You tube influencer "rehomes" adopted son

[quizacabusi81]

Myka Stauffer a popular YouTube and Instagram influencer raised considerable funds to adopt a child from China, the child a boy she called Huxley had brain damage, non verbal autism and behavioural difficulties. Myka has 4 biological children and adopted 4 year Huxley 18 months ago.

After quite some time of not posting anything about him and after repeated questions from her "followers" she recently uploaded a video where in her words she's "rehomed him" and he was with people much more able and suited to deal with his complex needs.

The main issue people have is the money she raised for his adoption and the secrecy regarding this at one point one of her followers noticed that she had put a video up of her repainting his room and turning it into her daughters room with no mention of him.

Apparently it was like she wanted people to forgot she has ever adopted him and people are furious.

I can see both sides as it must have been a complex and difficult decision especially if they couldn't meet his needs. She had to consider her other children... one a small baby but on the other hand she wasn't very transparent about it...

Also there are allegations of her using duct tape on his hands and I have seen a video of her mocking him because of his meltdowns so hopefully he is now with people more suited to his needs.

Thoughts?

Just another tidbit of info... If your child (biological or adopted) is violent toward your other children, child and youth services will become involved. If they think the child should be removed from the home and you refuse... They can move to take your other children as it is seem that you are not keeping them safe.

seen

@Perisoire

As much as I abhor what she has done, I think there may be more to the thumb sucking. My niece was a thumb sucker and she sucked it so much that it was red and blue with deep bite marks. We all tried to discourage her from it.

I can see why someone would be worried about excessive thumb sucking. However, it never occurred to any of us to duct tape her hand or similar, we would hold niece's hand and kiss her poor thumb.

Similar thought here. I did wonder whether it could be self injury of some kind. Some children with asd and/or trauma bite their hands for sensory input.

The response of duct tape is still completely awful.

I do wonder if the child was removed due to the parents not coping and mistreating the little one. If SS knew due was duct taping his hands, I'd hope that they would remove him.

[quote CourtneyLurve]Rehoming adoptees is a thing in the US: www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/11/children-who-have-second-adoptions/575902/[/quote]
If people haven't read the link in this post, it explains "rehoming", which is completely unregulated. I'm horrified.

"Rehome" omg she's talking about a child and says "rehome" as if she was talking about a pet. It's clear that that's what that child was to her: a two-legged pet.

Bess Kalb
@ bessbell
·
4m
...Myka, you are a monster, not a mother. You exploited your toddler for sponsorships and abandoned him using shelter pet terminology while blaming him

I agree wholeheartedly with this comment from a few minutes ago.

(From Twitter)

This is exactly why they didn’t go public with their decision. They must have known that the online bullying and abuse would be terrible. I’m sure they are getting it in person too,

Really none of us know hardly anything about these people or their situation. It is none of our business and yet people are really frothing at the bit and whipping themselves into a frenzy.

If you don’t care about the mum and dad, then at least consider the effect that all this must be having on their kids and just leave them the fuck alone, eh?

As an adoptee I personally find the whole concept of adopting a child from a completely different cultural heritage to be completely detrimental to the child if I'm honest. Add in the fundraising component to remove a child from its country of origin for a perceived 'greater good', and its a complete piss take IMHO.

Really none of us know hardly anything about these people or their situation. It is none of our business

What a strange comment.

They are INFLUENCERS. They have made a point of making sure that God knows how many strangers know huge amounts about their lives. They have made their lives into everyone else's business.

They have gone about adoption in a way that would simply not be permitted in the UK or in other countries that have a more responsible approach to adoption.

That is what I would judge them for, not the fact that the adoption broke down (which I would never ever judge someone for, especially after some of the stories I have heard).

There's a video where she explains that her doctor warned her against adopting Huxley due to his great medical needs, and she dismissed the advice saying it was "going to be awesome" and that "my child is not returnable". And that no matter the prognosis "we will love him" and the doctors advice went "in one ear and out the other". Her words not mine. It's in the first 5 minutes of this YouTube video (first minute is her asking for donations from her subscribers for the adoption).

After watching this I think we can only conclude this adoption had no chance of success really. They went into the process incredibly naively, against medical advice that they did not take seriously. And even knowing the child's great needs went on to have a subsequent child rather than focus on Huxley for a few years.

@3cats I'd imagine it has a greater long term consequence for the adopted child that's then being 'moved along', than it does for the biological children to be honest. I'm assuming they haven't bothered their arses to return the funds initially raised to return the child to their country of origin/identity, and set the rest of money up to care for their future well being. I'd hazard a guess that money was spent long ago and the child is now a financial ward of the state till adulthood 😕 Plus nobody is required to be on social media... Its a novel idea but they could choose to opt out.

He must have got her, her subscribers than she 'rehomed' him like he's an animal.
Wonder if her own biological child had the same as Huxley she'd do the same... doubt it.
Vile person.

You say they are 'Influencers' but until this story got into our tabloids, I doubt many people had even heard of them. I cannot honestly imagine they truly 'influence' anyone.

It's a very sad tale and of course I wish they hadn't adopted the little boy, that someone else had who was more equipped to deal with his severe medical problems; however he is at least in the USA where there are the very best facilities for children with special needs and now with someone who is properly qualified to know how to care for hm. He may well thrive. Myka and husband no doubt feel terribly guillty about it all and really should (I hate saying 'should'), go low profile now for everyone's sakes.

She says Huxley is still part of their lives.

The adoption scene in America is quite bizarre. I too saw the Louis Theroux documentary previously mentioned. However we have people here in the UK who adopt children from abroad too, I don't think that in itself is wrong but it is very lengthy and costly. Sometimes it works out but adoptions of all kinds go wrong.

I was privately adopted and understand something about it (not pretending to be an 'expert').

Yes, they are influencers and yes they do live a certain part of their lives in the public, but that doesn't mean it's open season on them They made a huge and terrible mistake and I really hope Huxley is being well taken care of. I've seen videos of the conditions in some Chinese orphanages and hopefully they fact that they got him out of that situation is a good enough result. I'm sure this family will have to live with the consequences of their mistake for an extremely long time, but I feel that is enough. We don't have to start with the online abuse, calling them names, attacking them on Twitter. The whole thing is utterly out of control. I feel sorry for them. Whatever happened, there are far more evil people in the world than them. They were naive and maybe selfish, but that doesn't make them scum. How about showing a little empathy and compassion for their situation?

I'd hazard a guess that money was spent long ago and the child is now a financial ward of the state till adulthood 😕

Why on earth would you assume that?

It's like everyone is trying to twist the situation to make it as horrific as possible. I find this thread utterly disturbing, so will respectfully bow out.

Don't forget to #BeKind, everyone.

They're vile people. He was adopted simply to up her status on SM. Straight after she " rehomed" him she's on Instagram grinning like the vacuous twat she,is touting some crappy product. Literally not bothered.

There are plenty of sickening oh you're so wonderful/ ignore the haters comments from her dickhead followers. They gave a child away ffs. I hope all her sponsors remove themselves. In fact if I had more time I'd message them all and ask if they think she's still and great advert for their shit products.

Don't forget to #BeKind, everyone

Do you know what, I hate people spouting this be kind crap. None of what they have done is kind to this xhild or their own, who are still at a huge risk of thinking yhey will be sent away if they too become difficult.

Why should we be kind to people who actively asked people to give them koney so they could take a child from his country of birth, give him a new identity, spend 2 years parading his whole life on social media only to then try and erase the fact he ever existed?

Were they kind to Huxley? From what I've seen and heard since this news broke they would have been much kinder to leave him where he was but then of course they wouldn't have earnt all that money.

The reason people are judging them is because they exploited this poor boy from the minute they decided to get their supporters to help 'purchase' him.

Nobody is stating they're 'scum', all that's being questioned is the reality of crowd funding to adopt a child from another country when their disabilities have obviously been highlighted. Adoptions do sometimes break down, but the reality is 99% of families don't expect someone else to 'fund' the process for them. Plus also look to remove a child from their country of birth to be displaced unless they are damn sure they can offer a better alternative. Yes, placements can and do fail. But the reality is if you've committed to a child with additional needs and been aware of that from the start (which they would), it's pretty shitty to then state its not working out after X years. Plus it begs the question as to why go on to have a baby if you're already struggling with the number of children you have? Especially if one has additional needs? You can't just chop and change if one isn't working out to replace with another. They adopted not fostered the child they handed back. The process is intensive and they hardly stumbled in to it.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Similar happens in the UK, especially with children/siblings group that are harder to place. We also have linkmaker, a website where you can browse available children in the UK, you see location, a small bio, small list of needs/issues, pictures and sometimes videos, you then message the ones you like the look of and their SW will receive the message.

Sadly adoptions breakdown sometimes, and it's usually because the child has unknown behavioural challenges the adoptive parents aren't aware of and can't meet the child's needs as it gets older. I can well imagine this was the case, although it sounds by reading the posts below that she knew of the issues.

To use the word 'rehomed' is awful, and most adoptive parents don't use their child to make money from. It's a very traumatic experience for all involved and a general rule SS will only admit a child back into care unless absolutely necessary, and it's in the child's best interests.

What she's done is despicable. Not the adoption breaking down, that can sadly happen. But absolutely everything else she's done is despicable, even if we ONLY go in what she's said.

However.

HUXLEY HAD A DAD TOO! He seems to be out of the firing line. She may make the videos, but she didn't adopt him alone.

She also makes these videos and monetises her kids with her husband knowing. He's not the face of the videos, but he's equally responsible for all this.

A few posters have included him in their attacks, but the minority.

Being a father isn't less of a responsibility than a mother and rejection by your father is as harmful as your mother, if she was struggling, where was he? Did he hit the roof when he saw his son's little thumb/hand duck taped?!

The father has behaved just as horrifically as her, yet here we are attacking only the mother.

I hope to goodness a decent social worker saw the videos and got the kid removed and that he's in a really supportive home now. One where love is unconditional and comes with things like respect and patience.

There have been abuse/neglect accusations. I wonder if he was actually taken from them and not given up by them. She's not likely to want to admit that. Seems a lot of people reported them. Duct tape ffs!

3cats quoted the following from another poster:
I'd hazard a guess that money was spent long ago and the child is now a financial ward of the state till adulthood 😕.

......
I agree with your posts 3 cats. Whilst I dislike what this woman has done I doubt she had bad intentions at the start, quite the opposite. We can't anticipate how we will cope with some situations.

As for the money, surely that was used to travel to and stay in China and the for the costly adoption process. It can hardly be given back and those who donated would have given in bits and pieces unless they were extremely wealthy. As long as there is an eventual good outcome for Huxley, it was worthwhile.

Many lessons are to be learned from this whole, horrible saga, I hope Myka stops doing Youtube and finds something more edifying to do with her spare time. It strikes me as a shallow past time, even more so as an occupation.

How exactly can people who believe in an all-powerful, all-seeing God who talks to them to "soften their heart" so they adopt this child with special needs, then go on to give this child away? How do they explain this to God? "Sorry mate, your heart-tenderising magic didn't work very well, we're returning the child you gave to us because he's too much work"? How do they plan to explain this when they die and have to explain themselves to their God?