The majority of individuals use social media as their primary form of communication these days.
It’s customary to send images of your children to friends and family so they can enjoy them.
This young mother uses social media similarly but the comments her pictures get and how her child is treated are completely different. But she has a few things to say…
Young mother Natasha is adjusting to parenting. She enjoys posting images of her one-year-old son Raedyn online, like many other new mothers do. But unlike most mothers, she experiences severe internet bullying because of the way her son looks.
She posts videos of her with her son Raedyn on the popular social media platform TikTok. And she gets dozens if not hundreds of comments on each post asking her to stop posting pictures or videos of her son.
But Natasha has a message for her haters, “I will not stop… just because he looks different doesn’t mean that he is any less – he is perfect,” she says.
She cannot count the amount of messages or comments she gets which read “What’s wrong with your child? Why does your child look like that?”
Raedyn, a young child, was born with Pfeiffer syndrome, which results in deformities of the limbs, face, and skull.
Natasha, however, believes that her son is flawless, so whenever she gets the chance, she puts videos of him online.
But people are cruel and she recounts common comments she gets which are usually something like, “What quality of life will he have?” someone rudely asked on TikTok, while another person added: “Why would you make him live like that? Such a miserable life that you’re permitting him to live”.
As if internet trolls weren’t cruel enough, Natasha also receives remarks from individuals in real life. She claims that when she is out in public, others approach her and ask her insensitive things like, “People just come up to me and rudely say: ‘what’s wrong with your child? Or why does your child look like that?’ …that’s not how you talk to a human being.”
She even has a hard time being in public because of the relentless questions she is bound to get, “It’s exhausting to explain my son’s health problems over and over” she shared.
She cannot understand the level of interest in her son merely because of his looks. She says,“He lives a life like every other child… does he look different? Absolutely – but that doesn’t make him any less.”
Adding, “He deserves life, he deserves acceptance – I will fight until my dying day for that.”
Especially when she is going about her day and is suddenly approached by someone who is “interested” and has questions, she does not like the care people have for her.
“What people need to understand is that I am just a mum and my son is just a baby… our life doesn’t revolve around his diagnosis,” she said.
The exhausted young mother added, “My son looks a little bit different but that doesn’t mean he is just a lesson to give the world. It’s exhausting mentally and emotionally to go over the same diagnosis and explain my son’s health problems over and over to people.
“We are just a normal family. I pray for the world to accept disabled people one day and not judge off of their appearance and the things they cannot do.”
It honestly is saddening to see that even in this day and age people are quick to judge those who are different to them in any way. We can only hope that people become kinder and more accepting.
