Matt and Abby Howard are clearing the air after it appeared like they left their young kids alone while on a cruise!
ICYMI, over the weekend, the TikTok stars posted about the challenges of being on a week-long cruise with their kids Griffin, 2, and August, 1. The little ones weren’t loving the family vacation, causing some issues for the parents — until they came up with an unconventional way to solve the problem. They seemingly tucked their kids in for the night, FaceTimed them to monitor the situation, and then left for dinner.
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Interestingly, Abby actually posted all about this on her Instagram Story as she explained why they were FaceTiming the children and not using a baby monitor. See (below):
So, after making it seem like they had ditched the children for some alone time, The Unplanned Podcast hosts are now coming out to insist this assumption is “completely untrue.” On Monday, the couple appeared in a new TikTok video to address the controversy. Matt began:
“We take our role as parents extremely seriously and we love our children more than anything in the entire world. We’re very protective of our kids. […] People started to speculate and believe that we had left our children alone in their staterooms — and that is just completely untrue.”
It wasn’t exactly unnecessary speculation. They seemingly laid it all out in that post! Just saying!
Insisting fans got it wrong, he continued:
“We had someone with our children at all times on this boat. Period.”
Abby then chimed in to say that she understood where the “misunderstanding” came from, noting that she deleted her aforementioned post shortly after uploading it when she realized how people were interpreting it. She said:
“I ended up deleting it several hours after posting it because I could see that it was causing concern and misunderstanding. I do want to say thank you so much to those of you that were concerned about the safety and wellbeing of our children. As their parents, that is our first and foremost main concern, but to know that other people share those same concerns for our precious boys, it really means a lot. So, thank you. But I do want to clarify that we have not, would not, will not ever leave our children unattended. We would never ever want to put them in harm’s way in any way.”
Good!
So, what was with that “baby monitor situation” then?? Abby explained that the kids sleep in a “blackout tent,” so they always use a monitor to see inside. The content creator detailed:
“We always turn their monitor on so we can watch and see what’s happening inside the tent — make sure they’re OK, see if they’ve fallen asleep or if they’ve woken up. We just love to have eyes on them. We’re always concerned about them. So that’s why, even when we would tag team and take turns at family dinner, we would turn on FaceTime so we could also have eyes on them as their parents if we weren’t the ones attending them at that moment.”
They were on the trip with Abby’s extended family, and that’s who they are seemingly saying was looking after the boys while they were out to dinner. Matt shared:
“We’re so thankful for them, you guys. We spent a lot of time on this boat in our staterooms manning baby monitors. If it wasn’t for Abby’s extended family, we really would have not gotten a chance to really get out of the room. So, thank you to them.”
They ended the video by thanking fans for “listening” to their side of the story. See the full statement (below):
@matt_and_abby
In the comments, fans seemed pretty receptive to the explanation, writing:
“A babysitter here! So i find its VERY common that parents have cameras/baby monitors on and they watch them even while im there. It’s just another safety measure so it makes sense why they’d do that!”
“I KNEW THERE WAS MORE TO IT!!”
“Great explanation, I do feel it’s a valuable lesson for you guys that because you have such a big following people will easily misunderstand things!! I also think it’s lovely you thanked people for caring and being concerned rather than getting on the defence. Perfectly articulated”
It’s definitely a good lesson for them. That original post was misleading, and with so many followers, it’s no wonder people freaked out. There have just been so many horror stories of kids getting left alone. Nobody wants to watch silently when they think something might be wrong! Thoughts? Sound OFF (below)!
[Image via Abby Howard/Matt Howard/Instagram]
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