An aspiring Telegraph columnist is “thrilled” that her four-year-old daughter is autistic, due to all the hand-wringing articles she can get out of it about her horror at not getting exactly the child she wanted, throughout the daughter’s teens and even well into her adult life.
Liz McHodge, 35, expressed excitement that her daughter Lily keeps behaving in ways that McHodge personally doesn’t like, and has already begun writing a list of grievances in the hope of turning it into a juicy Daily Mail hit piece on the wayward preschooler.
“I would love to be an opinion columnist for the right-wing British press,” McHodge declared. “So it’s wonderful that Lily keeps acting all autistically, when I specifically didn’t want that. I’m looking into private schools so that I can complain about how much money I put in the slot only for her to come out autistic anyway, which is a poor return on my investment, making me essentially a victim of offspring-fraud.”
“Also, she keeps making her dollies kiss, so she might end up LGBTQIA,” added McHodge, confusingly pronouncing it ‘ligbitiqua’. “Which I can get scores of columns out of, as it could potentially deny me all the grandchildren I’m obviously entitled to. You know, my cleaning woman has an autistic gay teenager who she ‘loves exactly the way they are’, and that’s why she’s just a cleaner who smiles every time her family WhatsApp pings and I’m a famous Telegraph columnist in waiting.”
Lily, four, was approached for comment but simply slid us a drawing entitled “me as a grone up”, featuring a primitive depiction of a happy woman surrounded by a loving support network of friends, while an angry face labeled “Mummy” watched from a house far, far away.
Like what you’re reading? Make us your new special interest! Help us grow The Daily Tism by sharing our articles, following us on Instagram, Bluesky, Threads and Facebook, shouting us a coffee on Ko-Fi or joining our bonus-content-packed Club for Terrible Autistics by subscribing to our Patreon. We also now have merch! Check out your favourite headlines in comfy wearable form over on Teemill.
You can also watch episodes one and two of our sketch show, The Daily Tism News, in collaboration with Turtle Canyon Comedy, or listen to episode three in audio form – and tune into our podcast, Autistic Women Oversharing to find out WAY too much about our writers.
