A bunch of years ago, I volunteered to have our family interviewed by Andrew Solomon for his book project about raising a child of difference. When the book was released to critical acclaim we were invited to join Andrew on the Katie Couric Show. From the beginning, I said I did all of this in hopes that any family of a child with Kniest Syndrome (a rare form of dwarfism) might find our story and…
View moreDwarfs
Neither dwarfs nor average-height people have reached full agreement on whether dwarfism is a disability, but it is certainly a difference, perhaps the most immediately visible of those chronicled in Far from the Tree.
Many dwarfs experience their condition as an identity, and some seek to have children who are also dwarfs, raising questions about the ethics of selecting for difference. Dwarfs must face down the perception of themselves as comical or bizarre, and many have made a life's work of doing so, achieving great dignity in the process.
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Far From the Tree Comes Full Circle Michigan , United States -
April Martin Three-fer NY , USA I'm the lesbian mother, with my wife, by donor insemination, of a transgender son and a dwarf son (plus a third son as well). We gave birth in 1981 and 1984, before our children had many options of horizontal identities among children of LGBT parents. (My book, the Lesbian and Gay Parenting Handbook, HarperCollins, came out in 1993). My professional life as a psychologist includes an expertise in…
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Eve Mykytyn AZ , US Just wanted to mention another danger of limb lengthening. You take a child out of his or her social environment and put them in great pain. Then the child is heavily medicated with opium related drugs. It does not take a child long to realize that these drugs help ease mental pain as well. Such surgeries add a real danger of addiction to the child's other challenges.
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Russell Hayes We were also at the LPA convention in Boston. Our daughter was born with Achondroplasia. I read the Chapter in your book on Dwarfs. Well done, thank you. I also was an EMS Helicopter pilot in Iraq. I rescued an Iraqi family with three handicapped children with Morquio type of dwarfism. They now live with me in Idaho. My interpreter (a Muslim) in Iraq wanted to tell the Salman family, (they are also…
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