“They’re kids, kids that have already had to endure enough,” Jordan Lark – a loving father to sons Mana, three, and Toa, who turns five in December – tells me.
“They don’t need distasteful shock jocks making fun of them.”
The nutritionist is referring to a segment on Nova’s Kate, Tim and Marty Show on October 14, where the famous trio poked fun at a little girl with a rare genetic disorder.
Paisley Morrison-Johnson, an American toddler who suffers from the debilitating Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome, was mocked by the hosts for her oversized tongue – a condition she’s already undergone two life-saving reduction surgeries for.
Reportedly, the now-deleted recording included phrases like, “If you thought your kid was ugly jump on Instagram and look at this” and “the tongue is a put-off”.
The skit, where the comedians encouraged listeners to search Instagram for images of Paisley, hit too close to home for an “angry and sad” Jordan.
You see, his eldest son Toa is a BWS sufferer too, making him 600 times more likely of developing cancer in comparison to a ‘normal’ child.
“Whether it was a topic that’s close to my heart like this, or another ‘joke’ about children’s appearances, there really isn’t any place for it,” Jordan said.
“It’s downright bullying. It’s distasteful. It’s not funny. It’s cruel and immoral.”
While little is known about the cause of the disorder, BWS is typically present at birth and marked by the overgrowth of limbs or facial features, irregular birth marks, incomplete organ development or enlarged kidneys.
In Toa's short life, he's undergone four invasive surgeries, including one that halved the size of his tongue.