Recently, a single mother named Li from Jining, Shandong, attracted attention online with a video showing her using a safety harness to tether her 7-year-old autistic son Hanhan (pseudonym) while selling goods at a stall. Many netizens expressed sympathy upon seeing the video, and many parents of autistic children empathized with her situation.
In the video shared by Li, she is shown busy making cold skin noodles at her stall while Hanhan sits on a small stool behind her, continuously knocking his head against a nearby vehicle. Li turns around to stop him and moves Hanhan’s stool in front of her, securing him with her leg while continuing to make the noodles.
According to a report from the “Beijing Youth Daily” on June 2, 35-year-old Li, a single mother from Jining, Shandong, has been raising her son alone since he was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3. He has been receiving rehabilitation training ever since. To support themselves, Li started selling snacks at a stall since last year. Due to the busy traffic and crowds at the stall location, she started using a safety harness from the first day she set up the stall to keep her child close and safe.
Most of the videos of her stall were taken by passersby or customers buying the noodles. After the video gained attention online, many netizens reached out to her through private messages and comments to show concern and support. Some kind-hearted individuals visited her child with snacks and gifts, and one person left 1,000 yuan for the child without revealing their identity.
Li mentioned that after her son’s diagnosis, she self-educated herself on relevant knowledge, purchased teaching materials, and accompanied her child throughout the rehabilitation training. Over the past two years, she has spent over a hundred thousand yuan on treatment costs. Her son can now say simple words like “dad” and “mom” but still lacks normal communication abilities.
During this period, she divorced her husband and later obtained custody of their child, taking on the responsibility of caring for him alone.
To earn a living, starting from March last year, Li has been setting up her stall to sell snacks in Jining almost every day, sometimes near the Rencheng District People’s Hospital, and sometimes near the Caoqiao Wholesale Market. Initially, she sold skewered snacks at one yuan per skewer, which required her to buy, wash, slice vegetables, thread skewers, marinate, and prepare the food, making it particularly exhausting. “From 6 a.m. to midnight, I have to thread hundreds of skewers a day, sometimes only eating one meal a day. To make it easier to take care of my child, I later switched to selling cold skin noodles.”
Another stall owner, Mr. Zhang, who also operates near the Caoqiao Wholesale Market, mentioned that sometimes Li stays late to sell all the cold skin noodles she made for the day. “It’s not easy for her to run the stall alone while taking care of her child.”
Regarding her future plans, Li said her biggest wish is to earn more money to find a suitable school for her child, hoping that he will be able to learn self-care skills and take care of himself in the future.
According to data released by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, Autism Spectrum Disorder has become one of the fastest-growing developmental disorders among children in China. Due to the high costs of rehabilitation training and the lack of special education resources, many families face long-term economic and caregiving pressures, with single-parent families bearing an especially heavy burden.