We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jean Mayer, Brittney Crabtree, Shannon Korza, Natasha Dillmon Moms Talk Autism a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jean Mayer, Brittney Crabtree, Shannon Korza, Natasha Dillmon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.
The four of us came together by happenstance to provide support to one another, held by the main common thread of having autistic children. The mere recognition there is not enough support or services for caregivers and families with children of special needs or or high medical needs, there is a major disparity underserved for decades and possibly centuries. Caregivers experience trauma and stress to levels of soldiers directly in the crosshairs of warfare and are likely to experience chronic disease and health issues 10 years earlier then typically aging humans at much higher rates. Irony is many of us will be parenting our kids far beyond the age of 18 which means we need to live longer. Biggest most common fear, what happens to our kids if something happens to us. We were completely isolated as parents to autistic children, some of which also have other comorbidities, our children are complex and no one situation or child is the same. Support, connection and resources were even more at deficit during the pandemic, which was when we met, so the outcry was loud amongst us, even as more seasoned parents on the journey of parenting our neurodivergent and disabled children. Yet we were experiencing new levels of crisis. We found each other on one social media platform and then migrated over to another, Marco Polo. We immediately saw the improvement and benefit in our own mental and physical health, there was the inception of the Mom’s Talk Autism community. One we wished to propagate as we saw the need was greater for parents and families like ours. We saw a vision that if we provided a resource for parents, especially newly diagnosed and those on various or pivotal parts of their journey along with navigating crisis, parenting neurotypical children and navigating what many consider everyday experiences heavily nuanced with our children’s needs and challenges. They would find community, connection, feel seen, heard and partners in aiding in making decisions and finding solutions for our kiddos. There is no road map unlike the scaffolding in place for nuclear family with typically developing children. Societally the expectation is you have your child from years 0-18 and then you launch them into the world as adults, there is a trajectory and expectation which we all naturally default into subconsciously, it is by design. Medical care for mental health is curated around the Family Systems Theory. Once upon a time resources were scarce, basically non existent only a few short decades ago. The scale has tipped, fast forward to now in some places, you can find a saturation of them but figuring out how to navigate it all is tremendous. The learning curve, the decision fatigue and cognitive labor now involved that while your child is still your child, figuring out how and what it will take to support them through not just an acute period of time, but the lifespan, is an entirely different world of parenting layered with many additional nuances that we refer to as the care map. Many of in this group from the significant amount of time currency spent in managing care or when confronted with limitations of our kids, were cut out from the world, isolated. Shedding friends and family because they didn’t understand, were not accepting, didn’t want to accommodate or just the pure nature of the schedule demands being out alignment with the pattern and schedule from the rest of the world. Going to places that weren’t friendly or accommodating, society at large judging and not understanding, didn’t exactly encourage you or make it palatable to want to receptively try and have the agency to endure negativity or rejection. The four of did and do experience these vary hardships along so much more. With the explosion of podcasts on the scene and research, us like many, had the crazy idea, lets start a podcast and online community. We immediately understood that modality would give us the furthest reach and be one of the most accessible resources out there. It was still relevant the time we met yet still had vivid recollection of our time of those earlier years, we knew our experiences with grief and transformation had to be shared, that if we could pop on a podcast and listen to people -other moms like us, it would have aided and provided so much relief but instead we had no one and by the time you had opportunities to engage with other humans, they either didn’t understand your child and their challenges or you were zapped from managing them through a transition to get you in a place where you could potentially be “human”. Not only did our connection and peer-to-peer support have immediate improvement in our lives as friends, but we saw that beginning to be amplified once our podcast was placed into the universe. We became the friends and peers to thousands looking for us, needing community, needing a name for what they were experiencing, etc. Fueling the meaning and benefit of Peer-to-peer support which is a clearly effective and evidence based practice, which provides costs savings and greatly improves outcomes, in this case equivalent to getting to a place of possibly thriving as families, our children individually and carving out a new dream as the type of parents we are. Keeping hope alive and carving out lives we can love and flourish in. We did and do continue to do this for one another daily, literally, battling our own health concerns, both physical and mental well being, but also sounding boards for what we are experiencing with our own children however we do this for so many, this is bigger then us and a major need that we are full speed ahead of paying it forward while we are still in the trenches ourselves.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I believe that previous answer provided much insight there as the story encapsulate what we are about but can even further expand.
We have a podcast and online community, Moms Talk Autism, that we have established our company name as
MTA Productions, LLC as the brand expansion had included a merch shop which we have had to pause and revisit before we relaunch again. That is okay, having to pivot and adjust your sails comes with the territory of owning any business, especially one that designated as creative. This year we were invited to join a podcast network, BLEAV and momentum has continued with other opportunities of monetization through advertising, social media and professional webinar content. As growth and development continues to take it’s course so does further synthetization of our processes, as we run the full production of our podcast, nothing is outsourced at this time.
We were just four moms that came together, many of us now defined as reluctant experts in having autistic and children with disabilities, yet we aren’t medical or professional experts, nor do we claim to be. Some of us still work, have various professional career and education backgrounds, talents that enrich what we bring to the podcast, some of us intentionally took a pause and others became the default caregiver once faced with the circumstances. We have a belief that success is rooted in collaboration and that is what we do not only with each other but also with media partners, other online influencers in this arena, medical, legal and educational experts in this arena, authors, our community. Yes, we are partners with our community, we bolster their stories on our podcast, because those with lived experiences sharing their wisdom is where the secret sauce is. This is the real learning, synergy and belonging come into play. I think this is what we are most proud of, is the community we have created and people feel like this is one place they can belong. Our community is inclusive of all walks of life, heritages, faith, sexual orientation, families that look all kinds of ways, endless intersectionality.
We have not only had certified experts but also other business owners, non profits and organizations whose work intersect and directly impact our demographic. We grab onto and prop up any resource we sense our community needs or requests or can feel empowered and inspired by.
Our Vision, Mission, & Beliefs
Our vision is to create a shift in how autism and other disabilities are perceived and navigated societally, medically, educationally, and within family networks across the world.
Our mission is to leverage the knowledge we have as caregivers and advocates to increase confidence and decrease stress and isolation for other parents with special needs children, specifically those with autism.
What do we stand for?
Devotion to helping families and neurodivergent children thrive.
Rejections of cure culture.
Being respectfully receptive to the lived experiences of autistic and disabled individuals.
Dedication to advocacy that increases accessibility and resources for the autistic population.
Normalizing the experiences of all caregivers walking their path to care for autistic people.
Understanding that the mental health of both parent and child is paramount.
Promoting inclusivity to the fullest extent, in all aspects of life and disability.
Recognizing that no two experiences are the same, but may offer similarities and connection.
How’d you meet your business partner?
While it was touched upon and mentioned in a previous question, we feel this is the meat of our story and the significance of the origin of Moms Talk Autism.
We met on Instagram during the pandemic from following and connected to a mutual account of another autism mom. We were funneled into a small group but then members of that group, meaning those of us co-creators of this podcast, created a chat on Marco Polo. Two of us were already using the platform and others this was alien concept. The concern for appearance was initially very strong and present, but very quickly that dissipated and faded as value in the connection and having now a 2 almost 3 dimensional view into the lives of each other in a very authentic way prevailed above it all.
It was like a divine connection of our lives and souls.
This connection was aiding in providing much needed relief and compassion. Sharing in laughter through hard moments that we could only appreciate and providing much needed catharsis around grief we were currently experiencing or holding onto.
We linked arms virtually and never looked back.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Not only do we all have very four different personalities we all currently face difficult challenges that impact our performance and participation at times. Our lives aren’t easy with the children we have and sometimes life circumstances and fixed variables in our lives further compound it. Pressure and stress overload, sometimes we are incessant cycles of crisis and survival. We have all reached our breaking points at times, some more then others, it is all dependent upon the load, help and recovery time we have access too. There are times that we have taken things out on each other as a result. And we always return to one simple concept, our friendship is more important then the podcast. Which oddly, that is peculiar stance to take as a business, it is usually reverse, there are those of with business experience peppered into the value we add to the podcast. What has also triumphed in those moments, where we have to recalibrate and revisit what our purpose of coming together, almost like a second mission statement, we have proven to remain committed to our podcast and making sure we can still continue to get the work done while we may be sorting out other personal and professional matters. We can work through this by having the shared value but also having humility, compassion and empathy for one another. This is very telling that holding the value of friendship above that bolsters our vision we hold for our mission and vision of the podcast. It may also help that we have certain personality characteristics that contribute to quality of what we put out into the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://momstalkautism.com
- Instagram: @momstalkautism
Image Credits
Caitlin Liehr