On May 26, 2020, Ohio-based vloggers Myka and James Stauffer uploaded a new video to YouTube titled “An Update On Our Family.” In the video, the couple responded to intensifying questions from their subscribers, confirming that they had dissolved the adoption of their then 4-and-a-half-year-old son Huxley, whom they had brought home from China in 2017 when he was 2 years old.
The Stauffers, who ran a YouTube channel called “The Stauffer Life” with around 700,000 subscribers (roughly a million when you included their other channels), explained in the since-deleted video that Huxley’s special needs exceeded their ability to properly care for him. Huxley had been diagnosed as autistic, which the Stauffers were aware of prior to adopting him.
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“Once Huxley came home, there was a lot more special needs that we weren’t aware of, and that we were not told,” James said in the video. “There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t love Huxley with all of our being,” Myka added. “There wasn’t a minute that I didn’t try our hardest and I think what Jim is trying to say is that after multiple assessments, after multiple evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit and that his medical needs, he needed more.”
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The backlash was swift. Viewers had been posting comments asking where Huxley was for weeks since noticing his conspicuous absence. It felt odd that the Stauffers, who’d provided daily updates around their family’s life and Huxley’s adoption process, would suddenly stop posting about their son, whose playlist of related videos suddenly went private. Online citizen detectives had even gone to James’ car-themed channel, “Stauffer Garage,” where they noticed that Huxley’s car seat was no longer visible.
The Stauffers’ story is revisited in a new HBO Original three-part docuseries premiering Jan. 15. Inspired by a 2020 New York Magazine article by Caitlin Moscatello, An Update On Our Family is directed by Rachel Mason (Circus Of Books) and unpacks the complicated world of family vlogging and transnational adoption via interviews with current family vloggers and YouTube experts, adoption specialists, and journalists. The Stauffers did not respond to the producers’ outreach and did not participate in An Update On Our Family.
This is the true story behind Myka and James Stauffer, the YouTubers who infamously “rehomed” their adoptive son, Huxley.
Who are Myka and James Stauffer?
Myka and James Stauffer are a married couple from Columbus, OH. As far back as 2012, Myka (then Myka Bellisari) uploaded content to YouTube, where she shared weight-loss tips and talked about her life as a single mother and nurse. Around that time, she met James Stauffer on the dating site OKCupid; they married in 2014 and launched their joint channel The Stauffer Life, where they posted up-close-and-personal updates about their relationship and growing family. Kova, who was born in 2011, is Myka’s oldest child; although James is not Kova’s biological parent, he has been in her life since she was a toddler. The couple have three biological children together: daughter Jaka and sons Radley and Onyx.
Though Myka would post about a range of domestic subjects, such as cooking and cleaning, the couple’s hyper-personal videos about Myka’s miscarriage and surprising James with a positive pregnancy test performed especially well, with views spiking to the hundreds of thousands.
Eventually, Myka quit nursing to focus on vlogging full time. As The Stauffer Life gained subscribers, she also earned brand deals and partnerships with companies like Fabletics and Mattel. With 700,00 followers, they weren’t at the top of the family vlogging charts—the top-ranked family-vlogging channel in 2024 currently boasts about 1.2M subscribers—but they were solidly successful.
In 2016, the Stauffers announced to viewers that they were in the process of adopting a little boy from China through the now-closed agency WACAP Adoptions. The documentary suggests that the Stauffers may have chosen to adopt through China due to the relative expediency (if still not exactly lightning speed) compared to other methods; it also suggests that the Stauffers may have been motivated to keep expanding their family because videos about pregnancy, childbirth, and babies performed so well on YouTube and thus was the biggest moneymaker. (Note: In September 2024, China announced it was ending its international adoption program.) As cultural commentator Sophie Ross says in the series, “Bringing new children into their family was a surefire way to get more views, get more followers, get more sponsorships, and get more money.”
In a June 2020 written statement, Myka denied that she and James had adopted Huxley for financial- or business-related reasons, saying that she and her husband “did not adopt Huxley to gain wealth… While we did receive a small portion of money from videos featuring Huxley and his journey, every penny and much more went back into his care,” she said. “Getting Huxley the care and services he needed was very expensive and we made sure he got every service and resource we could possibly find.”
The Stauffers also spoke to viewers about their preparedness to handle any potential health issues and/or special needs their adopted child might have. According to the National Library of Medicine, transnational adoptees may have higher rates of physical health issues depending on the conditions in their birth country, including malnutrition, infectious diseases, and untreated medical conditions due to limited access to healthcare before adoption.
As the adoption process progressed, Myka shared pictures of the child they’d chosen, whom they had renamed “Huxley.” Meanwhile, viewers would comment excitedly asking for more updates and for the Stauffers to share videos of their upcoming “adoption day” in China.
What happened after Huxley’s adoption?
After the Stauffers adopted Huxley, who appeared visibly distressed in videos documenting their journey back to Ohio, the family started creating YouTube playlists of Huxley’s adoption story. As the documentary points out, YouTube’s algorithm heavily promotes playlists, making it so anyone interested in content about adoption or family vlogging would be likely to stumble upon the Stauffers’ content. Likewise, any content about Huxley earned the Stauffers higher engagement relative to other subjects they’d post about.
In fall 2018, the Stauffers started posting more about Huxley’s medical issues, which included a formal level-three autism diagnosis, and appeared to be actively stepping up his at-home therapy techniques. However, after Myka gave birth to the couple’s fourth biological child in 2019, viewers started noticing that Huxley wasn’t showing up as much on The Stauffer Life. When viewers would ask after Huxley, they’d notice their comments being deleted.
Ultimately, the Stauffers addressed Huxley’s disappearance in their now-infamous “An Update From Our Family” video, where they said that Huxley’s needs were greater than they had initially been told and that they felt they could not adequately care for him. “For us, it’s been really hard hearing from the medical professionals, a lot of their feedback, and things that have been upsetting,” James said in the video. “We’ve never wanted to be in this position. And we’ve been trying to get his needs met and help him out as much as possible … we truly love him.”
The video prompted a tidal wave of backlash. In June 2020, Myka followed up in a statement that she had been “naive” in the adoption process. “I can’t say I wish this never happened because I’m still so glad Huxley is here and getting all of the help he needs,” she wrote on Instagram. “I also know that even though he is happier in his new home and doing better that he still experienced trauma and I’m sorry, no adoptee deserves any more trauma.”
The Stauffers’ lawyers added in an official statement that Myka and James had specifically chosen a new family (as opposed to placing him in the foster-care system) who could meet his special needs. “Since his adoption, they consulted with multiple professionals in the healthcare and educational arenas in order to provide Huxley with the best possible treatment and care,” their lawyers said. “Over time, the team of medical professionals advised our clients it might be best for Huxley to be placed with another family.”
Where is Huxley now?
Upon the Stauffers’ story going viral in 2020, local law enforcement conducted a wellbeing check for Huxley. The documentary reads out the results of that report: “Huxley’s adoptive mother was singing a song to him as he was sitting on her lap smiling. Huxley appeared to be very happy and well taken care of. At this time, the investigation will be closed out with no further follow up from our office.”
Where are the Stauffers now?
Myka Stauffer has not posted to social media or YouTube since 2020. James Stauffer continues to post on his automotive-themed YouTube channel, Stauffer’s Garage.
What issues does the docuseries raise around family vlogging?
Through interviews with fellow family vloggers and YouTube growth experts, An Update From Our Family demonstrates a typical vlogger’s motivations in monetizing content about their life and/or family, as well as the dangers of doing so. On one hand, a stay-at-home parent might feel incentivized to document their family’s life on YouTube because they want to shed light on under-discussed topics (such as pregnancy and childbirth). Hosting a successful YouTube channel can also be a way to earn income for at-home parents, and in some cases, a lucrative one. At the same time, the documentary outlines how pressure to keep making content in order to maintain engagement, earn brand deals, and grow an audience can become harmful in the unregulated world of social media, especially when children are incapable of giving consent to having their lives documented and monetized.
What issues does the docuseries raise around transnational adoptions?
An Update On Our Family shines a light on the psychological issues transnational adoptees can experience. YouTube beauty vlogger Hannah Cho, who was herself adopted from Korea as a baby, speaks to filmmakers about the complicated nature of identity as a transnational adoptee, as does Cameron Lee Small, an adoption counselor based in Minneapolis.
According to the American Psychological Association, international adoptees can be more vulnerable to some mental-health difficulties compared with non-adoptees, including eating disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders.
How common is it to dissolve an adoption?
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, anywhere from 1 percent to 5 percent of the more than 100,000 annual adoptions in the US are legally terminated in a “dissolution.”
Filmmakers spoke to an adoptive parent named Ashley, who told her story about adopting an international child with special needs that were so significant that she made the painful decision to dissolve the adoption. “People don’t talk about these stories… The full picture of adoption is not well understood,” she told producers.
As the documentary outlines, the Stauffers’ decision to dissolve their adoption of Huxley is unusual but not unheard of. Had the Stauffers not been influencers or regularly documented Huxley’s health issues on YouTube, the dissolution would just have been another one of the 1 to 5 percent of stories most people never hear about.
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