The Psychology behind The Myka Stauffer debacle with Dr. Kirk Honda

[Music] yo welcome to the dead chimes podcast my name's Josh I'm Jeff and it has been a minute or two since we podcast it it's been a long time we it seems like we've said that the last few times but so much yeah it's crazy a lot to catch you guys up on next podcast I'll catch up on it all we don't have time today today we're diving right into the Micah Stouffer and the Stouffer family story you guys have been following us in YouTube about this whole story and I Jeff's been kind of going down the wormhole for the last couple days probably two we're gonna talk about this right quick we're gonna get into it and then we're gonna bring on dr. Kirk who is a who's a balanced perspective on all this stuff who is a psychologist who brings a really great perspective and it's probably not gonna be a popular perspective for those of us who want to hate the Stouffer's so talk to me Jeff what do you do what did you take away from this whole thing as I told you with the story so you told me about it I didn't I didn't happen upon it you you shut out the the texts and like holy cow look what's happening I'm losing my mind so that's what started me into it yeah the story on the surface to me sucks and I get why everybody's mad but it's also easy to be mad from behind your own computer or watching videos and then getting pissed and jumping on the bandwagon of all this stuff yeah I'm not saying that that's not that's necessarily wrong in this situation maybe the Stouffer's and Micah Stouffer and her husband what's his name James James maybe they are bad people maybe they had bad intentions from the beginning maybe they they the whole point of this was to make money I don't know how you don't think those bad intentions I just think it was a mixture of we she wanted to adopt and she's always had wanted to but the YouTube thing was a way to capitalize on it as well I think right I don't think that they were evil intentions to this there wasn't no intentions to adopt like I would say that would take so much like ya know foresight to say hey if we adopt this kid we're gonna be able to make money I just feel like that's unrealistic it was definitely a blends o of like because she had a video at one point saying since we've been married my whole life has been a YouTube channel so this was it had to be a natural part of it it wasn't there's no way they made this choice without that being a part of it you thinking they could make some dough if they adopted a kid I don't think that they thought it would be detrimental okay that's an and fair enough but that if that was the only thing than for sure that's crazy and that's evil yeah but I just what it made me start to think what like when I started listening to what was going on and seeing what was going on I understood why people are upset I mean when somebody makes money off of something a couple of things come into play one you're jealous that they're making money and you're not yeah and two they get all kinds of stuff and young fancy like those white shirts were pretty sweet those white shirts bother me but you know they're terrible there's a culture of people in the same with famous people who you just we've talked about this before you want to see people who are succeeding not succeed and the psychology behind it yes because you want them to feel but when someone actually fails and they actually have a legit reason to be called out that's when people like that's when this thing explodes the way it has exploded right so what it what it made me ask the question was I wanted to know how often do adoptions actually fail so they don't call it failing actually they call it wonder they call it I don't call it rehoming either like no they don't call it rehoming they call it sorry oh they call it a disruption okay so they refer to it as in the adoption culture so it means something's happened so it's about 80% of adoptions succeed this is prior to being legalized so prior to the paperwork being signed okay and then after that so that's twenty percent approximately are are disrupted before the paperwork signed and then after that it's only about three percent Wow so most most adoptions are successful now as you read you'll you you read stories about why people have disrupted adoptions and there's some terrible stories right yeah I mean yeah of course violence yeah and it's hard for them to deal with and so so I think most people because I don't think that they're gonna do Repton of dosh an adoption to hurt the child so they'll convince themselves because they have to yeah that it's going to be better for the child better something so it's you're right it's exactly what they said we did this for him right but what but think about something you're gonna do are you not gonna justify it the same way yeah of course that's all I'm thinking it's like you you have to do that or else or else yeah then you're gonna feel evil so I'm not saying I mean I know they're putting their best foot forward and try and trying to put a video forward to get people to empathize with them sympathize with them but from from the stories you read people that have done it from the stories I've read they're heartbroken over it like some of these other people right like there was one where this child that they brought into their home they had other children and the child was violent towards the other children would say really mean things to the child like your mother hates you and when you're not around started doing sexual things yeah to the mother Wow like well the mother was standing there come up so I mean there there's issues that's one story and we're not saying that's what happened here but there tends to be reasons and so there's one lady who they mentioned in this article she was a writer Joyce Maynard she was blogging and she had adopted two children six and 11 and she gave them up and she put in her blog that she's not able to give them what they need yeah that's I mean what does that statement mean so she got a lot of flack over that to back when she did that so she gave up two girls now who knows what that means people some people have biological children because they think it's gonna make them whole yeah and then that doesn't work so maybe like are you adopting somebody because you think this is gonna make our family whole and then you find out wow this is way harder than I thought it was gonna be and they need way more than way more I don't know counseling way more energy then you can you can give it sucks I mean you think you would know that ahead of time but yeah and I think a lot of I don't think it I don't know a lot of people who have adopted and a lot of these people are salt of the earth and it's just sometimes especially comes to being to being a YouTube personality is like you know that and the problem that I have with this whole thing one of the major issues is that they're a Fame didn't actually increase increase increase until this kid came along right half the reason that they're successful as they are is because of this kid and they they monetize it they made a ton of money off it they their jobs are this in this important I know I know you I know people I don't know who was who said this mommy bloggers and things like that who are like I need to have kids because it's my job I need more kids because this is my job I need a blog with this and having kids is important this is a this is a reality of parenting influencers is that they're not having more kids or not and I know that's not everybody but there is reality to it that it's just the next step for some people I need to have more kids I need to it's part of their process it's like the Duggars capitalized and made millions off of having more kids and more kids and more kids and more kids do you think they would have had 20 kids or whatever they had if they weren't if the last 10 years of life wasn't on TV I'm not saying they did I'm just saying there's people that need to do this stuff to keep them self relevant in order to make more money because this is their career if you're making YouTube big bucks you know and you'll get to live at home and we live this luxury lifestyle would you not keep going well yeah and I want to remind again it's only their career because people are making it their career it's true it's true like that's the part that's the circle on this thing right like if we want to be mad at them for what they did then you kind of gotta be a little bit mad at yourself if you're somebody that's been paying them that's true I mean I think a lot of the people I've heard a lot of comments on our YouTube channel that comment that they were following them and they were falling because of this kids story and the adoption and the entertainment value of it all and now they feel betrayed because this they they they let this kid go and didn't tell anybody they did you're right I think if they would have just came around and started this whole process saying we think that we do we had a huge mistake this isn't working for him and for us and this is how we're gonna go through that process instead they just kept it mum and they just went to the whole process and had to wait until they were called out the issue here is that they waited until they got caught and then they still to this day to this moment this area in this podcast have the content on their website right he's no longer with them stop monetizing it right that's the major issue here not that they gave him up because that does happen in your right and maybe there was major and maybe she was justified in it she probably was we don't know but then fine get rid of all the monetization in all the videos you have now because it just makes you look worse its optics are important here especially if you're in the if you're in the world you're putting yourself out there you want to look good here's an opportunity to look better in this situation make that money for him yeah not for you not for your tract out they're gonna give it to him then going to bali after getting rid of him again is just undo what the worst decision you could have made yeah I don't care if it cost you 20 grand $30,000 you just forget that trip because again you can't go back now people are gonna research everything about this yeah but okay this can be long podcast we got to get into dr. Perico let's bring him right on [Music] [Music] everybody here we are it's been a long time it has been and what a better way to to get back at her than to have our favorite guest of all time dr. Kirk Honda from psychology in Seattle well that me yeah well thanks for coming back on and you're obviously have you've been working from home I have been yeah total shut-in for the past few minutes holy and so you still take on clients and stuff but from a online I do mainly phone because I'm just used to phone I don't like videoconferencing that much yeah yeah you have to get dressed which is very better yeah all right so be like we're just gonna get right into it so I I put a couple videos out yesterday about this Mekas Stouffer or Myka Stouffer or whatever issue have you had a chance to take a look at the situation and what's your what do you think about it I don't know if I have can you remind me of what's happening okay so the gist of this whole thing is that Myka Stouffer who is a youtube an instagramer influence her parenting or influencer has adopted a child when she was kind of young in the youtube phase like they weren't that oppressed and then they adopted this kid and then they blew up and then basically she rehomed what she said this kid and didn't tell anybody he didn't tell her followers and people kept calling her out on it and she had to address it then they did address it they did this tearful fake I think fake address and then and then I called them on all their points that they made and so it's it's infuriating because when I was talking with the video they were it was all about me me me me IIIi this is how we're struggling and that we had nothing to do with the kid at all and so this is outraged me and millions other especially Twitter Twitter cancel cultures trying to cancel them and a lot of things are happening but I wanted to get your your take on the psychology behind I don't know narcissism and like this whole culture of influencers and the good and bad of that and the psychology of what's gonna happen to the poor kid yeah yeah so I have a lot of things to say but it is based not anything on the case that you're talking about because I don't know the case so I can't speak specifically to that case I have no idea okay so we can bring it it's easy to break it down because we break it down generically which is even better so let's say you have an inlet so let's talk about influencer culture first so this is coming to a head I think for a lot of people i watch influencer culture because we we have an Instagram we have a podcast we have YouTube and you have to have certain kind of NAR like level of narcissism to do this and I that could be a good thing or a bad thing but from a psychologists perspective is influencer culture healthy for the overall population so this is an interesting topic and I what I'll say about it is not gonna be very popular maybe maybe even to you guys which is that I'll probably agree with you which is that whenever there's a new communication technology it tends to get looked at very suspiciously by the population I'm guessing you guys are old enough to remember when cell phones first became early adopters right there was the the one guy who had a cell phone and no one else had a cell phone and he's walking down the street talking on a cell phone and I remember people would really talk about that guy like he was some sort of narcissistic douchebag we like you think you're so important that you have to talk on the phone like you can't wait until you get home that was that was the discourse for a good three or four years I remember people just ridiculing people for and then when smartphone came smart smart phones came out and texting came out oh so you just can't wait to have to text people all the time I get so narcissistic it's such a childish thing to text people like and that was a good five years of that and now we have you know whatever you want to call it influencer culture or YouTube the vacation of society this sort of thing and so I look suspicious suspiciously at the discourse just based that now the other thing that I can say is that we we need to look at the science what is the science here you know we don't want to just look at this and go like ooh gross I don't like it it's narcissistic mm-hmm well what do we mean by narcissistic do we mean like it's distasteful to you like you just don't like it I mean when I take pictures of my food a restaurant people make fun of me they'll be like why are you taking pictures of your food no one cares and I'm like well my mom cares because me and my family love food and they will love to see a picture of this hamburger and so I'm gonna text them this picture of this hamburger but for a lot of people they consider that narcissistic who takes pictures of their food well it's a cultural thing so if it's distasteful to you that's fine that's a personal preference you can be like not for me I don't want to watch it I don't want to do it just not for me but there's a lot of things in the internet that are not for you believe me so so the other thing is what's the outcome because a lot of people are throwing around these ideas that that the children are being harmed and again I can't speak to that case because I haven't looked into it I haven't even I've only heard people have asked me to talk about it so I've only heard that taglines but the larger question here is what's the outcomes of having kids on YouTube because right now we have a lot of people even in smaller in a smaller manner people posting pictures of their kids on face on their personal Facebook and counts I mean Josh I know you have kids have your posted any pics absolutely kids on Facebook right there in some of my videos too and yeah and absolutely it does and that's one of the bigger overall things I wanted to talk about your about - probably allude to it but like should we be doing that it should we not let them choose if they want to be all over the Internet right so it raises some interesting questions that are very worthy of considering and mulling over that are very complicated but I find that whenever the question is brought up there's this knee-jerk reaction of it's inherently damaging it's inherently unethical and and I certainly feel that way in my bones and by the way if anyone doesn't know me I do not post any pictures of children and anything I ever do I don't I don't involve kids and so I'm not defending my own position here I'm just commenting on what other people are doing so I want to know what the what the outcomes are now we do have a data set from kids who were on TV shows or reality TV shows in the past and so we have a kin situation that we can look at and what we can see is that there's a wide variety of outcomes there are child actors who grow up and have perfectly normal lives there are child actors who have very have a lot of ill effects later on in life you Michael Jackson you could even consider him to be one rich people yep and you have people who were child actors and grew up and say I loved being a child actor it was wonderful I loved being able to skip school I loved being in the business I loved all the people I worked with and so you'll see a wide variety of outcomes and reports and I'm guessing it's going to be the very it's gonna be a very similar thing when it comes to this that you know we call them influencers but you know it's just people on YouTube right that are monetizing their videos and and people want to watch that's its entertainment or whatever it is and the kids are involved in so the bigger question is like well what's the effect on the kids I think it's case by case basis it really depends now getting to this particular family I only know the tagline which is a American Caucasian woman adopted a was it a Chinese kid China handsome Chinese kid who had autism mm-hmm has autism and made a lot of videos with him in it yeah and it was more than sorry it was more than just adopted they actually crowdfunded to raise the money to do the adoption and wanted a child with special needs they literally were focused on that so they knew right from the top what they were going in just as a precursor she made a video we're the adoption company the doctor or something and the doctor was trying to say look this is gonna be they tried to warn them and say and she was all complaining about how they're trying to tell me not to do this and I'm doing this and she was crying and they're trying to warn her and then later when they in the video they said we didn't know all the problems and so they were blaming the doctor and the adoption agency even though they're trying to warn her interesting so that's not usual that the adoption agency will warn at all but so I don't know that particular situation but from what I have heard I consider I could see a lot of different possibilities because I've worked with families in situations like this adoptees who come to the family and have issues on such a level that any parent any adoptive parent would consider sending the child back or having the kid go somewhere else now know that it's not the child's fault the child has issues the child has autism or has been abused before even getting you know the thing that I'll say just very briefly is that oftentimes when you adopt a kid after you know it the bet the only situation where you're not gonna have a kid who has attachment problems is if you adopt them very very close to birth right the longer you wait after birth the more chances that the child is going to come to you with significant attachment problems that will stick with them the rest of their life and will probably result in very very concerning behaviors when they're teenagers I worked with a lot of families with adoptees who were adopted at a year or six years and had significant behavior problems to the point where parents were worried that this child was gonna kill them in the middle of the night and I and I wondered if that was going to happen now adoptees in general are not murderers but they if they have attachment problems it can be very hard on parents at that point especially when a kid enters like 13 14 15 years of age we and we have I have two adopted teenagers so I thought they weren't when we adopted them and we go through these issues major major attachment issues and it does it is hard it is very difficult so I will agree with you and I've been through it right right I forgot about that yeah so when I hear this story about a family that adopted if that's all I knew is that they adopted a kid and and God blessed them for adopting god bless you Josh for adopting kids that it's saintly behavior and whenever I hear anyone do it for any reason even if it's for a youtube channel for that matter it's just like thank you because it's good for the kid where the kid is is is probably worse than than that now I can't say what this circumstances were of this home that you know in question so while they're obviously wealthy they're obvious she's I'm not saying that they did it even with evil intent uh I do know though I don't know I can't say this but it looks and appears to be that their whole life is on YouTube and this was just one the next step for them and even you're right even if they did it for that case the kid is probably in a better position because of it but could you could it be said that they brought this kid it was too hard then this kid has to now be rehomed in their words is that not gonna be even more detrimental to a kid with already with already issue with has big issues already well it's hard to say so the alternative would have been that the kid was never adopted or that the kid stays in a home that isn't working out for them mhm and it's hard to know because I've been there and I've been ground level with those decisions that families have to go through and it's very hard sometimes there are other kids in the home you have to consider and what's the effect on the other kids that are you know doing better and having an easier time and it's easier to parent them when a child like this requires 99% of your energy and the other kids are suffering like there's there's just a lot of things consider now these people on YouTube whom I've never seen at all they could be complete Psychopaths and evil totally narcissistic evil people that don't have a shred of humanity in them uh I can't I'm not defending them but I'm just saying that you can't just look at what I'm guessing available to you on the Internet and making a firm conclusions there's also another possibility that they do have humanity and that behind the scenes it was a very very tough decision and then they're like okay and they cried and they went through all the things away from camera and then they're like well crap now we got to go on YouTube and salvage our business and actually like create a video that portrays how we felt three days ago because we were going through such a tough time we didn't want to film ourselves in that instance so now we have to and they're not very good actors they're not very good at faking crying and so let me let me give you a little context so they use because well I think once you start digging into this a little more dr. Kirk you're gonna probably start thinking a little bit more like I am because I've I've kind of immersed myself in this I've went down this wormhole this black hole for the last couple days and it's been bothering me but they she said that this we only showed you five percent of the problems and the other 95 percent we didn't show you was so hard this and that that could have been violence could have been all this stuff and the kid was nonverbal and they would make they would make Facebook posts about how like he would look at you while you're eating and my husband didn't like that it was it felt you know I try kind of trust my gut and when I talk to people I kind of I don't wanna I'm not boasting but I can sort of kind of feel people by hearing their stories and talking to them and saying like I can sort of I'm not saying always get it right but man this kid it felt like this kid was kind of on the outskirts the whole time like they didn't get what they wanted and it was too hard for them but basically the they rehomed or put this kid back into foster care cuz there's no way he went right to her home that doesn't things that doesn't happen they put him back in the system the system was looking for another and in the meantime they went to Bali for a month right after they let this kid go back to foster care they went off on a family vacation for 32 or for a month or something it was just too much proof of like I don't know if that's proof but too much like things that happened that is outraging this is why this is exploding the way it is because of all these things I fell in the place all the videos she made before all the Instagram post made before like we we're not gonna just he is not we can't just give this kid but she literally said in old words he's you can't give them back once you adopt them she basically she said that was exact that's that phrase she said in her Instagram post I'll never will never give up on you like who just was so hypocritical into the end and I know you're saying it couldn't be hard and I've seen a first-hand knowledge of how hard it is to have a kid with attachment disorder and add that I have myself thought about the idea of giving my kids back and it's really hard to say that but I've I know where they've been but I didn't give up and I think most people can't stand the fact that these people gave up but the thing that kicker for me over all this was is that they kept all the videos up monetized made tons of money in a couple of months even after they were no longer his parents and so they kept making money and they still have the videos up if you're gonna if you're gonna rehome a kid because it isn't work and this happens all the time we know it does then the first thing you should do is either D monetize or take those videos down so it shows people that you actually you know what I mean no don't capitalize on it yeah I guess I mean your listeners are gonna hate me because I don't know anyone who agrees with anything I'm saying right now but I actually kind of lean towards X there towards you know I it's not that I agree with what they did I don't like okay Josh would it made it better for you if they had made videos saying hey we're really struggling let's we're really thinking that this may not be a fit for our family that would have made it better for you yeah I think so I think yeah instead of waiting until you had to be called out on it but she was she had a product yeah truthfully right and and probably doesn't want to degrade her product probably felt that way and the fact is is like you said you went on your the wormhole the wormhole that you went down though is one what they want you to see yeah all the videos they posted to the other people who are probably hoping to monetize something off of it by getting 500,000 watches while they slam yeah these people so again that's still sort of in my mind exploiting Huxley yeah right so that part kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth and in the end you don't see them 24 hours a day so you don't necessarily know the conversations that were happening and again like I kind of agree with dr. Kirk when he says yeah they could be evil and and and maybe they are but I don't know I just that takes a special kind of evil I know that we can listen to what everybody's slamming them and call them evil and that makes it easier to call them evil because you got so many people agreeing with you but I don't know if that's really the case like that's a special special kind of evil if that was the intention from the get-go I just that's hard for me to swallow yeah yeah and maybe if I watch the videos I'd have a different vibe with it but I haven't so I just have the little facts that the summary and what I see is a family doing something that a lot of a lot of people are doing which is to create a YouTube channel for themselves so they can make money I mean one of the things that people might not consider is some of these so they're sold there's this is just one of thousands of families now that are doing social media businesses essentially they're basically creating their own reality TV shows and you just look at that as a society and you think that's gross because it's the kids aren't old enough to make their own choices about that it's it's very private it seems a narcissistic it seems boastful or something but the fact is is that a lot of people like to watch it and that's how they make money and that's how any reality TV show makes many or how any news show makes money or how you and I make a living or not from from the podcast that we make and so it's it are we narcissistic you know are we gross because we like to put our opinions out there and people click on it and like to listen so so there's and so it brings up all these questions about should kids be protected in this situation and I think that in the next 20 years we're gonna see legislation around this yeah we're gonna see regulations around you can't do this level of yeah YouTube reality TV show for your kids because of these five cases it basically what it's cut probably going to take and then and it took this in Hollywood where you have a group of kids that are 25 35 years old having been in reality TV show YouTube things and they get together and they say we were harmed in this way yeah and we were not given a chance and then they do their circuit for raising awareness and talking to legislators and they and then laws will be passed but right now we're just not in that situation yet so we have people who are making a living doing something that people enjoy and maybe the kids are being harmed and maybe they're not and my this is all bring it to this one point that I thought of which is that for many of these parents I'm guessing that they don't have to work away from home very much because of the YouTube yeah money that they're making and so what's the positive outcome from having so much time with your kids you know other families too income families the parents are working 50 hours a week and they're away from the home 60 hours a week and when they get home they're exhausted and the kids are at daycare and at school and they they don't get any quality time with their parents so is is that a protective factor for any kind of negative outcome that could happen from being on YouTube as a kid I don't know I again we I don't have the data at because we have it studied yet and I'm guessing it's a case-by-case basis what what frustrates me with with influencer culture is just the fakeness of it anyway and the craziest thing is that everybody knows it's fake look you know with what they're putting out there with their super you know you're gonna watch their channels it's very shiny and bright and white and and you know I get I get it I understand how marketing works interesting because you get followers it works but I just we know in the end and everybody does is that it's fake and though you strive for that and you gets unachievable and so influencer culture and itself regardless of kids is I think is it's kind of it's maybe said it's peak now and hopefully it's on its way too but we got to figure this out because I don't think it's healthy at all I don't think us following these people who are I mean I guess it's like celebrity culture anyway we shouldn't even listen these liberties because half them don't know what they're doing anyway but it's like all of our entertainment culture you know like let's take rom-coms or something like that so they're all formulated the same way and it's not real we all know that right and then you got pornography another thing that's not real but people love to consume and then you've got these the influencers like the fact is is they're creating a product that is getting consumed that's why it exists so if you dislike it don't watch it that's kind of got to be the thing right I mean yeah it exists because people want it so that on that so then the other hand is that if you are the person that is willing to put your whole life out there then you must be willing or have to accept the fact that you're gonna get called out and be in this and because the thing that frustrates me the most about the end of their video was like look this is really hard for us so reflect our privacy and they didn't respect this kid's privacy from the day that they got in literally from the moment they picked him up from China this kid has been on YouTube from the moment they've seen him like with their eyes the camera has seen him with their eyes and they they expose this kid in their children all of a sudden it's not going their way and they're like please respect our privacy you don't get to pick and choose I don't think well I'd be curious what they mean by protect respect our privacy I'm I don't know but a lot of people in these situations with this kind of internet storm are being doxed or they're being harassed in a very real way very scary way I'm you know they're not asking don't watch our YouTube videos they're they're not asking don't comment below what I don't know I don't know what they mean by that I think they mean don't bring don't I think that what they're asking is for people to let this go in order to protect Huxley I do believe honestly they think that that's what they're saying but it to everybody else it feels like that's just a cop-out and they're just trying to find the easy way out yeah and again maybe these are terrible people maybe if I saw these videos and watch them and knew these people I would be like wow those people are a piece of work but I think what's happening based on very little extremely little information is that you have this perfect storm for Internet culture to cancel someone which is you have quote/unquote an influencer which is basically a bad word now if you're an influencer it's like yep automatically a joke right like oh you're an influencer it's like it's like the new millennial yeah we used to say Oh Millennials right well now it's all influencers because they expect crap yes stuff for everybody well I guess I mean they're making a living doing doing a job so you know what are you gonna do you don't have to watch it and so I think that that's part of it another part of it is that I think people are just frankly jealous of people who can make a living off of youtube yeah I think that's another part of it I think another part of it is that people don't understand that there are perfectly loving warm better people than you out there who are adopting kids and after a span of time realizing it is just not doable and they give the child back and when you hear that you just think my god who could do that that to reject a child that isn't to just throw a child away that's what it sounds like to them but I'm here to tell you man I mean Josh you've been there yeah I've been there with dozens of families and again these these parents are better than me they adopt kid to begin with I've never adopted a kid why because I'm selfish I like my time I like my space and these people adopted kids and then they want to give the kid back in it to people who don't know which is literally 99.9% of the population it sounds horrible and it could be horrible it absolutely could be horrible but on its face it's you have to it's not horrible just on that detail because I've been with the best people on the planet and they've given their they've given the kids back and after you know months and months and months of trying to improve things in it getting worse and worse and worse so yeah I agree and the only issue I have is that that's that does happen it's fine but you just I just I just can't I can't square the circle when it comes to the content and the money that they've made and that they haven't the big the big change.org thing that's out there right now is to just have the Stouffer's remove anything to book this kid not no one is saying die or do it they're just saying please stop monetizing this kid who's not your child anymore you're making money off of it and you were being secretive about it yeah that sounds reasonable to me what if they take the money that they made give it and or put it in a trust or something for him that's that would be that would be awesome that would be the thing to do you think they're gonna do that because they made the money too and they pour it into a Bali vacation they would they put they bought an $800,000 house in Ojai we don't know where that money came from or if they committed it that it came from that oh yeah she literally admitted because of because of this kid she got forty three thousand dollar sponsorship from something and she like flaunted it in front of people this is the problem she openly and freely admits all the stuff that happens comes from her life influence lifestyle complains on a YouTube channel that getting him speech therapy is five hundred bucks an hour and so she found someone who does over sixty dollars an hour and she was complaining that it was too expensive while she has us like a four thousand dollar bracelet on her hand that people were calling her on it she's a critical these are the things that frustrate every because you see that stuff there is that element of jealousy I think absolutely and then then yeah it just seems so much worse when you say it those ways okay so dr. quick because we're already at 30 minutes what what if so for this kid what are the detriments it could it be detrimental if he finds a better loving family or whatever is it worse for him to go through this twice basically well I can't speak to him exactly because everyone's different but I can't speak to the kids that I have worked with them in the past and that is is that the more shuffling around they go through the worse it is for them the the attachment we don't even know where do we even know where he came from what kind of conditions he was in before he was adopted no no we don't we know that he came from a adoption agency if I'm probably from birth because of his defect he had a they said brain tumor but it didn't it's not a brain tumor he had something wrong with his brain and then the odd the autism didn't even come about till he was about two and a half years old apparently and then it was like severe attachment disorder and all these other things like he's nonverbal he eats too much apparently she said and like this she just goes through the whole she basically lays out to the entire world all of his issues which I also have an issue with from something from some of the reading I was doing that attachment disorder it gets worse if given up and then having to go get another family and things like that yeah yeah in general it's that it's not a good idea obviously but the alternative is that he stays with them and they don't want him and that could be detrimental you know what I mean right those are the decisions well not that they necessarily don't want them but it's not a good fit or sorry these sorts of things interesting just based on the the little details that you told me I would wonder if he actually is autistic there's a good possibility that there's brain damage of some sort and or severe neglect early in life that can result in a host of developmental issues including the delayed speech including behavior problems and empathy these kinds of things yeah so I wonder if they just said autistic because that is something that a lot of people sort of understand right away or they think they understand right away what that means but anyway yeah in general the the more they get shuffled around the the the worse it is for the kid but like I said I've seen perfectly loving parents make that choice knowing that it's not a good idea for the kid but overall it's it's got to happen you know like I want people to if I don't know if this is what they were going through this this family but parents who have at least consider giving their kids back I want you to think about this I was working with a family once where the kid was I don't know 13 or something and every night he would wake up and he would move things around in the house he would unplug appliances and go back to bed and then they would wake up in the morning and they'd be like what are you doing and he was like I didn't I didn't do anything and then he when they weren't looking he would immediately attack the other kids in the family and try to severely hurt them physically like with implements and weapons and when when but when the parents looked he immediately was you know what stop doing that kind of thing and the kids would have come running like he stabbed me with a pencil and I'm not saying by any means that all adopted kids are not like this it's it's not that way at all this is probably like five percent or something three percent mm-hmm but when you have severe attachment issues it can result in this kind of thing at times yeah and it's not just like it's inconvenient or it costs a lot of money to do you know speech classes it's lying awake at night wondering what is this kid going to do to me and my family and my kids and my house you know what is I what is going to have to me I don't know if this family went through that I don't have any it sounds like she didn't allude to a lot of it but did it sound like they probably did go through some of those struggles like she was young children yeah they have they call them their BIOS my bio kid but the it did sound like there was some that and so people are obviously not are gonna just float by that and yes I am a type of parent that and I've said this I said look if you hurt your brother and sister my biology kids - my adopted kids even though we're all biologically related anyway but that's beside the point he's like yeah I would probably have to do something about it but it's just it's harder to square that circle again because the kid is so young because they got him so young and even if you like the a lot of it comes back to his like I could the medical doctors told us we need to get rid of him and all yeah I wish maybe we should revisit this once you kind of went down the same wormhole I've gone down because there's a lot here and I think you you have a more balanced view of this because I think I'm I'm really I'm painting this with the tainted brush of my own childhood where I had a lot of abandonment issues and all that stuff and so obviously if I'm being completely biased to the negative because I've seen I've had that happen to me and these boys that I've adopted it's happened to them and it's just I I don't know if I want the worst or all rightjust or I assume the worst and then just already imagine or automatically assume these people are terrible I just I I like that that's why we had life having you on because you definitely bring a more balanced perspective jad Jeff it's my balance - on this generally these types of issues well that's great that you have that self-awareness I wonder if a lot of people are reacting from that space and because I don't have that I was lucky enough not to have that abandonment growing up and if I did what I see it differently I bet you I bet you I would and I think that that is what I wish people would do from these stories is as a community we would look at it and say well that looks a little fishy and there's some about that lady I just like she seems like fake to me but you know what this is doing to me it's reminding me of the abandonment that I went through the abandonment that my adopted kids went through the abandonment that kids are going through all over the world the hardships that orphans are going through all over the world how about we focus on that and try to do something about that because that's happening right now and that is something we know is happening right now so let's point our energy and our internet storm at that so that we can actually help the world instead of attack these people that we don't necessarily know the full story about yeah yeah that's good dr. Kirk thanks for coming on meds but I know this felt like 10 minutes but it's been 40 minutes already so um thanks for your opinion but maybe holler back when you've kind of dove into the story yourself with your podcasts or with you because I know your your listeners are gonna want to you to dive into this because it's this is a huge this is a big one because just the circumstances are different because of the monetization because of the videos and all that stuff it's just people hate hypocrites and they think that they're hypocrites so that's basically the the gist of the whole thing but well I love your I love your input in this and it always makes me rethink my position and it's awesome well it's always great to talk with you and I'm sorry that I had no idea what I was talking about this entire time he still made it sound amazing still I still better than us alright dr. Kirk thanks for coming I appreciate it Thanks [Music] and all right so of course dr. Kirk is right because I wish although do wish he did immerse himself a little bit more than this I'm kind of glad he didn't because I wish he did because I wish he would have been more on my side because I want to feel justified in my rage but he's got a point he's like if you think about it these people adopted someone from China even if that kid did go through major issues and is now being rehomed whatever you want to call it he probably was still will live a better life ten times better than he would have lived in China maybe I mean well look at China's culture they're communists like they're they he definitely would have I don't care likely but he's gonna have the psychological damage which which is that's gonna be hard to live with no matter what country you're living in right because you can you could live in this is kind of like I guess the bad side of adoption I mean if there is one I mean I know that adopting children like you said people are Saints that do that right that that bring a kid into their own home but it does there there's also a market for adoption right people looking for kids there's people who can't have children yeah there's same-sex couples who are looking for children and can't do that so there is a market for this right yeah just some times that they might they might take advantage of situations to actually have children come up for adoption so this is suggesting that sometimes people will put a child into a foster care situation because of medical problems or something full intent to have that child back afterwards why it's just in other countries I guess sometimes that happens like oh so they get taken care of so they get taken care so the bacon oh they can do stuff that they need to deal with and then a phone sent by repaired kid but because people have money they come in and they can convince or take these kids so I mean I don't know I feel like I kind of messed up saying that or how I said it but there there is some of that or convincing people exploitation coercion trying to get mothers to give up kids right where some of these moms may have wanted to keep them booked they weren't presented with that option yeah that they could they're made to feel like they can't and that it won't be good for the kid I think it part of this whole situation that people that find distasteful is that when you do a good thing and I know I hate when people complimented me on my adoption because it's never my plan I was never gonna do right I don't like it we didn't we did it out of necessity we didn't do it out of choice that makes sense like it sounds bad we did it because that's what family does but to me that means more than someone who's seeking out an adoption to make their family well that's what I was getting I was getting to the point of like what it would have been smarter if you're gonna adopt and a lot of people do this don't tell everybody like are you gonna do something good don't tell everybody don't you took these guys from day one she started talking with okay we're gonna start shopping for a baby B's Engrish and then I want one that has problems that I'm gonna go to China one she had a lady videoed it from step one seven and it became this big thing for her monetized and made tons of money on it got sponsorships because of it got way more popular because of it and then when I got too hard it was like too much sorry and she didn't think anything was gonna happen because of it and all that stuff that led up to that is what makes this a thousand times worse and what it's what's making people's minds explode yeah cuz if they didn't if they didn't tell you any of that and then all of a sudden that came on YouTube and they said hey you know what two years ago we adopted a kid yeah we didn't say anything about it but it was so hard and we're going through this super rough time and then and everybody would be talking about them is like being another another thing someone said I know who said it was like you know what why didn't they just foster and the reason that we didn't foster is because you can't put a foster kids on TV or in pictures you're not allowed to you have to they have to belong to you have to belong to you online so you know if you're gonna be the Guardian yeah you be good but if you foster kids you cannot put them on you cannot monetize them right so she she wanted a kid that needed some help for a short period of time she could have foster but then she couldn't monetizing it too much there's too much going what I've learned today especially talking to you and dr. Kirk is that there is a balanced perspective they're a little bit more of a balanced perspective I don't think they're evil I don't think they're evil I do think they capitalize and monetize I think I think after researching all this stuff I don't think they should have gone to Bali I don't think they should have done these things I actually do think that James probably didn't want this adoption to begin with then it was put pressured on by by Mikah to say what we need to do this I want to do this and she's probably wanted to do this and James was he seemed like through all the conversations and research I've done throughout the whole thing it was probably not him who wanted this at all and I'm not but in the end he's gonna suffer just as much as she is because of this because of her choice to do but I won't agree to it too though I also believe that if this kid was actually hurting hurting her children then I will probably have done the same thing I'm not saying yeah I think she might have been justified he's I don't know she won't say and that's fine I'm glad that or not but if that's the case I do think that's a there's a justification there for this to happen but and I'll always come back to this delete the content yes erase it don't capitalize on it anymore that is the major overarching issue here is that she continues to make money off this kid and is no longer in their family would you also would you say that because this blew up like this to now they're making even more like their channels are probably getting here they're just video they put it's got 2 million hits on it yeah for every I think they me said they made forty five thousand dollars off a fifteen million hit video forty five thousand dollars more people less people make that in a year than what they made off one video right two million views you're probably looking at ten thousand not six or seven thousand bucks maybe but still they're making money on it and their stand then because people are looking in this out stories even if there's sub they're subbing them to hate them so they're making money the read the way to shut down this whole thing is so finally let's put it into bed get get this change.org to get him off their content and then stopped up and then stop subscribing and to unsubscribe to these people that is how you get justice for this kid or force them somehow to put all that money that he made them into a trust for his education and if they refused to let's step it up ourselves and make a count for him so that when he gets done school or school age he's got money and like he's taken care of yeah don't the one thing that I hope comes out of this is that not not anybody that's a youtuber not anybody that's got a channel not anybody that's gonna want to make a video giving you an update on what's happening with Huxley just that the right organizations are involved right now and making sure that out of this crappy situation he somehow gets the best out of it I just hope that that is happening I got a solution right here if you're gonna adopt go for it and we love you for it but there should be a new like adoption rule with adoption agencies and maybe we can reach out is that if you adopt a kid you are not allowed to put them on YouTube should be the same rules of fostering you should not be able to exploit children anyway even absolutely by Oh children even to that degree if you're if you're innocent enough in it that's okay I don't mind it as much but you should ask your kids and maybe keep asking them hey are you still comfortable with this hey don't ever wanted to be in any video I know and she and she hated it and she and that's great and she gets to make contrition you you and you get you honored it yeah you should continue to ask your children if they want as they get older they might not want that on there anymore you should let them make the choice to be on TV or on YouTube or not at all times that's one saying anyway that's that's a good one to get back to it next we'll talk about the story with next step so we'll get into something different but dude it was great oh oh Kovac Kovac the dog has ghovat now too this is Gus everybody if you don't know this is my dog who's supposed to be mine but loves Jef more than me I scratches usually all right thanks for watching guys and I hope you got something out of this and we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: The Dad Challenge Podcast

Views: 72,154

Rating: 4.7186613 out of 5

Keywords: stauffers, mykastauffer, huxley, myka, stauffergarage, cancelmykastauffer

Id: LZKF5NEONG0

Length: 55min 36sec (3336 seconds)

Published: Fri May 29 2020