Internet Trolls Bullied Baby With Down Syndrome in Cake-Eating Video–So Her Dad Fires Back

Internet Trolls Bullied Baby With Down Syndrome in Cake-Eating Video–So Her Dad Fires Back
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3/17/2020
Updated:
3/17/2020

A photo of a 1-year-old baby with Down syndrome adorably digging into her birthday cake attracted the wrong kind of attention from internet trolls. Instead of letting his anger take over, her dad decided to “educate the uneducated” and raise awareness on the condition. Since then, the video of the toddler has gone viral and touched the hearts of internet users worldwide.

Scott Gavin is a father of six from Kirkby, Merseyside, in the United Kingdom. His youngest daughter, Megan, was born with Down syndrome. Like any proud father, the man posted some cute pictures of little Megan covered in the cake from her first birthday party in early October 2019. However, some of the reactions weren’t as positive as one would hope. Gavin told Metro UK he was “mortified” to see offensive and insensitive comments about his little girl.

Online bullies took it upon themselves to call the toddler living with Down syndrome a “retard” and a “downie,” with one particularly appalling comment reading, “Kids in Africa are starving and you’re wasting cake on a child too retarded to know what it is.” Gavin stated that after seeing the attacks, his “shock went straight to anger,” and he “wanted to go find these people,” per Metro UK.

He did, however, think better of it. “But after a few hours of sitting down and thinking, I thought I’m not going to let some idiot make me angry and ruin my baby’s day,” the father explains. “So I’ve turned it into a positive thing and decided from now on I’m going to educate the uneducated idiots.”

And he chose to do that in the best way possible. “I’m going to share the love, and I’ll do that by sharing pictures of Megan,” he said.

Gavin then started asking his Facebook friends to keep sharing a video of little Megan enjoying her birthday cake. The clip shows the 1-year-old covered in cake and eating it with her hands while laughing all the way through. It is incredibly cute! The caption reads, “Cake smash for the birthday girl. 1 years old on the 8th. Time to educate the uneducated #sharethelove #wouldntchangeathing.” The delightful video went viral garnering some 68,000 views and receiving hundreds of comments of support.
Megan’s mother, Leanne Gavin, describes her youngest daughter in a touching Facebook post from March 2019 as “a beautiful baby girl as perfect as ever.” According to the mother, when doctors found out Megan would be born with Down syndrome, they suggested terminating the pregnancy, which the mother refused, later describing the day Megan was born as “a day a miracle had happened.”
The proud dad is sure his daughter is capable of anything she puts her mind to and that she will have a bright future in spite of living with the condition.“My baby is an inspiration, and she’s gonna do amazing things in her life give to charity be an amazing entrepreneur as a side line and do what ever she wants,” he writes in an awe-inspiring Facebook post. “As long as she doesn’t want a boyfriend,” it adds, ending the touching post on a humorous note.
Watch the adorable video of Megan plowing into her birthday cake: