What ‘Special Needs Mommy’ Influencers Get Wrong About Parenting Disabled Kids: Opinion

When my oldest child was 7, I wrote a Mother’s Day piece for Rewire News Group about motherhood, disability, and consent. In it, I argued that one of the most important things parents of children with disabilities can do is to think twice and ask for consent before sharing personal information, stories, or photographs about their child. 

I heard from so many disabled parents, who told me how much it meant to them that I talked about children’s privacy. 

That was eight years ago. Since then, I have continued to ask my children for their consent anytime I want to share something publicly about them or their experiences. 

Not all parents of disabled children share my view. In fact, oversharing about kids has become a lucrative trend on social media. And for a lot of us watching videos from parents of disabled kids, they feel like a modern-day version of the old circus “freak show.”

“Special needs mommy”

During the pandemic, when so many people were isolating at home with their families, the sheer amount of “special needs mommy” accounts seemed to grow exponentially.      

I have watched these special needs mommies—that is, nondisabled moms of disabled children—show pictures and videos of their kids in the hospital, zoom in on an overstimulated child having a meltdown, and share sensitive details about their kids’ day-to-day existence. 

I remember seeing one mom share a photo of her daughter and ask why her child wasn’t “skinny like those other girls” (with the same diagnosis). Another mom talked about how her son could never be a father because he used a wheelchair. 

These disclosures mainly happened in closed, disability-related Facebook groups, not in public fora. Still, all I could think is, How would that child feel, knowing how their mom talks about them? 

Not only are these parents’ comments hurtful, but they’re often inaccurate: They rely on stereotypes more at home in an old-school Jerry Lewis telethon than on Instagram in 2026. 

I worry about the long-term consequences of those childhood experiences being on the internet as these kids grow up. 

Maybe a romantic prospect will find a post when they’re doing a little pre-date background research—someone they really like but haven’t identified as disabled, or “disclosed to” yet. 

Maybe a prospective employee sees that a candidate used a feeding tube or an ostomy bag as a child and decides they do not fit the company’s “brand.” 

Banish euphemisms, focus on rights

I cringe every time I hear a parent call themselves a “special needs mom.” “Autism mom” is another one. I don’t appreciate when average-height parents who have children with dwarfism call their kids “my little.” 

These are all euphemisms, and euphemisms were not created by disabled people—they are deployed by nondisabled people who are uncomfortable with the term “disability.” 

Such language serves to recenter the experience of the nondisabled person. In doing so, euphemisms silence and potentially even erase the impact of the condition on the person who actually has it. 

Terms like “special needs mommy” also imply an authority to speak on behalf of disabled people. 

The Principles of Disability Justice is a framework designed by queer, BIPOC, disabled leaders who understood that even if our legal rights were fully realized, disabled people at the intersection of multiple identities would still get left behind. Our principles call for centering the “leadership of those most impacted.” 

When you’re the parent of a disabled child, you’re not the person most impacted. Your child is. 

I want to be clear: There are organizations and groups of parents who do it right. They protect their children’s privacy while still finding ways to advocate for their rights and crucial services and supports without making them sound like a sad animal shelter advertisement. They listen to disabled adults, learn from the lessons of the past, and are willing to acknowledge their own privilege in the public arena as nondisabled people. 

Disability accommodations and protections 

One side effect of hiding behind euphemisms, I find, is that this habit disconnects children from the civil rights protections that come with the term “disability.” 

Disability comes with certain protections established by law. You can complain about your child being treated a certain way because they learn differently—but protections for their rights and accommodations aren’t available for just anyone who learns differently: They exist for those with learning disabilities. 

Yet some special needs parents shy away from using the term “disability.”

I once met a young man at a conference in the early aughts. I didn’t get his contact information, so I cannot verify that my recollection of our exchange is perfectly accurate today. 

He told me that he was autistic, and said that as a child he had frequently stimmed (or engaged in self-stimulatory behavior) in class. During recess, he told me, his classmates “played a game” where they tied his hands behind his back. Because his parents had always told him he was “special,” he said, he didn’t realize at the time that what his classmates did was not okay. 

In other words, he did not know that because he was autistic, he had specific civil rights and counted as a member of the disability community. 

The man’s first realization that he had a disability, he said, was in college. He had to get the proper documentation for the services he needed, and he found his way to the disability student services office. There, for the first time, he told me, he met other people like him. 

I’ve talked to other kids who have put up with bullying or denial of accommodations because they didn’t realize this behavior is, in fact, illegal. They weren’t empowered to know that they were disabled and that their identity comes with rights. 

I believe in awareness and the need for education. But when families get most of their information from blogs and videos, they can come away with an unrealistic perspective of the disability experience. 

Data shows that what most impacts a disabled child’s self-esteem is knowing adults with similar and different types of disabilities. In the same way, I believe it is equally important for the “special needs mommies” to have someone in their life to recalibrate their own assumptions about what disabled people can do and who we are. 

For nondisabled parents of disabled children, their expectations for their own child are likely based on a very limited view—often either the “worst-case scenario,” or one grounded in online inspiration porn they watch from behind a computer screen. 

This “snapshot” of disability often reinforces the idea that their child will always be a child, because you don’t see many disabled adults putting themselves out there like that. This perspective limits the futures parents can envision for their kids. 

‘Old-school freak show’

Media portrayals of disability contribute to this perception problem. 

Having dwarfism means I learned from a very early age about our community’s relationship with Hollywood. I used to know people who could trace their lineage back to their ancestors meeting on the set of the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. 

Eight decades later, the film industry still has a fascination with dwarfism. In 2025, we saw the return of the “Big Three” movies: Snow White, Wicked (a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz), and Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. 

All of these films portray dwarfism in an inaccurate and cringeworthy way. The characters only serve to wait on an average-height overseer, and often they lack any individual personality or characteristic.

The Squeaky Wheel website satirized the idea of the oompa loompas filing a class action lawsuit against Wonka’s chocolate factory.

The faux complaint alleges “a host of disability and labor violations” at the facility, including “harassing behavior” and pay discrimination. It adds that the factory is also “wildly out of code with accessibility mandates laid forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act.” 

TV doesn’t offer us much richer portrayals of people with disabilities.

TLC used to be “The Learning Channel,” but it transitioned to what I call “The Little Channel” around 2006, when the TV execs apparently discovered that dwarf bodies made them money. 

The network has since expanded beyond just little people to feature programming about a broad array of disability types. With shows ranging from My 600-Lb. Life and Body Bizarre to One Day In My Body, TLC attempts to play a balancing act between “awareness raising,” “inspiration porn,” and “old-school freakshow.” 

More often, it ends up as the latter. 

As the parent of a disabled child, I don’t want my child seeing his community portrayed as “freaks” on film. 

And I don’t want him exposed to the social media scrutiny of millions of onlookers for likes, clicks, or clout. I asked my son, who is now 15, for permission to mention him in this story—and I got it.  

The post What ‘Special Needs Mommy’ Influencers Get Wrong About Parenting Disabled Kids: Opinion appeared first on Rewire News Group.