A series of articles that might be of interest to readers who are interested in topics related to disability: An article in Canadian Family, “The Downside of Special,” written about the difficulties of parenting a child with special needs. The tone of this article is honest without dipping into self-pity. My favorite line: This is another hard truth about having a child with special needs: The things that are most endearing and lovable about the child may be invisible to... Read more
(An abridged version of this review appeared in the May/June issue of Books and Culture.) Fifty years ago, when Anne Crosby’s son Matthew was born with Down syndrome, the life expectancy of a “mongoloid” child was around twenty years. Doctors and teachers called children with Down syndrome “ineducable,” and professionals advised institutionalization for these children because it would be detrimental to the rest of the family to keep them at home. As one doctor says about Dido, Matthew’s older sister,... Read more
It kind of bugs me that the press is paying so much attention to Harold Camping. He’s the California preacher who has predicted (for the second time–he was wrong in 1994) that the “rapture” will occur tomorrow. Which is to say, he’s predicted that a group of chosen people will be whisked away, swooped into heaven, and the rest of humanity will be left “behind,” which is to say, here on earth. Oh, and we’ll be left behind to suffer.... Read more
Is social media helping create a generation of narcissists? This is the question posed by Heidi Stevens of the Chicago Tribune in her interview with author Larry Bugen: Q: Start by defining narcissism, because I think it means different things to different people. A: An uncompromising self-absorption which alienates others and compromises the well-being of all. We all have a healthy self-interest, or should, but at what point do we become so involved with our own self-interest that we become... Read more
A long time ago, I read that most adults in the U.S. only have two or three friends. I was in college at the time, and I thought the data must be wrong. Back then, I saw my “best” friends daily and my “good” friends weekly. I had dozens, if not hundreds of friends. Even now, I have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook, but I don’t often interact with them in a meaningful way. Most of my closest friends live... Read more
When the doctor delivered the news that my ten-month old daughter Bette was hearing impaired, I was stunned. How could that be? She makes noises. She is playful. She laughs big belly laughs. How can she not hear? There must be some mistake. But it was no mistake. The doctor did his best to explain the diagnosis, while I sat and cried and my sweet baby girl played in my lap. Follow up testing only brought more bad news. Not... Read more
A few years back, I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about a “wrongful birth” lawsuit. A woman sued her doctors after her child was born with severe disabilities because she would have aborted had her daughter’s genetic abnormalities been detected in utero. The writer of the article sums up the problem well: “… ethics and standards are being hashed out in the courts, in one lawsuit after another. And what those cases are exposing is the... Read more
I was putting Penny to bed tonight and I asked, “Do you want me to pray for you?” She nodded. “What do you want me to pray for?” “Help me control my hands at school.” When I had picked Penny up from school that morning, her teacher had told me Penny was “like a tumbleweed.” I can imagine the details–rolling around on the floor during circle time, taking toys from other kids, refusing to follow directions… When I asked Penny... Read more
I don’t think about it much any more, but when Penny was born, some of the hardest questions to face were those about her future. Will she ever drive a car? Get married? Have children? Hold a job? Live on her own? Those questions still exist, of course, and they come up from time to time, but for the most part my questions about Penny remain focused on the day to day needs of our life: How do I help... Read more
Around 5:30 most evenings, the inevitable question arises. What are we going to eat for dinner? Sometimes I’ve planned it out in advance, but most days it’s a scramble. And although I intend to provide nutritious meals every night, efficiency sometimes wins out. There was a time when Peter bought “healthy” hot dogs–nitrate free, no preservatives, organic, etc. My response: “Peter, this totally defeats the purpose of hot dogs. I would have to spend 10 minutes cooking these before I... Read more
Thin Places-Faith, Family and Disability
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