Andrew Solomon: Love, No Matter What

What is it like to raise a child who’s different from you in some fundamental way (like a prodigy, or a differently abled kid, or a criminal)? In this quietly moving talk, writer Andrew Solomon shares what he learned from talking to dozens of parents — asking them: What’s the line between unconditional love and unconditional acceptance?

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ABOUT Andrew Solomon

“Andrew Solomon is a writer on politics, culture and psychology. His newest book, ‘Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity’ tells the stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so.

His startling proposition is that diversity is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple severe disabilities, with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, as are the struggles toward compassion and the triumphs of love Andrew documents in every chapter.

Woven into these courageous and affirming stories is Solomon’s journey to accepting his own identity, which culminated in his midlife decision, influenced by this research, to become a parent. Andrew’s last book, ‘The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression’, won the 2001 National Book Award for Non Fiction, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and won fourteen other national awards.”

The VIDEO