Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

How Do You Spell Mother?

2004; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/fro.2004.0030

1536-0334

Gloria Jeanne Bodtorf Clark,

Diverse Education Studies and Reforms

Sitting on the steps of Long Library on the campus of our small liberal arts college one beautiful fall day, my future husband, Rick, and I daydreamed about getting married and having a family. As we watched the bustle of activity on the central grassy square in front of us, we considered the possibility that our family might not be the ideal that we dreamed of, that our child or children might not be able to have, or perhaps not even want, a college education. What would we do if we had a child who was "not academically inclined?" Even at that point we knew that our lives would always entail research and writing. As we talked about the issues as we saw them, we decided that, although higher education was essential for us, it was not necessarily the best path for everyone. It would be our goal to instill in our future child or children the worth of human achievement in its many forms and the quest for the best quality of life possible. The truth is, in our altruistic discussion that day, it never occurred to us for a moment that we might have a mentally retarded child whose challenges would be greater than just choosing technical courses over academic ones. But here I am, many years later, waking up every morning to a reality that includes not one, but two children with cognitive disabilities. These two children, Maria and Isaac, did not come into our lives by the traditional way, but joined our family of four over a period of years as their parents died from AIDS.