I asked this question of my adoring fans, and by that I mean the people who follow me on LinkedIn.

Only a large portion of hate follow me, but it was a.

It's a real question that I have that I would like to just gather together and answer for among the brilliant people who surround me and are out there in the universe.

And it's a real question, so.

So if you have the answer, hit me with it.

Do you think my kids are neurodivergent because I took Tylenol when I was pregnant?

Or is it possibly because I can't wear socks that feel too towely inside?

And the idea of Jello as like a thing that exists makes me violently gag.

And I am trying to not do that right now.

And I can't eat beans because they taste like a cat's tongue feels.

And I have all of the maps memorized from the original Ms.

Pac man game and I can play them in my head and I do.

And when I was like 9 or 10, my favorite thing to do was impressions of Bob Dole, and I ran around and did them frequently, which my dad thought was hilarious, but the rest of the world did not understand.

And I have a sandwich that I've been eating my whole life that does not change and it cannot change.

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

And I have a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of computer keyboards.

Like, I wish that was a joke, but there is nothing that I love more than computer keyboards.

I can tell you what kind of keyboard you're using, by the way it sounds.

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

I have multiple.

I literally have a drawer full of keyboards because sometimes I pick my keyboards based on how I feel that day.

And again, not a joke.

Not a joke.

So do you think it's.

Do you think it's the Tylenol, or do you think it's all of that other stuff?

Or.

Okay, let me give you another example.

Is it possibly the Tylenol?

Or is it the fact that my husband, who is my children's father, has an encyclopedic knowledge of audio and stereo equipment and can educate you on any piece of equipment from any point in time in history up to and including, like, what it costs and whether it's worth it and he can like, fix mechanical things?

Or it could it possibly be that he has an innate talent for never reading the room before telling an awkward dad joke that lands horribly?

Is it do you think it's possibly those things?

Or is it that maybe one time across two pregnancies I might have taken Tylenol because according to our federal government and the jackasses they're in, it's the Tylenol and also the vaccines that have been proven to have no effect on autism rates whatsoever.

So now we're blaming Tylenol and vaccines, both of which have been disproven.

And there are a lot of keyboard warriors out there who would like you to believe that this is a Harvard study that says that Tylenol is the cause of autism, which is not true.

And if that's the misinformation you're gonna show up with, get the fuck outta here.

Please go somewhere else.

Hopefully somebody with.

Somewhere with a whole bunch of other.

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

Tylenol scapegoats.

I don't know, something like that.

Go over there because you guys are all going to get the communicable diseases and share them amongst yourself and the gene pool will take care of that problem itself.

Like you just please do us that favor.

Go over there.

But the rest of us who know that this is batshit crazy and absolutely bonkers would like you to not bring this nonsense into our existence.

Like, let's be clear, rfk, who is beyond all behind all of this nonsense, said, what was it six months ago, that he was going to know what the cause of autism is by September.

He put a firm date on something that require, that would require extensive scientific and medical research, both of which probably would have to be global work done in many, many different environments that would take far longer than six months.

He wasn't doing scientific research, he was doing market research.

But he said that he was going to get this answer within this very, very complex scientific and medical answer within six months by doing no science and no medicine.

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

Something that magically, magically just by, by the strike of who knows what.

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

Oh wait, maybe it's because he makes all of his money by referring people for lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.

So if he can provide some, or if he can prove some sort of large scale long term injury, quote unquote, prove, really all he's doing is suggesting it and letting other people do the work.

And by the work, I mean the frivolous stupid shit that nobody should have time for, but if he can make the recommendation, he can also refer people to his unscrupulous buddies who will file lawsuits on these things and make him just a shit ton of money.

And are you supposed to do stuff like that when you're running a government agency?

Doesn't.

Isn't that one of those, like, conflict of interest things?

Of course it fucking is.

You are not supposed to be lining your own pockets with your government job.

That is not the way that anything is supposed to work.

However, nobody in this administration gives a fuck, and clearly nobody in the organizations that are supposed to be checking and balancing them gives enough of a fuck to do anything.

So he's lining his pockets through various and sundry and many, many unscrupulous things.

This was never about Tylenol.

It was never about vaccines.

It was about creating a false narrative so that the wellness influencer parading as our HHS secretary can find a way to sell more snake oil.

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

And he is further supported by the ultimate seller of the snake oil.

And here's what's adorable.

I'm not regulated by the fcc.

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

Not that I have the reach that, say, a late night host has, because obviously I do not.

But I'm just saying my podcast is not regulated by anybody.

And so you're stuck with me.

I can say all the quiet parts out loud because there is no government agency that's going to show up at my door and threaten to take my licensing because I don't, I don't have a license for, like, anything.

Like, I have, I've only had a couple of them.

I have a mortgage license.

Does that count?

I don't think so.

I think it's.

I think my mortgage license is still active.

I'm pretty sure I pay for it every year.

I don't know, I was licensed in like a bunch of states too.

But anyway, that's just a little call out to Jimmy Kimmel, who I don't like love or anything, but he should not have been shut off the air for anything that he said.

But anyway.

And Donald Trump should not be able to pressure news stations into feeling like they're going to lose their license if they don't stop broadcasting the things that are put on their schedule by a national organization, a private organization that doesn't have to answer to fricking Donald Trump.

Anyway, so back to my original question.

Do you think it's possible that it's the Tylenol or it's the other wildly neurodivergent things that happened well before my children are born that we know to have a genetic component that I was generous enough to pass down to them and my husband was generous enough to pass down to them.

They also got the smirk that he gets when he's about to do something shitty.

And I don't mean like shitty like mean.

I mean like shitty like a prank or like misdirection, which is like something he loves to do.

And so I didn't realize that it was possible to have three people in your house create blind rage within you without saying a word.

But they all do the same smirk.

And it is like.

It's like a button.

Like it's just like a button they pushed.

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

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

You're like, yes, don't do it.

I lived with that for many years before you were born.

And I did not expect it to multiply.

Hate it.

Don't make that face.

Anyway, so I have a suspicion that it in fact was not the Tylenol that I probably took.

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

I was both pregnancies.

I was pretty good about not taking medication.

I think I took.

I probably took a very small amount of anxiety medication during my first pregnancy because my dad was diagnosed with cancer and that did like a whole thing.

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

And so I probably.

I think I took like one or two of those, but I don't remember taking any, any other medication while I was pregnant, except like, yeah, I don't remember now.

It's very possible that I had a headache or something and I took a Tylenol.

That is the thing that would happen.

But I have zero recollection of it.

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

And the likelihood of.

Of it being Tylenol related based on my taking exactly zero of it.

Also, I like that they called out the brand name.

I think he tried.

I think they were saying the brand name because he can't say acetaminophen like he tried and he failed miserably.

I think it's possible that they don't know that it's called paracetamol in the rest of the world because he certainly can't say that.

So it makes me wonder, like, is it just American Tylenol?

Like, is it.

If you're in another country and it's technically called paracetamol, are you safe?

Are those kids out of the woods?

Because they, they didn't address that.

And that seems like a differentiator, because I don't know if they know this, but autism isn't only in the US There are other autistic people in this world, and that's wild.

It's not wild.

It's obvious.

But to them, who knows?

There's another aspect to this, though, that probably needs a little bit more airtime than we're getting.

Like, it's fun to make fun of it, because if we don't laugh, we're going to cry.

And trust me, I do plenty of that too.

But, like, the whole goal here is one, to drive revenue or drive money into RFK's pockets, because that's all he cares about and that is the only thing that's important to him.

And he will sacrifice the public health of the people whose public health he is responsible for in a minute to make $5.

No question about that.

Very clear, very obvious, no question.

So there's that.

But then also, let's break apart this narrative.

They are saying that autism is caused by consumption of Tylenol for minor aches and pains while pregnant.

Do people who are assigned male at birth get pregnant?

No.

At least not usually.

So that leaves only one portion of the population who they could blame a public health crisis on.

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

That's what, that's how they're treating it.

That leaves only one portion of the population, and that is people who have carried children who tend by and large to be assigned female at birth, most of whom, not all of whom, most of whom identify as women, some of whom identify as non binary, but most of whom identify as women.

So we have an administration that has worked for the entirety of its existence and prior to lay the groundwork to strip bodily autonomy from every woman in the US So that they can decide what women can and cannot do with their bodies and what, what rights and freedoms should be permitted to women based on what they think is appropriate.

And they've taken away Roe, and states that follow their lead are putting in harsh restrictions on abortion care and your ability to access certain services and your ability to access birth control has been affected in those places and in many other places.

And this idea of, you know, they, they parrot this idea of the quote unquote traditional American family with the, with good subservient woman at home and the nuclear or the head of the family male who is responsible for all of the hard thinking things.

And that's what they want you to believe.

So they've done so much to reinforce these incredibly disgusting, antiquated ideas that further relegate women and reduce their access to independence and healthcare and freedom and all of those fun things.

So now on top of that, let's create a narrative that if your kid's autistic, it's your fault.

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

If your kid's autistic, it's because you thought that your pain meant anything and you couldn't just, you couldn't just suffer through it in the name of taking care of your children.

Why aren't you a better mom?

Why don't you care about your kids?

Why would you make such disastrous decisions for your children?

That's the narrative, that's what they're trying to spell out.

Not that we have identified the cause of what we perceive to be an escalating issue in our country.

But again, women, this is your fault you did this.

You should feel more guilty for the fact that your kid was diagnosed with autism.

You should feel responsible for it.

It's your fault you did this.

As if just existing as a mother or a parent isn't enough cause for guilt.

Because let's be honest, if you are, if you have children, and I'm speaking specifically to my own feminine experience with having children, I'm not saying that this doesn't happen to men, but I think it very specifically happens to women and parents who identify as non binary who are perceived to be the people who should be the primary caretakers.

Your husband is too busy doing the jobs and making the monies and being a productive member of society.

And you should be home, quiet, barefoot and taking care of your children, right?

So they, you're put in a situation from day one where if you try to exist in this world that doesn't really allow for that to begin with, even that if that's what you want, you're already at a disadvantage for how people perceive you.

And whether it matters to you how people perceive you or not, we internalize that from day one.

There is, I can't think of a single person who has been able to fully deprogram from the idea of traditional motherhood.

Now that doesn't mean that we Don't.

That doesn't mean that we subscribe to it.

It doesn't mean that we follow along with that because we think we're supposed to.

But the ideas are ingrained.

They're in there.

And choosing the opposite is often a very conscious thing that we do.

Or even if it's, even if it's a natural thing, like we all have internalized misogyny.

We all have these internalized processes that tell us what we are supposed to do, that we have to make a conscious decision or sometimes just process through the fact that's not actually how we operate.

That is what the internal, internalized misogyny tells me.

The reason I say that is those things follow people who identify as mothers around everywhere we go.

So if you have a job, you are, you, you should be ashamed that you're not spending enough time with your kids and that your kids aren't your primary focus.

But if you decide to stay home, you're not contributing enough, you're not doing enough for the household.

And if you leave work early or not, if you leave work on time, it's not even usually early.

If you leave work on time to get to where your children need to be and you don't stay late, you're not dedicated to your job, but if you don't go to the baseball practice, you don't care about your kids.

And if you stay home sick with your kid, you, because your kid is sick and needs you, you're not dedicated to your job.

But if you send them to school sick because you have no other option because you literally can't miss another day at work, you're a bad parent.

You're a bad parent.

You don't care about anybody else.

Everything is your fault.

You got everybody sick.

You did this there.

You cannot win.

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

And whether you subscribe to those ideas or not, we all internalize that as guilt.

I am literally home with my children every day.

They do homeschool.

I work from home.

I see them 57 times a day.

That is not a complaint.

I love the fact that I get more time with my kids than most people, especially while working as many full time jobs as I do.

And I still worry all the time that they don't get, get enough of my attention.

I worry all the time that we made the wrong decision to homeschool them.

I worry constantly.

My kids are brilliant and they love other kids and they're social and they spend plenty of time with people who aren't us.

And we have made a very concerted effort to make sure that that happens.

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

And we try to, you know, we work really, really hard to give them as normal a life and normal as relative, to participate in the things that we believe that kids should participate in.

We work really, really hard on that.

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

I don't think we're doing enough.

But we're put in an impossible situation where I have to decide to send my kid down the street to a school that's not allowed to call her by her nickname.

Because we use a shortened name for my oldest, they're not allowed to call her by her nickname unless we fill out a form saying that she can use the nickname for fear that a child might identify as something at school that their parents don't know about, thus forcing parents to out possibly trans children to their unsafe parents.

Kids are not identifying differently at school and not at home with parents who are safe.

But we created an entire process now there we literally, there, you literally have to fill out a form and take it home to your parents and say, my name's John, but I want to be called Johnny.

And is that okay?

So that the kids whose name is.

The kid who's, whose given name is John, who chooses to go by Jennifer, can't do that without outing them to their unsafe parents.

That's the whole reason for the form.

It has nothing to do with anybody's name.

It has everything to do with making sure that teachers aren't creating safe environments for kids who could potentially be transitioning or considering transitioning or testing their gender identity or learning, which, God forbid we do that in schools.

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

The reason that we don't send our kids to school and there's literally one walking distance away from us.

The reason is because people keep bringing guns to school and no one seems to give a shit.

Every single time we get closer to that, to closer to the point where we're like, it's just, they need to be in school.

It's the right thing to do for them.

Another bonkers person shows up with a gun in hand to a school and someone else dies, some other child dies, and we just go on like it's normal.

The anxiety that I would feel sending them out into that possible environment every day is untenable for me.

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

And that is not a judgment of them by any means.

But we made that decision because it's the only way that we feel comfortable making sure that our kids come home alive every day or giving them the best chance.

And I still feel guilty about it every day.

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

And I feel guilty about it every day.

I feel guilty that they don't get the typical experience with class parties and best friends and fights with other kids, not physical ones.

The kind of squabbles that kids should have, like they get to fight with each other basically.

And sometimes that does get physical.

My little one, my little one's a scrapper.

I can't help it.

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

My oldest one is peaceful, she only has peace in her heart.

But my youngest, she is all violence, all day, every day.

And so that's a decision that we made for the safety and security of our children.

And I still go to bed every night feeling guilty about it.

They just removed all vaccine mandates from schools in the state, so kids no longer have to be vaccinated to go to school.

So there's no requirement for a kid to go to school and not spread communicable disease.

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

Like that's a safety issue, that's a health issue.

All of those are great reasons not to send your kid there.

And I still feel guilty about it all the time.

I feel guilty about the amount I work.

Even though it has afforded my children a great life, they do have a parent who's home with them all the time.

Still feel guilty about how much I work.

I feel guilty about the fact that I'm not a super social person and I have no desire to, to meet other parents who have children.

All of that is like completely normal stuff.

The baseline for guilt for parents is like certainly taller than I am, I'm not very tall, but like that's still five plus feet in the air.

And it exists for everybody.

We all feel guilty all the time.

And if you don't, I'm not saying you should feel guilty.

I don't want you to feel guilty.

Guilt is a wasted emotion usually, but it's natural when you're a parent.

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

Not because I want you to feel guilty, but because it is like Part of this sensation of your heart breaking open for this small human who is now who you are now responsible for.

That's a very mixed message.

I don't want you to feel guilty, but the guilt also proves your humanity.

I get that it's a mixed message, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, that's what it's like to walk around with your soul connected to these tiny humans who you are responsible for.

That's what it's like at baseline to have messaging reinforced from the federal government that, oh, by the way, here's some more shit that you should feel guilty for.

That's really like, aside from lining RFK's pockets, that's the goal.

That's what they're after.

Further subjugation of people who do not identify as male.

Further subjugation of people who are not superior white men.

If there was any inkling that their perception of what causes autism came from men or people they perceive to be men, they would have picked something else, because that's not the target.

You can't create the narrative that women are secondary by assigning blame or fault to anyone who is not them, who is not women.

All of that to say, if you took Tylenol while you're pregnant, good for you for taking care of yourself.

And also, if you have an autistic kid, good for you for having an awesome kid.

Congrats.

And if you're trying to figure out how to exist through this toxic hellscape where everybody keeps throwing shit at the wall just to see what hate can stick, I get it.

And I see you.

And I'm sorry that this is the world that we're existing through, but it has nothing to do with Tylenol, and it has everything to do with jackasses being jackasses.

You did not make your kids autistic.

Like, maybe genetically, but that was out of your control.

But certainly not because of something like you.

You can't get autism over the counter.