Flourishing with Down Syndrome
When I was still pregnant with Penny, I had a sense that God had given me a passage from the Bible for her. It came from Psalm 1: “Blessed is…
When I was still pregnant with Penny, I had a sense that God had given me a passage from the Bible for her. It came from Psalm 1: “Blessed is…
Peter recently flew home and noticed that Delta Air Line’s opening safety video included an image of a man with Down syndrome sitting in the plane. It was a little…
24 hours after my essay for the New York Times came out online, I learned it was also in the print edition! So that was exciting. But I also learned…
Gulp. I got to write an opinion piece for the New York Times about prenatal tests and Down syndrome. There are all sorts of problems with the prenatal testing industry…
When Penny was three months old, and we were so very new to all things parenting and all things related to disability, we attended a conference for parents of children…
In my recent essay for Plough Magazine, I wrote, “Penny was diagnosed with a ‘disability’ when she was born, and I still use that word to describe her condition because…
When Penny was younger, I resisted setting goals for her. The early years of her life were full of measurements and yardsticks and a sense of "falling short" of developmental…
I asked Penny if she would be willing to answer a few questions about her experience with the PATH process. These are her unedited responses: How would you explain what…
Once a year, a group of people from Penny’s school, family, and community gather together with her to talk about her hopes and dreams for the future through a process…
Penny started planning for her Sweet Sixteen three years ago. It was the topic of many a family walk—who would be invited, what the menu would entail, how we would…