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5 comments about Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child.

1. This book is an ambush. The author uses his son's disability as a platform to rant about social ills which have been visited upon us by overbearing social conservatives and religious fanatics. Still, I felt compelled to read on, in grim fascination--which turned to alarm at Berube's egregious misrepresentation of the Catholic Church's teaching on birth control. Such a disingenuous slap compromises his credibility on almost every other subject he treats in the book.
   Still, being the parent of a child with Down syndrome, I waded through the morass in hope of finding some merit. And I found it in the author's discussion of the value of inclusive education in chapter 5. But even here, the terrain was arduous, requiring considerable resolve in order to plow through his treatment of Dawkins, Darwin, Rawls, and Kant, among others.
   I checked out a book titled "Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child." The book I read would be better titled "Life As I Know It: A Father, A Filibuster, and An Exceptional Ego."



2. I had expected this book to be a memoir about a boy with down syndrome, I thought that it was a dramatic story with lots of emotion. Instead it's simply a book discussing in great depth about biology and genetics. It discusses the reproduction process and mitosis and goes on and on on the topic of genetics. The book later goes on to talk about abortion and whether or not it should be allowed, and many other related debates. While I found the discussions about genetics and abortion to be relatively interesting, I don't understand why the book is based around it. This book is not so much a memoir as it is a biology textbook in disguise. if you want to read a biology textbook then by all means, buy this book. However, if you would like to read a touching memoir about a boy and his life with down syndrome, then try a different book, because as other reviewers have said: this book is not what it claims to be



3. I read this book as a pediatrician wanting to gain insight into my patients and their families. I really enjoyed the descriptions of raising their child. However, I found the philosophy and policy analysis a little too long winded and less helpful.



4. Berube writes a compelling book about his struggles to remain true to the parent/child relationship with his son who is diagnosed with Down's syndrome. Berube's book does a nice job of showing a different side of Downs syndrome - one where a child is a child, not someone (thing) to be feared, locked away or pitied. He writes clearly about the pressures to medicalize his son (meaning talk about him in the ways doctors would) since the medical world is such a part of their history with him. He tells of how he and his wife work to maintain decisions that are respectful of the child they are raising. Berube does a great job of explaining medical processes while also telling where they fall short, how they apply differently to different people and how he can continue to see others' points of view and wish more people could see his. Berube brings up big issues like abortion and (public vs private) health care to name a few. He relates his personal feelings to larger social conditions like how our society treats people with disabilities (which is not very well). This is a must read for teachers, doctors, nurses, and infact everyone, since we, as a society, need to work on seeing disabled people as people.



5. This book works best as memoir. Berube is very moving when he describes the first years of his son's life. I too am the father of a boy with Down's syndrome and can vouch for the clarity and truthfulness of the account. The book's many digressions into politics and philosophy could put off some readers, but most of them are well-worth reading and pondering. I only wish they hadn't interrupted the flow of the personal story. The only sidebar I really disagreed with was the one on abortion. It was too strident (Berube is pro-choice), especially coming from someone well-placed to see both sides of this issue. That said, I would recommend this book to any parent of a mentally retarded child, or, for that matter, to any citizen concerned about the place of disabled people in our society. I hope Berube writes another book ten years from now and lets us know how Jamie is doing.

1 comments about Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dog Tails: Growing Up Intersexed.

1. I've read very few memoirs as utterly revealing and no-holds-barred as Katherine Connella's powerful coming of age story. Born intersexed at a time when the condition was a complete medical mystery (it's only now becoming broadly discussed in the medical community), Connella was raised as a boy, all the while knowing deep down that she was indeed female. Her tale takes you through mental institutions, violence, discrimination, and misunderstanding, yet she clearly tells this difficult tale from a survivor's perspective.

   If you're curious about intersexuality and eager to learn about it from a personal rather than a clinical point of view, I wholeheartedly recommend Connella's brave, moving book.

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