garden. I raise tomatoes, green beans, yucca. But then I do go to town to buy diapers for my son
9:25
And we buy salt, we buy some rice, and gasoline. Gasoline, we do buy gasoline
9:32
We hope eventually not to have to almost buy anything. We started building our house about two years ago, and it's still a work in progress
9:41
We have a lot of stuff that's unfinished, but we'll show you around. So this is the kitchen area and the living room area where we eat
9:48
My husband built all of this by himself. In fact, we mostly built the house all by ourselves
9:53
This is my bedroom here, and the baby is asleep. We painted all of this by ourselves, installed the fans, installed the lights
10:01
We definitely live off-grid. There's no cell phone service out here. There's no city power
10:07
So everything that we have out here is from solar or a backup generator
10:12
There's seven solar panels on the roof. These are the controllers that regulate the power
10:17
to the batteries to make sure they get the right voltage. The main thing is to not be entirely
10:23
dependent on power so that if it goes down, we can always cook with fire. We can wash clothes by
10:29
hand. The creek's down there. We can haul water. This is the boys' room. We want to make them bunk
10:35
beds, but for now they like it and I'm very comfortable with it because there's no falling
10:40
off the bed, right? And this is the balcony. We get up like at 5 30 before any of the animals are
10:47
upright and then the monkeys slowly start passing through and and the birds they start flying
10:52
overhead and it's so cool. It's so fun. Like it's so peaceful. I just lay out here on the hammock
10:56
with my tablet and my other thing out here. I guess it's my office
11:00
How do you fund the lifestyle here? Originally, we used to make cheese to sell
11:05
And lately, we've also been earning some from social media. Hey, why don't you check the video that we posted earlier today
11:11
See if it got any comments. Let's see what they said. Swinging a blade above your other hand is not teaching him safety
11:17
One slip and he could cut his finger. I don't think I would ever cut my children's finger
11:22
I never have and I've been doing it all their lives and all my life
11:27
Sometimes I do feel like down when people write like really negative things like you're
11:31
permanently damaging your kids or even like putting them on camera they don want to be on camera or letting them go barefoot or feeding them cows So many people like to comment on our videos and say your kids are going barefoot and you wearing boots but I can make them wear shoes As soon as they could walk they were going
11:48
barefoot and when we went to town I tried to put shoes on them but they refused to let me
11:53
Please take care of crocodile safety first. I really worry about your kids. Crocodiles. Crocodiles
11:58
I hope there's no crocodiles here. Cow raw milk is the worst thing
12:04
This is so not safe. When people comment and say that I'm putting my kids in danger
12:09
I feel like they don't know what they're talking about because they haven't experienced this
12:13
When we first started posting content, we were more concerned about what the people would think or say
12:18
But now we see a comment like that, it doesn't bother us anymore. A lot of people comment very positive things like I'm inspiring them to go outdoors
12:26
which I feel like it makes me very happy and it makes me feel very accomplished
12:30
This is what Rich looks like. These kids are having such a good childhood
12:35
The kids must be so happy to live like that. Can you adopt me, please
12:40
I was more concerned that people would come and maybe try to take the kids away
12:44
and say we're not safe parents. But then again, we do live way back out here
12:49
Who's going to come? All right, come. I'm going to give you fresh cows
12:53
No, we will. Look at that, delicious. The youngest is all excited about cows
13:03
Every day when I go up to milk, he goes there with his cup. And he'll even drink straight from the teat
13:08
On the video of the children drinking milk straight from the cow, we got a lot of comments
13:14
Wow, can you do it by yourself? Probably 50% of them were people saying, you cannot give children raw cows milk
13:22
It's poisonous to them and they're not meant to drink it. Max
13:26
We know our cows. We know our cows are healthy and we know the milk is good
13:30
I feel like when they pasteurize it, it kills most of the good nutrients
13:34
So I think fresh cows, not straight from the udder, is the best thing you can give your child. Cheers! Cheers
13:42
I like it a lot. It tastes very good, it's good for you, and it makes you very strong
13:46
It's my favorite thing to drink. What would you say about the people who do judge you in your way of life
13:57
I feel that they're just ignorant. We're not neglecting our children, but we're intentionally raising them this way
14:03
In the city, you might get hit by a car. In the jungle, a snake might bite you
14:07
With proper precautions, it can be safe anywhere. We're together most of the time
14:14
We live off what we produce from the ground. For me, this is a more positive environment to raise your children and lifestyle
14:23
Do you ever wish you could live in the city instead of the jungle? No. In the city, I can't run around. I can't hardly breathe
14:33
I think more people should live in the jungle because there's a lot of fruits to eat
14:39
and you can go exploring in the woods whenever you want to find it
14:43
How would you feel if your kids decide the jungle life isn't for them? They want to do something else
14:47
They decide to do something different when they're older. That's totally fine with me. It's their decision once they grow up
14:52
Whatever their passion is, that's what I want them to do, yeah? Do you think you could ever go back to the normal life
14:58
I feel like I could fit in, but I wouldn't want to fit in. We could do something else
15:03
This is what we're doing right now, and I'm content with it. What do you see in the next 5, 10 years for your family
15:10
I hope we can still be blessed and do the exact same thing we're doing, and maybe even get more independent than we are already
15:17
I'm totally excited. I'm super excited about doing this, keeping on doing this forever