by Yashoda Mira Lalparsad
By now a lot of people are aware of the scandal involving Myka and James Stauffer. They are a couple who have been under fire for the past few weeks for their decision to rehome their autistic, adopted son from China, named Huxley.
Myka and James Stauffer are a pair of family vloggers. They have a family channel where they vlog their daily activities with their family. They have three biological children who they had before they decided to adopt. Their family channel is called ‘The Stauffer Life’ but has been deleted and privatized due to the amount of backlash they are facing.
They also each have their own private channels. Myka’s channel, called ‘Myka Stauffer’ was a channel related to her adoption journey and her day in the life of being a mom. This was the channel which was used to announce the rehoming. Whereas James’s channel, called ‘Stauffer Garage’, was related to various building related activities.
Myka’s personal channel took a major hit after the release of the ‘rehoming’ video where she lost over 16 000 subscribers and has since made private most of the videos on that channel.
Myka and James rose to fame when they decided to share their adoption journey. This, they started sharing before they even had Huxley in their custody. They asked their fans to financially help them get to China so that they could adopt him. They had started a gofundme to help them raise money so they could make the trip.
When adopting they were warned by many medical professionals that this child would be a struggle to take care of due to his various disabilities. In fact, Myka had mentioned on her YouTube channel that at one point they were actually begged to choose another child, this is where she claimed her child is not refundable and she would never give him up no matter what the issues were.
These videos and statements have since been removed from her social media. During this process they shared a lot of his medical history with their audience, before he was even in their custody, which had many people questioning whether that was legal and ethical as he was not yet theirs to officially share.
The parts of his diagnosis they had shared related to a tumour he had in his head as an infant which had caused some brain damage. When they had gotten him to the States and had him re-examined they realised he had level 3 autism. This resulted in him having motor skills issues and would prevent him from being able to verbally communicate.
Immediately after adopting Huxley, the Stauffer’s had moved into a bigger house. They started flaunting a very luxurious lifestyle online. They showed off new cars, designer shoes and extravagant vacations. They did all this while complaining about the costs of Huxley’s Physical Therapy. In one video Myka is seen wearing a $600 bracelet while saying the fees for his therapy were too high.
Fans immediately started noticing the difference in the way Myka would treat Huxley in comparison to her biological children. She constantly complained about the fact that he was closer to her husband and that she felt like he rejected her. She filmed multiple meltdowns and tantrums of his, she completely disregarded and put him in timeout for having food anxiety, which is very common with international adoption, and at one point there were leaked pictures of her duct taping his hands so he wouldn’t suck on his thumb, which he used as a form of comfort. She praised and encouraged her older child for sucking on hers.
After close to two years of Huxley being a part of their family, they had decided to have another baby in late 2019. After the birth of this child many people started noticing her lack of interest in Huxley. This progressed to early 2020 when fans started noticing Huxley disappearing from the vlogs. Fans noticed this when the family decided to take a vacation for a month.
After the comments asking about Huxley became overwhelming, Myka and James uploaded a video to Myka’s channel on the 26th of May saying that they had decided to “rehome” him. The video had gotten over five million views. It made fans angry and sparked a lot of conversation around the ethics of adoption but also what their intentions were of adopting him.
One of the statements that the couple had made was that they were advised by medical professionals to find him a better fit. This had many fans confused as it went against what Myka had said before adopting Huxley where she claimed she was adopting him forever.
Many fans were also curious as to why they had decided to listen to these professionals now, when in the beginning they had gone against them and adopted him after being advised against it.
After that video was released and fans started commenting on it, Myka and James started deleting any comments that were against them and started pushing a narrative of having more support than opposition.
When this behaviour started gaining attention fans pushed forward and started demanding to know Huxley’s whereabouts and the actual reason as to why they decided to find a different placement for him. They then released a statement saying that Huxley had told them that he wanted a different family causing them to lose more followers.
Within days, Myka had lost over 16 000 subscribers and she ended up deleting multiple videos relating to Huxley. The family then proceeded to hire lawyers to try and limit the amount of attention they were getting. The family started copyrighting clips and pictures of videos that were used by various different YouTubers who had shared a reaction to this situation.
They mainly targeted YouTubers who were medical professionals or were adopted or adoptive parents themselves. They copyrighted the videos these individuals made. These were the videos where they commented on the ethics that this family possessed. Some of these individuals were also further blocked from the family’s social platforms. They are still in the process of “damage control” and are doing a very good job at silencing anyone who has anything negative to say about them.
There have been many ex-neighbours and colleagues of the family that have come out sharing stories about how Myka is an aggressive person and does not give Huxley as much attention as she does to her biological children.
These people have reached out to channels like “Without a Crystal Ball” where they explain in great detail the type of personalities Myka and her husband possess.
Since the controversial video, an investigation has been launched on the family. The police are currently investigating as to whether or not the situation in their house is safe for the other children.
Due to the fact that Huxley’s whereabouts had not been made public the police have claimed that he is in an alleged safe household with a same-sex couple. One of the women is a nurse and has special training to be able to deal with his needs. This has fans a little calmer but still upset with the family.
Since these incidents the channel “Stauffer Life” has been deleted and Myka’s channel is now inactive. However, within the past few days it has been announced that James will be returning to YouTube on his own channel. His channel still has over 940K subscribers. Fans are upset that he is trying to make a comeback as if nothing has happened but his wife Myka has also started a new channel called “Cash Crush” where she speaks about how to make money on YouTube.
So far since the starting of these channels there hasn’t been any more updates from the police but we will be expecting that in due time. For now, fans are wondering if the family will be shameless enough to continue online even after the dehumanizing thing they have done to that child. However, for now fans are rest assured that Huxley is safe and hopefully has now found his forever home.