This, too, is true: A mother's story of a life shaped by the unexpected gifts and hard realities of raising a child with disabilities (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798196283598)

This, too, is true is a moving and vulnerable account of the lived reality of raising a child with disabilities-and how the well-being of child and parent alike can be shaped for the better, or the worse, by public policy.

On the day Kathy and her husband took Katie home with them from her foster family, they knew only a few facts about her. They'd been told, and could see for themselves, that she was cute and sweet and adored by everyone who crossed her path. But they'd also been told she had "developmental delays," and what that vague terminology would mean for her day to day lived experience, and for theirs, was something that they would only discover in time. Not just in the following months or years-when certain developmental milestones would be reached much later or not at all-but over the coming decades, when she became an adolescent and then a young adult, the ever-present challenge for all of them would be finding a way for Katie to live and, hopefully, thrive in spaces where even well-intentioned policies often fell short of supporting her as a person with specific limitations but universal human needs. As her daughter grew older, Kathy too was forced to grow as a parent and advocate, to become conversant in the myriad systems that people with disabilities, and their parents, must rely on as they navigate a world that is in most ways not built for them.

At heart, this is a mother's complicated love story, written for anyone who may be trying, as she is, to make sense of the many-layered world of disabilities, whether they be self-advocates, families, social workers, teachers, public health workers, or policymakers.