It’s a comedy trope where parents wipe their flop sweat as they summarize sex, babies and sexually transmitted diseases with their already well-informed teen.

My 91-year-old grandpa always wants to discuss his funeral arrangements, calming for him, painful for me. Saying ‘goodbye’ to my grandma was also a twisted strand of difficulty and peace, one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

Challenging on another level is the unexpected, yet obvious discussion surrounding finances and college tuition with a high school junior. Do you give all the details, lay your financial health bare so your daughter can understand what’s left on her plate if she wants to go to an Ivy League?

It’s not a near-death experience that makes you relive all your life choices — it’s this discussion.

It was the days after my son’s Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis I realized just how hard it would be to tell him, to explain to him about a world designed for others. By then it had sunk in he would spend his life figuring out how to adjust and to react to his peers in ways they understand while they may never take the time to see his viewpoint. What four-year-old can know this? We watched a cartoon about ASD. This was just the first of many discussions dissecting the evolving realities of neurodivergence in a neurotypical world.

Discussions of medication, autonomy, masking, ABA therapy, ridicule, social norms and boundaries are countless and rarely easy. Each year as he aged, the discussions got bigger, the realizations sharper for us both.

The answer to his ASD diagnosis was acceptance, knowledge, advocacy and empowerment. He doesn’t have to follow their rules, he doesn’t have to disappear to fit in, he doesn’t need to be quiet, instead he makes his own route, his own rules, uses his own voice and then the wins are all his. The true difficulty behind our diagnosis discussion is reminding my neurodivergent child there’s nothing wrong with his beautiful, complex mind. The problem is with those who continuously fail at empathy, information and tolerance but are champions of hypocrisy.

“These are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date,” U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during an April press conference on Autism. Right out the gate, he showed ASD families how little empathy or facts he holds for them as every single thing he listed is incorrect. In this speech, he foolishly pledged to find the cause behind autism by September.

September came and went with Donald Trump and Kennedy, both with no background in science, research or medicine, announcing Tylenol causes Autism.

“So…taking Tylenol is…ah…not good, alright. I’ll say it. It’s not good,” Trump stated so eloquently, mispronouncing acetaminophen like the medical professional he is. He then urged pregnant women to not take Tylenol unless absolutely necessary saying, “For instance, extremely high fever that you feel you can’t tough it out, you can’t do it, I guess there’s that…I think you shouldn’t take it.”

Nothing makes me feel fonder towards a man than when he questions the “toughness” of pregnant women or when he dispenses medical advice to them. It’s always a good day when you can blame women for the world’s issues.

From there the press conference goes further off the rails falling victim to the same thing a seventh graders does when learning cause and effect– correlation doesn’t mean causation.

I’ll start first by saying my child has ASD, I never took Tylenol while pregnant, although I did fall victim to the Harlem Shake trend, so maybe that did it.

Next, I’ll state the ubiquitous “I’ve done my research” wherein I quote books, peer-reviewed journals and quote my child’s doctors and therapists. I’ll share that experts in the field, doing decades of research worth billions of dollars, have yet to give a definitive answer as to what causes ASD. All have agreed it is not vaccines.

No matter who you follow, whether it be actual experts or junk science, most can agree ASD is a complex diagnosis. It isn’t a simple answer nor can it be found after a few months’ research.

The lunacy declaring Tylenol causes autism has launched into the epic teenage stratosphere of becoming a viral meme almost as big as “6/7”. Our children, without deep context, know it’s ridiculous to assert this household, often benign medication causes a permanent developmental condition. Now when a kid clowns around, they throw their hands up and say, “My mom took Tylenol while pregnant.”

Bring on another round of difficult discussion with my precious child who just wants to succeed in this neurotypical world. While it all rolls off his back, similar to facts off of Kennedy, I imagine it’s a daily struggle.

Our ASD kids live with their brain operation as a joke, a punchline whether it be for comedy or political wins, day in and day out. More than a joke, it’s labeled a “tragedy” by the president. Even at four my son had a better grasp on autism than the president does now.

Because of this dangerous “Tylenol announcement,” funding is gone, delaying treatment and research. ASD will be treated like a misunderstood tragedy and harm millions of future children, like the lies over vaccines.

He came a little less than two years after his brother. A timing so surreal that as I walked into labor and delivery, I intensely felt I had just been through those doors. Like the pregnancies before him, I played Claire De Lune through the headphones, started my day with a smoothie and avoided caffeine like it was Tylenol.

Same genetics, same house, same food, same routine–same. Yet, my child and other sweet children aren’t afforded the proper research, respect and humanity they have a right to. It’s just too difficult for some.