Reddit reviews Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

I say this as a gay man: You've done the right thing and don't doubt it for a second.

I am happily married to a man and we have an adopted son so one can say I am definitely comfortable as a gay person. I am also well aware of the philosophical, parallel arguments between something like engineering homosexuality out of a fetus in untero and cochlear implants killing out the deaf community.

The truth is, if I had the choice, I hope my son would be straight. Not because I'm against gay people obviously, but it is a matter of challenges within the world. My teen life (and young adulthood) was miserable as a gay person. People can say "Oh, it is the fault of society and not homosexuality itself" and while that is very true, the fact remains that being such a minority was a disadvantage in many ways.

Now let's talk about deafness.

The challenges and handicaps to one's daily life that a deaf person faces are so much more severe than anything I've gone through. Sure Deaf culture has formed. Sure, it is vibrant and unique and worth something.

But at what cost? I cannot imagine for a second denying my child something so basic to survival as the ability to hear. I want to slap the shit out of the deaf community for being so against this.

I get it...I get it: "There is nothing wrong with us! There is nothing to fix!" As a gay person I've said the same thing but goddammed if I didn't wish I was straight as a teenager so that I can find a wife and have children. While I would grimace at the idea of someone "turning their kid straight" in the womb, I'd understand them wanting to. I'd get it.

I don't think the similarities between homosexuality and deafness are identical, but there are definitely parallels and I do believe it gives me some insight into this. I also believe we can accurately label deafness as a disability much more readily than we could homosexuality in today's climate, and I understand the definitions of the word disability change over time.

Anyway, have you read "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon? It is his Pulitzer Prize winning book about parents raising children very different from themselves. There are chapters on dwarfism, autism etc and there is also one on deafness. I highly suggest checking it out if you haven't already.

EDIT: Link to the book
[https://www.amazon.com/Far-Tree-Parents-Children-Identity-ebook/dp/B007EDOLJ2]

Not exactly specific to genetic counseling but I liked these two and read them before going to school:

1. Far From the Tree - each chapter explores the experiences of living with or having a child with a certain identity or condition
   
   
2. Genetic Rounds - a narrative by a geneticist (MD) and each chapter tells a story about a different child or family he's met impacted by a genetic coundtion (I'm not sure why it's so expensive on Amazon, I'm sure you'd be able to find it cheaper elsewhere!)
   
   These books are both more about families' experiences than GCs, but I think they offer a good introduction into what we can encounter in our work.

Still Alice a personal account about Alzheimers

Far From the Tree, a family centered book on identity and disability

Since you mentioned Ted Talks, check out Temple Grandin's Ted Talk on her perspective of Autism Spectrum Disorders

+Feed_Me_No_Lies:

I say this as a gay man: You've done the right thing and don't doubt it for a second.

I am happily married to a man and we have an adopted son so one can say I am definitely comfortable as a gay person. I am also well aware of the philosophical, parallel arguments between something like engineering homosexuality out of a fetus in untero and cochlear implants killing out the deaf community.

The truth is, if I had the choice, I hope my son would be straight. Not because I'm against gay people obviously, but it is a matter of challenges within the world. My teen life (and young adulthood) was miserable as a gay person. People can say "Oh, it is the fault of society and not homosexuality itself" and while that is very true, the fact remains that being such a minority was a disadvantage in many ways.

Now let's talk about deafness.

The challenges and handicaps to one's daily life that a deaf person faces are so much more severe than anything I've gone through. Sure Deaf culture has formed. Sure, it is vibrant and unique and worth something.

But at what cost? I cannot imagine for a second denying my child something so basic to survival as the ability to hear. I want to slap the shit out of the deaf community for being so against this.

I get it...I get it: "There is nothing wrong with us! There is nothing to fix!" As a gay person I've said the same thing but goddammed if I didn't wish I was straight as a teenager so that I can find a wife and have children. While I would grimace at the idea of someone "turning their kid straight" in the womb, I'd understand them wanting to. I'd get it.

I don't think the similarities between homosexuality and deafness are identical, but there are definitely parallels and I do believe it gives me some insight into this. I also believe we can accurately label deafness as a disability much more readily than we could homosexuality in today's climate, and I understand the definitions of the word disability change over time.

Anyway, have you read "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon? It is his Pulitzer Prize winning book about parents raising children very different from themselves. There are chapters on dwarfism, autism etc and there is also one on deafness. I highly suggest checking it out if you haven't already.

EDIT: Link to the book
[https://www.amazon.com/Far-Tree-Parents-Children-Identity-ebook/dp/B007EDOLJ2]