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.
The start of that video was hard to watch. No, that's not quite true. I strait up could not watch the part where Stauffer was talking once she started going on about how she pictured the kid would be before adopting him. Everything else just made it worse.
My brother and I are also adopted and we have our fair share of issues, so hearing someone talk like that and treat another person like prop, aside from being reprehensible, its just viscerally awful. I like to think that I'm normally quite good with words, but I've got nothing for this and the fact that Kat Blaque was able to put together an articulate video on it is impressive.
That's horrifying.