Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity Kindle Edition

As the hearing girlfriend of a profoundly deaf person, I’ve been recommended this book by several people. I just finished the chapter on Deafness (the second chapter of the book) and ... wow. The conclusion he comes to is breathtakingly simplistic and frankly asinine in its language choices and false equivalencies.“You can admire Deaf culture and still choose not to consign your children to it. The loss of diversity is terrible, but diversity for the sake of diversity is a lie. A Deaf culture kept pure when hearing is available to all would be equivalent to those historical towns where everyone lives as though it were the eighteenth century.”.......... First of all, parents often make choices based on what’s best for them not their children. As he concedes earlier, a choice to implant a toddler is often for the parents’ benefit so they don’t need to learn sign language. In one lazy swoop, he devalues Deaf culture and the lives of deaf people. Why bother with all that when you can just genetically and/or surgically modify deaf fetuses and children?People with hearing loss don’t choose to be part of Deaf culture for the sake of diversity. They choose to be part of it because of the innate human desire to celebrate and engage with their identity — this is literally the premise of his book. How is this “a lie”? I don’t follow this sentence.Lastly, it’s utterly irresponsible and offensive to compare upholding Deaf culture to living in fake historical communities. Much less call it equivalent! Deaf people use adaptive technology to enable them to live in a world functionally built for hearing people. They certainly aren’t hiding in backward-looking colonies trying to recapture life in a simpler time. A person (a parent, a child) has every right to forgo an invasive surgery or in vitro modifications (which he seems to believe is the way we will and should eradicate deafness). Oral culture isn’t necessarily the future. Hearing isn’t destiny. He could just as easily (more easily!!!) reached the conclusion that a hearing world kept inaccessible when accommodations can be made available to all is the equivalent to those historical towns where everyone lives as though it were the eighteenth century. That would have been a far more apt comparison.Regardless of all the awards this book apparently got, I don’t know if I want to read the rest. I’m really not inclined to read 600+ more pages of Andrew Solomon’s thoughts on marginalized identities now that he has made his agenda and bias so clear. And while I understand that he, perhaps for framing or ego purposes, he decided to superimpose his own narrative as a gay man onto his “study” of these other horizontal identities, his choice to also impose his opinion and judgment on these other identities is distasteful to say the least.

This is a must read for any parent who has ever asked themselves "what did I do wrong?" Solomon has extensively researched and deeply reported the differences and similarities between parents of children who cannot be called "normal." Dwarfs, deaf people, people with Down syndrome, children with autism, transgender kids -- they all provide challenges to parents in ways that are more similar than I would have ever imagined. I've taken comfort from knowing that there are many, many more people out there with which there is an opportunity for shared connection. Humanity's hope has always been in finding where we can connect. I have learned much, felt much, and I have deep thanks to Solomon for sharing this work with the world.As an aside, this is a thick book but it does not need to be read cover to cover. Read the first chapter (Son) and then choose the chapter that speaks most to you. Then you can go back later and read other chapters.

I found the first chapters too sugarcoated. Is it really so easy to raise a severaly mentally retarded child? Noone considered abortion and some of those parents even called it the best "gift" they ever got in life. Very hard to relate. Hearing parents of deaf children liked it so much they even wanted to have more deaf children. The author keeps repeating how the deaf folks have their own unique culture to the point that they are not even disabled. Really?? On another hand, the "autism" chapter is as dark as dark gets - the author features only the worst cases of the disorder and mentions how desperate parents of autistic children sometimes kill their kids to escape the misery. My child is autistic (not an extreme case) so I did not enjoy that darkness. It is hard to parent an autistic child but at least we still have hope that things will get better and daughter will live a normal life one day. What I am trying to say is that perhaps the chapters should be a bit more balanced in terms of tone. You would be forgiven to come to the conclusion that to have a Down syndrom child or a dwarf is a walk in a garden while if you have an autistic or schizophrenic one, you should shoot yourself in the head. Currently I am stuck in the "prodigies" chapter. Most of these prodigies are Asians who started playing piano (or violin) in their toddlerhood. There are dozens of these stories and they all sound the same. Perhaps a few would do and areas other than just classical music should be added. I am also not getting how the difficulties raising disabled children (sometimes profoundly disabled kids who die in their childhood or are in the vegetable state) and raising these little geniuses are compared. As a special needs mother, I find this comparison highly inappropriate.

I bought this book on a recommendation of a friend who has reared special needs kids. The basic premise of the author seems to be the elevation of characteristics that have historically been considered to be "handicaps" to a level of a standard. He provides many examples, and includes the growing activism of groups of people who are deaf, Down's Syndrome, autistic, for example. The problem with this is the individual becoming identified by the thing that is different from "most people", rather than their accomplishments. This mindset fits in well with the current trend toward identity politics, people identifying with a special interest group and demanding the world conform to them, rather than as a member of humanity, each with their own special challenges (some not so visible) and gifts. It tends to alienate and fracture society. Can all of us appreciate the differences, and be more sensitive to the challenges of others? Absolutely. But there is nothing wrong with having surgery or a cochlear implant to make life easier. To hint that there is, leads to the questioning of fashion, cosmetics, and even medical care itself.

Extraordinary study of parenthood drawing on over 500 interviews with parents of children with differences/disabilities ranging from dwarfism to autism and transgender. There's even an interesting foray into parenting child musical prodigies. Throughout, Solomon reflects on his own position as a gay father and how the experience of meeting people who'd had children in the hardest of circumstances still managed to value and love their kids regardless of the hardship. This is a very long read so requires time and commitment but is well worth it in the end.

This is a readable book. You really get your moneys worth, it's a weighty book with generous chapters. Life affirming but not in a soundbite way, probably essential reading for anyone whose has a different child, I know it helped me enormously. Highly recommend.

Very interesting book has its ups and downs but overall well worth time taken too read as it is a weight tome. My major issue is that it is so big it crashed my kindle every 10 pages or so even with up to date settings this was so irritating I almost gave up on the book but instead have had to purchase again as a book in order to complete reading it. I would not buy a kindle version but go for book version.

Rating this book even though I haven't finished it - which brings me neatly to why I think its a 4 star rather than 5 star book.There is a great deal of wisdom and compassion in this book, which is for the most part, very well written. However all too often, I found myself reading 8 or 10 pages, but feeling as if I'd only received 3 or 4 pages of substance. This is a shame, since no other book has given me such deep and compassionate insight into the lives of people with (for example) Downs and Autism.If you are happy with a prolonged read, then you will not regret buying this book.

beautifully written - it looks at horizontal identities - those we develop ourselves - which may differ wildly from the vertical identities we inherit from our parents - language culture race religion. He looks at Deaf Gay trans etc culture and in the end what remains is an affirmation of what makes us truly human. I saw him speak at Hay and his talk stayed with me for months. A brilliant read