Eek.

I am suddenly terrified about writing this book. In my Internet search for ideas for my presentation to Simon's class on World Down Syndrome Day, I came across this blog (which contained notes/photos/info from her own presentation to an elementary-school class). I just found it and I'm compelled to keep reading it because her short "About Me" section says:  "I'm a wife and a mother to seven kids. I'm a reader, a writer, and an advocate, a woman, a feminist, and an atheist. What you see is what you get: no bullshit." 

And, I may be hoping she never hears about my book. You know, once it's written. And published. And people read it. You know what I mean, right?

Her review of Kelle Hampton's Bloom.

Her review of Amy Julia Becker's A Good and Perfect Gift.


I think this is the reason most of my parent-of-a-kid-with-Down-syndrome book reviews are fairly lukewarm. I was not totally crazy about Bloom but was having a hard time specifying exactly what it was I didn't like; Matt didn't read the book but has read some of her blog and described her approach as "relentless positivity," also, "not the way you [I] would write it" (he immediately clarified he would prefer the way I would write it). Morguess (the author) (of the blog) agrees with that and expands it a hundred- or thousand-fold.

"Not totally crazy about it" would be about the extent of my criticism, though. I mean, really. I think (hope) I have accepted what some other folks do not seem to have understood, which is that I do not expect any one blog article/newspaper article/magazine article/book/TV news special, to meet all the needs of all the people who read it, especially if it's something less permanent than a book that most people are going to read once and then totally forget. Unless someone's work presents scientific/historical misinformation as fact, I try not to get too jacked up about it.

I haven't read A Good and Perfect Gift, but I do read Amy Julia Becker's blog and find her to be a well-educated, reasonable person. She writes from a staunchly Christian perspective because that's who she is and if Morguess doesn't get it or identify with her, maybe she should say that and stop there, and not imply that Becker should have written it just for her, or for all the other atheist parents of kids with Down syndrome out there.

Putting my book out there (once it's written/etc.) is a risk that I have been willing to take, continuing the lifelong struggle to truly accept the maxim "you are never going to please all the people all the time," knowing how hard it would actually be for me to receive criticism. I know (hope) I'll get over it, but right now "terrified" is really not too much of an exaggeration.