Myka Stauffer of The Stauffer Life: Where's Huxley???

[FluffySnowball]

I really hope this scandal doesn’t just blow over in a few weeks and the Stauffers can go back to vlogging as before. (I don’t get the impression on FJ or anywhere else that this is the case, but I was just thinking that I hope for a long lasting outcome!) 

The internet doesn’t forget, that’s true, and I hope people like Myka and James are actually held accountable for once, even if it’s not legally but in the “court” of public opinion. 

One aspect regarding the criticism of the Stauffers and Frankes (8 passengers) makes me worried, though: other blogger families might now simply hide their abuse better by editing out anything that highlights how bad things might really be behind the scenes, all the while the abused children cannot get the help and support they need. 

[ophelia]

2 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

I really hope this scandal doesn’t just blow over in a few weeks and the Stauffers can go back to vlogging as before. (I don’t get the impression on FJ or anywhere else that this is the case, but I was just thinking that I hope for a long lasting outcome!) 

The internet doesn’t forget, that’s true, and I hope people like Myka and James are actually held accountable for once, even if it’s not legally but in the “court” of public opinion. 

One aspect regarding the criticism of the Stauffers and Frankes (8 passengers) makes me worried, though: other blogger families might now simply hide their abuse better by editing out anything that highlights how bad things might really be behind the scenes, all the while the abused children cannot get the help and support they need. 

I have a similar feeling about Kendal Rich and her family vlog. Some longtime FJ-member might remember her: she once had a blog called "The father knows best" and tried to be a fundie for some time. There was a post a few years back about how her husband Daniel spanked their daughters, who were quite young at that time, since they had shown disobedient behavior. The also adopted a biracial boy with special needs a few years ago and while his siblings and his dad seem to adore him, Kendal always seems distant around him. IIRC they took him out of school at some point although he needs special support. 

This is their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYPaj6OXNItxuDotrkF192w 

[Gobsmacked]

1 hour ago, ophelia said:

I have a similar feeling about Kendal Rich and her family vlog. Some longtime FJ-member might remember her: she once had a blog called "The father knows best" and tried to be a fundie for some time. There was a post a few years back about how her husband Daniel spanked their daughters, who were quite young at that time, since they had shown disobedient behavior. The also adopted a biracial boy with special needs a few years ago and while his siblings and his dad seem to adore him, Kendal always seems distant around him. IIRC they took him out of school at some point although he needs special support. 

This is their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYPaj6OXNItxuDotrkF192w 

I've never seen Kendal Rich before. Kendal and Myka could be biological sisters. Same perfect hair and make up done in the same styles. Same 'over happy super duper happy all the time' voices. Same colours in their homes. Did James and Myka adopt Huxley because Kendal and her husband have an adopted special needs little boy? I'm guessing yes. Who has the older Channel? 

 

[Mudgie]

Although this situation is in no way humorous, this feels relevant.

 

 

[BookwormExtraordinaire]

3 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

I really hope this scandal doesn’t just blow over in a few weeks and the Stauffers can go back to vlogging as before. (I don’t get the impression on FJ or anywhere else that this is the case, but I was just thinking that I hope for a long lasting outcome!) 

The internet doesn’t forget, that’s true, and I hope people like Myka and James are actually held accountable for once, even if it’s not legally but in the “court” of public opinion. 

One aspect regarding the criticism of the Stauffers and Frankes (8 passengers) makes me worried, though: other blogger families might now simply hide their abuse better by editing out anything that highlights how bad things might really be behind the scenes, all the while the abused children cannot get the help and support they need. 

Good points. Also, sometimes people tend to excuse less extreme abusive behaviour because "it's not as bad as the X family who did Y and Z to their kids." 

Only because parents aren't re-homing (ugh, I hate that word) their child, letting a five-year-old go hungry for a whole day as punishment for forgetting her lunch or taking away a child's bed for several months doesn't mean that there isn't abuse going on. Mental abuse can very easily fly under the radar for a very long time but have lasting consequences.

I doubt the Stauffers will be able to come back from this. Regular newspapers around the world picked up the story, and even if they probably have some loyal fans left, no company with any self-preservation is going to want to work with them anytime soon. There are however dozens of other families with similar content on YouTube, and they will happily take their place. The main issue here, which IMO is parents exploiting their children on the Internet for money, will remain until there are either laws in place that prevent it, or if it becomes too much of a social stigma to do it.

The Stauffers may be one of the worst examples, but personally I question all parents who think it's beneficial for their children to be the main attraction of a YouTube channel or Instagram account with hundreds of thousands of people watching them. I wonder how many of them genuinely think YouTube is good for their kids and how many brush any doubts aside when they look at the money they make.

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

I've never seen Kendal Rich before. Kendal and Myka could be biological sisters. Same perfect hair and make up done in the same styles. Same 'over happy super duper happy all the time' voices. Same colours in their homes. Did James and Myka adopt Huxley because Kendal and her husband have an adopted special needs little boy? I'm guessing yes. Who has the older Channel? 

 

I think a lot of people will copy more popular channels in hopes that their channel will become popular too. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by JermajestyDuggar

[Hane]

@ophelia, who can forget “Kendull,” who homeschooled but couldn’t spell? I believe she was responsible for our term “riffle.” That’s how she spelled “rifle,” but now we use it to denote misspellings and typos.

[Punch2the(Solar)Plexus]

I lurked during the Kendull days. 

That is one scary woman! I remember her proudly and smugly talking about how her husband took an entire day off of work to spank their daughter - for being a kid!! I don't think the little girl was even five yet.

As a mandated reporter, this is what scares me about homeschooling parents. These kids don't have anyone in their corners because the parents surround themselves with people who think, look, and act just like they do. (And, yes, I know not all homeschooling is bad.)

[pandorasjen]

6 minutes ago, Punch2the(Solar)Plexus said:

As a mandated reporter, this is what scares me about homeschooling parents. These kids don't have anyone in their corners because the parents surround themselves with people who think, look, and act just like they do. (And, yes, I know not all homeschooling is bad.)

I've been a homeschool mom up until now (my kids are all going to public school next year) and this scares me too! I've been in homeschooling groups for awhile and a lot of the other moms scare me. They are so anti oversight it automatically makes me suspicious of them. Combine that with how they micromanage everything their kids read, see, and listen too, it's extremely suspicious!

[FluffySnowball]

1 hour ago, pandorasjen said:

I've been a homeschool mom up until now (my kids are all going to public school next year) and this scares me too! I've been in homeschooling groups for awhile and a lot of the other moms scare me. They are so anti oversight it automatically makes me suspicious of them. Combine that with how they micromanage everything their kids read, see, and listen too, it's extremely suspicious!

Homeschooling as an approach to how a child learns has a lot of potential! It could be (and sometimes is)  done wonderfully, with both parents and children greatly benefiting. Yet too many parents choose it for absolutely wrong reasons and it merely becomes a means to control and oppress. 

[Melissa1977]

6 hours ago, ophelia said:

I have a similar feeling about Kendal Rich and her family vlog. Some longtime FJ-member might remember her: she once had a blog called "The father knows best" and tried to be a fundie for some time. There was a post a few years back about how her husband Daniel spanked their daughters, who were quite young at that time, since they had shown disobedient behavior. The also adopted a biracial boy with special needs a few years ago and while his siblings and his dad seem to adore him, Kendal always seems distant around him. IIRC they took him out of school at some point although he needs special support. 

This is their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYPaj6OXNItxuDotrkF192w 

She hit ALL the girls DAILY. She said so in her old blog. Kapri was 2 years old then. 

 

4 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

I've never seen Kendal Rich before. Kendal and Myka could be biological sisters. Same perfect hair and make up done in the same styles. Same 'over happy super duper happy all the time' voices. Same colours in their homes. Did James and Myka adopt Huxley because Kendal and her husband have an adopted special needs little boy? I'm guessing yes. Who has the older Channel? 

 

They were friends. Mika visited Kendal at her home and vlogged together. Kendal wanted to adopt another boy like Mika (even after she knew Hampton was special needs) just to have 3 girls 3 boys, but she seems to have forgot that. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

She hit ALL the girls DAILY. She said so in her old blog. Kapri was 2 years old then. 

 

They were friends. Mika visited Kendal at her home and vlogged together. Kendal wanted to adopt another boy like Mika (even after she knew Hampton was special needs) just to have 3 girls 3 boys, but she seems to have forgot that. 

Hampton and Huxley? 

Yeah Myka wanted to be the next Kendull.

[Glasgowghirl]

James is back uploading videos on his channel. A few companies that James has mentioned in the videos have had to come out and say that they have no links to James personally but James has created affiliate links on Amazon to make money every time someone clicks to purchase the items. Another youtube channel posted a video about this and mentioned channels that have similar content to James to follow instead of him. 

[fluffy]

On 6/19/2020 at 12:53 PM, Glasgowghirl said:

ames is back uploading videos on his channel. A few companies that James has mentioned in the videos have had to come out and say that they have no links to James personally but James has created affiliate links on Amazon to make money every time someone clicks to purchase the items. Another youtube channel posted a video about this and mentioned channels that have similar content to James to follow in

These people are just about the laziest, scummiest drag on the heel of humanity I've ever seen. Anybody with an ounce of self-awareness would drag himself back under the rock he initially crawled out from. This man needs to do your average American teenager does: get a job! He should be ashamed not to have a work ethic and ashamed of his actions with Huxley, yet the public shaming does not touch him. This couple doesn't seem to have normal human emotions or connections to others. Shame is basic human feeling, but he seems immune to it. Their gross materialism matters more than anybody or anything. 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by fluffy

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, fluffy said:

This man needs to do your average American teenager does: get a job! He should be ashamed not to have a work ethic

He has a job. He has a work ethic. Making content that people want to watch takes time and effort. He's obviously not bad at it, given that channel and formerly Myka's channel appear to have given them a pretty good income (not sure how much it was costing to fly to Bali from the US pre-covid, but I doubt it was cheap).  

2 hours ago, fluffy said:

ashamed of his actions with Huxley.

That I agree with. I still don't think either of them really had any idea of what they were taking on, or thought long and hard about it. I still don't think they should have been approved for adoption. But once Huxley was there then they did have a responsibility towards him, and I think they could have tried a lot harder than they did.

Also I think if they'd realised just how much of an impact it would have on their incomes they probably would have tried a lot harder, and that annoys me. I don't doubt Myka was overwhelmed - having a child with additional needs, plus a new baby, plus three older children would be exhausting.  But they had options a lot of other families didn't - they had the income to employ an aide or a carer to help, they could have taken steps to prevent another pregnancy until their lives were less hectic, they could have cut back on one or both channels, or done a lot of filming in bulk while kids were being looked after and then had a block of time to focus on all four (then existing) children.

What really gets me is heading off to Bali with the newborn and leaving all the older kids including Huxley with her parents - I'm not saying parents don't deserve a break, but if they were overwhelmed and not coping what exactly made them think their parents would cope better?  Why not just have an overnight stay down the road? Or an evening meal? It's not like Bali is close by and they were going to spend a night or two there.

(Also as an Australian who could feasibly spend a weekend in Bali (not right now though, sigh) - what is it with Bali? Is it the Eat Play Love thing? My immediate word association with Bali is still "bogan central" (er... think spring break Cozumel for roughly similar associations I think, or Ibitha for Europeans) rather than "highly spiritual exotic place" so I don't really get the whole thing.)

Edited June 21, 2020 by Ozlsn

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

He has a job. He has a work ethic. Making content that people want to watch takes time and effort. He's obviously not bad at it, given that channel and formerly Myka's channel appear to have given them a pretty good income (not sure how much it was costing to fly to Bali from the US pre-covid, but I doubt it was cheap).  

That I agree with. I still don't think either of them really had any idea of what they were taking on, or thought long and hard about it. I still don't think they should have been approved for adoption. But once Huxley was there then they did have a responsibility towards him, and I think they could have tried a lot harder than they did.

Also I think if they'd realised just how much of an impact it would have on their incomes they probably would have tried a lot harder, and that annoys me. I don't doubt Myka was overwhelmed - having a child with additional needs, plus a new baby, plus three older children would be exhausting.  But they had options a lot of other families didn't - they had the income to employ an aide or a carer to help, they could have taken steps to prevent another pregnancy until their lives were less hectic, they could have cut back on one or both channels, or done a lot of filming in bulk while kids were being looked after and then had a block of time to focus on all four (then existing) children.

What really gets me is heading off to Bali with the newborn and leaving all the older kids including Huxley with her parents - I'm not saying parents don't deserve a break, but if they were overwhelmed and not coping what exactly made them think their parents would cope better?  Why not just have an overnight stay down the road? Or an evening meal? It's not like Bali is close by and they were going to spend a night or two there.

(Also as an Australian who could feasibly spend a weekend in Bali (not right now though, sigh) - what is it with Bali? Is it the Eat Play Love thing? My immediate word association with Bali is still "bogan central" (er... think spring break Cozumel for roughly similar associations I think, or Ibitha for Europeans) rather than "highly spiritual exotic place" so I don't really get the whole thing.)

I kind of assume this couple picks destinations based on how good they will look on instagram. 

[Aine]

20 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

(Also as an Australian who could feasibly spend a weekend in Bali (not right now though, sigh) - what is it with Bali? Is it the Eat Play Love thing? My immediate word association with Bali is still "bogan central" (er... think spring break Cozumel for roughly similar associations I think, or Ibitha for Europeans) rather than "highly spiritual exotic place" so I don't really get the whole thing.)

As an Aussie who (when living in Australia and not here in the US) holidayed a number of times in Bali or other islands in Indonesia, I used to think the exact same as you! And Kuta is bogan central! It's gross and I can't stand it. It's devoid of any local culture, gimmicky, crowded, dirty, full of drunk Australians making fools of themselves etc. But there are less touristy and absolutely beautiful areas of Bali- my favorite is Amed and the other villages along that little part of the coast, on the other side of the island from Kuta. No big resorts or anything, if that's your thing (it's not mine), but gorgeous little Bed and Breakfasts for AU$5 per night, amazing diving and snorkeling, great fishing and lots of locals happy to take you out with them on their boats, cooking your fish on the beach, and you know all the locals and they know you after a few days there. They aren't far via ferry from the Gili islands either. Gili Trawangan isn't worth staying in because it's become more touristy and a lot of the charm is gone now but Gili Meno and Gili Air are stunning. Again, no resorts, but little bungalows for a max of AU$10 per night literally on the beach, no cars allowed on the islands, and diving with all the sea turtles and mantas is awesome. Indonesia is huge and stunning, interesting and so varied. It makes me sad that most Australians never explore beyond Kuta and Seminyak (and then further than 45 min inland from there maybe) and that Kuta/Seminyak become the archetypal image for others of what Bali and Indonesia are. They were my image too- I went to Amed initially for my Open Water dive cert and to dive on the USS Liberty wreck and fell in love with everything about it and have been back many times since for an affordable, truly relaxing, never boring but never 'busy' holiday.

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, Aine said:

But there are less touristy and absolutely beautiful areas of Bali

Oh I know, it's just my mind goes to Kuta first! I totally blame growing up in the 80s/90s. The whole "but it's so spiritual!" thing does bug me a bit though, as it frequently translates as "Oh look at this totally Insta-worthy exotic temple!" Pretty sure you can find places of worship on Ibitha and Cozumel too, they just look more familiar (although totally exotic to me, because they're on the other side of the world).

[Giraffe]

https://people.com/parents/myka-stauffer-breaks-silence-after-controversy-following-placing-son-with-new-family-after-adoption/
She wishes she knew more about the trauma of adoption before adopting. 

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, Giraffe said:

https://people.com/parents/myka-stauffer-breaks-silence-after-controversy-following-placing-son-with-new-family-after-adoption/
She wishes she knew more about the trauma of adoption before adopting. 

Several things came to mind while reading this:

(1) How predictable.

(2) It's still all about her.

(3) She may be telling the truth about the minimal "training" she received and the resulting "certification" to be an adoptive parent. The adoption agency they used seemed to do little beyond take their money and process the necessary paperwork. There appeared to be little or no oversight & follow-up once the Stauffers returned to the US with Huxley.

(4) Someone must be deleting the negative comments on that IG post!

 

[Giraffe]

3 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Several things came to mind while reading this:

(1) How predictable.

(2) It's still all about her.

(3) She may be telling the truth about the minimal "training" she received and the resulting "certification" to be an adoptive parent. The adoption agency they used seemed to do little beyond take their money and process the necessary paperwork. There appeared to be little or no oversight & follow-up once the Stauffers returned to the US with Huxley.

(4) Someone must be deleting the negative comments on that IG post!

 

Glad I’m not the only one who still isn’t all that sympathetic towards them. 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Giraffe
Spelling

[fluffy]

6 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

(2) It's still all about her.

Truer words were never written. It was incredible how she performs her victimhood! 

[SolomonFundy]

I have no doubt that they felt uninformed and unprepared for their adoption. They have made it patently clear that they rejected every single piece of advice, therapy, or counseling that was inconvenient to them. 

They refused to prepare, and then found that they weren't prepared. *shocking*

[AmazonGrace]

She apologizes "for the uproar". 

I'm sorry that y'all got mad at me.

[EmainMacha]

She wishes she'd known about the trauma of adoption? When did she learn that, considering she was messaging adoption groups asking advice on adopting another child who had special needs but not TOO difficult. Did it only become traumatic after she started searching for her next prop/child?

These two enrage me. Really enrage me. They are so f***ing privileged and when shit got a bit tough and not so fun they jacked it in. Except 'it' was a real, breathing child who called them mum and dad. So many options but they couldn't be arsed so bye bye Huxley.