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Tylenol, Autism, and RFK's Dangerous Search for Someone to Blame
Episode 248th October 2025 • Different, not broken • Lauren "L2" Howard
00:00:00 00:32:01

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When a bad headline blames Tylenol for autism, L2’s had enough.

This is her blistering, hilarious takedown of pseudo-science, mom-shaming, and the politicians who thrive on both.

It starts with keyboards, ends with capitalism, and somehow makes perfect sense in between.

Click play, have a listen, and then check out her Stan Store.

https://stan.store/elletwo

Mentioned in this episode:

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Transcripts

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I asked this question of my adoring fans,

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and by that I mean the people who follow me on LinkedIn. Only

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a large portion of hate follow me, but it was a. It's

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a real question that I have that I would like to just

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gather together and answer for among

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the brilliant people who surround me and are out there in

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the universe. And it's a real question, so. So

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if you have the answer, hit me with it. Do you think

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my kids are neurodivergent

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because I took Tylenol

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when I was pregnant? Or is it

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possibly because I can't wear

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socks that feel too towely inside? And

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the idea of Jello as like

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a thing that exists makes me violently

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gag. And I am trying to not do that right now.

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And I can't eat beans because they

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taste like a cat's tongue feels. And I have

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all of the maps memorized from the original Ms. Pac

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man game and I can play them in my head and I

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do. And when I was like 9

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or 10, my favorite thing to do was

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impressions of Bob Dole, and I ran around

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and did them frequently, which my dad thought

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was hilarious, but the rest of the world did not understand.

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And I have a sandwich that I've

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been eating my whole life that does not change and

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it cannot change. And if you change it, I will not

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eat it. And I have a pretty encyclopedic

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knowledge of computer keyboards. Like, I wish that was a

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joke, but there is nothing that I love

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more than computer keyboards. I can tell you what kind of

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keyboard you're using, by the way it sounds. And if I walk

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past keyboards in a store, I have to type on them to see if they're

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satisfactory. I have multiple. I literally have a drawer full

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of keyboards because sometimes I pick my keyboards based on how I feel

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that day. And again, not a joke. Not a joke.

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So do you think it's. Do you think it's the Tylenol, or do you think

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it's all of that other stuff? Or. Okay, let me give you another example. Is

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it possibly the Tylenol? Or is it the fact that my husband,

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who is my children's father, has an encyclopedic

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knowledge of audio and stereo equipment and

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can educate you on any piece of equipment

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from any point in time in history up to and including,

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like, what it costs and whether it's worth it and he can

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like, fix mechanical things? Or it could it possibly be that he has

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an innate talent for never reading the room

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before telling an awkward dad joke that lands

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horribly? Is it do you think it's possibly

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those things? Or is it that maybe one

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time across two pregnancies

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I might have taken Tylenol because according to our

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federal government and the jackasses they're

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in, it's the Tylenol and

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also the vaccines that have been proven to have

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no effect on autism rates whatsoever.

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So now we're blaming Tylenol and

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vaccines, both of which have been disproven.

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And there are a lot of keyboard warriors out there who

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would like you to believe that this is a Harvard study that says

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that Tylenol is the cause of autism, which is not true.

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And if that's the misinformation you're gonna show up with, get

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the fuck outta here. Please go somewhere else.

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Hopefully somebody with. Somewhere with a whole bunch of other. I

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was going to call them Tylenol deniers, but I don't think that's the right word.

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Tylenol scapegoats. I don't know, something like that. Go

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over there because you guys are all going to get the communicable diseases and share

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them amongst yourself and the gene pool will take care of that problem itself. Like

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you just please do us that favor. Go over there.

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But the rest of us who know that this is batshit crazy

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and absolutely bonkers would like you to

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not bring this nonsense into our existence. Like, let's be

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clear, rfk, who is beyond all behind all of this nonsense,

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said, what was it six months ago, that he was going to

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know what the cause of autism is by September.

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He put a firm date on something that

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require, that would require extensive

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scientific and medical research,

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both of which probably would have to be

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global work done in many, many different

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environments that would take far longer than six months.

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He wasn't doing scientific research, he was doing

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market research. But he said that he was going to get this answer

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within this very, very complex scientific and medical

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answer within six months by doing no science and no medicine.

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So when it all came down to it, he pulled something out of thin air.

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Something that magically, magically just

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by, by the strike of who knows what.

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I can't even imagine why he would pick a pharmaceutical. Oh wait,

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maybe it's because he makes all of his money by referring

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people for lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.

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So if he can provide some, or if he can prove some sort of large

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scale long term injury, quote unquote, prove, really all

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he's doing is suggesting it and letting other people do the work. And by the

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work, I mean the frivolous stupid shit that nobody should

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have time for, but if he can make the recommendation,

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he can also refer people to his

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unscrupulous buddies who will file lawsuits on these things

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and make him just a shit ton of money. And are you supposed to do

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stuff like that when you're running a government agency? Doesn't. Isn't that

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one of those, like, conflict of interest things? Of course it fucking

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is. You are not supposed to be lining your own pockets

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with your government job. That is not the way that anything is

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supposed to work. However, nobody in this administration gives a

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fuck, and clearly nobody in the organizations that

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are supposed to be checking and balancing them gives enough

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of a fuck to do anything. So he's lining his

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pockets through various and sundry

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and many, many unscrupulous things. This was never about Tylenol.

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It was never about vaccines. It was about creating a false

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narrative so that the wellness influencer parading as our HHS

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secretary can find a way to sell

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more snake oil. Because that's all he knows how to do,

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is sell snake oil. And he is further

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supported by the ultimate seller of the

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snake oil. And here's what's adorable. I'm not regulated by the

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fcc. Donald Trump can't pressure anybody to take me off the air.

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Not that I have the reach that, say, a late night host has,

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because obviously I do not. But I'm just saying

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my podcast is not regulated by anybody.

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And so you're stuck with me. I can say all

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the quiet parts out loud because there is no government agency that's going

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to show up at my door and threaten to take my licensing because I don't,

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I don't have a license for, like, anything. Like, I have,

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I've only had a couple of them. I have a mortgage license. Does that count?

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I don't think so. I think it's. I think my mortgage license is still active.

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I'm pretty sure I pay for it every year. I don't know, I was licensed

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in like a bunch of states too. But anyway, that's just a little call out

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to Jimmy Kimmel, who I don't like love or anything, but he

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should not have been shut off the air for

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anything that he said. But anyway. And Donald Trump should not be

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able to pressure news stations into feeling like they're going to lose their license if

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they don't stop broadcasting the things that are put on their schedule

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by a national organization, a private organization that doesn't have to answer to

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fricking Donald Trump. Anyway, so back to

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my original question. Do you think it's possible that it's the

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Tylenol or it's the other wildly

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neurodivergent things that happened well before my children are born

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that we know to have a genetic component

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that I was generous enough to pass down to them and my

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husband was generous enough to pass down to them. They also got the

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smirk that he gets when he's about to do something shitty.

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And I don't mean like shitty like mean. I mean like shitty like a prank

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or like misdirection, which is like something he loves to do.

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And so I didn't realize that it was possible to have three

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people in your house create blind rage within you

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without saying a word. But they all do the same

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smirk. And it is like. It's like a button. Like

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it's just like a button they pushed. And I have to walk away because

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I'll yell at my husband, but I'm not going to yell at my kids. And

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they'll look at me and they'll go, did we do the dad face? You're like,

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yes, don't do it.

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I lived with that for many years before you were born. And I did not

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expect it to multiply. Hate it. Don't make

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that face. Anyway, so I have a suspicion that

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it in fact was not the Tylenol that I probably took.

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I don't actually remember taking it at all during my pregnancy. I was

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both pregnancies. I was pretty good about not taking medication. I think I took.

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I probably took a very small amount of anxiety medication during my first

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pregnancy because my dad was diagnosed with cancer and that did like a

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whole thing. And so they

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gave me anxiety medication for a couple of days just to like calm things down.

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And so I probably. I think I took like one or two of those, but

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I don't remember taking any, any other medication while I was pregnant,

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except like, yeah, I don't remember now. It's very possible

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that I had a headache or something and I took a Tylenol.

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That is the thing that would happen. But I have zero recollection of it. And

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it's entirely possible that I took exactly zero of it. And

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the likelihood of. Of it being Tylenol related based

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on my taking exactly zero of it. Also, I like that they called

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out the brand name. I think he tried. I think they were saying the brand

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name because he can't say acetaminophen like he tried and he

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failed miserably. I think it's possible that they don't

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know that it's called paracetamol in the rest of the world

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because he certainly can't say that. So it makes me wonder, like, is it

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just American Tylenol? Like, is it. If you're in another

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country and it's technically called paracetamol, are you

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safe? Are those kids out of the woods? Because they, they

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didn't address that. And that seems like a differentiator, because I don't

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know if they know this, but autism isn't only in the US There are other

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autistic people in this world, and that's wild. It's not

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wild. It's obvious. But to them, who knows?

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There's another aspect to this, though, that probably needs a little bit more

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airtime than we're getting. Like, it's fun to make fun of it, because if we

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don't laugh, we're going to cry. And trust me, I do plenty of that too.

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But, like, the whole goal here is one, to

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drive revenue or drive money into RFK's pockets, because that's all he cares about and

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that is the only thing that's important to him. And he will sacrifice the public

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health of the people whose public health he is responsible for

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in a minute to make $5. No question about that. Very clear, very

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obvious, no question. So there's that. But then also,

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let's break apart this narrative. They are saying

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that autism is caused by consumption of

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Tylenol for minor aches and pains while

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pregnant. Do people who are assigned male

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at birth get pregnant? No. At

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least not usually. So that leaves

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only one portion of the population who they could

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blame a public health crisis on. And I'm not calling it a public health crisis.

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That's what, that's how they're treating it. That leaves only one portion of the population,

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and that is people who have carried children who tend by

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and large to be assigned female at birth, most of whom, not all of

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whom, most of whom identify as

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women, some of whom identify as non binary, but most of whom identify as women.

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So we have an administration that has worked

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for the entirety of its existence and prior

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to lay the groundwork to strip bodily

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autonomy from every woman in the US So that they can

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decide what women can and cannot do with their bodies and what,

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what rights and freedoms should be permitted to women based on

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what they think is appropriate. And they've taken away

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Roe, and states that follow their lead are

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putting in harsh restrictions on abortion care

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and your ability to access certain services and your ability to access

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birth control has been affected in those places and in many other places.

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And this idea of, you know,

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they, they parrot this idea of the quote

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unquote traditional American family with the, with good

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subservient woman at home and the nuclear

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or the head of the family male who is

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responsible for all of the hard thinking things. And that's what they want you to

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believe. So they've done so

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much to reinforce these incredibly

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disgusting, antiquated ideas that further

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relegate women and reduce their access to

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independence and healthcare and freedom and all

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of those fun things. So now on top of that, let's create

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a narrative that if your kid's autistic, it's your fault. If

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your kid's autistic, it's because you had a headache and couldn't just

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muscle through it. If your kid's autistic, it's because you

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thought that your pain meant anything

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and you couldn't just, you couldn't just suffer through it in

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the name of taking care of your children. Why aren't you a better mom? Why

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don't you care about your kids? Why would you make such

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disastrous decisions for your children? That's the narrative, that's what

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they're trying to spell out. Not that we have

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identified the cause of what we perceive

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to be an escalating issue in our country. But again,

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women, this is your fault you did this. You should feel

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more guilty for the fact that your kid was diagnosed with

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autism. You should feel responsible for it.

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It's your fault you did this. As if just existing

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as a mother or a parent isn't

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enough cause for guilt. Because let's be honest, if

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you are, if you have children, and I'm

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speaking specifically to my own feminine

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experience with having children, I'm not saying that this doesn't happen

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to men, but I think it very specifically happens to women and

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parents who identify as non binary who are perceived to be the people

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who should be the primary caretakers. Your husband is too busy

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doing the jobs and making the monies and being a productive member of

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society. And you should be home, quiet, barefoot and taking

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care of your children, right? So they, you're put in a

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situation from day one where if you try to exist in this world that

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doesn't really allow for that to begin with, even that if that's what you want,

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you're already at a disadvantage for how people perceive you. And

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whether it matters to you how people perceive you or not, we

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internalize that from day one. There is, I can't think of a single

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person who has been able to fully deprogram from

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the idea of traditional motherhood. Now that doesn't mean that we

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Don't. That doesn't mean that we subscribe to it. It doesn't

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mean that we follow along with

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that because we think we're supposed to. But the ideas are ingrained.

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They're in there. And choosing the opposite is often a

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very conscious thing that we do. Or even if it's, even if it's

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a natural thing, like we all have internalized misogyny. We

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all have these internalized processes that tell us what we

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are supposed to do, that we have to make a conscious decision or sometimes

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just process through the fact that's not actually how we operate. That is

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what the internal, internalized misogyny tells me. The reason I say

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that is those things follow

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people who identify as mothers around everywhere we go. So if you have

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a job, you are, you, you should be ashamed

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that you're not spending enough time with your kids and that your kids aren't your

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primary focus. But if you decide to stay home,

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you're not contributing enough, you're not doing enough for the household.

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And if you leave work early or not, if you

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leave work on time, it's not even usually early. If you leave work on time

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to get to where your children need to be and you don't

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stay late, you're not dedicated to your job, but if you don't

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go to the baseball practice, you don't care about your kids. And

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if you stay home sick with your kid, you,

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because your kid is sick and needs you, you're not dedicated to your job.

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But if you send them to school sick because you have no

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other option because you literally can't miss another day at work,

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you're a bad parent. You're a bad parent. You don't care about anybody else.

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Everything is your fault. You got everybody sick. You did this there. You

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cannot win. They've already created an environment where you cannot

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win. And whether you subscribe to those ideas or not, we all

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internalize that as guilt. I am literally home with my children

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every day. They do homeschool. I work from home. I see them 57 times a

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day. That is not a complaint. I love the fact that I get more time

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with my kids than most people, especially while working as many full time jobs as

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I do. And I still worry all the time that they don't get,

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get enough of my attention. I worry all the time that we

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made the wrong decision to homeschool them. I worry constantly. My

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kids are brilliant and they love other kids and they're social and they

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spend plenty of time with people who aren't us. And we have made a very

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concerted effort to make sure that that happens. And we try to give them normalcy,

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and we try to give them, you know, time to do normal kid things. And

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we try to, you know, we work really, really hard to give

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them as normal a life and normal as

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relative, to participate in the things that we believe that kids should

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participate in. We work really, really hard on that. And I still

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sit up at night and go, I don't think we're doing enough. I don't think

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we're doing enough. But we're put in an impossible situation where I have to decide

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to send my kid down the street to a school that's not allowed

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to call her by her nickname. Because we use a shortened name for

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my oldest, they're not allowed to call her by her nickname unless we fill out

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a form saying that she can use the nickname for

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fear that a child might

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identify as something at school that their

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parents don't know about, thus forcing parents

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to out possibly trans children to their unsafe parents.

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Kids are not identifying differently at school and not at home

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with parents who are safe. But we created an entire

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process now there we literally, there, you literally have to fill out a

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form and take it home to your parents and say, my

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name's John, but I want to be called Johnny. And is that okay?

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So that the kids whose name is. The kid who's,

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whose given name is John, who chooses to go by Jennifer,

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can't do that without outing them to their unsafe parents.

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That's the whole reason for the form. It has nothing to do with anybody's name.

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It has everything to do with making sure that teachers aren't creating safe

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environments for kids who could potentially be transitioning

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or considering transitioning or testing their gender

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identity or learning, which, God forbid we do that in

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schools. And that's not the reason that we don't send our kids to schools. The

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reason that we don't send our kids to school and there's literally one walking distance

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away from us. The reason is because people keep bringing guns to school and no

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one seems to give a shit. Every single time we get closer to that,

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to closer to the point where we're like, it's just, they need to be in

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school. It's the right thing to do for them. Another

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bonkers person shows up with a gun in hand to a school and someone

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else dies, some other child dies,

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and we just go on like it's normal. The anxiety that I would

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feel sending them out into that possible environment every day

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is untenable for me. And I get that people do it and

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I understand that people have found ways to make themselves comfortable with it. And that

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is not a judgment of them by any means. But we made that decision

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because it's the only way that we feel comfortable making sure

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that our kids come home alive every day or giving them the best

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chance. And I still feel guilty about it every day.

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It's literally something we perceive to be a life saving

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measure. And I feel guilty about it every day. I feel

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guilty that they don't get the typical experience with class

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parties and best friends and fights with other kids,

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not physical ones. The kind of squabbles that kids should have, like

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they get to fight with each other basically. And sometimes that does get

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physical. My little one, my little one's a scrapper. I can't help it.

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We try, we intervene, but she's a scrapper. My

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oldest one is peaceful, she only has peace in her heart. But my youngest,

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she is all violence, all day, every day. And so that's a decision that

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we made for the safety and security of our children. And I still

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go to bed every night feeling guilty about it.

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They just removed all vaccine mandates from schools in the

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state, so kids no longer have to be vaccinated to go to school. So

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there's no requirement for a kid to go to school and not spread

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communicable disease. That's a really good reason not to send your kid

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there. Like that's a safety issue, that's a health issue. All of those

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are great reasons not to send your kid there. And I still

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feel guilty about it all the time. I feel guilty about the amount I work.

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Even though it has afforded my children a great life, they do have a

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parent who's home with them all the time. Still feel guilty about how much I

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work. I feel guilty about the fact that

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I'm not a super social person and I have no desire to, to meet

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other parents who have children. All of that is like

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completely normal stuff. The baseline for

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guilt for parents is like

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certainly taller than I am, I'm not very tall, but like that's still

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five plus feet in the air. And it exists for

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everybody. We all feel guilty all the time. And if you don't, I'm not saying

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you should feel guilty. I don't want you to feel guilty. Guilt is a wasted

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emotion usually, but it's natural when you're a

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parent. And if you've never experienced parental guilt, that's concern.

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Not because I want you to feel guilty, but because it is like

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Part of this sensation of your heart breaking open for this

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small human who is now who you are now responsible for.

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That's a very mixed message. I don't want you to feel guilty,

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but the guilt also proves your humanity. I get that it's a mixed message,

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but you know what I mean. Anyway, that's what it's like to walk

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around with your soul connected to these tiny

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humans who you are responsible for. That's what it's like at baseline to

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have messaging reinforced from the federal government

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that, oh, by the way, here's some more shit that you should feel guilty

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for. That's really like, aside from lining RFK's

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pockets, that's the goal. That's what they're

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after. Further subjugation of people who do not

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identify as male. Further subjugation of people who are not

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superior white men. If there was any

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inkling that their perception of what

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causes autism came from men

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or people they perceive to be men, they would have picked something else,

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because that's not the target. You can't create the narrative

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that women are secondary by assigning blame or fault to

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anyone who is not them, who is not women. All of that

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to say, if you took Tylenol while you're pregnant, good for you for taking care

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of yourself. And also, if you have an autistic

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kid, good for you for having an awesome kid. Congrats.

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And if you're trying to figure out how to exist through this

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toxic hellscape where everybody keeps throwing

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shit at the wall just to see what hate can stick, I get it.

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And I see you. And I'm sorry that this is the world that we're existing

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through, but it has nothing to do with Tylenol, and it

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has everything to do with jackasses being

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jackasses. You did not make your kids autistic.

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Like, maybe genetically, but that was

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out of your control. But certainly not because of something like you. You

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can't get autism over the counter.

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