Well these people have been in the news in Texas quite a bit lately.  Some of them have been giving interviews with the media begging to have their children returned.  When asked if they have witnessed or known about underage girls being married or pregnant they change the subject.  They are really good at showing a deadpan face and refusing to answer the questions asked about their lifestyle.  It appears that they are given a script and are not to deviate from that script for any reason.  Just sit in front of the camera and "be sweet". 

Their dress and hair style sometimes gets in the way of what they are actually doing on their "ranch" or compound as the media likes to refer to their fence enclosed living area.  The women and girl children wear prairie dresses in colors that defy good sense.  But apparently signify that the women are the jewels in the men's crowns.  One of the experts on the FDLS said that each family wore a different color of dress but it appeared to me that women and children that acted like they belonged together were wearing different colored dresses.  So I am not sure that families wearing the same colored dresses is correct.  The hairstyle is modest, and really poofy in front.  It seems from media sources that the poofier the top or bangs like are the more heavenly or devote the wearer is designated. 

The men need at least three wives to get into heaven.  They do not practice birth control so each wife has as many children with their legal (first wife) and spiritial (other wives) husband as the prophet gives them.  They had around 100 adults and around 460 children that were accounted for on the property.  Some of the 460 children were the mother's of some of the other children taken into CPS custody.  Close to 40 of those children were girls under the age of 18 who either were the mothers of younger children or pregnant.  Now some individuals are stating statistics of regular not FDLS members in the state of Texas who end up pregnant before their 18th birthday defending this behavior.  These children who are mothers and/or pregnant under the age of consent are supposed to be living in utopia where children are protected though.  It would appear that instead of being protected they are being "married" to older men as lesser wives to reproduce.  Jeff's, the prophet in prison is reported to have 50-70 wives some of which he inherited from his father (ok, that part makes my back crawl). 

The entire children/parent relationships have been so messed up by this church  cult that the state has to resort to DNA testing to figure out who exactly are the parents to which children.  How messed up is that?  For 460-some children only two dozen (24) adults showed up to be DNA tested.  So what is going to happen to those children who cannot be matched to an adult?  Are they then considered abandoned or orphans?  Some of the children have been imported from other "ranches" in the US and Canada.  There appear to be no records of who the biological parents of these children might be or where they might be living. 

People should feel sorry for the children who are now in foster care throughout Texas but not so much for the parents who put their children in this mess.  It's one thing to believe in religious freedom but quite another to actually believe that this mess is freedom and not just messed up.  If they want to live like this with multiple wives and such fine but don't be marrying off girls as young as 12 and impregnating them in the name of God or Prophet.  That's just wrong.  The not knowing who the biological parents of the children are is another questionable activity; moving children from one "ranch" to another without documentation about biological parentage is crazy in this day and age. 

The lost boys are another issue that just isn't sitting right with the general public.  The lost boys are any boy child 13 or over that the older men percieve as threatening to their way of life.  The parents get told by the prophet that the boy has to go and the parents load them up and take them to the nearest town and drop them off.  They are not allowed back in the "ranch" after that.  These children have been home schooled, they have been taught to work, and they have the ingrained "family" philosophy but no world skills.  The church cult might as well take them out and shoot them because they cut them off from everything they have ever known, give them no skills to survive in the "normal" world, and then dump them.  I can't believe any religion would not only condone this practice but decree it; if this turning out is not done the male (father) faces the possibility that he may be turned out and his wives and children reassigned to another male who has retained his positive position within the church cult.  Another messed up belief of this religion cult.