Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

by Andrew Solomon

“I was so sure I was the parent who was not going to be able to deal with a child who was in any way different,” she said. “I was just relieved to love her. She was very lovable. All my friends had these children they thought were perfect, and then they’ve had to come to terms with their children’s limitations and problems. I had this baby everyone thought was a disaster, and my journey has been to find all the things that are amazing about her. I started off knowing she was flawed, and all the surprises since then have been good ones.

There’s a lot of political correctness that I find ridiculous. But I’ll take whatever’s made it unacceptable to make fun of a child because she’s different. I think we are less tolerant of prejudice than anywhere else or any other time.”

it is not easy for perfectionists to have children with disabilities.

“Society has developed a tendency to examine things from the point of view of a bell curve. How far away am I from normal? What can I do to fit in better? But what is on top of the bell curve? Mediocrity. That is the fate of American society if we insist upon pathologizing difference.”

The most consistent postuterine environmental factor associated with a worsening of psychotic symptoms is the abuse of recreational drugs, including alcohol, methamphetamines, hallucinogens, cocaine, and marijuana, particularly in adolescence.

But some studies suggest that if you were able to eliminate cannabis, you could reduce world rates of schizophrenia by at least ten percent.”

The facility containing the largest number of schizophrenics in the United States is the Los Angeles County Jail.

Ideally, a genius should have not only the necessary tools and conditions to realize his gifts, but also a receptive society of peers and admirers. As Alfred Kroeber noted in the 1940s, genius sparks genius. “If I have seen further,” Sir Isaac Newton acknowledged, “it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.”

We help the disabled in a quest to make a more humane and better world; we might approach brilliance in the same spirit. Pity impedes the dignity of disabled people; resentment is a parallel obstacle for people with enormous talent. The pity and the resentment alike are manifestations of our fear of people who are radically different.

Ready access to a safe abortion allows a woman who keeps a child conceived in rape to feel that she is making a decision rather than