Longread on an influencer family and the cost of adopting for likes.

Some viewers were sympathetic, but the video, which was posted in late May, also fueled outrage. The Stauffers lost thousands of subscribers, and Facebook and Instagram accounts sprung up demanding “Justice for Huxley” and “Cancel Myka & James Stauffer.” Brands that had worked with Myka to promote their products — including Fabletics, Suave, Danimals, and Playtex Baby — distanced themselves. They were even subject to a sheriff’s-office investigation after detractors suggested their other children might be endangered. In the kindest light, Myka, now 33, and James, 35, were painted as well-meaning but naïve parents who had gotten in over their heads; in the harshest, they were fame-hungry narcissists who’d exploited a child for clicks and profit only to discard him when caring for him proved too difficult.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, anywhere from one percent to 5 percent of the more than 100,000 adoptions in the U.S. each year are legally terminated in what’s called a “dissolution” — making the Stauffers’ decision to relinquish custody rare but not unheard of. Had they not shared Huxley’s adoption with the world, building an audience from videos about everything from his medical diagnoses to his food anxiety, they would be dealing with a private family tragedy rather than a public scandal. Instead, the Stauffers have been held up as examples of what is wrong with both influencer and adoption culture — and what can happen when a child is caught at the intersection.

“We don’t advise it. In fact, we ask them specifically not to do it,” says Susan Soonkeum Cox, vice-president of policy and external affairs for Holt International.