Following the season finale of 19 Kids and Counting tonight, TLC is premiering Risking It All, a new show about three families who leave behind all they know for lives off the grid.
“From attempting to save their marriage to dealing with family illness to regaining control of their relationships, each family has a different reason for embarking on the journey of a lifetime,” TLC says of the show. “In a world where we have more forms of connection than ever before we tend to lose ourselves in the constant connectivity. Risking It All captures something many modern day families can relate to — a strive and struggle to revisit building relationships and getting back to basics.”
Meet the families of Risking It All…
The Kemps
The Kemp family includes dad David, mom Shay and kids Joseph (15), Miriam (13), Benjamin (11), Lydia (8) and Elizabeth (3). Before casting aside modern conveniences, they lived in Boiling Springs, South Carolina, where Shay was a worship pastor and David worked at a major shipping company.
They were forced to change their lifestyle a year ago when David lost his job. That also caused the family to realize they had their priorities all wrong.
“We always said that we wouldn’t let technology get in the way of our relationships, interfere with family time, but it does,” Shay said in a preview.
So, they packed up and moved north to the mountains of North Carolina where they lived “in a small village of semi-permanent tents of their own construction.”
SPOILER According to WYFF, the adventure just lasted for 10 weeks during the summer before the Kemps returned to South Carolina. Even though the move wasn’t permanent, David said it accomplished its purpose.
“We work as a team, stronger than we ever have,” he said this week. “That’s really what family does.”
Shay told The Charlotte Observer she’s also grateful for the experience: “I learned you have to listen to your heart. It’s worth going through the hard things. My family learned a lot, but personally for me it was learning I can do something really hard and stick it out and make it work and thrive.”
The Watfords
After high-school sweethearts Brett and Callie Watford “got lost in the grind of city life” and temporarily separated, they decided to pack up with their four sons — Tyler (13), Parker (10), Lawson (7) and Cullen (4) — and move from Charleston, South Carolina to a small town in North Carolina.
“We decided to move off-grid and salvage the marriage,” Brett said. “See if we can make it work.”
The family had the benefit of Brett’s background in construction, but still faced challenges when living in a 12-by-24 foot cabin with no running water, electricity or air conditioning.
“When those things are taken away from you, you don’t realize how much you miss them and how much you need them to do what you need to do,” Tyler told Charleston’s ABC 4.
They also moved back to Charleston at the end of the summer. (TLC doesn’t make it clear, but my impression is that the Kemps and Watfords always planned to move home after the summer — even though they made shows of selling off their worldly possessions.)
The Elliotts
Tina and Blake Elliott had a good life in Mulvane, Kansas, but decide to leave it all behind and relocate to Oregon with their three daughters, Lily (17), Grace (12) and Caroline (10). Their main motivation was escaping the finicky weather in the Midwest to find an environment better suited to Tina, who has osteoporosis, degenerative arthritis and a blood clotting disorder.
“We need to go off the grid for Tina’s health,” Blake said. “I’m leaving everything I’ve built for 15 years behind.”
In Oregon, they lived in tents while Blake worked on building a house. All of the kids pitched in and Grace even started a “thriving rabbit-breeding business.” Blake told The Wichita Eagle the girls were actually more resilient than he and Tina.
“The girls did a great job transitioning and doing what needed to be done and thinking for themselves,” he said.
Unlike the other two families, the Elliotts are still living off the grid — minus their oldest daughter, who returned to Kansas to start college. Tina explained, “We didn’t move halfway across the country to quit.”
Risking It All premieres on TLC tonight at 10/9c.
