“My Perfect Child,” an essay in Christianity Today about coming to understand Penny as a gift and her life as very similar to mine in both its brokenness and its perfection, won First Place in the Evangelical Press Association’s Higher Ground Awards for 2011. One paragraph from the essay that sums it up: Five years ago, the hopeful and joyous words from the hospital room next door—”She’s perfect! She’s perfect!”—haunted me. Now they seem prophetic. Penny was not the “perfect... Read more
I’ve held naive assumptions about both abortion and adoption in the past, and I’ve asked naive questions. One of those questions brings the two together as I’ve had trouble understanding why women who are unexpectedly pregnant chose abortion instead of adoption, especially when many of those women believe abortion is ethically wrong. At the Q conference in DC a few weeks back, Angie Weszely, President of Caris, explained it to me. For a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy, pregnancy involves... Read more
A few weeks ago, I ran a series of posts about the possibilities for friendship for kids and adults with disabilities. I’ve written about Penny’s friendships, I shared a post from Ben Conner about friendship among adolescents, and an exchange between two adult women– Tryn Miller, who has Down syndrome, and her friend Anna Broadway. Today I have the privilege of sharing Jennifer Grant’s story of her middle-school age daughter Isabel’s longstanding friendship with Sam, who also happens to have... Read more
I’m still working to get the eye makeup off after a really nice morning on Friday on the set of 100 Huntley Street, a Canadian Christian television show. I spoke with Moira, the host of the show, about my darkest parenting fears, living in the present moment, our purpose as parents, and the ways Penny has surprised us all. To watch the full interview: Read more
This post started out with a different title: “Things I Love, Hate, and Wish I Loved About Being a Mother.” And then I thought, well, I don’t allow my kids to use the word hate, so I’ll modify that to say “things I really don’t like” about being a mother. And then I started writing, and although I came up with some things I really don’t like (I’ll give you one for each child, just to be clear: Marilee’s 5:30... Read more
I’m heading to Toronto today for a quick trip–first, tonight, to meet in person my online friend Louise Kinross, editor of Bloom: Parenting Kids with Disabilities and then to offer some thoughts on achievement and identity as a Bloom speaker tonight. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be interviewed for television for the first time on 100 Huntley Street. I’m excited and grateful and totally nervous. I had a dream a few nights back that I was late to a speaking engagement that... Read more
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk with Tony Rossi about A Good and Perfect Gift. He has posted the interview on his blog, Christopher Closeup. It includes a link to our conversation as well as transcribed excerpts to questions that range from the practical: “In today’s world, what does a diagnosis of Down syndrome mean for a child’s health and prospects for life? Is it different for everyone or are there common denominators?” to the personal:... Read more
I just realized that I forgot to tell you all that Quin Hillyer reviewed A Good and Perfect Gift in the American Spectator a few weeks ago. I remembered because he blogged about it again last week, in response to George Will’s column about his son Jon, who has Down syndrome and just celebrated his 40th birthday. In Hillyer’s original piece, La Vita e Bella, which used excerpts from A Good and Perfect Gift to reflect upon Rick Santorum’s daughter... Read more
When Penny was first born, when the doctors shocked us with the news that she appeared to have Down syndrome, the presence of a third copy of her 21st chromosome, I was hit hard with doubts. I doubted my abilities as a mother. I doubted my capacity to love a child who was different than I expected. And I doubted God’s intentions in creating her. I thought there was a little girl hiding behind the extra chromosome, and I thought... Read more
This morning, I linked to my post for her.meneutics in which I reviewed Ellen Painter Dollar’s No Easy Choice: A Story of Disability, Parenthood and Faith in an Age of Advanced Reproduction. As a follow up to that review, I asked Ellen to reflect upon some of the questions her book raised for me: As No Easy Choice explains, many decisions regarding reproductive technology are not black and white ethical choices, but rather gray areas. Could you give one example... Read more
Thin Places-Faith, Family and Disability
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