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Baby Boxes–First Season : No More Abandoned Babies and its launch party lived up to my predictions. They were a shitshow–literally –since shit was one of the throughlines of the evening. More about that in a minute.
These tandem video events were so bad that I’ve had trouble wrapping my head around them and would rather sleep, eat, walk to the dollar store, wash dishes, scrub the kitchen floor, or download all 900 pages of Project 2025 than write this review. In fact, I even watched Days of Our Lives this morning to put it off a little longer. But duty calls, and I shall try to put together something cogent, since Tuesday night Episode 2, entitled Shut the F*** Up Jeff (seriously!) will pollute our screens. (This is a series of 7 videos)
I don’t know what I expected of the launch party, but it wasn’t this. Sorta. To put it plainly, the party resembled a middle school pajama party and the kids got in the liquor cabinet. Screeching, hollering, shoving, mugging the camera, Lots of yuk’s-yuks. And ice-breakers to assist viewers to get acquainted with the baby box gang with teases such as “Who on our staff has the most tats? “Who eats cottage cheese every day?” More yuk-yuks. When Mariah Betz, Mrs. Kelsey’s assistant development coordinator, got her ample chest up close and tight on the screen, Mrs. Kelsey scolded, “Get your boobs out of the way.”
We were introduced more or less to the Kelsey nepos : husband Joe Kelsey, (mayor of Woodburn, Indiana), daughters Allyssa and Alexis, and son JJ Steinmetz all work at the baby box factory (2 part-time) along with JJ’s buddy Kyle. Other staff or hangers-on were introduced, or featured, but it was hard to catch the names of some of them or what they do there if anything, The only apparent normies in the bunch were Joe Kelsey and Jessie, Mrs. Kelsey’s longtime hairdresser and newly hired assistant. (Jessie’s daughter is the company’s social media intern). Oh, and Mrs. Kelsey’s dog, Harper. The connectivity or whatever was really bad–like watching a video on dial-up or while huffing glue.
The piece de resistance was reserved for JJ Steinmetz whose bathroom habits (as I predicted), were discussed at length ending in an “argument” about who clogged the office toilet more–JJ or Mrs Kelsey–and the number of flushes required to get it all down the drain. ( Marker 19:30) The bathroom, btw, was repeatedly referred to as “the crap room.” Bonus: JJ threatened to pull down his pants to show us the tat on his ass, (“Made in the USA”) which thankfully Mrs. Kelsey vetoed. Toilet habits continued in Episode 1 where we learn that JJ was “taking a shit” when he learned that his father had died, which segued into a discussion of his self-described “big butt.” (Marker 16:00.) All together we got about 6 1/2 minutes of detailed toilet talk–a lot more detailed than the undetailed discussion on “saving babies” throughout the evening.
The party also included a brief check-in from a couple of firefighters and a few boxed babies and their adopters thrilled to participate. Wait a few years and see how “eager” those kids will be to participate in this dog and pony show. BTW, The walls of the baby box factory are covered with pictures of secret and confidential babies that nobody who counts is supposed to know about.
When it was time for the actual “documentary”–Episode 1: No More Abandoned Babies--to start, Jessie assured us that the video was not all about “screw-offs” and had some serious parts. Thank you, Jessie!
Although I could have watched it on the watch party stream, I switched over to the actual video since I didn’t want to feel like I was coming down from a bad drug trip or a closet door had fallen on my head. This was a good decision. I returned to the party later to see how that went, and it was pretty bad. I’m not sure how one can watch on their own TV a bunch of people sitting in the dark watching a video on their TV hanging on the wall showing up on my TV screen the size of a file folder tab.
As I suspected, the series is produced and directed by the man who contacted me about a year ago, and he did a decent job of it considering what he had to work with. We got a rundown of Mrs. Kelsey’s personal “abandonment” story. While I believe a good part of it, there are some very big holes that media never questions. Some scenes were taken from videos of various SHBB Inc events posted on its social media pages. Other shots were of Mrs. Kelsey, JJ, Joe, and hotline “counselor” and coordinator Pam Stenzel driving their cars and talking all about themselves and their good deeds. It had a Dog, the Bounty Hunter vibe to it. Mrs. Stenzel assured us that babies would die if not for boxes because in one (discard?) case, police did a sweep of a neighborhood and found evidence of a birth in a porta-potty.
Critics of the baby box movement were barely mentioned–sort of a gnat to be flicked off the back of your hand. Adoptee critics weren’t mentioned and only a teeny tiny snark was aimed at traditional safe haven opposition. Mrs. Stenzel assured us that “critics are not involved with dead babies.” Neither is Safe Haven Baby Boxes that we know of, but one of their mothers reportedly died of an overdose recently.
Since I was 10 years old I’ve been an avid credit reader; one of those annoying people who sit through 10 minutes of credit crawls at the end of a movie, so I was eager to see who was working Baby Boxes. Hmmmm. Nobody, but directors Trent and Jennifer Eliason. No credit for the videos, pictures and other information. No thanks for financial support. But at the bottom: “For Use by Safe Haven Baby Boxes.”
In other words, a 7-hour infomercial.
During the launch party, someone asked if the show would be on Netflix, and someone replied, “not yet.” Let’s hope Netflix, Prime, or any other platform doesn’t decide to run infomercials dressed up as documentaries.
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I have never seen so much narcissistic horn-blowing, show-offery, money-sucking, and venality outside of certain politicians and mega-clergy, and even then, the baby boxers might have them beat. The shebang was not only disgusting but embarrassing. At least I felt embarrassed for them in that way one is embarrassed for things they shouldn’t be. Is this the way legitimate “social service” nonprofits and ministries operate (Occasionally we are reminded that the company is a “ministry.) Where were the babies? The “desperate” mothers”? The reason for the party? What was SHBB Inc thinking? What does their fanbase think?
Well, we know. This sham of a show pushed SHBB’s TikTok followers to over 1 million–a serious sign of the decay of the American mind, as I wrote elsewhere. I can only imagine what would happen if any adoptee rights organization–or any legitimate social justice organization in general–put on this kind of show: superficial, self-absorbed, egotistical, narcissistic , silly. Hey, we like fun, but this….
I really don’t know how to close this blog. Words fail. But one of our readers commented on an earlier post about the reality show, and her thoughts match mine perfectly:
I watched it and it was unbelievably unprofessional but also an excellent example of how self-absorbed Monica is with herself and her lame organization. So yes, I hope people watch it and get disgusted with what they see.
I know some people refuse to watch Baby Boxes on general principle, but it is the red meat we need to knock off the baby box plague. Right from the horse’s mouth.
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