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NOTE: This is a rant and this is a blog. I'm too angry now to cite sources for everything. Just Google it. I won't respond to comments by people who want to argue about ABA or be racist. They'll be deleted. If you want to read more about autism and ABA from actual autistic sources, check out this resource document I've compiled: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uJ4-m3m0C7w1lF36D-nRkawJE6qo7srLBBKPiuJhtsM/edit?usp=sharing
EDIT: Check out this article by Lydia X. Z. Brown, who is an autistic, transnational adoptee from China, on this topic: https://gal-dem.com/huxley-adoption-story-youtube-stauffers-is-part-of-a-larger-narrative-race-disability-and-abuse/
TW: ableism, ABA, racism, child abuse, dehumanization
I'm feeling disgusted and angry right now. I'd never heard of the Stauffer family before this, but apparently they were one of those family that monetizes vlogs about their picture perfect, white, upper class family. A few years back, they adopted an autistic child from China and named him Huxley. The thing that is making everyone so angry now is that the family has decided that taking care of Huxley was too much work for them, so they "rehomed" him. I read and watched some content and learned more. Bile and spite are rising in my throat. People are outraged, but most are overlooking aspects of this story that are vital to understanding just how disgusting it is. I haven't seen many autistic viewpoints put forward about this situation, or any autistic POC viewpoints, so here's mine. (NOTE: I'm not a transracial adoptee or an adoptee at all, so I can't speak to that side of the story.)
This isn't just a story about a rich family giving up on an adopted child. This is a story about white saviorism and racism. This is a story about how people treat autistic children like disposable props, or like pets. This is a story about how non-autistic parents end up harming their autistic children when they don't care enough to try to understand how autistic people think and aren't willing to adapt to their way of interacting with the world. It's always the autistic child that must conform and perform, always the adopted child of color. Particularly when the parents are of the privileged "martyr mommy" type.
This family uprooted an AUTISTIC child from everything they knew, forced him into 30 hours per week of ABA to make him conform to non-autistic standards, mistreated him in ways that they didn't treat their non-autistic white children, and in the end gave him away, uprooting his entire life AGAIN when he was old enough to understand the implications that the didn't want him any more, that he wasn't good enough for them. I seriously doubt that even if they'd had a biological autistic child of their own they wouldn't have tried to give them away like a pet. They obviously didn't think of him as the would have thought of a biological child. They didn't really think of him like their own son. He was a prop to make them look good. They even got money from their Youtube audience to adopt him and monetized all the videos.
Apparently they hadn't gone into the adoption process looking to adopt a "special needs" child, but found out that if they wanted to adopt a baby or toddler, they'd probably have to adopt internationally. They wanted to adopt from Africa at first, then considered China, which apparently only allows international adoptions of disabled children. They didn't know he was autistic at first, so they had an image in their mind of a non-autistic child. When they found out, though, they were hesitant, but still went through with the adoption. In my opinion, this adoption should have never happened.
If you know anything about autistic people, you know just how traumatic change can be to us. Taking this baby away from his country, culture, and routine was undoubtedly traumatizing. But things got worse. I saw video footage showing how his adoptive mother cut his hair into what was similar to a mohawk, despite his screaming protests, very soon after bringing him to the US. Haircuts are often a big deal to autistic children, especially if they're forced like that. Autistic people are often hypersensitive to sensory input, and haircuts can be hellish. Not to mention the violation of one's autonomy over their body. It teaches children they have no control over their own body, that their no doesn't matter.
I saw more video footage where the family duct taped Huxley's fingers together to keep him from sucking on them to self sooth. That cruel, and not only cruel. Most autistic people need to stim to process emotions. Huxley's "family" suppressed his stims. They didn't do that to their non-autistic biological children, despite the fact that at least one of their older biological children sucked their fingers as well. They did it because he was autistic, to force him to act "normal", letting him know that his ways of thinking and doing were bad and wrong, that he was wrong. They were letting him know that he had different standards for behavior than his new siblings. He was a second class citizen of his new family.
In another video, the father of the Stauffer family spoke about how after they put Huxley to bed they'd have a special "family time" with the other children, away from him. That he took up so much of their time, so they wanted time away from him. All of this was put online, publicly. Someday, he'd have learned about this, had the controversy not been stirred up enough for them to make all their videos private. He probably still will learn about this someday, from someone else. They'll hurt him even after he is away from them.
On top of everything, they had him on camera all the time. The family wanted to show the world what good white, abled saviors they were, and they earned a lot of money from it too. How stressful must that have been for him. His hours and hours of ABA would teach him to perform "normality", and he'd be expected to do it again and again for a camera. The autistic community (of actual autistic people) is largely opposed to ABA, even when aversives aren't used, due to how traumatic it is, how dangerous it can be to force compliance to all commands, and how inherently abusive it is.
ABA teaches autistic children that they can't have things that they like unless they act in ways that are unnatural to them, in "normal" ways.
ABA teaches autistic children that they have to bury who they are and their true feelings because they are unpalatable to non-autistic people.
ABA forces babies and children to exhaustively work what would normally be the amount of time an adult works in a week. And later on, they do this in addition to school time.
ABA teaches autistic children that they must comply with what adults tell them to do, even if those adults have malicious intent.
They must perform being happy and compliant, even if they're screaming on the inside. They learn that their natural emotions, reactions, and ways of expressing themselves are bad. Many autistic adults have PTSD due to ABA and otherwise being forced to conform. Sure, ABA is proven effective at getting autistic children to act less autistic, but at what cost? They're still autistic, but suppressing their true selves. And eventually, autistic people generally burn out from expending all their energy to appear "normal." This happened to me, even though I was never in ABA. I learned to bury myself, to put up a palatable facade, terrified that people would see the real me and hate me for it. I FEEL for Huxley. I really do.
And now they got rid of him. They "re-homed" him with a new "forever family", again with treating him like a dog. I can only imagine the damage this has done to his psyche. They said they gave him up so he could receive the care and upbringing they couldn't give him, for the best, but I don't believe it. They are rich. They could afford nannies or daycare or specialized health care. And they wouldn't have done the same to a biological child. I can only hope that he can recover from this, and that his new family aren't going to make things worse.
EDIT: Check out this article by Lydia X. Z. Brown, who is an autistic, transnational adoptee from China, on this topic: https://gal-dem.com/huxley-adoption-story-youtube-stauffers-is-part-of-a-larger-narrative-race-disability-and-abuse/
TW: ableism, ABA, racism, child abuse, dehumanization
I'm feeling disgusted and angry right now. I'd never heard of the Stauffer family before this, but apparently they were one of those family that monetizes vlogs about their picture perfect, white, upper class family. A few years back, they adopted an autistic child from China and named him Huxley. The thing that is making everyone so angry now is that the family has decided that taking care of Huxley was too much work for them, so they "rehomed" him. I read and watched some content and learned more. Bile and spite are rising in my throat. People are outraged, but most are overlooking aspects of this story that are vital to understanding just how disgusting it is. I haven't seen many autistic viewpoints put forward about this situation, or any autistic POC viewpoints, so here's mine. (NOTE: I'm not a transracial adoptee or an adoptee at all, so I can't speak to that side of the story.)
This isn't just a story about a rich family giving up on an adopted child. This is a story about white saviorism and racism. This is a story about how people treat autistic children like disposable props, or like pets. This is a story about how non-autistic parents end up harming their autistic children when they don't care enough to try to understand how autistic people think and aren't willing to adapt to their way of interacting with the world. It's always the autistic child that must conform and perform, always the adopted child of color. Particularly when the parents are of the privileged "martyr mommy" type.
This family uprooted an AUTISTIC child from everything they knew, forced him into 30 hours per week of ABA to make him conform to non-autistic standards, mistreated him in ways that they didn't treat their non-autistic white children, and in the end gave him away, uprooting his entire life AGAIN when he was old enough to understand the implications that the didn't want him any more, that he wasn't good enough for them. I seriously doubt that even if they'd had a biological autistic child of their own they wouldn't have tried to give them away like a pet. They obviously didn't think of him as the would have thought of a biological child. They didn't really think of him like their own son. He was a prop to make them look good. They even got money from their Youtube audience to adopt him and monetized all the videos.
Apparently they hadn't gone into the adoption process looking to adopt a "special needs" child, but found out that if they wanted to adopt a baby or toddler, they'd probably have to adopt internationally. They wanted to adopt from Africa at first, then considered China, which apparently only allows international adoptions of disabled children. They didn't know he was autistic at first, so they had an image in their mind of a non-autistic child. When they found out, though, they were hesitant, but still went through with the adoption. In my opinion, this adoption should have never happened.
If you know anything about autistic people, you know just how traumatic change can be to us. Taking this baby away from his country, culture, and routine was undoubtedly traumatizing. But things got worse. I saw video footage showing how his adoptive mother cut his hair into what was similar to a mohawk, despite his screaming protests, very soon after bringing him to the US. Haircuts are often a big deal to autistic children, especially if they're forced like that. Autistic people are often hypersensitive to sensory input, and haircuts can be hellish. Not to mention the violation of one's autonomy over their body. It teaches children they have no control over their own body, that their no doesn't matter.
I saw more video footage where the family duct taped Huxley's fingers together to keep him from sucking on them to self sooth. That cruel, and not only cruel. Most autistic people need to stim to process emotions. Huxley's "family" suppressed his stims. They didn't do that to their non-autistic biological children, despite the fact that at least one of their older biological children sucked their fingers as well. They did it because he was autistic, to force him to act "normal", letting him know that his ways of thinking and doing were bad and wrong, that he was wrong. They were letting him know that he had different standards for behavior than his new siblings. He was a second class citizen of his new family.
In another video, the father of the Stauffer family spoke about how after they put Huxley to bed they'd have a special "family time" with the other children, away from him. That he took up so much of their time, so they wanted time away from him. All of this was put online, publicly. Someday, he'd have learned about this, had the controversy not been stirred up enough for them to make all their videos private. He probably still will learn about this someday, from someone else. They'll hurt him even after he is away from them.
On top of everything, they had him on camera all the time. The family wanted to show the world what good white, abled saviors they were, and they earned a lot of money from it too. How stressful must that have been for him. His hours and hours of ABA would teach him to perform "normality", and he'd be expected to do it again and again for a camera. The autistic community (of actual autistic people) is largely opposed to ABA, even when aversives aren't used, due to how traumatic it is, how dangerous it can be to force compliance to all commands, and how inherently abusive it is.
ABA teaches autistic children that they can't have things that they like unless they act in ways that are unnatural to them, in "normal" ways.
ABA teaches autistic children that they have to bury who they are and their true feelings because they are unpalatable to non-autistic people.
ABA forces babies and children to exhaustively work what would normally be the amount of time an adult works in a week. And later on, they do this in addition to school time.
ABA teaches autistic children that they must comply with what adults tell them to do, even if those adults have malicious intent.
They must perform being happy and compliant, even if they're screaming on the inside. They learn that their natural emotions, reactions, and ways of expressing themselves are bad. Many autistic adults have PTSD due to ABA and otherwise being forced to conform. Sure, ABA is proven effective at getting autistic children to act less autistic, but at what cost? They're still autistic, but suppressing their true selves. And eventually, autistic people generally burn out from expending all their energy to appear "normal." This happened to me, even though I was never in ABA. I learned to bury myself, to put up a palatable facade, terrified that people would see the real me and hate me for it. I FEEL for Huxley. I really do.
And now they got rid of him. They "re-homed" him with a new "forever family", again with treating him like a dog. I can only imagine the damage this has done to his psyche. They said they gave him up so he could receive the care and upbringing they couldn't give him, for the best, but I don't believe it. They are rich. They could afford nannies or daycare or specialized health care. And they wouldn't have done the same to a biological child. I can only hope that he can recover from this, and that his new family aren't going to make things worse.
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