Quick: guess which kid they “rehomed”….
Here’s a another one: What the hell am I doing wrong?
Myka Stauffer is a so-called “online influencer,” meaning that she has such a huge following on social media that companies pay her to promote their products. Apparently being a social influencer has nothing to do with being smart, wise, ethical or a benefit to society. We know that because such wastes of DNA like the Kardashians are paid influencers—imagine making life decisions based on the recommendations of Kyie Jenner—but at least they have a TV show and have also demonstrated the ability to become rich with no discernible talent whatsoever. That’s something, at least.
Stauffer is a much bigger mystery. I read a profile of her, and am still flummoxed. She has around 700,000 YouTube followers and 200,000 Instagram followers because…why? Her mother had her when she was 16. “I got to go to some really cool parties [and] I got to go to a bunch of concerts, which is a perk of having younger parents,” she says. Otherwise her childhood was “basic, regular,” and she loved everything about it until her mom told her that her dad was not her biological father. “The next day I lost my virginity. I had planned to save myself for marriage. It wasn’t even a question in my mind,” says Stauffer. “When my identity was flipped upside down, everything went out the window.” Then she was grounded for an entire year as punishment, which gave her “lot of opportunity for self-growth.” Then Stauffer found religion…oh, never mind, you can read the whole banal story here if your sock drawer is in order. Her second husband is a car detailer, and she’s a vegan. And an inexplicably large, gullible audience of infantilized women with empty lives and the brain pans of grackles look to her for guidance about what to wear and buy.
This is the quality of character they now know they can expect: After documenting on YouTube and Instagram her successful efforts to adopt an autistic little boy, she and her husband decided to “rehome” him, using the term typically reserved for rotten pet owners who decide to get rid of a dog or cat. It’s a euphemism, of course. What she is doing is giving away her son, because he’s just too much darn trouble if you’re going to get all those Instagram posts and videos out.
Stauffer picked up plenty of checks as she documented the 2017 adoption of Huxley, a Chinese special needs toddler. Throughout the adoption process Stauffer wrote that she was fully aware of the boy’s needs, explaining that the child was “profoundly developmentally delayed.” In a 2019 article for the motherhood site The Bump, she wrote, “Huxley wasn’t the one who needed to change — it was me. My son has taught me to love completely and unconditionally, regardless of circumstances and without exceptions” Unconditionally!
Well, almost.
This week, Stauffer told her audience of more than 900,000 that she and her husband “rehomed” the child to his “forever family.” “Forever family”…hmmm, where did I first hear that precious phrase? That’s right, it was on the Animal Planet show “Too Cute!” that documents the lives of puppy litters. That’s what the show calls the homes that adopt puppies.
“After multiple assessments, after multiple evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit in his medical needs,” she wrote. “He needed more. There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t want Huxley with all of our being. There wasn’t a minute that I didn’t try our hardest. Do I feel like a failure as a mom? 500%. So when we get insidious, hurtful comments, it really makes the hurt worse,” she whined—but influentially.
Too bad your feelings are hurt, you utter creep. You know what the difference is between giving up a child you gave birth to for adoption and giving up a child you adopted? Absolutely nothing.
Huxley is 4 years old, and the couple he had learned to love and trust as his parents gave him away. Now take a gulp of Pepto ans you read this: Stauffer said that she made the decision, in part, because her son wanted to be placed in another family. “We would never just give up a child with special needs,” she said in since-deleted post. “This is a personal matter to Hux, it had nothing to do with he just had Autism.” Again, the kid is four. But the decision to leave his family, his siblings and his home to live with strangers was his call… he”wanted this” 100 percent, Stauffer says.
Boy, I’m influenced. I’m influenced to conclude that this woman is a monster. Stauffer’s announcement cost her several sponsorships and ad partners, including Playtex, Danimals, Suave, and Big Lots, though that can’t make up for their paying someone like Myka to peddle their wares in the first place. And it looks like this “influencer” will maintain enough other companies among her clients to keep those more perfect children above in designer clothes, because giving her four-year old son away hasn’t seemed to significantly reduce the number of followers willing to be influenced.
Online influencers are symptoms of a sick society that is fast losing any semblance of ethical values. Incredibly, Myka Stauffer has managed to disgraces to this already disreputable group.
Ethics Alarms 
I read this story this morning. I am an adopted child. So is my brother. I have three biological children of my own.
It’s impossible for me to even come up with an intelligent, well-worded response. My grief for this child, my complete inability to understand how a mother accepts a child into her life with every promise and commitment to raise the child as her own, and then decides it’s inconvenient and “re-homes” (give me a fucking break) her FOUR YEAR OLD!!! Not a 3 mos old baby as I was, born to a 16 year old mother who had no ability to care for me and so entrusted me to the process, where I would be adopted by 27 and 29 year old parents who are my mom and dad, period – for better or worse – to this very day.
As the influencer crowd might say “I can’t. I can’t with this.”
Our son was adopted from Russia at 6 month. I literally cannot process anyone ripping a child from a family he has known all his life and trying to rationalize it. These people aren’t impoverished or living on the street.
This is a disgusting human being.
But influential!
I read the link. For some reason the story stopped at her weird diet. I guess even the New York Post couldn’t deal with “the rest of the story.”
I sure can’t.
La Sylphide, as the father of two adopted daughters, I totally agree with you. This story brought tears to my eyes.
Pure narcissim on her part. She is a sociopath.
But she’s cute and she evidently “presents well.” And her home’s interior is transitional and doubtless the kitchen contains a large island. And her extensions are really well done, as is her make-up!
I think I read on this site that it’s good to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I cannot conceive of any way to do that for this couple.
My own family consists of 7 grandkids, 6 of them adopted. None of us, not my wife nor me, not our kids, not our kids-in-law, none of us, could imagine giving up any of these kids.
We have good friends who are opposed to abortion who have a down syndrome child, one at the very lowest level of ability. Their life, for more than 10 years now, has often been hell. Yet, they, their other kids, their parents, none of them would sanction what this couple has done.
But, I am not surprised at huge following the woman has. There is a huge market for sick drama.
I do have to agree with the “medical professionals” mentioned in the article; Huxley will be better off with a family where he is loved and accepted. The Stauffer’s other kids are being taught that kids who are too much trouble are disposable. How’s that for influencing?
The more I think about it, the more I dislike the notion of “Mommy vloggers” in general. Isn’t putting your kids in your videos at all, even if there’s no overtly scandalous stuff involved, still exploiting your kids? The whole family vlogging/blogging genre seems like an amateur “Jon and Kate Plus 8”. Could be worth a post or two all on its own.
Why is she making it sound like “medical professionals” recommended this? Do doctors often recommend that you give your kids to a better family?
The Charlize Theron Effect. Her adopted son “identified” as female at three or four years old. The child “knew,” according to Theron, who proceeded to make a trans-rights poster child of him and direct his “transition” at a tender age.
When did it become fashionable and morally conscionable to exploit children, keep them as pets, put private matters of health, gender and sexuality on national display, and abandon children? It seems to me that people like this blur the lines between adoption and chattel slavery.
No wonder South Africa won’t let Theron adopt a child from there.
Her behavior and the concept of influencers in general are not causally correlated. Further influencers do not have to have huge audiences. The hyper-market digital era (verging on artificial intelligence era) makes the rightness of audience most important. If that right audience is large all the better for those sponsoring an influencer. Was it really any better when Dodge paid for the entire Lawrence Welk Show?
This is right, I think. Targeted advertising is what most companies are looking for, not just a lot of eyeballs.
I remember watching TV back in the 50s when Ford sponsored, who else, the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.
Yeah, that was a tough sponsor sell.
Chrysler sponsored the Harriet Chrysler Variety Hour.