What does having a disability means to the individual as well as to the family. Do we have any "disabilities" which other people need to accommodate when they are with us?Again, our thoughts first, and then a piece about “skeptical readers” pulled from the Internet. Different than a child with autism, one with Downs Syndrome displays their emotions right out there, especially happiness. We talked a bit how 20 years ago it is unbelievable that people would say to abort. We could see the choice between a high powered university experience and striving for excellence versus being happy. The story really made us think about what makes one happy. How it doesn’t have to be excellence or perfection.
We talked about colleges and pressures. We also shared stories of when “someone watched over” us at a particular time in our life. It seems it could have been angels, or God, or some Higher Power in the Universe. No one seemed to feel the physical presence that Martha experiences, but we could share how solutions came to us when we were in no state to be able to create them ourselves. Eat, Pray, Love had that moment when Elizabeth was in the bathroom falling apart and a voice told her it was going to be okay.
We compared the two disabilities. A parent of a child with Downs can count on affection from that child. On the other hand, society’s expectations differ. People are empathetic, sympathetic, and have pity because the disability is so visible. With autism, a parent cannot always expect a hug (Christopher could only touch fingertips). From the outside world, the child looks normal, so when he or she takes a fit, society wonders why you the parent can’t do anything to stop them.
Below are some summaries from Amazon and other such sites:
WHEN MARTHA BECK was a graduate student at Harvard she had a startling experience. A woman she was interviewing as part of her research suddenly declared that a message was being channeled through her to Beck: "He says that you shouldn't be so worried. He says you'll never be as hurt by being open as you have been by remaining closed."
The woman said that the message came from Beck's son. She didn't know that three-year-old Adam had Down's syndrome and had never spoken. "I felt the hair go up on my arms," relates Beck. "You see, no matter how much evidence you have, over time you tend to block out the experiences that aren't `normal.'" Adam's mother, who doesn't know whether to make a mad dash for the door to escape a raving lunatic (after all, how many conversations like this one can you have before you stop getting dinner party invitations and start pushing a mop yourself?) or accept another in a series of life lessons from an impeccable but mysterious source.
Both Beck and her husband, John, were raised Mormon, a faith they had renounced long before they reached Harvard in the '80s. They also tried to subdue any shred of weakness. "At Harvard," Beck explains, "the appearance of confidence is essential to social survival. Without it, you're like the wounded animal in the herd." For this reason, Beck had invented a persona for herself called "Fang" who was, as the name implies, voraciously aggressive and competitive. Any overt show of compassion or familial caring was unacceptable in that milieu. In fact, John had been excoriated in front of a large class at the Harvard Business School for having attended the birth of their first child, Katie. The professor had ranted that such an excuse for missing class was a disgrace and that John should drop out of graduate school--advice he refused to take. They juggled their marriage, school and careers in order to parent their 18 month old daughter, Katie. From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They'd plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. Martha writes candidly about her feelings during this time. She also discusses the reactions and perceptions of others. Relatives had a hard time accepting the diagnosis. Medical personnel and Harvard colleagues didn't think Adam should be born at all.
Expecting Adam is a poignant, challenging, and achingly funny chronicle of the extraordinary nine months of Martha's pregnancy. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked. Through her pregnancy, Beck began to believe in angels. She is adamant that her son spoke to her in-utero and his conception was prearranged. This is pretty amazing considering the author's research background, so dependent on data and facts.
SKEPTICAL READERS might discount Beck's story as the figment of the overactive, hormone-drunk mind of a person caught in a crisis-filled pregnancy. However, John Beck's experiences were equally miraculous, as were those of the loving acquaintances who showed up with food, medical help or words of encouragement and hope, always at just the right time. In this book, benevolent beings come in all shapes and sizes, including those of an acquaintance who took Martha and her daughter into her home while John was traveling on business, and a neighbor who gave her his oxygen mask after the tire, insisting that he didn't need it, though the quality of his breathing belied his words. Having forced herself never to ask for help, let alone admit to needing it, Beck was awed when help repeatedly was offered to her, quietly and unassumingly.
Diametrically opposed to such kindness was the cruel pressure put on both John and Martha to abort the baby, both because it was defective and because its birth would hobble their graduate work. With a sense of pride, one professor even told John that he had forced his wife to abort a normal fetus because its birth would have hindered his academic career.
A man in one of Martha's classes declared that "it is the duty of every woman to screen her pregnancies and eliminate fetuses that would be a detriment to society." In recalling this incident, Beck states, "I thought about him when I read an expose of a Harvard-trained Latin American dictator who tortured and killed thousands of political opponents. I thought about him when we all discovered that the infamous Unabomber was a Harvard man as well--a genius, by all accounts." Relating a moment of gentle compassion toward an abused child, shown by Adam at the age of nine, Beck addresses the classmate directly: "I'd like to ask him to put Adam on one side of the `screening' scale and the Unabomber on the other, and then tell me who is the `detriment to society.' If the brilliant bomber wins out, I can only wonder, sir, exactly what kind of society you are trying to create."
Martha's riveting, beautifully written memoir captures the abject terror and exhilarating freedom of facing impending parentdom, being forced to question one's deepest beliefs, and rewriting life's rules. It is an unforgettable celebration of the everyday magic that connects human souls to each other. As readers, we see the dramatic change in the couple's perception of what's important in life. The author goes back and forth between her pre-Adam and current outlook. The birth of this special child made the couple realize that multiple college degrees did not provide the happiness they were seeking. As readers, we learn the family gave up the Harvard academic life and moved closer to their families. They credit Adam for showing them what mattered most in this world.
Even if you can't accept the angel theory, you must admit Beck's memoir is poignant. Humor flows freely and makes the story shine. The author's writing style is similar to that of Anne Lamott, who wrote Operating Instructions about her own son. Beck's words are refreshing. You don't have to be a parent to be moved by her story.
In another point, it could be said that Beck portrayed Harvard in a negative light. She doesn't name names, but points out the narrow minds that can develop from a prestigious, exclusive academic career. In my opinion, these could have been any professors in any large university. Harvard doesn't have exclusive rights to pompous faculty members, you know. I mention this only because someone somewhere will complain about the way Harvard was described. I'm only saying all colleges are that way so calm down and read the real message of the book.
Discussion Questions from a website
1. At the beginning of Expecting Adam (p. 7), the author reveals that she wrote the book twice previously as a novel. Why do you think she began her work as fiction? Does this seem unusual or surprising? How did the switch to the nonfiction genre of memoir change her and her story? What were the risks involved?
2. How does the author employ aspects of Asian culture to enrich her story? Why do you think she looks beyond traditional Western experience to explain that of her own family? What is the significance of the Bunraku puppeteers in her story (see pp. 12, 16-17, 23, 26, and 41 for example), and why does this metaphor work so well to explain her extraordinary experiences?
3. The author writes that, through Adam, she and her husband John become 'infants in a world where magic is commonplace, Harvard professors are the slow learners, and retarded babies are the master teachers? (p. 7). Does she feel relief, terror, or both in the process of having her world turned upside down? Why? Why does our system of education seem to reward the closing of minds rather than their opening? Why do you think Martha and John find the culture of Harvard, arguably the apogee of the learned world, to be such a frightening and lonely place? Do you think they are the only ones who feel like impostors there? What does it say about this institution that Martha and John feel they have to tell lies, conceal themselves, and endure terrible loneliness in order to succeed there?
4. The author's life is now, she writes, full of magic and miracles. Why were Martha and John unable to experience the truly miraculous within the religions they practiced before Adam was born? How did the differences in their religious beliefs affect their personalities and their early marriage (pp. 169-170)? How does Adam lead them from their isolated positions, through the 'demilitarized zone' between them, to a genuine spiritual communion?
5. What does the author mean when she writes that 'mother' is a verb (p. 59)? Why does Martha have to allow herself to be mothered by Sibyl and Deirdre before she can understand the meaning of the noun? Why is it so difficult for Martha to accept their kindness at first?
6. What does the anecdote about Adam's handing the rose in the bud vase to his mother reveal about his essential nature (pp. 69-70)? How is the dream Martha has in University Health Services nearly four years earlier (pp. 64-66) connected to Adam's rose? What does Martha mean when she writes that Adam 'loved me despite my many disabilities' (p. 70)? Why do you think she chose to write about this experience near the beginning of the book, rather than placing it chronologically within the story?
7. Why do you think the author emphasizes that she does not intend to judge other parents for any of the decisions they make about the conception and birth of their children? How would a strongly 'pro-life' stance in the book have altered her work? How do her experiences and her 'new way of seeing' (p. 72) create such an open heart when considering the choices other people make?
8. How do Dr. Grendel's attitudes (pp. 215-220) reflect those of the scientific community in general? How can ignorance paradoxically coexist with extensive knowledge, even in our country's most prestigious medical practices? What, in your opinion, should love have to do with medicine? Do you think scientific researchers are on the right track concerning their efforts to eradicate chromosomal irregularities and genetic disease?
9. The author includes a quotation (p. 268) from Rumi, the Persian mystic, in her book:
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
From cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from the ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
Now a cliff covered with vines,
Now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
Till one day it cracks them open.
What does this passage mean to the author? To you? In your opinion, are there angels at work in the world? Have you had experiences that, like those of Martha Beck, point to an extraordinary presence of goodness and grace among us? How do you explain them?
10. The author writes that, immediately after giving birth to Adam, 'I no longer felt like the focus of all that magic. I felt . . . normal. I felt exactly the way I wanted my son to be. It was a tremendous let-down' (p. 304). Are her emotions at this time what you would have expected? Why, or why not? How do these moments change forever the way the author values what is 'normal'? Has the story changed your feelings, as well?
11. The descriptions of Martha's and John's families, and anecdotes involving family members, are some of the funniest and most heartbreaking parts of the book. How does Adam's life gradually transform the worldviews of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles? How do their initial attitudes reflect those of society in general? Do you believe a similar transformation in attitudes toward those with chromosomal irregularities is possible in the culture at large?
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