Parenthood, disability, ethics, and the crooked way of grace
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Factory Disasters in Bangladesh, Consumerism, and Original Sin

I approach buying clothes for my children with the same compulsive attention to my kids’ individual needs and wants that I bring to Christmas gift buying. Focused attention to my kids’ clothing needs is, for me, as much an embodiment of mat...

The Summer When I Didn’t Cherish Time with My Kids

Note: I wrote this in the summer of 2009. I am reposting it here as summer approaches, as a reminder (to myself, above all) of how radically life can change us in surprising ways. I used to despise the summertime, for reasons I explain in this post. No...

How Mother’s Day 2006 Was the Beginning of the Rest of My Life

This is the story I told at this past weekend’s inaugural Speak Up storytelling event in Hartford. In my next email newsletter, I will include a link to the Speak Up podcast, which includes my telling this story to a live audience (with considera...

Parents-to-Be Have More Choices Than Ever, But We Can’t Choose Our Way Out of Pain

Jennifer Gilmore’s story is enough to scare anyone away from open adoption. (It also provides the best supporting evidence ever for my contention that “Why don’t you just adopt?” might be one of the stupidest questions known to huma...

On Silence and Simplicity & Their Opposites (Or, Why I Have Decided to Keep Writing Despite the Prospect of a “Real” Job and a Paycheck)

My blog has been silent for several weeks now, and perhaps some of you have wondered why. (Perhaps you haven’t, in which case this post might not suit your fancy. I promise more substance in future posts). There are straightforward reasons for my...

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