TLC viewers, meet the Plath family!
This November, the network will follow Kim and Barry Plath and their children — Ethan, 21, daughter-in-law Olivia, 21, Micah, 18, Moriah, 17, Lydia, 15, Isaac, 13, Amber, 10, Cassia, 8, and Mercy, 6 — who live on a 55-acre farm in a rural part of south Georgia and have largely abstained from technology in the 21st century world. (There’s also daughter Hosanna, 20, a violinist who tours full-time with her pianist husband Timothy Nobel. They were married in the spring of 2019 and live in Ohio.)
“We’re 11 people in the family: mom, dad and nine children ranging in age from 6 to 21,” matriarch Kim, a naturopathic doctor who was a music therapy major in college, says in PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek at the series, titled Welcome to Plathville.
“We’ve structured our lifestyle here so that we can retreat to our piece of heaven on earth,” says family patriarch and Minnesota native Barry, who works as a transportation planner.
Adds Kim: “We have limited technology, we have limited computers. They don’t play video games.”
While Micah reveals he’s “grown up without a TV,” he admits: “I don’t think I need one.”
Technology isn’t the only thing the children have been guarded from.
“We’ve never had any carbonated sodas around. They know what a Coke is, but they don’t know what a Coke is. Can you believe that? That is so off the wall,” says Barry.
Footage then plays of Ethan, who recently wed wife Olivia, snapping open a can of his first-ever Coke. “That’s really good,” he says with a smile after taking a sip.
In addition to technology and soda, the children are also unaware of multiple notable figures in the sports and entertainment worlds, including Lebron James and Justin Bieber.
While Isaac loves soccer, basketball and football, he doesn’t know who one of the most popular NFL players of all time is.
“Do you know who Tom Brady is?” a producer asks Isaac about the longtime Patriots quarterback. “I don’t think so,” Isaac replies.
And although Lydia has “heard of Spider Man,” she admits with a laugh when asked who the famous comic figure is: “Um, something that I don’t know.”
But despite the parents’ goal to create a home where their kids “have time just to be children,” according to dad Barry, relationships on the farm aren’t friction-free.
“Now that Ethan’s married, there are certain things that just have changed the dynamics of the family,” he says.
And Olivia, who “grew up a different way” from husband Ethan, doesn’t agree with everything her parents-in-law have set forth.
“I have a different outlook on life, and so I come into the picture and I bring in change. And it’s caused a hurricane,” she tells Kim and Barry.
While Olivia lives a more modern lifestyle, the Plaths don’t want her perspective to influence the conservative structure they’ve established for their brood.
“Well, I don’t think it’s your job to parent our children,” Kim tells Olivia.
Six-part series Welcome to Plathville premieres Nov. 5 at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
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