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THE SJ CHILDS SHOW-Building a Community of Inclusion
🎙️ Welcome to The SJ Childs Show Podcast! 🎉
Join Sara Bradford—better known as SJ Childs—as she bridges understanding and advocacy for the neurodivergent community. This podcast shines a light on autism awareness, empowering stories, expert insights, and practical resources for parents, educators, and individuals alike.
Brought to you by The SJ Childs Global Network, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting autistic individuals and their families worldwide, this show is your weekly dose of inspiration and actionable ideas. Visit sjchilds.org to learn more about our mission, find resources, and connect with our growing community.
Catch us on platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Goodpods—or tune in Fridays at 8:30 AM EDT on the Helium Radio Network’s Life Improvement Radio (Channel 1). Together, let’s foster a brighter, more inclusive world! 🌟
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THE SJ CHILDS SHOW-Building a Community of Inclusion
Episode 327-Finding Your Voice: Siblings, Stories, and Special Needs with Mila Maxwell
Curiosity drives creativity in this heartfelt conversation with author Mila Maxwell, whose debut novel "Finding Lady Baltimore" emerged from a simple yet profound question: "What if something happened to me that allowed me to see her perspective?" This burning desire to understand her sister Sarah's experience with cerebral palsy ultimately became the foundation for a work of fiction that blends real-life experiences with imaginative exploration.
Maxwell's journey from caregiver sibling to storyteller reveals the complex dynamics of growing up alongside someone with different abilities. Just 18 months older than Sarah, she naturally fell into a protective role that shaped her identity well into adulthood. Home videos captured young Mila directing her sister during bath time—early evidence of the responsibility she carried throughout her life. This pattern became so ingrained that when Maxwell became a mother herself, she had to consciously adapt her approach for her neurotypical son.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Maxwell's candid acknowledgment of the complicated emotions that accompany being a sibling caregiver. Rather than presenting an idealized version of her experience, she addresses the resentments and unspoken feelings that accumulated over years. Through writing, Maxwell found healing not just for herself but for her entire family. "It's changed the whole family dynamic with my sister and my parents," she shares, highlighting how bringing these feelings into the light created opportunities for greater understanding.
Beyond her writing, Maxwell embodies versatility as a self-described "multifaceted serial entrepreneur" whose career has spanned marketing, nutrition, personal training, and even volunteer firefighting. Her approach to life mirrors her creative process—organic, intuitive, and guided by what feels right in the moment rather than rigid planning.
The most powerful takeaway from our discussion lies in Maxwell's emphasis on individuality: "Everyone that has a disability, they're still an individual," she notes, explaining that even people with the same diagnosis can have vastly different needs and personalities. This understanding extends to her philosophy that "we all have special needs"—a perspective that shifts the conversation from categorization to celebrating universal human diversity.
Have you read "Finding Lady Baltimore" or connected with the sibling caregiver experience? Share your thoughts and join the conversation about how stories like these help normalize what it means to be part of a special needs family.
The SJ Child Show is Backford's 13th season. Join Sarah Bradford and the SJ Child Show team as they explore the world of autism and share stories of hope and inspiration. This season we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world. Go to sjchildsorg to donate and to get more information. Congratulations on 2024's 20,000 downloads and 300 episodes.
Speaker 2:Good morning afternoon. Whenever you're tuning in, yeah well, there's the intro I was telling you about. And then, instead of going back, I just hit record and stuff. Here we are. Oh my heaven, is that the way that today's going to go? And instead of going back, I just hit record and stuff. Here we are. Oh my heaven, is that the way that today is going to go? It's just going to be like fumbling into one thing after the next We'll roll with it.
Speaker 2:I know right, we will. We will. So nice to have you here today. Is it pronounced Mila? Yeah?
Speaker 1:I don't, it is.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, mila, it's so nice to meet you and have you here, our neighbor from the north. You are in Canada. I'm down here in Salt Lake City, utah, so why not? I mean, what side of Canada are you on? Actually, I should ask.
Speaker 3:I'm in. I'm on very east maritime, so we're kind of in between three major cities. We're in between St John, moncton and Fredericton New.
Speaker 2:Brunswick. Oh wow, that's amazing, and it looks like you're having a pretty nice day. The sun is out. The sun is out Like. Luckily, the clouds are kind of out today. Oh man, oh, it's so nice to have you here today.
Speaker 3:No, we've had a great summer so far.
Speaker 2:Oh good, I'm so glad. Yeah, it's actually been a little extra hot here up in. It's supposed to be 99 today, which I'm not sure how to calculate that into Celsius. Maybe, like what, is it 40?
Speaker 3:I'll look it up. Yeah, 99. Yeah, 40 something. I'll look it up. Yeah, it is 30. Oh, my goodness, 37.2 celsius. So that's like, there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's hot yeah, exactly, exactly, it's the I. I only know because my son loves the thermometer in Celsius. You know, sometimes we get these kids that like things differently than they teach us things the whole way through our lives. Oh, exciting, it's so nice to have you here today. Before we get started, tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself and tell us what brought you here today.
Speaker 3:Well, I grew up on the East Coast. I just turned 40. Happy birthday. You don't look it. Yes, thank you, it's that sea air, it's the coastal air. Yeah, I live in Sussex, new Brunswick, canada, with my son, husband and two French bulldogs. We have an 11-week-old puppy who is currently on the side table next to the couch, so I'm just going to see what she does. But yeah, it's been a busy few years. Our son's 11. He's into the baseball this summer, so that's been busy. A couple pups and yeah, it's been good.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. Well, I am turn. I turned 49 just a couple of weeks ago. So, same thing. It's like a new era of everything Right. And um, yeah, it's so exciting when we and puppies are so much fun. We, I've had a puppy era and uh, yeah, era. And uh, yeah, it's a good thing, it's in such a great experience. And, um, you know how are you raising your family and the animals? And tell us about you know kind of your business and things that you're working on. And, yeah, we'll dive deeper than okay well um, it's, yeah, it's I.
Speaker 3:I wasn't one to really follow a traditional career path, uh, honestly. So I've been on the workforce for just about 20 years and I worked in marketing when I first graduated from university graphic design, that sort of deal for five or six years. Then I ended up buying, kind of out of the blue, a nutrition business. So I was a nutritionist and naturopath for eight years. So the marketing and the graphic design and the journalism which is what I took in school, that became very helpful for that career stint. I guess I did personal training within that and since then I've become a volunteer firefighter. I recently published my first novel in April, and I co-own a functional fitness gym.
Speaker 2:Oh, my heavens, you are the Jane of all things. That's what I tell people that all of the careers that I think I've lived like a hundred lives or something it sounds like you've done the same Multifashionate Serial entrepreneur. That's what I called it.
Speaker 3:I love it, oh my heaven, it my God, it's a lot. It's a lot sometimes, but it is fun.
Speaker 2:No, that's, that's really wonderful, and it sounds like you really um, you know, thrive just really moving forward and being passionate about those types of things. I love that so much. Tell me about your book, your novel.
Speaker 3:So it's called Finding Lady Baltimore and it just came out in April. So I had been working on that for the past three years and what? It wasn't something that I was like, oh, in the summer of 2022, I'm gonna write, start writing a book. It was just something that really came about organically as I was going to bed one night and I grew up with a sister that has cerebral palsy. So that was, I think, the main inspiration behind the book a lot of the feelings that had come about from growing up alongside of Sarah, just things that I had seen, things that that I felt, maybe things I hadn't shared growing up. So, yeah, it just came about one night and it was basically a sentence that came to me and it said along the lines of what, if something happened to me that allowed me to see her perspective, because I've always wondered what goes on in her head, what she deals with, but she, because she can't always explain herself, she can't always. She has a hard time processing and she has a hard time explaining what's going on. So, cognitively, I always wonder, you know, what's what's going on in her head, like, what is she? How is she dealing with this? How is she? What does she think about this situation? Does she feel things the way I feel them? So, yeah, I originally started writing a memoir and I was like, no, this is.
Speaker 3:It feels too personal, it's not fun, and I'm not discrediting, discrediting anyone that's written a memoir, it was just, it was not for me.
Speaker 3:So I chose to write fiction, base it on my life, which a lot of the things that happen in the book are true, but it allowed me to process some things within a little layer, like a layer of okay, if this is too raw or if this feels too personal, I can use my imagination and still use that event or that situation or scenario. But I can, I can be more creative with it. Um, and it it became very crucial when it what came to Sarah's character, because she is not able to, you know, I could ask her hey, what does it feel like walking with crutches? That's fine. What does it feel like when you know you first wake up in the morning? Are you stiff? Yeah, maybe, like it's not, you would get those sorts of answers. Um, so, yeah, I really wanted to do my best and give her, give her that voice that maybe she doesn't always have, and I did it through a fictionalized character as much as much as I could, but I think I did a really good job at Sharing what she thinks and goes through.
Speaker 2:And what was her response in the book?
Speaker 3:She, I don't so someone that she lives with. She lives in a in a group home with a few other people that have similar needs. They've been reading it to her. So it was sort of funny because before the book came out, people from back home in nova scotia would say, hey, like we heard mila wrote a book, what's's it about? And she would go me.
Speaker 2:I love that. That was cute. I'm just going to let the dogs out so they don't know. Yeah, yeah, 100%. You know, our lives happen, whether we're podcasting or not, and I think that's something that maybe the pandemic allowed everyone to embrace and see a little bit more, that it doesn't have to be this perfect, you know, edited everything. It's like life. This is life, and especially with families like ours that we support on a 24 seven basis, support on a 24-7 basis, and it's so interesting. I really love that.
Speaker 2:You were curious, because I think curiosity is like the breadth of creativity and I think it really helps to embody the ideas that you're having when you use that curiosity. And I think it's lovely to hear from a sibling because I'm an only the how lovely it is to always siblings are always the same and I I mean I hate to generalize, but it's just this special relationship that I don't think anyone else could understand. So let me personally and just being able to watch it makes me so grateful to be able to see that that is the kind of experience that both of them are having. And so what, growing up, what was that? Your younger or older sister?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are 18 months apart and I'm the oldest so there was this air of caregiving you already had, I'm assuming yeah, and it's funny because we have some home videos.
Speaker 3:I haven't watched them now in years, but I remember her being in the tub and she would have been maybe two years old, so I would have been close to four and she was on her knees in the tub and she was, you know, biting the, biting the face cloth and playing with her toys and me being like Sarah, like put your, put your hands back in the water, like always.
Speaker 3:That air of responsibility that I don't think I ever got rid of, and it was something when I became a mother myself. I had to I don't want to say unlearn, I just had to refocus a bit and say to myself I have a, I have a neurotypical child. He is able to tell me these things and I mean, obviously, when he was very young it was different, but as he grew older he's almost 11, he'll be 11 in a few days Um, yeah, he, I had to kind of say like he needs to learn to come to me. I can't always be managing him, I can't always be monitoring what he might need, because it's exhausting. I don't have to do that with him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that the truth? And when you, I see that you know we're. She is two years older. Excuse me, she's two years younger and so it's. It's the opposite, in fact. Give me. Give me one second, mila, so sorry.
Speaker 1:The SJ Child Show is back for its 13th season. Join Sarah Bradford and the SJ Child Show show team as they explore the world of autism and share stories of hope and inspiration. This season we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world. Go to sjchildsorg to donate and to get more information. Congratulations on 2024's 20,000 downloads and 300 episodes.
Speaker 2:Well, that's hilarious. I guess we'll have a little bit of editing to do after all. I didn't know that was going to happen. I know that's going to happen. What a learning curve we're on today, my dear. Oh heavens. This is just funny, okay, well, anyways, I was. I was saying, um, yeah, the two year difference, it's, it's so beautiful. And to see this, uh, my son was non-speaking and his little sister was a hyperlexic and was speaking full sentences as soon as she could walk and he, you know she would do his speaking for him. Okay, come on, dj, now what do you need? And let me get this for you. And so it was quite the opposite in that, and they're both autistic. Just very, very different, obviously, and just so sweet, though, to see the care and the caregiver in her already as just a little person. So I just love that.
Speaker 3:Do you think that if they would have been born in different orders, that it would have been the same?
Speaker 2:have been born in different orders, that it would have been the same. I think, because of who she is, just as a person, I and maybe, maybe, if the you know what she would have been a different sign, but that Capricorn in her she's just like sturdy and, you know, very passionate and dedicated, loyal, so, yeah, just really lucky. She's a wonderful, wonderful part of our family. Yeah, so when you were growing up, what type of support did Sarah need? And did you continue? Did you kind of add those pieces into the novel?
Speaker 3:Right. So when she was born, my parents weren't really sure what had happened. So she basically stopped breathing shortly after birth and they figured she stopped breathing long enough that it created an oxygen deficiency in her brain. So they are thinking that's what caused the cerebral palsy whether it was in utero and they just didn't know. Who knows. But she was rushed to a different hospital three hours away and I think she was about a year old, maybe even a little over a year, when they found out what it was, maybe even a little over a year when they found out what it was.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, she had a lot of physio appointments, a lot of speech physio.
Speaker 3:She had a lot of surgeries not a lot, but she had a few significant surgeries before she was four or five Things like she had to have her hamstrings cut to make them longer and just because when you have cerebral palsy your muscles can become so tight that it really affects your posture as you're growing.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I really made sure to include all of these things in the book so that people could see what she went through, what my parents went through, what I witnessed growing up, yeah, and then growing, going to the same school. She was in the same classes as me. We were two years different but she, yeah, she had an educational assistant, so she was basically alongside of me throughout until high school and then high school school. We were in the same school but she was in a special class for for students that had a few extra needs that they might not have been able to keep up in a regular, in a regular classroom with her in that, in that way, and now that you've married and have children is, is her cognitive ability like her a bit kind of is she happy for you or kid does, is that?
Speaker 2:does she have that ability? My son is kind of on the walks, that line of I'm not quite sure if he can like think of others that way, right, Sarah for sure does, and that was something I always struggled with and I even.
Speaker 3:I've told the story so many times in the last few months. But I remember on Jeremy and today. But I'm also a little sad. You know she's never gonna get to experience any of this. She's never gonna, you know, fall in love and get engaged and plan a wedding, and mom's like, she doesn't think that way, she just, she's just so happy for you, she doesn't compare herself to you, she doesn't think she can do that. And I can't do this, like there's never been any of that, it's just been. I love my sister and I want to see what she's going to do next and I'll cheer her on at whatever it ends up being.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's so beautiful. Um, and do you see a sequel to the book or anything? Did you leave room for that?
Speaker 3:I would love to. I've been asked that a lot. I would love to write again. I just don't know what it would be about. It would either be maybe a prequel or, yeah, a series of some sort. I haven't had a chance, honestly, to give it much thought because since the book launched I've been so busy with events and speaking engagements and podcasts and book sign-ins. But, yeah, it's something I really, really enjoyed. It was a very, very healing experience to be able to share not only my story but hers and my parents and I feel like as a family it's brought us closer together. A lot of those resentments and those just things that I had never really spoken because I felt guilty, those were kind of out in the open and they were actually accepted very well. So, yeah, it's changed the whole family dynamic with my sister and my parents.
Speaker 2:You know there's something to be said about shining the light even in the dark places, because it really is illuminating and can help everyone heal in a situation where that's been covered up or their own feelings have been covered or anything, and that chance to kind of reconcile and be honest with yourself about those things. I mean that's like a lesson, a priceless life lesson gift that you offered to everyone in that situation. So wonderful on you, miss Mila, absolutely. Oh, my gosh, what about? You said that you're working at a functional gym or something. Tell us about that, what that looks like and what kind of work you do there.
Speaker 3:That's pretty laid back actually. So it was just a gym that I had been going to. It was CrossFit based, but they closed down last summer and a few of us members got together and bought some of their equipment and we're renting a different space. So it's not like we market it, we advertise it, but it was more to keep that community together so that people that are looking to do that sort of training can have a space to do so. But people that are looking to do that sort of training can have a space to do so. So, yeah, it's not like it's it's busy and that I have to cover a few classes and do some marketing, but it's not like it's certainly not a full time gig by any means. It's just kind of a hobby, a pastime, a little passion project Nice.
Speaker 2:I love that I got to keep myself busy with those two is, I can agree, agree, um, what is next? What's um? What do you see in the future coming up, and where can our viewers and listeners go to find out more about the book and order it and get their hands on it for themselves?
Speaker 3:Well, the book's on all Amazon platforms, whether you're in Canada, us, wherever. So, yeah, it's available on Amazon. And I'm on social media. I'm on both Facebook and Instagram. Haven't dove into TikTok yet, I'm a little nervous about that. But yeah, I just looked up Mila Maxwell, author and I'll show up. But with regards to what's next, I'm not like, I'm not a huge planner. I'm kind of just like, oh, this feels right right now. So I'm going to, I'm going to try it. It's, yeah, and I noticed my it's. I can hear an echo. I hope you won't hear that on your podcast, is that? Can you hear that?
Speaker 2:It's okay.
Speaker 3:I, you know, usually the the editor makes, makes things better, the AI editor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem at all. No, I'm thank you so much for being here today and sharing your story and for really supporting such a part of a family that maybe could get lost and unlooked at and maybe other people could leave not feeling so great in their lives, and so hopefully this will help everyone to really embrace what it's like to have a special needs family, what it's like to have a family with a disability, with support needs, and really those family members that just you know, it isn't irregular for them, it's normal, it's their life, and I think that that's something that is a beautiful thing to look at and to recognize that you know, when people are probably say oh you know, that's you're just so wonderful for doing and, yes, you're wonderful for writing a book about it, but living your life like that was just something you were doing, and I think that normalizing what that looks like in just everyday life for people is so beautiful. So, yeah, thank you so much for the work you're doing.
Speaker 3:Thank you, yeah, and it wasn't. You know, it wasn't always easy, and I think people can can forget that, that they think, oh, you know, mila grew up with a sibling that has cerebral palsy, so she gets it, and it's like, yeah, I get it, but it doesn't mean that I, you know, I had to learn some things about it too. Right, it wasn't just like everyone, everyone that has a disability, they're still an individual. So you could have five people with cerebral palsy, but they have very different needs. One might be verbal, one might not be, one might be able to walk without assistance and the other one might not be able to. So it's, it's the same.
Speaker 3:Goes for anyone like you can't generalize and you can't, you know, you can't place anyone in a, in a category. I guess it's like, yeah, that's their diagnosis, but everyone is their own person and they, they have specific needs. And that goes for people that are neurodivergent too. We all have, we all have special needs. Um, I like to say that a lot, it's just like have, we all have special needs. I like to say that a lot, it's just like it's. We all have different needs and different things that you know make us tick or that we're passionate about. So, yeah, it's just, it's just embracing individuality. I think it's a big, a big learning curve with this book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and I think that our really we are in an era and a time where it is more generalized, more normalized and less stigmatized than ever before, and I'm so grateful for that. So let's keep on working the good work and putting the right ideas and presentations out there for everyone, especially those who may not be able to share their representation, but they certainly deserve a seat at the table. So thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
