16yo lifeguard invited coworkers to a hot tub party then saw his mother (now a convicted criminal) lurking in the corner: ‘They never came back’
At least he turned out to be a gentleman.
We all remember the crushing weight of getting embarrassed by our mother during our teenage years. But for one 16-year-old’s trying to socialize as a lifeguard, the embarrassment reached a level that few could survive.
TikTok creator Chad Franke (@chadwfranke) is going viral for an account of a 2019 hot tub party, shut down by his mother’s strict “modesty” rules. The poor guy was only trying to flirt and impress his female colleagues. But his attempts were dismantled by a mother who believed a bikini was a grounds for immediate expulsion.
With over 844,000 views, Chad’s story serves as a visceral reminder that some family dynamics are far more complicated than they appear on the surface.
A lifeguard training session led to a party
When Chad was 16, he worked as a lifeguard at a local recreation center. Following a staff training session, he impulsively invited a group of female coworkers back to his house to enjoy his family’s large new hot tub.
He pitched it as a fun, harmless way to hang out, and his coworkers excitedly accepted the invitation, bringing along their “regular, normal” swimsuits.
Chad’s mother watched the group from the blinds
The party was in full swing for about 90 minutes when Chad noticed a figure pacing inside the house. “Every time, I can just get a little more peek at the blinds opening a little more,” he recalled. Then it suddenly hit him that the figure is actually his mother pacing back and forth.
Turned out, she was closely monitoring the group through the blinds all this while. Even though parental supervision over teenagers is common, this felt increasingly intense. Eventually, the door opened, a move Chad described as the “first mistake.”
She banned the guests from wearing a two-piece swimsuit
As soon as Chad’s mother, Ruby, came in, she called the girls over for a private chat. Chad immediately knew in the back of his mind then that “these girls are about to get their lives ruined after this conversation.”
To the shock of everyone else, Ruby informed the teenagers that they were not allowed to wear two-piece swimsuits in her home. She gave them a blunt ultimatum: leave the premises immediately, or change into one-piece suits.
Chad watched from the water as his social life evaporated. He recalled that one girl was even moved to tears by the confrontation. “Everyone’s jaws dropped,” Chad said, offering a belated apology to the women involved.
The Mother in question is the infamous Ruby Franke
For many viewers, this story carries a much darker weight because of the mother’s identity. Chad is one of the six children of Ruby Franke, the former star of the “8 Passengers” family YouTube channel. While she was once known for her strict, “modesty-focused” parenting on camera, the reality behind the scenes was far more severe.
In late 2023, Ruby Franke was arrested and later convicted on four counts of aggravated child abuse. The “modesty” lecture Chad describes is now viewed by many as an early window into her extremist and controlling ideologies. These eventually led to her criminal conviction and the collapse of the Franke family’s public image.
In his caption, Chad admitted that his coworkers never returned for a second dip in the hot tub. But his willingness to share these stories now offers a candid look at life under one of the internet’s most controversial figures.
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