I was already running late for work when the therapist told me my son does not get enough hugs at home.

I had squeezed the feedback session in before my shift, my husband beside me. We both showed up, the way we always do, together. My husband and I split the work of parenting with the kind of deliberateness that does not happen by accident. Chores, school runs, therapy schedules, night routines. It is genuinely shared. And yet, I noticed something in that room. When my husband spoke, he was received warmly. When I spoke, I was assessed. He was there as a presence. I was there as evidence.

The therapist delivered her conclusion with calm authority: my son hugs everyone freely because he is not receiving enough physical affection at home.

I want to sit with that for a moment.

My son is held every night before he sleeps. We are, as a family, physically affectionate by nature. His siblings are hugged. He is hugged constantly, without it needing to be scheduled or documented. And yet, from watching him embrace people freely, the conclusion drawn was: his mother is not doing enough.

What the Science Actually Says

Children who experience touch deprivation tend to move in the opposite direction. Research on attachment and sensory development consistently shows that children lacking physical affection become touch-aversive, anxious about contact, hypervigilant around bodies that come too close. A child who runs toward people with open arms is not signaling absence. He is signaling security. He has learned, at home, that closeness is warm and reciprocal, and he brings that expectation into the world.

What my son is actually doing has a more precise name: proprioceptive seeking. Jean Ayres, the occupational therapist who developed Sensory Integration theory in the 1970s, identified proprioception as one of the core sensory systems that regulates how the body understands itself in space. Many autistic children have sensory profiles that actively seek deep pressure input, including hugging, as a form of neurological self-regulation. The behavior is not emotional in origin. It is physiological.

To observe a sensory-seeking child hugging freely and conclude “lacks affection at home” is not just incorrect. It is a reversal of the clinical framework the therapy itself is built on.

What my son needs, and what we are actively working on, is learning explicit social boundaries: who we hug, when, and with whose permission. This is a well-documented and teachable goal for autistic children. Carol Kranowitz, in her widely used guide on sensory processing, notes that sensory-seeking behaviors in children require structured redirection, not reduction of the input at home. The solution is not to hug him less. It is to teach him context.

It has nothing to do with how much he is loved.

The Bag Still on My Shoulder

I have a background in gender studies, with a focus on psychology and media. I know how narratives about mothers are constructed, and I recognize one when I am sitting inside it. I say that not to be combative but because naming it is the only way to address it.

Sara Ruddick, in her work on maternal thinking, argues that the labor of mothering is routinely rendered invisible precisely because it is so constant. It does not look like work because it never stops. And when it does not look like work, its absence becomes the only thing that is noticed.

The working mother is always already guilty. Her absence is presumed even when she is sitting right there in the chair, bag still on her shoulder, taking notes before her shift starts. Her presence in the room becomes evidence of how little time she must have, rather than proof of how much she prioritizes.

Her husband, in the same chair, in the same room, having done the same things at home, is received as devoted.

I want to be clear: this is not about my husband. He shows up completely, in ways I am grateful for every day. This is about a mindset that gives fathers credit for presence and charges mothers for everything else. A mindset that has no data to support it, only assumption.

A mother I know, whose son has a slightly more complex profile than mine, left her own feedback session in tears. She had been told her child was dysregulated because she did not play with him enough, that he lacked independence because of her. She went home feeling like a defendant who had already lost her case before she opened her mouth.

This is not feedback. This is blame delivered in a clinical tone, to a woman who had already given everything she had that day before she walked through the door.

The Village Was Supposed to Help

There is a version of “it takes a village” that actually works. It is the one where the professionals in the room understand that the parent sitting across from them has been doing this every single day, without clinical distance, without the ability to clock out. The one where the session ends with a clearer path forward, not a heavier weight to carry home.

Harriet Lerner, in her writing on the psychology of women and relationships, describes how institutions often position mothers as the identified problem within a family system, when in reality they are frequently the ones holding the system txogether. The feedback loop becomes circular: the more a mother carries, the more she is scrutinized for how she carries it.

Therapists and educators who work with children with special needs hold significant power over parents, particularly mothers. Their observations go into reports. Families depend on them, sometimes because there are genuinely no better alternatives. That power asks for a different kind of responsibility.

The question is not “what is the mother doing wrong.” The question is “what can we build together that we have not tried yet.” One frames the parent as the problem. The other treats her as the most essential member of the team, which she is.

John Gottman’s research on effective feedback in caregiving contexts makes a point that applies well beyond couples: criticism of character produces defensiveness and shame, while specific, actionable observation produces change. “Your child lacks affection” is character criticism. “Let’s work on boundary-setting in social contexts” is a plan. One closes the conversation. The other opens it.

Why We Stay

We are not leaving. The school is good. The structure works for my son, and it worked for his siblings before him. The principal listens. There are no comparable alternatives nearby.

But staying does not mean absorbing everything uncritically. It means continuing to show up, as we always have, together. Continuing to ask for the reasoning behind conclusions. Continuing to redirect conversations from verdict to strategy. And occasionally, when necessary, saying clearly: that framing is not accurate, and here is why.

The village does not get to put the people holding it together on trial and call it support.

Real support looks like sitting across from a parent who arrived before her shift started and thinking: what does she need to know that will actually help? Not: what did she probably do wrong?

The village was always supposed to build. Not to judge who built enough.