Now Who Is This TikTok Couple Who Left Their Babies Alone on a Cruise?

There are so many vaguely Christian, young, married influencer couples these days that it takes a lot to break through the noise on social media. You have to do something like make Cookie Crisp cereal from scratch for your kids while wearing a silk robe or cry huge crocodile tears of disappointment at your baby’s gender reveal. Or you could … tell all your Instagram followers that you left your two young children sleeping alone in a cruise-ship cabin while you went out for dinner? Yes, that will work. Just ask Matt and Abby Howard.

Matt, 26, and Abby, 25, are a married couple with two young sons living near Phoenix, Arizona. They have been working on their YouTube and TikTok careers for several years now, but in recent months they have gone viral a few times for all the wrong reasons. In June, they made TikTok go crazy by announcing that they were boycotting Father’s Day. And now, there’s this controversial cruise thing. What is happening? And who are these people again? Let’s investigate.

Wholesome backstory

Before we get into the current hubbub surrounding this couple, let’s review where they started. According to their own videos and interviews with local news publications, Matt and Abby Howard first met at a St. Louis, Missouri, theater camp in eighth grade and dated long distance during high school (Abby is from Illinois originally, and Matt is from Missouri). They reunited for college at Missouri State University, got engaged at Disney World (duh), and got married during their sophomore year in 2019.

Then came the global coronavirus pandemic, which prompted the couple to start posting about their relationship on YouTube and TikTok. They really started to gain a following in 2021, when they announced they were pregnant with their first child, Griffin.

Their early videos are pretty tame. Here’s one where Matt and Abby try Buddy the Elf’s spaghetti recipe from Elf:

And here’s one where they bring Griffin to the spot where Matt proposed in Disney World:

Standard influencer-couple stuff.

Unplanned brush with fame

At the end of 2022, when Griffin was just 5 months old, Abby found out she was unexpectedly pregnant again. The couple recorded their somewhat terrified reactions to the positive pregnancy test and quickly posted the video online, which seemed to kick them up to another level of young-married-vaguely-Christian-influencer fame. (They currently share an account on TikTok that has over 5 million followers.)

In order to capitalize on this new level of attention, Matt and Abby launched a podcast called Unplanned, where they discussed Abby’s second pregnancy and interviewed other influencers in their category. (One of the Duggars was recently a guest.) Their second son, August, was born, fittingly enough, in August 2023.

Unlike in the short videos the Howards post to TikTok, Matt is more outspoken on the podcast. He has shared some opinions that have made casual listeners (or those who get served clips of the podcast on TikTok) go “Hmmm.” In one episode, he told a mortified Abby that she does, in his opinion, “feel different down there” after having babies. In another, he asked her why she eats as much as he does since she’s smaller than he is.

Sometimes, Abby looks visibly upset by his comments, but the couple maintains that they are happy together. Followers, however, have different ideas. “Abby blink if you need help!!!!!!” cried one comment on a recent video. “ABBY WE’RE ALL FINE IF YOU JUST: 🏃💨 SPRINT,” said another.

Matt has also launched a pop-music career, of which followers remain somewhat skeptical.

Just say “no” to Father’s Day

No Unplanned podcast clip has gone further, faster, than this one of Matt and Abby doing their best to explain why they boycotted Father’s Day this year. Is it because Matt doesn’t like attention? Or because he’d rather celebrate his wife instead? Not quite. I’ll let you watch for yourself:

It’s hard to imagine a funnier take than this. Matt, a grown-up man, was upset that his pregnant wife celebrated his birthday and Father’s Day on the same day … when they were literally on the same day? She “failed” him? HE HAD TO DO THE GRILLING HIMSELF? And now, as punishment, Abby must remember to celebrate Father’s Day on some random day at least a full three months after Matt’s birthday?

Unfortunately, Matt and Abby kept posting after this.

FaceTiming the monitors on a cruise

According to videos they shared on Instagram, Matt and Abby took a cruise with their sons, ages 1 and 2, and some extended family last week. First, Matt posted a “room tour” in which he explained that the couple had booked two rooms and were sleeping separately with one child in each room. Then, Abby posted a full recap of the cruise on her (now-deleted) Instagram Stories.

In these highly detailed Stories, Abby revealed that the couple struggled to keep their toddlers entertained during dinners on the cruise and struggled to reserve babysitting in the kids’ club onboard. Their solution: They put the kids to bed in their cabins and “FaceTimed the monitors” while going out to dinner themselves. “Baby monitors don’t work on board unless you’re only like 10 feet away,” Abby explained.

Appalled commenters quickly started posting about the inherent danger in this plan, and the story has now gone viral on TikTok. Why couldn’t they have taken turns going out to dinner? Or put the kids in one room and ordered room service to the other? Or … done whatever they wanted but not posted about it?

After a couple days of radio silence, during which Matt and Abby both limited their comments on Instagram, the couple finally hopped on TikTok to make a statement Monday night. They explained that Abby’s Instagram Stories were unintentionally misleading and said their kids were never alone on the ship.

“We had someone with our children at all times on the boat, period,” Matt said. Abby explained that they still FaceTimed the monitors during their dinners out because they like to also have eyes on their children while someone else is watching them.

This is probably the most negative press cycle Matt and Abby have faced since they started regularly rage-baiting their followers, but it does not seem as though they plan to give up sharing their lives with the public. Matt also posted on his Instagram Story this week that now that they are home from their cruise, they are going to start potty-training their older son.

I’m sure they will share information about this process with their followers with the sensitivity and judiciousness we have come to expect from them.