Special needs & medical moms!
Go from lost details to saving the story and celebrating your warrior child:
Writing Our Kids Into History
6-week group program
limited to 6 moms
Mom with teen boy with Down Syndrome.
Mom helping her son in a walking device. She shares her photos as stock images SO THAT disabled kids are included
Visually impaired girl in the cherry blossoms.
We come together with an emphasis on celebration.
You’ll leave with a personal history of your atypical, special needs, neurodiverse, or medical child.
“The experience of ‘reliving’ raising my daughter is, for me, therapeutic. And in a group, I feel less isolated with my feelings.”
Anne Karp, The Worthy Mom, New Jersey
There is no reason for some of our most exceptional family members to be left out of history.
Our kids have broken through boundaries, taught us things, impacted their communities, grown their families… but they may show up on a family history platform as just dates if they don’t hit the traditional milestones that generate data.
The truth is that our atypical, medical, neurodiverse, or special needs kids may have completely different milestones, those granular wins that some of us moms are calling “inchstones.”
Traditional record-keeping does not account for our kids. It simply can’t — genealogy platforms and traditional forms of history rely on collecting data from the institutions that track: home ownership, graduations, marriages, having children, and so on.
So we’re going to do it ourselves! We are changing the possibility of history around our atypical kids…. and I am thrilled to offer you this group.
We will support each other through the process, and you’re going to have this legacy built, this story created — so your child is known and remembered. I will take you from memories to a personal history that marks pivotal moments in your lives and traces your child’s impacts — in 6 weeks.
Not just retelling diagnoses or differences: our kids are way more than that!
Document who they are as a person, their spirit and personality — that is where our project starts.
Not a writer? That’s ok! This is a documentation process, not a writing class.
- We will begin with building a safe container for our work, making group rules and giving ourselves permission — together — drawing on Brene Brown’s Daring Leadership ™ trainings.
- We will contemplate the full joy of this special kid.
- We’ll mark big moments in their lives — with prompts designed to document those and focus your writing.
- And finally, you will be invited to come together at the end to talk about the possibilities for saving this story for good.
“I think writing things down validates our thoughts and experiences. I was surprisingly happy and enriched to look back on that time in my life.”J. R., Mother of a complex child, Pennsylvania
“I really appreciated the ‘protected time’ set aside for joining others moms in thinking about and sharing stories about our kids with disabilities and/or medical issues. For me, parenting a child with multiple disabilities has been profoundly isolating. I don’t have local family, and friends are often intimidated by her needs. So being able to experience this ‘fellowship’ virtually was really enjoyable! Also, Angela’s writing prompts helped focus my thought in productive ways that I wouldn’t have predicted. For these reasons and more, I can’t recommend this experience highly!”Thea Arnold, Mother of a multiply disabled child, New York
THIS PROGRAM INCLUDES
We can share how it went, get writing support, ask for help articulating something complicated, or whatever else you may need. You can talk about what you wrote or talk about the process of writing. No mandatory sharing.
I know that the warriormamas in this community are powerful! As a group we will set the intention to create a brave space by agreeing on some group boundaries, giving ourselves permission to interact in a way that’s comfortable, and negotiating the line between privacy and community.
Each prompt will also include a thoughtful alternative — so that you can choose what relates most to your child or pick the components that resonate most with you.👉 Private Facebook group.
This group will be a place to share wins, ask questions, and show up for each other and ourselves.
Discuss and decide what to do with your completed story, or put some parameters around keeping it open.👉 Followup call to talk about what to do next with your history.
Templates that do not depend on a linear “progress” timeline, but still will help chart a path that is specific to your family.
Strategies to help you take care of yourself in a rough moment… some you can even do in public without causing a scene! 😏
Self care can feel like just another task on the list, so my focus is to simply remember ourselves in the course of the day. Resources from 15-second yoga to folks to follow on Facebook, folded into the regular course of our days.
This is for you if:
- You want your child remembered in all their wonderful complexity — not just a diagnosis.
- You have a story to tell — maybe it will even be for your child later, read to them or recorded for them.
- Your child is so much more than medical data or school reports, IEPs or 504s.
- You’ve been thinking about writing on your child’s, your family’s, or your experience. This is a great starter project for more extensive work, or it can stand on its own.
- You’re ready to add a “thick description” — a STORY — to the dates that show up on your family tree for your child.
- You want to capture all the details while they are still recent, or want to organize your thoughts about what’s happening right now.
- You want to look back on your or your child’s path and put it in order in whatever way that looks for you and your family.
This is not for you if:
- You’re not ready emotionally — if you’re grappling with a fresh diagnosis, or feeling too tender at this time, you may want to wait for another session. If you aren’t sure, check in with yourself, a trusted friend, or your therapist before signing on.
- Your child has passed on — I am building another program for those of us who have this sacred scar; please reach out for details.
- You are okay, but you’re not ready to hold space for others.
- Please read the Frequently Asked Questions at the bottom of this page for more details about how I hope we can strike a balance between privacy and community.
I spent 18 years as “archivist and senior research scholar” at an academic science library, actively trying to add women to the historical record and looking for the women who were already included almost accidentally. I have degrees in women’s history and cultural theory — the latter means that I see the cultural value of everyday practices such as food, clothing, hobbies, and domestic arrangements. Non-famous people matter.