Super Babies and the Cost of Control
I recently read a Washington Post essay entitled “Inside the Silicon-Valley Push to Breed Super Babies.” It describes the latest technology to screen embryos for genetic differences, technology which claims…
Photos by Bryan Johnson
How Love Disrupts the Hierarchy
You may have noticed that I didn’t write a Substack last week. I took the week off because I was at Hope Heals Camp in Nauvoo, Alabama, with our family.…
Life, Animated
Journalist Ron Suskind’s son Owen was diagnosed with autism at age three. Over the course of the previous year, Owen had stopped talking and seemed more and more withdrawn from…
“The Work of Caring for My Daughter Will Never Be ‘Efficient’”
I am very grateful to Julie Kim for writing about the importance of the Department of Education—and her concern over the Trump administration’s cuts to that department and the recent…
by Cloe Poisson
Choosing not to worry about your children (and how to turn worry into prayer)
“Big kids, big problems.” I’ve heard the phrase for years, and I’ve been a little dismissive of it. I love having teenagers. I love the conversations we have about current…
July 2025 | Things Worth Your Time
Books, essays, podcasts episodes, and more that I think are worth your time, plus recent cultural news that I’m paying attention to… BOOKS BOOK: The Hospitality of Need by Kevan Chandler…
2013
Our daughter has Down syndrome. Can she live a full life?
Here's what I know... Penny has different capacities when it comes to learning, but she has no limits on her capacity to love, or to live a full life. Our…
Assumptions Without Curiosity
We just returned from two weeks in Italy as a family. It held all the things we had hoped for. We peeked into churches with some of my favorite Caravaggio…
The Big, Beautiful Bill?
As we return from vacation and I get back up to speed on the news, I’m trying to wrap my head around the implications of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that…
Kids, Disability, and Relationships
Here’s what I wish parents of typically developing kids knew about disability and relationships: Disability isn’t a completely different experience. It’s often a magnified version of the human experience we all…
