YouTuber Stauffer rehoming adoptive child.

[AuntyBess]

Absolutely horrendous story of an American family raising money via monetised you tube videos to pay for process of adopting Chinese boy, then giving him up when his needs were too much for the family.

If you've read of this story, have you noticed how many comments are directed solely towards the mother, not both parents.

Colour me shocked.

Apologies, I mean adopted child in the title.

The comments are aimed at the mother because she's the vlogger running the SM account, and she used incredibly offensive language to describe what happened.
She says the baby has been ''rehomed'' to his ''forever home''. I find her choice of language disturbing.

As pp says; the vitriol is directed to myka as she is the one who has made the most statements, and who largely controls their social media. James is also attracting criticism, but I rarely criticise Melania for what trump says, so why would I criticise james for what his wife says?

She says the baby has been ''rehomed'' to his ''forever home''. I find her choice of language disturbing

"Forever home" is the expression used by animal re-homing charities. It's not offensive there but for a child, it's dreadful.

I would be very concerned about how he was 're-homed'. I hope proper agencies were involved. Americans adopting from abroad is fraught with issues and not properly regulated although a lot of countries are clamping down on it.

This is quite a sobering read albeit a few years old now.
www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/#article/part1

I'm not critical of adoptions breaking down, it happens to a proportion everywhere, even under well regulated systems. But this particular case is quite unpleasant due to the crowd funding, social media and using the child to profit.

A family with that many small children of their own should not have been able to adopt any child never mind one with significant SN. Even with the best of intentions (which are dubious in this case) those parents were going to be spread too thinly to give Huxley the time and intervention he would need to thrive.

I saw and shared this story yesterday, it's interesting to me that the couple raised the money for he adoption through a crowdfunder, failed to be honest with followers (no that I think you should expect answers necessarily because you donated cash) and then yes, 'rehomed' this little boy because they didn't quite think it through.

She said that Huxley would be going to his "new forever home" which for a child is complex to understand, I think, let alone a child with autism if he deal in black/white situations and absolutes.

His home with them should have been his forever home or he shouldn't have been placed with them in the first place. Myka was the one to say that with international adoptions it's difficult to get all the information but they both failed to either get the information they need to make an informed choice or simply didn't realise how difficult and expensive it would be. Their foolishness cost this little boy more trauma.

Their four children must be confused about where their new brother went.

This is why overseas adoptions not carried out through social services based process is a really bad idea. Adoptions do break down, they're far more likely to break down when a child has severe end needs, and if an adoptive parent wasn't thoroughly vetted, their situation and motives thoroughly checked, and legally enforced that if the adoption broke down, the child goes back to a government system.

The 'rehoming' of very traumatised and disabled children in the USA when adoptions break down is horrific, in some cases the new family hears of the child on the grapevine or advertised on sites, and in one case I knew of, the new family just went out there, signed the papers and the child left with them 48 hours later, having been barely introduced to them. In that case the family the child went to included a professional who'd been horrified by the circumstances the child was in and how a child was just signed away in a few hours by the authorities, and it later turned out the child's original adoption had been in dodgy circumstances and at least one of the child's adoptive families - there had been a couple - had very seriously abused them.

This is one of the (many) reasons why surrogacy worries me so much: where parents can get a child by bypassing the very detailed process, training and vetting involved in adoption which dig right into the adult's baggage, their motives, their ability to put the child first, we are setting children up in the UK for equally horrific circumstances.

Apparently God softened their hearts to adopting a special needs child. So I suppose it was God who hardened them to it when they sent him to live elsewhere.

I didn't realise so much of the online content featured Huxley and his life has essentially been 'monetised'. Horrid.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/myka-stauffer-huxley-announcement?utmsource=dynamic&utmm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeedtasty&ref=bffbbuzzfeedtasty

I rarely criticise Melania for what trump says, so why would I criticise james for what his wife says?

It's not the same situation, Trump is president and he and Melania are not making decisions together.

In the adoption case, both parents worked together to adopt the child and then 'rehome' him so both are responsible for what has happened.

Yes, all of the vitriol has been directed at the mother and not the father.

I briefly watched a couple of the videos and it does seem they did try with a child who had more complex needs than they were led to believe, they talked about 6 hours a day of autism therapy for example. They said they had to give Huxley up because of incidents with their other children, it is possible he had been violent with the new baby.

I do hope this boy is now with someone with the resources to care for him properly.

I have just found the Instagram, it’s quite heartbreaking to see the photos of the little boy with his siblings only a couple of months or so ago.

They have privately ‘rehomed’ him too without going through official channels. How is that even allowed?

I'm no fan of witch hunts, but I have zero sympathy for the backlash this family are getting.

That poor boy.

"Forever home" is the expression used by animal re-homing charities.
"Forever family" is fairly common, if a bit vomit-inducing, phrase in adoption.
But there are just so many other things wrong with this situation.

A story of such horror it makes me want to hide away in a cave.

Maybe one day it will be illegal to pimp your children for cash on social media. Maybe one day proper stats on adoption breakdown will be collected and policies changed as a result.

The white saviour complex they oversold but couldn’t see through.

Adoption breakdown is very common in the US - something like 2 out of 3 adoptions break down, but the children often (like in this case) don't go back into the care system, just handed off to someone else. I read a shocking article on it a few years ago about how many children go "missing" after adoption in the US as they end up in the care of people who aren't their legal (adoptive) parents, and the people who went to such lengths to adopt them don't know or care where they end up.

I know troubled children can be impossible to live with, but how horrific for them to have to face the loss of a primary carer for a second time. Attachment issues are something we are only starting to really understand these days, and the impact on a child is profound.

Would they rehome their biological child if he/she had additional needs? I doubt it.

I only read about this yesterday

Adoption should be for life. I think what annoys me about the use of the term “forever home” in this context is that they adopted him so their home should have been his forever home. It’s meaningless if they just passed him on.

And yes how can they just pass him off to another family?

I’m sure that wouldn’t be allowed in this country ?

I found that Reuters article really disturbing! I just hope laws have since been made to protect the rights of adopted children. How can it be legal.just to pass your legally adopted child onto someone else with no involvement from the authorities? These poor children are vulnerable to any predator who wants to take advantage of such a lax system. I hope the UK has strict enough laws that it can't happen here. That YouTube couple put the chance of some easy money before the needs of ALL their children. I.just hope Huxley is loved and cared for by whoever has him now.

Passing children on in this way isn't completely illegal in this country (you can send your child to live with anyone you like but they count as privately fostered and they will have regular SW visits).
Both birth and adopted children with severe SEND often end up part or full time in foster care in the UK but usually they will remain legally the children of their parents.

Wasn't Victoria Climbie privately fostered by her aunt?

I believe so, I think it led to some tightening of regulations.

Adoption breakdown happens here too but it used to be the case that stats on it weren't kept. I hope that has changed.

This is one of the reasons I get annoyed when people tell the infertile they should "just adopt" or try to make adoptive parents feel guilty because they won't take on special needs children. It is much preferable that people are honest in the beginning about what they can cope with, and only adopt a child if they are fully committed.

There's been a bit of discussion around the Ukrainian surrogate babies who are (AFAIK) still stuck in the Ukraine where people ask "why didn't the parents adopt when it's 'possible'".

I think the position on surrogacy vs adoption Dr is due to the fact that surrogacy is intent is only creating a human life, a baby, for to be separated from the mother at birth and adoption being to find a loving parent/s for a child that cannot be with their biological parents for whatever reason.

What's your position on it?