George Bailey : A Father's Perspective on Raising Children with Autism

Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.
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Are not alone in this world.
Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding
for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome
to Why Not Me the World. Today's guest, George Bailey,
is a father of five three which are autistic. He's
also president of z PAK, so he's got a great
story to tell and I'm happy to have him here.
Welcome George, absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
On my pleasure.
It's my understanding that you have five children, three which
are autistic. That is correct, if you would give us
a little information about them.
Well, Joseph was born in two thousand and seven, and
you know, we figured out pretty quickly that he was autistic.
We could see within the first year of his life.
We could see that there were some developmental delays that
looked familiar. I had been around autism because my nephew
was autistic and I knew a little bit about it
at that point, and you know, so we knew. We
were living in Germany during that time and found out
that he was autistic, though we didn't get an official
diagnosis because in Germany there are lots or that. It
wasn't until we moved to Saint Louis when he was
about three years old that we definitely knew. But we
saw speech delays, we saw delays with some of his
gross motor skills. Who's having a hard time walking, you know,
things like that, and and this is just kind of
a nut sell some you know, summary of all three
of them. The thing is that you know, once you
have one child who is autistic, first of all, the
statistics bear out that there is a greater likely that
your other children are going to have autism, and they
are you know, doctors are going to screen your other
children to see like, okay, okay, it shows up in
this child, is it going to show up in the others? Well,
it didn't show up in William, it didn't show up
in my next, you know child, but it did show
up and both of my last girls, Madeline is eight
years old and Rosemond is three years old.
You said, you had an idea with your oldest son.
Did you have that same premonition about your daughters?
I would not have known them had we not had
them screen because you know, as it's the case with
many girls, they tend to mask and so you know,
they hide it, they conceal it a little bit more,
or rather they imitate, you know, what they see going
on around them. But as you mentioned, you know, it
pops up in other ways, like depression and things like that,
and yeah, you know, but so you know, but my girls,
I mean, you know, they're amazing. Joseph, he's amazing, but
they all manifest autism in dramatically different ways.
So how old are they now?
My boys are fifteen and thirteen, though my oldest will
be sixteen by the time this is released. And my
daughters are eleven, eight and three.
So you have two children that are neurotypical, three that
are autistic.
So how do.
They interact with each other? And how do they get
along on a daily basis together?
You know? And in a lot of ways, we're such
a typical family. I mean, you know, there's fights, there's
getting along, there's playing. Uh, you know, I think that
the hardest thing for the younger siblings is to really
really get and this is probably with the biggest challenge
that I face is getting them to really love and
understand their older brother, because there can be a lot
of times like, surely he understands what he's doing. You're surely,
you know, but you know, they're there's you know, like
one of the things that he'll do is he'll just
kind of casually take their food, you know, and and uh,
you know, or he will kind of stare off and
laugh but laugh at a time when they think that
he's laughing at that, but no, the kid's just always laughing.
He's got his imagination all through these ideas interacting and
playing together, and so I'm like, dude, don't take it personally.
Joseph's just he's chill. He's laughing, And so that can
become a cause of contention, uh, you know, right there.
And then of course, you know, you know, one of
my children, she has pretty huge breakdowns, and when that happens,
it can be a little bit tough on the other
kids to like, hey, you know, buggle up about her cup,
what's you know, kind of what's going on. So there's
an interesting dynamic between them is siblings. But overall, I
feel really grateful. I push really hard for my kids
to get alongge I, you know, whatever, there's like some
sort of real conflict. I try to intervene in it
in a kind and loving way because I have a
super good relationship with my siblings, and I feel like
I can't really be a great parent. I just I
don't think I am. You know, I try. I love
my kids, but I the one thing I can do
really well is to get them to understand you're Simpson,
Like the best thing that we could ever get.
Absolutely. Family is always number one and always comes first.
So what's the schooling? Like, what's their day to day
schedule concerning that?
So Joseph wasn't a special meets program. We saw some
you know, he was keeping up with this peers initially
a little bit and then having some trouble progressively as
he grew older and as this communication needs became more sophisticated.
For him to be able to advance along with his
peers intellectually, that became a lot harder. Now Joseph is verbal,
you know, But we decided on that basis and on
some opportunities we liked to be able to get out
and travel and to be able to do so liberally.
So we actually homeschool our children, which is an extraordinary experience.
I was not a huge fan of homeschool leading growing up.
I was not homeschooled. My wife was homeschooled at least
just a few years out of her her education in
the public schools system, just because that's what she needed,
you know. But a very sharp woman, she was a
full ride scholar to our university where we met. Is
just an extraordinary mind and intellect, and so she has
the wherewithal and the desire and how often, you know,
always have the desire to hone school our kids. And
so we made the jump a couple of years ago.
COVID was actually come a perfect time for us to
be able to make that jump. And so now they
actually get a lot of one to one attention, you know,
when they're struggling. And so Joseph, who I think that
the synist of it, kind of said, well, you know,
at this point, like we're just going to kind of
teach them some basics of communication, but really he was
capable of understanding a lot more. She got the right
attention in terms of sciences and mathematics. But I suspect
based on his progress, although he's doing a lot better
than you used to, he's going to need us for
a while.
Okay, So how does he differ from your two daughters?
My daughters who are outstic I'm academically, they're doing very well.
I mean, you know, Matteline, she's reading well about her
age level. She's doing art and she's doing she's expressing
herself artistically in a way that is very sophisticated for
her age, and both musically and in drawing and painting
what she loves to do.
So with you homeschooling, how do they interact when you
take them out to a social setting with people they
may not know around.
Joseph has a very difficult time asking people questions about them.
He wants to tell you, well, he's interested in he
wants to tell you kind of like, Okay, so I'm
really into Star Wars and Marble. I mean, those are
his religions almost, you know, and he wants to evangelize
as much as he can on those topics. So, but
he is social and friendly, you know, and he's easy
to get along with, and we're very grateful that at
Ogregation there are some other young men his age who
have been very exclusive of him, and they understand his
quirks and they understand, you know, and he loves them
and wants to be with them. So they've been really
good about that. And get Mattelin again. You would know
that she's autistic, at least thought that you were out
a professional. It's very difficult to see, but she really
really gets along well with her peers.
Well, that's good to hear.
Now.
I've also heard that females sometimes have a tendency to
mask their autism at some point. Do you see that
happening at all with your daughters.
I do not yet see any signs of depression, though
I anticipate that that may arise. She's still in that
adorable cute and I love Dad, and she and I
we get along like peas in a pod. And she's
always running up to my desk and like Dad here
and she hands me another beautiful piece of art. It's
just runstance. So she's just in that. That's the best
right now. I love that, and I know we'll always
last because I've been through various paces with each of
my children. She'll realize, Wow, Dad is really plod and
I am, you know, but we have a good relationship.
She gets along with her friends, and she plays hard
and she's competitive, but yet she's very generous. So no,
I'm not really seeing that yet with her.
Oh that's really good.
Now, I've been told by a lot of people that
I've interviewed that the kids tend to have meltdowns, some severe,
some not so severe. How would you rate your kids
with meltdowns or do they have any?
No with And that's the funny thing is, as well
as we get along, she is the one who experiences
these you know, meltdowns. And it's already difficult, you know
when it happens, because you know, you want to kind
of rationalize or even just to comfort, but once she's there,
it's like, you know, obviously she needs a little bit
of time away. And fortunately, I mean she's improved with time.
But that is a very big challenge. And fortunately she's
actually a lot less likely to do it in public,
which is always challenging. You know, you get the judging eyes,
you know, stuff like that.
That's really good that she's adapting that well. Now, I've
talked with several women that after they've had children, diagnosed,
they start to question themselves on what they might have
done wrong, eating, drinking, environment, et cetera. Now, reality, they
didn't do anything wrong, but they put themselves under that microscope.
How did your wife handle that and did she have
any of those issues at all?
Yeah, it's a great question. And you know what's interesting
about this is that although my wife has not been
officially diagnosed, with all of these experiences, we look at
her youth and her growing up and she is like,
oh my gosh, I am autistic. And so, you know,
we don't know for sure, and we try to be
careful about that because we know that some people, you know,
if there's a tendency to kind of where as a like,
you know, look at me, is this interesting about me?
Type of things, some people don't appreciate that. And I understand.
But with all of our understanding and all of our
exposure to autism, it makes a lot of sense. You know,
if she's if she is autistic, that makes her world
a lot Yeah, it's clearly. Look but you know that
being the case, I mean, you know, I think that
she's great in terms of navigating their needs, and uh,
you know, it's more frustrating for both of us to
be able to experience that. But now, you know, I
think that she does a really good job. It's her parents,
and neither of us have ever been like, oh what
it was me sub you know, my kid is autistic.
I can't remember that ever happening at anytime. I think
that Christina and my wife Betty thinks she's just more fascinated.
Well, that's awesome, good things to hear. Now, you said
that your oldest son is going to be sixteen, correct, correct?
Okay, So I've talked with several.
Parents that tell me that their sons or daughters will
at some point they'll just immerse themselves in something and
then their knowledge, they just soak it up and they
can tell you anything that you want to know about
the subject that they're really into. Is your son like that,
Does he have anything that's special to him that he
really really gets into? I know you mentioned Star Wars
in Marvel. Is that something that just really fascinates them?
Yeah, you know, and that kind of bit encyclopedic knowledge,
It doesn't occur in every scenario. It's a little bit
of a stereotype, and yet sometimes it's a stereotype for
a reason. And in Joseph's case, yes, he's very much
into those things. And when I say he's into Marvel
and Star Wars, that's exactly what I mean. He reads
the encyclopedia, you know, like these kind of Marvel large
source books where you can figure out kind of origin
stories and all of that, and he knows it back
and forth, saying with you know, Star Wars, Marble, the
Bible incidentally, who loves that history? History? I say history
because it's really hard to pin down where is he
at there because on the one hand, he really really
has taken to revolutionary war history.
Wow, that's nice.
But I and maybe some other sporadic moments, but I
haven't seen him. Maybe it's like the books that we've
given him, where it happens to be written in a
very accessible manner for him. There's some great books. And
trying to remember the name, but basically, you know, it's
this guy who kind of walks through and experiences history
together as it's happening with people. The name will come
to me soon enough, I'm sure, but you know they'll
have him, you know, with the daughter party. You know,
it's so my son, you know, a little to ask
me questions. He's fascinated with the daughter party, or it
would be some Civil war history or something like that.
I can't wait for history to become appealing to him
more broadly, because when I listen to him anytime he
talks about history, I learned stuff. He's actually quite pleasant
to be around, Like when I'm driving with him in
the car and it's just like, Dad, did you know this?
Did you know that? And I'm like, oh, way, that's cool.
I think that's just so great because he gets a
chance to learn you, and then he tries to incorporate
that and have conversation with you about it, and it
just creates a real good bond. Plus they get so
immersed and inquisitive about it that they start asking us questions,
and then all of a sudden, our interests are what
their interests are, and they're actually teaching us things that
we even forgot or just gave up on.
I think you're right, you know, And to your point,
what is wonderful is it'll take some things that I
would normally I don't have to. I'm to study history
right now, and it's a little bit you know it.
Maybe some of these things are scared, but he looked
said it, you know, and this is Joseph particularly looks
at it with this eye of wonder, and so you know,
there was a time I think we all had some wonder.
You know. It is particularly when we're younger, and you
know that wears off the time. But Joseph's you know,
he's sixteen, and it's not wearing offs. He really maintains that.
Just like he the things he loves, he loves and
he loves to share. And so that that to me
is a powerful lesson for myself. You know, the things
that I love, I hope that I'll always love to share.
He's very giving and I appreciate that about him.
That's a really good trait to have. Now, how about
your girls? Are they as interested in learning as he is.
With rosemand who is only three years old, it's very
difficult to tell. At this point. I have not seen
her readily obsess over something. With Madeline, it's not that
she there's something she just wants to learn and learn
to learn. I am challenging her. Okay, she is very
much into art. And I mean it's like some kids,
it's like they'll tell you one minute, you know, they
want to be a cowboy at the next minute, a
fireman the next they want to be a police officer,
then a baseball player, then a you know, a scientist,
and so that the story is always changing. I was
one of those kids, couldn't make up my mind Madeline,
Like I swear, when she started telling me about the
age of four that she wanted to be an artist,
I knew right away, like, oh, she really does, and
she's going to you know that, and time will tell
if she's going to be a great artist or a
fantastic artist, or really just a good artist. Who knows.
I have a lot of faith in my child. Uh.
And she's very smart, and she's very clever with her art.
Now that being said, as obsessed as she is with
constantly drawing and and you know, just her output is
amazing in terms of how much stuff she will do
every day and how much she's improving. She has not
really yet taken to kind of talking about the art
and of other people in the history of art. I
have invited her too, and she is taking me up
on this. I've given her a flash card deck. It's
a you know, electronic flash deck card deck of one
hundred famous pieces of art that you put together with
the names of the artists and and and she loves
it and she loves looking at it. She's not yet
like popping out like dad, did you know this about
bang Go? Did you know this about you know, Monet?
Or you know things like that. But I love art personally.
I grew up with it. My mothers artist, and you know,
and that was what I knew. So it brings me
great joy for her to be an artist.
Oh that's so nice. And I'm sure she gets a
lot of that from you. So let's change gears here
a little bit. You started out with this company that,
like any other company, wanted to put a product out
there and make a profit and just see where it
could go. But then all of a sudden you found
out that it was something pretty special and that it
could help autistic people. So could you tell us a
little bit about that?
Well, thank you, great question. So, uh, you know a
few years ago some friends of mine got together and
they said, hey, we want your help kind of on
the marketing and you know pr side of you know,
selling these sleep capsules, and these things had already been
getting traction in China, Japan and airports, and you see
them there. You know, it's a little nook, a little
getaway slipped in there, grab a n app, push yourself in. Well,
you know, we were looking at these and there were
you know, there was at least one friend, maybe a
few people who said, you know what, these would be
great for autistic kids. And I was the first person
to say, Nope, I have no interest in that, you know.
And of course by then, I'm already well established as
an autism dad. You know, I've been through the rigga role.
I get what it's like that, you know, I know
the autism community. But the reason why I brushed it
off is because number one, it was just like, look,
this is expensive and no one wants to advise, you know,
they the parents, they've got so many things to buy
and everybody's you know, they're going for their attention. Why
would I do this to them. I don't want to
sell steak oil. And we don't know if this is
work gonna work. That was the second thing. It's like,
we just don't know this is gonna work. But what
really flipped everything on its head for me was watching
my son interact with these sleep you know pods. I
thought that was the first sign, like okay, maybe, And
I kept on thinking of Temple Brandon, if you've ever
seen the movie or she has that squeeze machine. I'm like, Okay,
I can kind of see it, like there's obvious some
like sensitivities to one's surroundings. Maybe that has some influence
on sleep. And then I started learning that, like, oh well,
there's some serious sleep is shoes and autism community, which
I wasn't aware was like an autism thing because my
son was an okay sleeper. It wasn't great, but he
wasn't bad enough that it really demanded my attention. He
was getting maybe two hours below the average, not four
or five, six, seven hours below the average, and which
is a thing, you know. And the more I learned,
I thought like, okay, we got to look for like
a case study. We found a woman thirteen years old
with autism and some other disorders, and she was sleeping
in her fodds at and her mom's like, I've got
to try this. We said, no, promise this, but this
young woman, Natalie, jumped from four hours of sleep a
night on average, which she had been averaging over the
course of the previous eight years, to an average of
about ten hours and it literally happened overnight, and we're
so shocking, Tony. I just I thought, oh my gosh,
we've got to do something about this. And so ever
since then, we've been pushing for you know, getting this
thing covered by insurance and uh, you know what are
called disability waivers. We've had, we've had limited you know,
there's certain amounts of success with all of this, and
we are continuing to push really hard on that because
we're all believers. Now, we're all like, Okay, I don't
think that this is for every kid. What it is
for some kids, you know, just like you and I've
been talking about every kid manifests, you know, israat is
very differently and for some it's like, look, I'm really
sensitive to my sleep environment and I feel comforted with
if I have that kind of a surrounding. And so
now you know, it's a thing, and we've been getting
a lot of good attention. You know, I love that
I've got I've been able to be part of this experience.
It's been really far.
And that's so great. It's always it's nice to be
part of something that is helping others. So now you
have a son that's going to be sixteen years old.
And I've spoken with other parents that when they start
having kids that are that age, they come to them
wanting something that just scares them to death. One actually
had a son that wanted to learn how to drive,
and he said that he'd never been so frightened in
his life. Have you had anything like that yet, or
do you anticipate something coming that might just scare you
a little bit?
Well, driving is one of them already, and it's you
know what I'll tell you. You know what makes it
tougher is when he wants to learn to dry, but
his little brother, who's thirteen, also wants to learn to dry. Now,
his little brother doesn't have the gross and fine motor
skill challenges that he has, and so it's going to happen,
I'm telling you right now. And it's just I know
it's gonna look, you know, it's his brother's gonna get
it down. There's gonna be jealousy issues. You know, he's
going to feel like, you know, his brother's our favorite
child or something like that, which is not true. You know,
I love all of my kids, but that's one. There
are two others. You know he talks about and he's like,
can't wait to get married and have kids. And again
it's like, I think I know where you're getting at,
and that is like, I'm not going to kill any
of my kids dreams. Hey, you know, if you want
to get married, that's great, and I want to equip
you with all of the resources to be able to
function socially enough to be able to find that somewhere now.
But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know
if it's in the cards for him, if that's ever
going to happen. But my assumption is if I don't know,
I'm just going to assume that it's possible.
That's such a great attitude to have, and it's really
good for your son as well.
I'm going to give him all the resources I can.
And then you know, he wants to do a missionary
service for our church, which again, you know, I love
my tradition, I love you know, the joy it's brought me.
And yet it's a I've been a missionary. It's a
very demanding that.
Absolutely.
I know a few people that's done that and they
have said that it's very demanding.
And I think the thing that that scares me the
most is that responsibility of providing the resources, Like, am
I going to measure up as a provider? You know,
my wife and I are working as hard as we
can to be able to make these things happen for
our kids, and you know, I want to make sure
like it may not feel real to him right now,
but look, I just I just lost my mom and
my dad died a long time ago.
Oh I'm so sorry to hear that.
There's a lot of stuff that I don't feel prepared with,
and I just I want the right boy to have
a fulfilling life where he knows that mom and dad
love you well. And I'll tell you this is the thing, Tony,
I'm really trying to prepare it. So I'm working on him,
but I'm also working on his siblings because I'm hoping
that I'm a little bit old school in the sense that,
like I do believe that it's good for communities to
have housing for you know, the elderly, for mom and dad,
for you know, brothers and sisters who need that. I'm
all about that. I'm totally there, and yet I look
at you know, I used to live in China. I've
studied Chinese and one of the things like in the
Chinese culture, like knowing you don't put mom dad and
you bring mom and dad home to a little bit
to you you take care of them, and like, you
know what if my boy wants to stay with me
and my wife for the rest of you know, his
days are ours, you know, hopefully ours first. You know
then you know what I want that.
And you know that is just a very good thing
to want for their lives.
I I I want to be able to be there
for him, to always have a room in our hope
and when when we go or if we go, who knows.
I want his siblings to step up. And I'm not
going to force this on them, but in the ideal world, Tony,
I hope that when we die, that one of his
siblings will already be in a good enough place and
feel comfortable and happen enough love in their hearts, you know,
because not every family has siblings that stick it out together.
Unfortunately, that is so true.
And I want it badly, more than anything, more than wealth,
more than vacations. I want my kids to love each
other and to laugh with each other. Because there's nothing
as a parent, there's nothing that brings me more joy
than to see them totally jamming out with each other
and just loving life, playing with legos or whatever. You know,
whenever we're acting together. I just I'm a man that
makes parenting with us.
It surely does.
When you've got kids that get along and communicate with
each other and just support each other, there's nothing better
than that. Plus, that's the number one thing of everyone
that I speak with that's most concerning to them is
that if they were to leave this earth, who is
going to take care of their children that need help
so desperately. So I've got to say this, This has
been a tremendous conversation. A lot of good information, a
lot of great things were said. Now I'm going to
leave you with one last thing. If you could give
a bit of advice to anyone that might be going
through some of the things that you've gone through, what
would you tell them?
I think that if I could say it one thing,
it would be that you've got to have a heart
filled with loves as often as you can, believe in
the mendibility of relationship. Because you know, right now, I've
already had a couple run ins with my son where
oh my gosh, he's an adolescent and he's expressing himself,
how dare he? And so I have a lot of
faith in the ability that you know, he and I
that we can work things out, and working things out
it's gonna look a little bit different from other parents
working things out, but I feel fortunate that Joseph is
so forgiving. I also want to say, uh, you know,
I see a kind of a splintering in the autism community.
There's some for whom, like, you know, we've got I'm
gonna describe it and maybe kind of stereotypes because it's
the easiest way to describe a very complex thing, and
that is there. There's kind of this like, you know,
have you ever you know my kid has autism versus
my autistic kid? You know, Yeah, there's that debate. I
would just with all my heart, I would love to
see some mending between those two mindsets because we need
any community needs that for the community to exist and
to coexist peacefully. And I get it. That's there's a
part of the community for who like autism has been
a really painful experience for then you know, if they
have being con thence issues or fecal spearing worse, not
even being able to hear their kids say I love you.
Guess what, that's really painful. So to look at autism
and then to be told like this is this great thing,
celebrate it, you know, for them, I think that that
feels kind of you know, like what talking about this
is possible? This is really hard. And yet they love
their kids and they don't like the sincerity of their
love to be challenged. And then on the other side,
there's this side where it's just like, you know, I
don't want to be told that I have to be
a shamed my being different and being attacked because I'm
in difference and I don't want to be cured. And
you know what, yes, so I understand that too. That's
it's painful to be told all the time, to be
messaged with like, oh, this must be such a hard burden,
you bar you're so different, weird and stuff like that.
You know, that's cuddy, why why? Why? Why? Who? You know,
what we believe is autistic is very high functioning and
I know that even that term is loaded. Uh. But
but was heavily ostracized and made to feel different. So
guess what, I'm sympathetic to that side too, and so
I think that the diversity demands that we've been way
more understanding of each side of that debate, and that
each side needs to kind of disarm a little bit
and be a little bit kinder and say, you know what,
maybe I'm a little bit hard on those who are
looking for a way out, or maybe I'm a little
bit hard on those who are very defensive of their
on you know, like they want to be included and so,
you know, so that would be kind of my last message.
I'm sure someone's gonna want to attack me for saying
that there's just no way out of it, you know,
But I love all the people that I've ever met
in the autism community. I seek goodness and I want
that goodness to.
Be magnified absolutely, And I really appreciate you coming on
just so much good information, and I'm hoping that we
can do this again at some point.
Aimed an under percent agree. Thank you so much for
thank you for letting me articulate it.
Oh, it was my pleasure. And again, thanks for coming
on the show.
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