People complained about her 3-year-old son. Now she has to quit her job.

“I guess he doesn’t fit in with social norms that kids should fit in and what they should look like.”

Single mother Jackie Macedo had been bringing her son along to her market stalls for years.

Three-year-old Noah, who has Down syndrome, would happily play in his cot and hang out with other stall owners while his mum dished up her food at markets around Sydney.

“Often when I pull up at the market he starts giggling with delight as he realises where we are,” Ms Macedo says. “He loves interacting with the customers. He loves walking around the market.”

“My staff and I take turns to break up his day with visits to the miniature ponies and the jumping castle and to say hello to the other stallholders.”

But after years of this happy routine, Ms Macedo has made the difficult decision to quit her regular Saturday stall — after the market organisers received complaints about her son’s presence.

As 48-year-old Ms Macedo explains, attempts to have her son removed from various marketplaces have been happening for years — but recently came to a head.

“Sometimes it’s members of the public expressing their disapproval, other times it is market organisers outright banning him,” Ms Macedo writes on her blog.

“People thought he was being discriminated against and there was a view that a child should not be in that environment, they thought they were protecting him,” Ms Macedo told the Daily Mail. “I guess he doesn’t fit in with social norms that kids should fit in and what they should look like.”

She adds that some of the complaints are down to “a clash of cultures”.

“A large segment of the Australian public feels strongly about the separation of work and family. They think I’m short-changing Noah by bringing him along to work,” she explains.

Related: “To the Australian couple who abandoned their son with Down syndrome.”

“They think I should be spending quality time with him at home, or paying a nanny $25 per hour to look after him offsite. Sometimes the issue of workplace safety is brought up as the reason, even though Noah is not kept within the confines of my stall where the cooking is done, but rather in a portable cot outside its perimeter.”

Her decision to quit her weekly stall at Sydney’s Orange Grove Market (OGM) in Leichhardt after 14 years of trading came after recent move to remove little Noah from the market.

“I received a phone call yesterday…  that a member of the public has been attempting to rally support to have Noah removed from OGM over the last month,” she said.

“Apparently they’ve gained some traction and their next step is to lodge an official complaint. I’m guessing that Child Protection Services will be notified about my activities.”

She emphasises that the organisers of OGM have always supported her – and that in fact, they tried to persuade her to stay after the customer complaints. But after numerous complaints over the years — which she describes as “a process of attrition that has been taking place over the last 2.5 years since Noah left the hospital” — she feels it’s time to go.

Ms Macedo says “Baby Noah is going to miss” the market and that she’s also concerned about the welfare of her employees.

“My biggest concern now is for my staff and how I can replace their income through a different gig that does not bring us under this scrutiny,” she writes.

We wish Ms Macedo and little Noah all the best.

Related:

What a married woman with down syndrome wants you to know. 

“I’ve discovered he has Down syndrome. I’m scared.”