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 to clarify: the post about wanting to adopt a child with disabilities that the public considers more difficult than they actually are was from 2018, the year after they adopted Huxley. I haven't seen anything to indicate that they are still planning to adopt again.

@Rhodri

How do you think biological parents cope *@Rhodri*? When it’s your bio child you’re invested, you’re bonded, and you’re willing to sacrifice for your child. When it’s not your bio child you’re much less willing to sacrifice for them. Most people who have disabled children would not have chosen to sign up for that if they’d had a choice. These people didn’t want to sign up for a profoundly disabled child - they were willing to accept mild disability but when this child turned out to have more severe needs they noped out.

*@Rhodri*, I take great exception to your comment about non-biological parents not being willing to make sacrifices for their children. I am an adoptive parent twice over and I am more than a decade into my adoption journey. I wound up a very successful business to be an entirely self-funded-for-five-years stay-at-home parent when my eldest DD came home 11 years ago. I subsequently retrained and registered as a foster carer and, after a few placements, was asked to adopt the 12-hour-old baby who was brought to me as an emergency case. That child is now four-years-old and a condition of me adopting her was that I had to resign from my fostering career. That’s two successful careers I’ve sacrificed in order to give two traumatised children a loving, stable and safe family.

My eldest adoptive DD, who was placed as a healthy baby, is now registered blind, having lost her sight a year ago as a direct consequence of her birth mother’s extreme drug misuse which resulted in irreparable damage to her optical nerves.

It is no lie to say that, as a family, we have been to hell and back. My children were removed from their families of origin at birth but they both bear the physical, mental and neurological scars of the drug and alcohol abuse, plus extreme domestic violence and chaotic lifestyles to which they were both exposed in utero.

I have suffered years of lying, stealing, food hoarding, aggression, violence and other anti-social behaviours from my eldest DD, who also happens to be the smartest, funniest, wittiest, cleverest, quirkiest, most creative kid you would ever hope to meet.

I have no qualms in saying that I think I have proven that I have staying power as a parent, even though I’m not biologically connected to mine.

This just gets worse

She should never never never be allowed to adopt again. I would also seriously consider investigating whether her biological children should even be with her.

Are you done yet? Are you over yourself?

Don't be offended, I'm just quoting Myka Stauffer talking to her 2 year old autistic son when he's had a meltdown as he's been out in a loud public area for too long.

She should definitely not be allowed to adopt again!

The laws must be lax if she manages to adopt another child.

She has three already, that's enough to fuel her channel.

She had been planning to adopt again, they were mithering about it a while ago and then hey presto she was pregnant with Onyx. So typical. The 'will we, won't we' over another adoption when they must have known they were trying for a baby / already pregnant.

She's often said she wants 6 kids, and I think they'd have wanted 4 naturally and 2 adopted. Now the adoption has gone spectacularly wrong, I can imagine they'll have another pregnancy soon. I dont think she'd be content with 'only' 4 kids. She has a need to be better / superior to other YouTube mothers so she'll want to be classed as a 'large family'.

She might also see it as a way to change the subject from Huxley. It was encouraging to see they've been dropped by a number of companies who've worked with them in the past. I really hope fabletics drop her too.

I'm not sure that they can come back from this... most of her sponsors will pull out, she will lose subscribers who will no longer believe the false image they have portrayed. They can hardly push the narrative about inconsequential things such as cleaning/ beauty regimes when they have been untruthful, false and misleading about their families life.

Adoptions of course break down which is devastating for all involved but for me personally it's the way she tried to whitewash him out of existence and continue to "live the good life" with no mention of him or the effect on her other children.

Apparently there is rumours that he is now in foster care and not the forever home she stated.

I've just had a look on YouTube, I'm absolutely appalled! Despicable creatures treating a human being like that. Poor little boy.

Now the adoption has gone spectacularly wrong, I can imagine they'll have another pregnancy soon. I dont think she'd be content with 'only' 4 kids. She has a need to be better / superior to other YouTube mothers so she'll want to be classed as a 'large family'. She might also see it as a way to change the subject from Huxley.

Yup - get pregnant again, then accuse anyone who criticises her for treating Huxley as disposable of "bullying a pregnant woman".

This is heartbreaking on so many levels but my main thoughts are that any adopted child, especially an autistic one, shouldn't have been placed in this environment in the first place. The media glare isn't healthy but also the fact they have so many other children means it would be difficult for them to deal with the autism alone, let alone the other issues faced by many adoptive children as a result of their backgrounds without either the adoptive child or their birth children suffering.

Over here adoptive parents are encouraged to keep children entirely away from social media, especially for the first few years when they are easily recognisable by birth family etc. Personally I'm not a fan of putting families in front of a camera anyway, especially when they are too young to consent or understand, but a vulnerable one is a huge no from me.

Secondly the child will be far better off in any household that doesn't want to "cure" him with controversial therapies that try to "train" autistic children to conform to NT standards.

I don't think they should be approved to adopt a child with additional needs again at all and no child for a long time. Adoptions do break down but clearly this family have enough on their plate and have been very resistant to coming at this in an informed or mature way.

What are you insinuating?

morningcalm thats a pretty big thing to lie about... you cannot "teach" or indeed "train" a child to be autistic

Was he diagnosed ASD in USA or China?

I'm assuming he will have been diagnosed in the USA.

I think the fact Huxlex has autism is true, I briefly skimmed one of their videos where he was doing several hours of ABA therapy a day.

Sorry, but 'Onyx'?

[sheesh]

It's R Life made a video response about why they would never give up their adopted special needs child.

The police are currently trying to locate Huxley.

They have removed every single photo of Huxley from their SM. Disabled comments. I hope this ruins them. Making money from that poor little love then dumping him. They truly are revolting people.

No complaints about the link being the DM please

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8381649/Ohio-sheriffs-office-trying-locate-YouTube-star-Myka-Stauffers-autistic-son.html

Even the worst thing they did is give him to another family they need to be punished. All advertising and social media income taken away. I don’t know if there is any crime in ‘rehoming’ your child (maybe it’s child neglect) if so they need to be prosecuted for that.
That article insinuates something far worse has happened but I only hope that’s not true.

That article almost makes it seem like something else has happened because surely if it's just a case of the family gave him to someone else they should be able to tell the police where he is. It doesn't look good.

It sounds like whatever they did was without any social services involvement. I really hope Huxley is ok.

It does sound worrying that law enforcement are working with multiple other agencies to locate him. Surely it should be a case of they tell them where Huxley is and then a welfare check is done. The fact they state it is an ongoing investigation is very worrying.

It appears there were no checks and they didn't use an agency to facilitate his move, did they even visit the house he would be living in? It seems they basically did the equivalent of putting up a gumtree ad saying "free child collection only! "

Hope they can find where Huxley is, and hope her career is now over.