Nobody wants to experience feeling like because of who you are and how you were brought into
this world, you're not worthy of love.
I just have to bring him home.
He's in my heart and he's, he's our kid like he is our kid, but when you meet your child,
your child is a totally different child.
I imagined Huxley to be this like shy, sweet.
I don't know how to explain it, but I just imagined this like shy little guy who just
just wants to be held and cuddled and that is the furthest thing from the truth.
He couldn't get any cuter if he tried like seriously, look at this face.
do you like my glasses.
Do you want to wear them?
Oh wow.
No.
He said, no, no, no Pedro, no more.
Come on, let's go.
You're not going to throw a fit when you don't get your way.
Are you done fitting?
Are you done?
You all done.
Huxley has had multiple meltdowns and not having a good day to you never tell you guys
the truth.
That's why you don't see Huxley a lot in the blogs, he's probably having a melt down.
We are going to be doing a STEM cell perhaps is missing part of his brain, but we're hoping
to do a STEM cell treatment on hugs, which is very pricey, but hoping to get treatment
done on hand that could help regrow some of that brain material.
You know, with international adoption sometimes there's unknowns and things that are not transparent
on files and things like that.
And once Huxley came home, there was a lot more special needs that we weren't aware of.
I think what Jim is trying to say is that after multiple assessments, after multiple
evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit and
that his medical needs he needed more.
We haven't made this video yet.
It's because we've been trying to protect his privacy, his rights, and also just try
to not mess up his future.
That was laid out in front of us.
We're trying our best to make sure we don't impact that at all.
So there's been this story going around about this blogger who, um, rehomed her autistic
child that she adopted from China.
Um, some of you guys know that I am adopted.
Um, and I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this.
So I wanted to kind of come to you guys and have a conversation with you guys and sort
of put my voice out there into the ether.
So to bring you guys up to speed, there is this blogger named Myka Stauffer and she is
a mommy blogger and she really became popular when she was making videos about her international
adoption.
She adopted a child from China and I believe she has about 37 videos or had about 37 videos
about this particular child.
Um, she became really, really well known for these particular types of videos about this
particular child.
Um, and recently she made a video with her husband where she talked about rehoming him
because he has autism.
There were a lot of unexpected things that came from his, um, having autism in the video.
She basically infers that there were some things that happened between Huxley and her
biological children that made her feel like they needed to rehome him.
It is not particularly uncommon that a family will adopt a child and they will find out
that that child is not a fit.
That does happen, right?
It doesn't usually happen after three years.
Now listen, you guys know me, I like to sort of look at both sides.
I say that things are not usually, um, in my view, black and white, they're usually
undulating sort of shades of gray.
But this was one of those cases where the more I looked into it, the more upset it made
me, the more pissed me off and the more it made me want to talk about this issue that
I have in general with these YouTube family channels and also just the culture that comes
from this.
So the time of me filming this video, let me see how many subscribers Myka Stauffer
has.
She has 713,000 subscribers on.
Let me look at her views.
She usually gets about 80,000 views per video.
Um, let me see about her videos.
But Huxley, if they're still there.
So she has several videos about Huxley and they're clearly one of her more popular videos
on her channel.
Most of these videos have over 200,000 views.
Some of them have, you know, probably at the very least 40,000 views.
And you know, I'm just going to say I've had a pretty good month on YouTube and I know
what comes from I'm getting these views and I know that she's been able to make quite
a bit of money.
She's also done a lot of sponsorship deals, which I also know makes her quite a bit of
money, especially since she works with larger corporations.
And so long story short, um, her adopting this child was a big cash grab for her.
For me, looking at this, this was clear cut her adopting a child for the aesthetic, adopting
a child for the views, adopting a child so that she could get clout.
And I find it disgusting.
I find it to be absolutely disgusting.
Now this is going to be the little portion of the video where I talk about this because
this is what really upsets me.
I've been on YouTube since I was 15 years old and I'm very thankful that when I had
my little 15 year old YouTube videos up, I was not popular.
YouTube was not what it is now.
Most of those videos are not well known videos where I would have to live with them for the
rest of my life.
My issue in general with people who bring their children onto YouTube is that those
children without even, you know, before they even have an ability to really think for themselves
or advocate for themselves or decide what they particularly want, are now characters
on YouTube.
Let me tell ya, there's a lot of my life that is permanently effected by the fact that I
have a YouTube channel.
There's a lot of things I can't quite do because I have a YouTube channel and you know I've
taken that.
I accepted that.
I've embraced that.
That is what it is.
I love my job, but I have such an issue with people who bring their children onto YouTube
without fully thinking through what the repercussions could be for that child longterm, this kid
was adopted so that she could have, you know, a vibe okay on her, on her YouTube channel,
and not only that, it was documented and now this kid who's only four years old is this.
The focus of this news story and that kid's going to grow up and how all of these complicated
feelings about that.
I was adopted by a family who ultimately didn't want me because of the things that I was born
with and I didn't choose 'em.
I didn't choose this family.
I didn't decide this is who I want to be with.
They adopted me.
They put me in front of a camera, right?
They decided that they wanted to do these things and then they decided that I wasn't
worthy.
Now here's the thing.
I think a lot of people looking at this story could say, you know what?
It's not totally unreasonable for her to rehome a child who is difficult, but here's the thing.
You know, if you're going to adopt a child, you need to be, you need to be in a position
where you are ready for anything because that's what being a parent is.
So I'm adopted.
I don't really necessarily get along very well with my family for a lot of reasons,
which we won't get into in this video, but there's a one thing I know for a fact, as
hard as our relationship has been, I still for a fact, know that my adopted parents would
never want to stop being my parents.
My little brother and I are both adopted.
His mother had a lot of complications when she was pregnant with him.
He's had developmental issues for his entire life.
He still lives with my parents.
Because of this.
I watched my parents take my little brother to therapist upon therapist upon therapist,
doctor's office, doctor's office, doctor's office, and they never quit.
They never quit on him because they made, when they saw that little kid in the foster
home, they made a decision that they were going to be his forever parents.
They made the decision that we're never going to give up on this kid.
We're garlics of how hard it may be.
My parents don't have a ton of money.
They never quit on my little brother.
These people regularly in their videos, cause I've watched quite a few of them at this point
flaunt their wealth.
There's one video that people are talking about where you know she's, she's wearing
this thousand dollar watch while asking her followers to help give money so that they
could raise money for Huxley.
Oh, side note too.
This is, this is, this is the, this is a cream on the cake after she rehomed him.
We're now finding out that she went and took a, did a trip to Bali.
Basically what I'm saying is that these people have money.
They have the money.
They just don't want to do it.
They've got the resources but they don't want to give them to Huxley.
A lot of kids who get rehomed or rehomed because when really looking at it, either it's not
a fit or there aren't enough resources.
They didn't really estimate the resources correctly.
They have resources.
One of the things that she talked about was Huxley would get out of the bed at night.
You know, they can hire somebody to sit there with the child at night and sleep in the same
room if they wanted to find a person to come in and take care of the kid, to watch the
kid, to sit with the kid, to make sure that they get the kid's homework done, even to
sit with the kid, they have that money.
They just don't want to do it.
I want people to stop having an adopting children if they're not ready for those kids to be
completely different than them, to have thoughts and ideas that are completely different from
them to maybe not totally be the picture perfect child that they want them to be.
I need y'all to stop doing that because what you're doing is you're setting the foundation
for years of trauma and abandonment issues, shit that no one wants to experience.
Nobody wants to experience feeling like because of who you are and how you were brought into
this world, you're not worthy of love.
And we can sit here and say, no, it was this, no it was this and dah, dah, dah, and maybe
there's a point there, but that's how the kid's going to feel.
You know, there's YouTube shit.
Look, I love it, I love it.
But we've seen a couple of times now how how these parents will exploit their children
for views and for money, and I haven't spoken really transparently about this, but I've
been a YouTuber for all of my adult life and there's an underbelly of the way that we're
using the internet now that makes me deeply, deeply uncomfortable.
I don't think people totally have processed how unhealthy some of this is, how unhealthy
it is for children to be published on the internet, especially with what people do with
images of children on the internet.
It sickens me the fact that someone would adopt somebody for money that someone would
use them for.
Sponsorships, solicit donations from their followers that they do not need and that they
know they don't need.
It is this other worldly bleak bullshit that I have.
Even even even I have a hard time processing.
I hard time processing it because it's so dark.
It's so dark.
We're using children to make money and while we're doing that, we're putting out and projecting
images that damage these children that put them in positions that they don't need to
be.
We're in the beginning of all this, right?
Give it 10 give it 10 years.
These kids are going to come out and say how much this messed with them and it will be
too in late.
People will look at people like Myka Stauffer and say, well, I want my kids to be on on
YouTube too.
Part of why this pisses me off too is I know that part of it is she spent all of this time
building up this kid she was adopting from China and then when she adopted the kid, well
the kid wasn't willing to tap dance on camera, wasn't willing to be cute the way that she
wanted on camera wasn't willing to fit into the aesthetic the way she wanted on camera
because he has autism and he's an actual person, not a doll.
Non-actor now I know that some people look at their families these days as businesses,
but that's not the way you should ever look at your family.
You should look at your family as the people you take care of, the people you want to bring
up, the people who you would go to the end of the earth for, and the fact that you weren't
willing to do that.
Myka, the fact that you were willing to quit on your child like that repulses me.
I'm so thankful that I had adopted parents who said, we're going to love our child.
It's not always been easy, and I've got a long list of issues with my parents, but they're
my parents and I know that they would personally feel they would personally feel like a piece
of their heart, a piece of their soul is missing.
If I were to ever call someone else, my parents, I think she's a little too happy to talk about
Huxley's new mommy.
You know, I only saw one tear fall from her face during the whole, the whole video.
I know that deep down inside, I mean not even deep down inside they feel relief for not
having this kid around anymore and that's, that's sick shit.
To me, that's some sick shit.
Putting your kid back into the foster system after three years again, kids get rehomed.
That is a thing that does happen sometimes.
A family is not a fit.
That's not something you usually establish after three years.
After three years of integrating your biological children into this child's life, treating
them like your kid breaks my heart.
It really, it really breaks my heart.
I think I've said what I want to say.
I'm sure I haven't said any everything correctly.
I'm sure I was crass in this video, but this shit really cut under my skin.
This shit really got under my skin.
Being adopted is so confusing and can be so frustrating and so alienating and to very
publicly have someone you know, make all this money and solicit all these donations because
of you and then to give you up because you were too complicated.
You can't flaunt your wealth and then act like you know, it would have been too much
for you to get somebody to help because there's nothing wrong with being a parent and acknowledging
that you need help.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Please stop adopting children when you're not to take care of them, regardless of how
they turn out.
Please stop.
You are, you are really helping no one by doing that.
So anyway, I will talk to you guys next time.
Bye.