Disability
Stories, theology, and cultural commentary related to disability.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with our first child, I chatted with a friend about our upcoming ultrasound. "We find out whether we're having a boy or a girl tomorrow," I said.
She nodded with a slight smile, and responded, "And you find out if your baby is healthy tomorrow. I ...
Some book and article notes in a sec, but first: What's your favorite spiritual memoir? I'm looking for a good one. I've enjoyed Mary Karr, Anne Lamott, Martha Beck, and Kate Braestrup, to give you a sense of what I like. Any other favorites out there?
On the bedside table: I abandoned The Sun Also Rises ...
No new books for me this week, but here are the articles I tweeted this week that you might enjoy:
Family:
"If This #Sochi Ad Doesn't Make You Tear Up, Then Check Your Pulse" http://ow.ly/so1u9 #parenting #success http://ow.ly/i/4euvC
MTV's ‘16 and Pregnant' helping to reduce #TeenPreganancies?ow.ly/szeaD #pregnancy #TeenMom @AnnieLowrey @nytimes ...
In an article for the Catholic World Report, Leslie Fain writes:
In the last two or three years, at high schools from Florida to Illinois, students have been forsaking quarterbacks and cheerleading captains and electing teenagers with Down syndrome to be homecoming kings and queens.Last year, Target ...
A few nights back, we thought all the kids were asleep, only to discover Penny under our covers, reading Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship through Letters, written back and forth over the years by Amy Andrews and Jessica Griffith. "This is a cool book," she told me. And although I'm certain the ...
First of all, could someone please remind me that I should never try to submit a manuscript for a new book on January 3? I'm pretty sure my deadline for A Good and Perfect Gift was December 30th, 2010, and then I went and agreed to submit Small Talk today. The bad news is I got really stressed out about ...
It's Penny's birthday today, and I'm sure I will have some thoughts about her to share soon, but for now, in her honor, here are seven guest posts written for this blog in 2013, all related in some way to Down syndrome:
Life with Down Syndrome in Zambia An interview with a mother of a child with Down ...
Today's list includes my four favorite posts I wrote for other venues:
How to Talk to Kids (And Parents) About Disability (for PBS Parents): Even though I have a daughter with Down syndrome, for a long time I didn't know what to say when we encountered other people with physical or intellectual disabilities. ...
I wrote last week of an incident in which I realized Penny had appeared to be willfully disobedient, mean, and destructive (Happy Tears: Why I Believe in My Daughter). Based on what I already know about her and some gentle nudges from the Holy Spirit, I questioned that version of events. In time, by ...
Faith:
ow.ly/rv2h9 Making Jesus look good @kwpershey @ChristianCent#NadiaBolzWeber #BookReview #Pastrix
Recommended site for #Advent: ow.ly/rv2OT #Christmas
How much #money should we be #givingaway? nyti.ms/IWFoEQ @tarasbernard@nytimes #Donations #Charity
What's one subject you'd be willing to let go of for ...
I kneel down. Penny and William are both in front of me on the couch. Both look a little puzzled by my tears. I clasp their hands. "Happy tears. Happy tears," I say.
****
It is Saturday night. A few hours before my happy tears, Peter and I are sitting in church for a special service to commemorate the ...
Last week, Kari Wagner-Peck wrote, in an open letter to Chuck Klosterman, the New York Times' ethicist:
Today people with cognitive disabilities and their allies are asking members of society to refrain from using the word "retarded" (along with all mutations of the word) for the same exact reasons. ...
It's a fantastic, made-for-TV, feel-good story. Jimmy Jenson, a 48-year old man with Down syndrome, completed his second marathon on Sunday in New York City. I have never run farther than four miles. This guy made it 26.2 miles. It's a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself, but Jenson's story is ...
For the past month, in honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Month, I've invited a host of people–doctors, professors, mothers, fathers, and individuals with Down syndrome–to address a question that has come up across various news outlets in recent months: Should we try to cure Down syndrome? I began with ...
I am grateful to Amy Julia Becker for the invitation to make a small, but I hope nonetheless useful contribution to this ongoing discussion. The question "Should Down syndrome be cured"? is certainly interesting and controversial. But I do wonder if it is actually the right question for us to ask. I'm ...
This week is the final week of Down syndrome Awareness Month, and therefore the final week of posts addressing the question of whether we should try to "cure" Down syndrome. Today we hear from Alison Piepmeier, Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the College of Charleston and mother of Maybelle. ...
There's a video making the Internet rounds. It introduces us to Heath White, a father who didn't always love his daughter Paisley. Heath reads a letter in which he confesses that before Paisley was born, he urged his wife to have an abortion. Paisley was prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome, and ...
I first met Tryn Miller online a year ago when I ran a series about Down syndrome and friendship. Tryn, who has Down syndrome, and her friend Anna, wrote about their relationship (For Tryn's, click here and for Anna's click here). When I started thinking about the question of whether or not Down syndrome ...
This morning my middle son Caleb said he missed his brother Adam who has been at respite all week. Adam goes to respite periodically because Adam is classed as disabled. He has Down syndrome and Autism, and has recently finished two and a half years of hospital-based treatment for leukemia. One could ...
I am honored to share with you a guest post from author and ethicist Hans Reinders. As his bio attests below, Dr. Reinders has thought and written about ethics and disability for many years, and his thinking had a profound effect on my own understanding of the place of people with disabilities in our ...
