I'm still reading Andrew Solomon's Far from the Tree. I haven't finished it yet--indeed, I'm only on page 95 out of 962 pages (!!)--but I'm finding it quite thought-provoking. For instance, here's a great quote about parenthood:
Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination.And this one:
It is always both essential and impossible to tease apart the difference between the parents' wanting to spare the child suffering and the parents' wanting to spare themselves suffering.I'll blog here in a substantive way when I've finished the book. I can already tell that Andrew Solomon is going to be quoted at least once or twice in my book.
But here's why I'm blogging: three or four people have sent me a link to this review in the last 24 hours. It's a really good piece, and it makes me strongly suspect that I'm going to be gritting my teeth painfully while reading Solomon's chapter on Down syndrome.
"Loving a Child on the Fringe." Check out the adorable pictures of Eurydice.
1 comment:
I am also in the midst of reading this book, and although I am enjoying it, I have just finished reading the chapter on children with Down Syndrome and was left feeling a little bit cheated. I did not feel it was as as well done, or as well understood by the author as the first two chapters on Deaf children and Little people. I don't know if he values the lives of people with intellectual disabilities the way he does the others. So it does not really surprise me the way he acts when he has a scare concerning his own child. As a special education teacher of students with multiple disabilities, I am interested in reading that chapter.
Lisa
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