Latest / Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories / How Autism Moms Become Advocates: Navigating IEPs, Systems & Small Wins

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How Autism Moms Become Advocates: Navigating IEPs, Systems & Small Wins · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Incidence podcast. I have a fellow autism mom here today, Desiree Rogers, who reached out to me on Instagram. I know that you've heard me say at nauseam that I am one of the biggest promoters of the social and online communities online, versus all the haters and naysayers of the keyboard warriors that obviously are out there pushing their negativity and, you know, you know, false narratives on populations. But the population of special needs moms that is baked into the social media world is phenomenal for exact reasons as to why I'm having this conversation today. Desiree, thank you for joining me and thank you for your mission, which we talked about a lot before we pressed record here. Delaware Save a Life.
• 0:45
  Speaker B: Thank you for following me on your platform. I know, I like, I saw you. I looked on there and I'm like, I gotta get on there.
• 0:53
  Speaker A: I love it. And this is like I said to you, I have a mission that is about reminding every woman and mother that unconditional love and maternal instinct will never fail you. Never, never. And I know we both believe that there really are. There is no concept of there being other people's children and how the desire to meet the reality of all children where they are through our motherhood is so, so, so important. Give everyone here a little backstory on what brought you to actually just the exact moment here today and your motherhood journey, maybe a little bit about your children, and we'll then get into Delaware Save a Life.
• 1:42
  Speaker B: Of course. So what brought me here today is my huddle and my struggles that I had to go through from my transition from Philadelphia to Delaware. My autistic, he's on the spectrum and he has behavior issues and in Philadelphia, he has services. But when we came to Delaware, they looked at me like I had three heads. I went from working full time in a busy emergency room, 12 hour shifts, to having to quit my job and be a stay at home mom and even venture out as far as doing homeschool. So I'm like, you know, there's so many moms out here that's like me that has no idea how to navigate or how to even advocate for their child. So I'm like, if I gotta put in the footwork and I gotta get in the mud to save another mom, I'm gonna do it. And that's where I am at. I will sit in an IEP meeting. Cause IEP meetings is so scary. You know, you're sitting around a table with a bunch of professionals and they Saying this and that and third, about your child and you just lost because you don't even know what they're talking about.
• 2:42
  Speaker A: Oh, I could go on and on about this. I mean, there is, it's almost like it's baked into the equation. There's so much fear and anxiety around it for a number of reasons. One, it's a legal document, right? So go into this going, okay, this is legal. Like this is legit. Like this is going to be upheld by the system. Now don't get concerned about the systems failing all of us. But that's a whole nother. That's a whole other part of my. But the system of the IEP meeting and how it sets up the parents and the parents statement to be riddled in fear of what that board actually should be leading from such deep empathy for the child that they have. Yet the resources that are available make that whole system and the whole thing of that room and those 12 different people, the clinical psychologist, the case manager, the speech therapist, the occupational therapist, the special ed teacher, all these people that likely have our. The best interest. I do believe at the end of the day they have our best, our child's best interest. But the setting with which that, what that breeds is so anxiety driven and it creates a environment that I think dilutes the power of the parent statement.
• 3:59
  Speaker B: Yes, right.
• 3:59
  Speaker A: And it dilutes the power. And so I guess what I hear you saying is that that's part of your mission is to remind people that, you know, that is a really scary situation. But how we can witness, yes, our motherhood and our words. Because it is legal. It is a legal, it's a legal document. And you know, how do you. What was your experience like, what do with others about what you've learned and how to navigate that?
• 4:23
  Speaker B: My experience was terrible at first. Again, they were just like not listening to me. Nothing that I said mattered. I just, you know, he was just a kid and he just had behavior issues and this school setting wasn't working for him. So he needs to go to somewhere where it's more structure. Not listening to me. Like, I think he's overstimulated. I think that he's sensory overloaded. And they were just like, no. My son went from being suspended. He was kicked out of schools multiple times. He went from, you know, being restrained and it got so bad where they know that, okay, we suspended him a lot of times we can't do that no more. So let's call crisis. And crisis will come into the school. And you know, he's overstimulated and he's, you know, first of all, he's scared. He's overstimulated and he's having a fit and they'll come in and say, okay, he's in crisis. Let me put him in a facility and then put him on a hold and mom can't come get him.
• 5:22
  Speaker A: This has happened to you multiple times.
• 5:24
  Speaker B: It happened multiple times. But when I always show up when crisis is there, and I always get crisis thinking, like, does this look like a child in crisis or do this look like a child, that a child is overstimulated or, you know, we have to look at what crisis truly is.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: I think. I, I mean, again, I know you worked in the ER setting. I have not. Um, being in the community of, of autistic children, profound autistic children, you know, all behavior is communication. I really deeply believe that.
• 5:53
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: And so, you know, even the word crisis, I, I don't even, I don't. I'm such a nerd. I love looking at the core root of like what. But I, I believe that within crisis is like panic and fear.
• 6:05
  Speaker B: Panic and fear.
• 6:06
  Speaker A: Fear is baked into. And it's a child, A child behavior is. They are looking for warmth, comfort, peace, accessibility to someone to co. Regulate.
• 6:18
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: That isn't available. They will be behavioral.
• 6:22
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 6:22
  Speaker A: I mean, that's, that's it.
• 6:24
  Speaker B: That's it.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Autism parenting. One on one for us.
• 6:26
  Speaker B: One on one.
• 6:28
  Speaker A: It's not the same for the people that come in from crisis.
• 6:30
  Speaker B: Right? It's not. It's not. And you know, and you know, children are not the same. You know, all children are not the same. And I feel like they are so used to parents not showing up and parents not advocating for their kids. And they're so used to parents is just taking whatever they give them. And then you have little old me from Philadelphia coming to Delaware and I'm saying, no, I will not allow you to put my son in a facility. We're not doing it.
• 6:54
  Speaker A: You know, you say like this facility word cause it's, it's because it's come up more and more in my own writing and work that, you know, we have in this country gone from institutionalizing children like mine and yours to then saying, no, it's better to keep them at home and with their families. Obviously.
• 7:16
  Speaker B: Obviously.
• 7:17
  Speaker A: To then saying because of. That the behavior should go away just because they're unconditionally loved by their family. That, that, that's. That correlation and causation does not exist in my like. And it doesn't, it obviously doesn't exist in the realities. And this is what we were saying before, like, come see what it is actually like to live so that you understand their behaviors from inside the home, getting to school, the school environment and back home. We need that full picture, especially when it comes to those IEP meetings. Even though I know it's. The IEP is about the learning environment, there's so much stress on the generalization that if there isn't an understanding from what the parent sees at home or what is seen there, where is the growth even being able to happen if you're not taking the parents lived experience?
• 8:03
  Speaker B: And that's why I was. Yeah, it's a live experience. We're not just, we're just not trying to give you a hard way to go, because that's what they do.
• 8:10
  Speaker A: Trust me. I wish I wasn't sitting here on this meeting. The last thing I thought, I, I, I joke about this, Desiree, in my talks. I say, no one at 29 years old wakes up in New York City as a mom going, you know what I want on my bingo card? Two kids with profound autism. That was not, look at me, I, that was not on my bingo card. Okay.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: No, no.
• 8:29
  Speaker A: The people are so, they've skewed this. To think like, oh, she's just, she's just grappling at straws and she's just for anything.
• 8:38
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 8:39
  Speaker A: There is no world in which I would choose to be in the situation, to have to fight the system of the IEP board. There's. Why would I ever have a typical developing 12 and a half year old? Trust me, that's like a trip to Bali raising her in comparison.
• 8:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:54
  Speaker A: No. Understands that because when they're in the IEP meetings, they think, oh, man, here she comes. Man, I don't want to do this.
• 9:01
  Speaker B: I don't, I don't.
• 9:02
  Speaker A: That's what I choose to do. I have to, Nate. I have to. Primarily, I'm primarily wired to protect and get outcome for my child. Yes. When you talk about, like, having to go in and be there when crisis comes for your child or that they put them, them on a hold, talk to me through what you wish more people knew about that process. Because I think that that's imperative when it comes to even asking for what your child needs in an iep.
• 9:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like that parents need to use their voice. I feel like parents need to. It's okay to say no. It's okay to say we're not doing this. This is how we're gonna do this. This is how we do it at home. They'll sit at the table and they'll say, okay, well, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that. My son, he thrives. He thrives off of pressure. So he will seek negative pressure because he know I'm going to get restrained. He will seek that. So I'm saying, let's do this. We're going to get a weighted blanket. We're not going to hold him in restraint, because that's not what we're going to do. We're going to allow him to push a wall. We're not going to just automatically go to restraining my son. We're not doing it because that.
• 10:08
  Speaker A: Because in and of itself, that's giving him the pressure, which is so backwards when you think about it. Backwards. You know, I had this example come up with a friend years ago who had a typical child. And her typical child. She has three typical kids, and the typical child, she lives on the edge of a park near my old house. And he was like five or six, and he. And he literally just took off. The one day, he's like, no one's paying attention to me. And he ran off. And she, okay, but I mean, this kid does not have a diagnosis or anything. And she was beside herself. And she said to me, sarah, I don't understand why he did this. Like, he kept saying, like, no one's paying attention to me. And he ran off. I said, I believe as someone who has a child who is sensory seeking and things other than words to communicate.
• 10:48
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 10:48
  Speaker A: That to your point, they're looking for attention or input in some way, and even if it's negative, because what happened is that she came back, found him in the park, was beside herself, and he got attention from punishment. He got attention from being scolded at. He got attention from her having to put everything else aside to deal with him alop him running away.
• 11:08
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: The typical child who could actually sit there and listen. What about the children that can't, like ours, who he was seeking out some sort of regulatory system, even if that came from restraining.
• 11:19
  Speaker B: Yes, he was. And I was letting them know that, like, he's seeking out. And I kept on telling him, like, we need to stop letting him seek out negative attention and we need to start doing recognition. We need to start recognizing these things, you know, so he knows, like, I like that. I like the way that this feels. So I'm going to do this because I know they're going to do that. And My son has some separation anxiety. So he knew that if this gets too overwhelming I'm going to elope or I'm going to do something because they're going to call mom and mom going to come get me. And now I feel safe. So. And I kept on having to tell them like we have to redirect him, we have to redirect him. We have to. Let's not do the restraints. Let's do the weighted blanket. What's a weighted blanket? You mean to tell me you guys don't know what a weighted blanket is? Can we do a wraparound? Can we get a one on one inside the classrooms? We don't have that. You don't have rbt. I'm not understanding so. And I'm like when I come here it's just like what is these things? And I'm just like this will make his day better.
• 12:16
  Speaker A: You're speaking like the masses here. And I know that you know in a lot of ways. Well, I mean it's the world we both live in. So it feels like everyone is, is in this world. I know that we aren't obviously this is, we're atypical and at the same time it is the reality. And I. What we were saying before about if you actually came in and lived what this life was like, the people on the IEP board would have a much greater generalized understanding of these that are made. One of my biggest recent things and I haven't launched this yet, but I've kind of beta tested it with some women and I'd love to actually to reach out separately with you on this is a lot of what you're sharing and how I share too is based in this like maternal instinct, unconditional love for this child. Getting them what they actually physically, emotionally and mentally need. The problem with the system is that it has to be done critically and logically because that's what the science of, of any sort of diagnoses is based on. Which is like the data shows this. We, we. We perform X right? Or we are. This is the system. And like we can, we can offer this. We don't have this, we don't have the offerings to do that. Even though it might be. They don't have that in our, in our system.
• 13:27
  Speaker B: Nope.
• 13:27
  Speaker A: Was. I got really quiet with myself because I'm very into trying to logically explain. I'm realizing over time that like I have to logically explain this because anything emotional is going to be seen as fluff as not specific data that there's no Materialized evidence for what I'm sharing, right?
• 13:46
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 13:46
  Speaker A: And so I have realized that, like, if I can critically and logically put together parent statements that make the IEP ward go, that logically makes sense because I'm. There's data that can prove the things that are baked into your maternal experience. And so that's something that I, you know, find. It's not going to be the balm, it's not going to be the cure all for this, but it aligns people. What you're saying about your mission is helping other mothers in these situations to use their voice. My one step further on that is we need to become decentralized megaphones for this. But also remember, we have to think critically because the only way of doing this is to put this. To put our unconditional love and maternal instinct for our children critically and logically to actually be listened to by the system that is right now not set up to support.
• 14:38
  Speaker B: Not set up to support us whatsoever. And it's so sad that you have to have like a physical disability in order for you to even get a little bit of help. You know, I feel like the whole mental health system needs to be rewired. I feel like they need some mothers like us to be sitting in on there to let them know, no, we're not putting this child on a hold. Let's try to get some resources in the house so that we can help this child. You know, the first instant for them is to remove the child. And it's like, no, this mom needs. This mom needs some support. It came to the point where I'm sitting outside of school doing my work because I can't go to work because I knew they gonna call me in five minutes and tell me that my son is on the floor, you know, temper tantrum or my son done eloped and they don't know where he is. So I'm outside in the parking lot or I'm sitting in the classroom.
• 15:28
  Speaker A: Do you follow Kate Swenson at all of finding Cooper's voice? She's like, she's got a. She's got four kids. Her oldest is severely autistic. Cooper, he's probably 14 now. And she literally just posted yesterday about this. She said sitting outside. I've had the calls have been coming from school so frequently.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 15:47
  Speaker A: That I'm now just sitting and working outside. Her advocacy, her full time business is like mine, full time advocacy. And she was, you know, she shares very vulnerably and raw about this. And I thought we have to share in the Mainstream media and national coverage needs to align and show that you and I are Kate Swenson. She has a bigger platform than you and I probably have right now. But that's, that's what she's saying is that I have to be so attuned to, to what possibly might happen because the system is so broken that I need to do my work outside of the school.
• 16:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, I gotta do. I had to sit outside because either one or two things gonna happen.
• 16:28
  Speaker A: I mean, not there. I guarantee you if I started shouting to my neighbors right now, they'd be like, wait, what? Yeah, wait what?
• 16:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:36
  Speaker A: And they'd be like, oh that gosh, that must be so hard for her. I'm like, her. This is a massive population of all a massive. Thousands of women that are doing the same thing. Not to put down the fathers. I know I was talking to someone else, a very brilliant public advocate in, in the public affairs space who's a father of a child with severe autism. And he said, you know, I know that the fathers are not as included in this. A lot of the times it's primal though. Men, men and fathers are not as primarily wired like we are. That's just the. They're just. There's an XX chromosome and xy. We are actually different people. We're different here. Oh yeah. At the end of the day, we are primally bound to tend and befriend to, to find guidance and love and shared responsibility as women. And the men that are part of this I think are always, you know, if they sit in the, their fathers of, of children like ours, they, it's not that they don't have love. The love is just. The love is just. It's expressed differently and it's not as protective physically from the emotional. What their needs are and what falls on the mothers to be the ones sitting outside.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: Sitting outside, sitting outside. I'm literally in the house.
• 17:48
  Speaker A: Are out there trying to support in other ways. Yeah.
• 17:51
  Speaker B: And then there's no support. You know, I'm working full time in emergency room, 12 hours of shifts and now I'm not working at all. And I'm sitting outside the school because either they're going to call me or they're going to call crisis or they're going to call the police. And we're not having none of that because my child is already traumatized enough because you keep constantly restraining him. So it's like I'm outside, they call me, I'm outside, I'll come in and I'm big on call me before it escalates, call me. Because if he hears my voice, I can talk him down, I can get him to the common corner and we can work out that there are steps to take. Before we go to the extreme, do.
• 18:24
  Speaker A: You, before we get there, do you think that that happened? I know you said you were in the state of Pennsylvania and now you're in Delaware. I'm, I'm original. I'm a pa. I'm a PA native. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. I live in New Jersey now, but had a 10 year stint in New York City. I have experiences with different states, but I raised my children and the ones with, with disability in New Jersey. What do you and PA I actually just found out is actually an autism crisis state.
• 18:51
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 18:52
  Speaker A: Which is shocking because what you're saying is that it was actually better than even Delaware.
• 18:58
  Speaker B: Let me tell you something. PA has a thousand and one services. Anything that you need, they got, they had wraparounds, support, they had respite. I didn't even know about respite. The only way we learn is through other mothers because the system not gonna tell us. And that's what I kept seeing. My child isn't broken. The system is broken. You know, you guys put a cap on what you want us to know. They think that it's coming out of.
• 19:24
  Speaker A: Their pockets or anything.
• 19:25
  Speaker B: So I had to fight about respite. I had to learn about being a paid attendant. But because I'm home from work, because you guys sent my home, my son home on modified days and now he's going to school from 8 to 12. And I'm like, what? I'm. Where, what are you doing here? So I had to, another mother told me, like, why don't you ask to be a paid attendant? And then when I, you know, you have to find out through other mothers the resources that's out here, I feel like mpa, you know, it's such a larger city, you know, it's busy. I feel like their resources is beyond our reach.
• 20:00
  Speaker A: You felt like it was more. It wasn't hidden as much as it wasn't hidden?
• 20:05
  Speaker B: Absolutely not.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't hidden.
• 20:09
  Speaker B: It was not hidden.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: And when it comes to like the community and the school districts, I mean, I, my children have out of district, out of district placement through our school, through the school, district living. Because I have a typical 12 year old that's in the public school system. Is that, do you find that. So is that similar? So you went from one public school system to it, to NPA to one In Delaware?
• 20:30
  Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am. Yep. I went from one. I went from one public school to another.
• 20:35
  Speaker A: How did the IEP transfer for you? How did that.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: Like, so Delaware, they did not give me an IEP when I first moved down here. They gave me my 504 plan because they were solely focusing on his behaviors. I had to literally fight for Adolf testing to prove that my son was on a spectrum. They was like, you know, he's just bad. You know, something, don't go his way. He'll feel. Flip a chair and walk out the classroom. No, that's not it.
• 20:59
  Speaker A: Did you. So did you get a diagnosis for him in PA ever? Or was there or was that unable to happen?
• 21:06
  Speaker B: No, it wasn't able to happen in pa. Pa, they just. We were working on it, and then we moved to Delaware. And then when we moved to Delaware, we had to start everything over. Although we had all his files and everything, it was just like. It was like pulling tf. And I wanted to even go back to PA because I felt like my son would thrive more in Philly versus in Delaware. So it was just like a emotional battle.
• 21:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think that this. And again, I. I hear this all the time, and I experienced it, but it was so many years ago. You know, my. I have a typical 12 year old. Millie's 10 and a half and Mac is eight. So it's been like. I mean, Millie got diagnosed around 2. So it's been eight years since I really went through like, even the diagnosis process per se. Do you think? And I. And I know back then, I mean, I. I remember calling developmental pediatricians that were in network health insurance, and they were like, see, in nine months.
• 21:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My son just got diagnosed last year.
• 22:03
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:03
  Speaker B: So my son is 11. And like you, I have a typical 11 year old. I have a typical 11 year old. And then I have my adopted 11 year old. And I was just like, you can see the difference, you know? And I. And he would just make the. I started out as a behavioral health tech, and I started working with my client, and I realized that, you know, he has some of the similar behaviors as her. And I hold time. I was working for her. I did not know that God was preparing me for my own child. So I started working with her, and I got the call and they were saying, desiree, I need you to work with her. She's very difficult. And I realized that she's not difficult. They have a routine. They're very structured, and the moment that you take them out their routine, it Messes up everything.
• 22:47
  Speaker A: Well, you know what?
• 22:48
  Speaker B: And then she was non verbal so she couldn't tell me what was bothering her. So that what caused her to be violent. So then I learned like, okay, my son, he gets overstimulated and that makes him fight or flight. So that's why he's eloping. Because it's so much going on in the classroom and he doesn't know how.
• 23:07
  Speaker A: To voice that well. He doesn't have the, he doesn't have the repeatable pattern of what to expect to make his system, his body, his sensory needs. Because there's peace and calm that comes with the routine. You know, I don't care what, where your child is in the neurodiverse spectrum and autism, apraxia, adhd, dyslexia, ocd, whatever it is.
• 23:29
  Speaker B: Yes. Nope.
• 23:31
  Speaker A: And again, you can, you can boil us down to like just neurodiverse humans versus, you know, neurotypical humans.
• 23:37
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 23:37
  Speaker A: There is a desire for repetitive patterns. Now repetitive behaviors can get to be obviously a thing to manage, but at the same time, the reduction of behaviors because of the repetitive routines again and again will always show a more positive outcome for those. Absolutely, without a doubt.
• 23:57
  Speaker B: Absolutely without a doubt.
• 24:00
  Speaker A: I guess I think about how to express that like again, going back to the IEPs and having the voices of mothers being used, how to share that logically and critically so that it is baked in to that legal document of the iep. You know, I mean, I would think, I mean, if your son does now have a diagnosis, there is, you actually have. So I can do this offline. There is no reason why you should have a 504 versus an IEP. There's.
• 24:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we have an IEP now. And I tell parents, it's so overwhelming. I know, it's very scary. Show up for your parents. Show up for your kid, even if you don't know. I don't care.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: I don't care if you're shivering.
• 24:39
  Speaker B: Show up.
• 24:40
  Speaker A: You have to show up. Bring your show up. Yes, I got my hair cut recently and I so sad. My, my hairstylist for 20 years left and she's been kind for so long. Anyways, that's a different rip. That's a, that's a, you know, a bougie mom IEP or bougie mom worry. But this new woman was cutting my hair. She was like, I am not a mother, but my nephew godson is on the spectrum. And my sister has asked me since day one to come with her to the IEP meetings. And I said, yeah, that we need. Again, that's the story that needs to be told.
• 25:13
  Speaker B: You need support. You need support.
• 25:15
  Speaker A: And if that even means someone holding your hand while you're shaking, read your parents statement.
• 25:19
  Speaker B: Yes, it's okay. And that's what I do. I will sit on a zoom. I always request zoom because I'm here in Delaware. I will sit on a zoom. I will text mom and say, listen, you got this. You know, we'll talk through it. Even in your state, your whatever, look up, there are parent advocates, you know, there are nonprofits out there that will actually prepare you for IEP meetings. Yes, Knowledge is power. I googled everything. I googled what questions should I ask. ChatGPT is out here. Put it in there. I got an IEP meeting. This is what my son is going through or this is what my child going through. What should I do? What, you just show up. Just show up and you know, you know your child. You, you are a living experience. You know what you want. Advocate. You know, I tell everybody. Advocate.
• 26:03
  Speaker A: It really will show you as a mother and woman. I know that none of us would ever in a million years have chosen this as our path.
• 26:12
  Speaker B: No.
• 26:13
  Speaker A: The same time, it will reveal to you your strength and it will reveal to you what you're capable of. And you know, I do believe that a lot of times I never in a million years would have thought I would have survived some of those hardest of days. Right?
• 26:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker A: No, and guess what? You do.
• 26:31
  Speaker B: You do. Because I thought I was going to lose my mind. I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, I did lose my mind.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: I think.
• 26:36
  Speaker B: Kicked out of school. Yeah, my son is kicked out of school. Now I have to be a teacher, mom. I have to show him what to do. And you know, now we're home together. I'm used to working. Now I'm not working now I'm staying home with him. And it's just like if these is what I had to go through, I refuse to let another mom go through what I have to go through. We need to get together, form a community. A community of moms that's saying that we're not just gonna sit down and allow them to walk over us. We're gonna advocate for our kids and we're gonna show up.
• 27:04
  Speaker A: And you know what? As hard as it is for typical parents to see or even take a glimpse into the realities that you and I live with children like ours, we have to keep showing up and showing what those are. I mean, I've actually received a decent amount of, like, I don't want to say hate mail or hate DMs, but, like, how dare you show your child. Children so much? You're exploiting your children. How else. How else know what the beauty of Millie is or the hardships of Millie and Mac are? If I didn't show that, that's the life that I'm living. I need. Based on the world that we're in, we need to see what those realities are.
• 27:39
  Speaker B: Yes. That's how they are on me, on TikTok, because I share my family on TikTok. And they like, oh, you just using him for likes and pro. No, I'm showing y', all this is the real world. This is the real deal. This is. I'm. I'm saving. That's out there watching. That doesn't have the voice or the courage or even the strength to ask for help. We're not exploring them for nothing, you.
• 28:01
  Speaker A: Know, about saying that if my child is out here and this is who they are expressing themselves, they are not. They are unique in their being my child. They are not unique as a whole. That there are other children out there that are. That are like this too, and there's other mothers out there that need, again, the system to support. And if the system's not there, it's gotta come from the women and mothers that are actually living it.
• 28:20
  Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
• 28:22
  Speaker A: Well, I'm really. I'm really thankful for your work that you're doing. Keep on keeping on, keep on showing. And you are a powerful force. And I think that it really does take a lot of decentralized leadership from the ground up, from the front lines of all this, to keep being megaphones for change. Whether that is 10 people that we both hit today or tomorrow or if it's one over the course of a year, it does not matter. The numbers do not matter. It's about keeping on and saying that, like, the power is within the mother of these children to make the changes for them, and maybe not in our lifetime will be grand, but there is a power in the small, which is why Inchtones exists as a platform anyways, is that I really believe that the small incremental celebrations of what we can do and can do for our children are much greater than the milestones that they'll ever hit.
• 29:12
  Speaker B: And you keep on. Your voice is definitely needed. You know, continue to advocate and continue to show up, because at the end of the day, you are helping someone, even if it's one person.
• 29:24
  Speaker A: We want to have purpose in life. So, Desiree, thank you so much. We will link.
• 29:27
  Speaker B: Thank you so much, Sarah. I appreciate you.
• 29:28
  Speaker A: Of course, we will link everything about your work, your TikTok, your platform, the Instagram, everything on the episode summary. And if you could share what is 1 inch stone win that you have had over the past month for whether it's either you as a. You just as. As your individual self, or with your. With your son. What is one thing that's maybe so small to the. To the. You know, the world, but really mean the most to you?
• 29:52
  Speaker B: I got my son to actually attend a football game without being overstimulated and eloping. He sat through it, so I was just like, yes.
• 30:03
  Speaker A: That is.
• 30:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is huge.
• 30:06
  Speaker A: Tell him that it's too loud.
• 30:07
  Speaker B: He's out. But no, he sat beside me. He actually enjoyed it, so that is a major win for me.
• 30:13
  Speaker A: Well, if you ever want a buddy for a football game, Millie will sit and watch football for her entire life in perpetuity.
• 30:19
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. So you tell him that Sarah and Millie from New Jersey are very happy and very proud of him, too. That's awesome.
• 30:25
  Speaker B: Thank you so much. I appreciate you, Sarah.
• 30:27
  Speaker A: Of course. Of course. All right, y'. All. Well, until next time on the Inch Jones podcast, thanks again.
• 30:33
  Speaker B: Bye. Bye.