Mom criticized for being to gentle

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A mom has gone viral in recent days after the video she shared showing a "hard day" with her son, who has autism, sparked a tidal wave of cruel and ableist backlash.

For mom and TikToker Millie Hart, whose son also has autism, the spectacle was simply too outrageous to turn a blind eye. Her response is something we all need to hear.

Mom Joannie Marie Tew recently shared a "hard day" dealing with her son Cash, who is minimally verbal. This means he sometimes has episodes of physical aggression toward his mom, a common feature of autism when it affects a person's ability to communicate.

Tew's goal in sharing the video seemed to be to help other parents dealing with similar issues and provide an opportunity for the public to deepen their understanding of autism.

"Remember if you are dealing with aggressive behaviors in a minimally verbal child that behaviors are communication," Tew wrote in the onscreen text.

The video showed Cash repeatedly becoming agitated and physically aggressive with Tew as she tried to negotiate with him over what he'd like for lunch. Over and over again, Tew remained calm and focused, reorienting Cash toward other ways of communicating in a loving manner.

But several professionals who work with people with autism chimed in to applaud Tew's handling of the situation. Teacher Leslie Hannans, who has worked with children with non-verbal autism, called Tew's handling of Cash "phenomenal" and praised the "beautiful" job she did of working with him in his moment of agitation.

Suffice it to say, an overwhelming number of unqualified commenters did not agree. Her video elicited scores of cruel and disturbing comments from people blaming Tew for her son's aggression, and claiming what she really needed to do was beat Cash into submission.

Perhaps even more disturbing, however, were the people who seemed to think they were helping. A huge number of commenters expressed panic for Tew's safety, casting Cash as a dangerous abuser, and urging Tew to put her son in a facility where he could be cared for "properly."

For Hart, whose son also has autism, the cruelty and ableism were more than she could bear, and she simply could not hold her tongue.

Hart hails from the West Midlands of the United Kingdom, and her wildly popular TikTok channel typically focuses on comparisons and contrasts between British and American life that she's noticed in her two years living in Ohio with her husband and kids.

Her video about Tew, however, was a stark departure — a righteously profane take-down of the absolutely shocking cruelty to which Tew was subjected. "People are [expletive] vile," she began her video, incandescent with rage at the bigotry she no doubt knew all too well herself.

"I'm not condoning that autistic people are allowed to hit people," she went on to say, "but we have to discipline differently, which people don't get. We can't parent our child like every [person] down the street, mate, because they don't fit into your box. And that's the problem, ain't it, our kids don't fit into the [expletive] box everybody wants them to."

She, too, praised Tew's handling of Cash and then excoriated commenters for the cruelly cavalier way they urged Tew to put her son in a facility.

"Some parents… will have to put the child into homes… It's got to be the worst [expletive] decision any parent can go through… imagine having to make that decision," she said before laying the point bare.

"This is not a [expletive] dog. These are people. We can't just send them off to the [expletive] kennels. These are our [expletive] children, our babies, who we birthed, who we raised …They're ours. They're our blood. And people act like they ain't even human beings."

"You have no idea what it takes to live in this world as an autistic individual," she went on to say, before sharing some of the struggles she's faced with her own son.

He's seven years old, almost seven years old, and he can't even tell me if he's got a belly ache," she said, adding, "[they're] not stupid. They're different. And for some reason, different scares people. And nobody wants to understand."

She then scolded commenters for what is an all too common phenomenon in our social media-obsessed society: People feeling entitled to say whatever they like from behind the anonymity of a screen and even being so delusional as to think they're helping when they do so.

"I'll take 20 autistic people over one of them [expletive] in that comment section," she declared before thanking God that none of Tew's commenters have autistic kids themselves. "You know why? You don't deserve them," she said. "God wouldn't choose you for our special babies."

No one could have said it better. In a country that provides virtually no support for parents of kids with special needs, the last thing they need is opinions. Take that time and energy and instead use it to donate, volunteer, or prevail upon your congressional representatives to do something to help parents like Hart and Tew.

And if that's too much to ask, there's always staying quiet when you don't know what you're talking about or can't be bothered to simply be kind and empathetic. It costs you nothing, and makes all the difference.