This new docuseries tells the story of parenting influencers who adopted a boy — and then gave him up

An Update On Our Family is a three-part docuseries about the rise and fall of an influencer family called the Stauffers.

Their popularity on YouTube skyrocketed when they began their journey to adopt a boy from China. Once the boy landed in the United States and joined their family, they continued to build their vlogging empire around him. 

But one day, he disappeared from their feed — and it turns out, the Stauffers had given him up.

Today on Commotion, parenting columnist Amil Niazi and author Jen Sookfong Lee join guest host Rad Simonpillai to discuss the docuseries, now available to stream in Canada on Crave, and how well it not only tells the Stauffers's story, but also unpacks the ugly side of parenting influencers.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Rad: Amil, let's begin with just the Stauffers. They're no longer on YouTube, after facing intense backlash from this story. Can you explain why people fell in love with the Stauffers, and why people were so outraged by what happened to Huxley?

Amil: They were putting out so much content. I think in today's world, you would be overwhelmed by the amount of vlogging they did. But they really took people through their entire experience from getting together, every pregnancy announcement, every pregnancy disappointment. They were really, really sharing their entire life. It was such an intimate connection that people had with them. 

I hate saying words like "rehomed" and "forever home." It's like, this is not a pet. This is a human being. So when they, you know, gave Huxley up, people really felt betrayed. They were such a part of his very emotional journey from China over to Ohio. You felt how difficult this would be for Huxley, and yet they positioned themselves as the victims in all of this. I think that people just could not deal with that, and I'm not surprised that they've never returned to the internet.

Rad: Right. And Jen, when you watched this series, how did you feel about all of this?

Jen: When you watch the series, you go through a lot of emotions. But I think the series is set up to make us hate the Stauffers. I don't think there's any other real alternative for the viewer. No one is going to like this cute white family who adopts and then discards a little boy from China…. It's really hard not to feel betrayal and all that stuff on behalf of Huxley, who obviously experienced the trauma of being relinquished by his birth family, and then has been relinquished a second time. This is really, really difficult stuff. I worked in social services and adoption for many years, and I wrote a lot about it. The only thing that actually surprised me about this story was the money part, not the adoption part, oddly.

Rad: Amil, what does the docuseries say about monetizing or turning your family into a business in this way?

Amil: It's a really, I think, chilling example, but a really important example of the tension that we're in today with family vloggers, because now we sort of see the consequences of monetizing your children, of revealing every single aspect of your family life, which is usually very private and intimate between the people in the family. These children cannot consent to having their entire lives shown to millions of people, and certainly they don't consent to having their adoption journey turned into a commercial for a detergent. 

I think we're really seeing how it affects children, how horrible it can be for the family, because they've been banished. You know what I mean? Like, I can't even imagine. They were going from making quite a bit of money…. These family influencers, the good ones, make so much money it's unbelievable. They had their entire income taken away because of this. And so I think we're really just now starting to see how this business impacts the people involved. And I really do think we're in a crisis moment, and people are starting to say maybe no one should be doing this.

Rad: Jen, you mentioned that you worked at support agencies for families going through adoptions, foster care and raising children with disabilities. What did the series bring to mind for you on that front?

Jen: The thing about this for me was that international adoptions became a big business. Like, that's a money-making enterprise, too, for governments and agencies. Those became big business in the 1980s, around then, even though they had always existed. And the children who come from those countries typically have experienced a lot of things including conflict, war, political turmoil, institutionalization — many, many things…. North Americans can kind of forget that these children will have complex needs. They forget that they will probably have things like disabilities, and PTSD and mental health issues; they actually aren't blank slates.

They're not just a blank, cute, ethnic-looking child that's going to come into your home. This series really reminded me of that: how challenging the adoption journey can be for the adoptive family, for the adoptee, how an international adoption is not just about making sure you celebrate Lunar New Year and you get a cute outfit for your kid. It's also about addressing all the things that the child has experienced, and now needs at all the various ages as they grow up. And it really made me so very sad to see how little it appeared they were addressing Huxley's needs throughout their parenting vlogging.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.