July, 2021
Advocado Press and the Center for Accessible Living publish “A Celebration of Family: Stories of Parents with Disabilities”
The Advocado Press and the Center for Accessible Living in Louisville, Kentucky are proud to announce the publication of “A Celebration of Family: Stories of Parents with Disabilities.” Edited by Dave Matheis with an introduction by Jason Jones, The book contains the stories of thirty families. In every family, one or both parents have disabilities: physical, mental, sensory, and/or intellectual. The stories illustrate the infinite variety of the American family. It is that variety that gives the family both its strength and its beauty. Like individuals, no two families are the same.
In the course of discussing their family experiences, the parents cover a number of topics. Most stories concern having children through birth, but there are also stories about fostering and adopting. Four stories concern single parenthood. Many parents talk about adaptations and accommodations they made to be effective parents, but even more talk about how wonderfully adaptive their children were to their disabilities. Many parents talk about individual discrimination and societal bias they have faced. A number of stories highlight the decision-making process to have children when the possibility exists of passing on an inheritable condition. Parents are included that had children before they acquired a disability and they relate how that acquired disability affected their family. Several parents discuss legal and policy issues around parenting with a disability. The stories contain humor, compassion, and gratitude. They are proof that one thing you can get any parent to talk about is their children.
As one parent in the book puts it, “if you suck as a person, you are going to suck as a parent, whether you have a disability or not. If you are compassionate and caring and nurturing as a person, you will be like that as a parent, too.”
The book can be purchased through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0972118942?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
Praise for “A Celebration of Family”
“Many valuable books have been written in the past few decades that describe the lives of people living with disabilities. There are also books about families advocating and caring for their children living with disabilities, as well as stories of people negotiating the ways of a society that rarely takes differences into account, and of positive steps that people with disabilities have pushed for and won that have changed the lives of all people for the better. “Until I read this book, I had not read the stories of parents who live with disabling conditions who are raising both typical children and children with differences. This is a strong and personal look at the lives I often witnessed with both friends and clients living with physical, sensory and intellectual issues. Now these stories are collected in a book that people will read, enjoy, and, through it, come to see how others have made parenting work in sometimes unusual circumstances. They tell about a possible, joyful and loving experience. “These stories are the missing link in peer support, community awareness and a broadening openness to lives creatively lived.”
Julie Shaw Cole, Author of “Getting Life”
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