Books need a long attention span

Which I don't really seem to have.  But I've been reading a lot of articles lately.  Out of the many from the past few two days, here are two I found exceptionally interesting:

"Pass the Books. Hold the Oil" by Thomas Friedman, in the NY Times.  Basically, our children are our most precious resource.  And countries without natural resources, have better educated kids.  Hmm.

And "6 Things You Don't Know About a Special Needs Parent," by Maria Lin.  My kids aren't special needs, but I've gotten very interested in the subject because 1) It's always good to learn about children and 2) My new job as educator will encompass children with all sorts of issues, and I'm doing research.  The article was extremely touching.  One comment in particular made me do an internal double take:


As for the... comment [during pregnancy], "as long as it's healthy," I hear a lot of pregnant women say this. Don't get me wrong, I understand and share their wishes for healthy babies in every birth, but it's become such a thoughtless mantra during pregnancy that it can feel like a wish against what my son is. "And what if it's not healthy?" I want to ask. (My response: you will be OK. You and your child will still have a great, great life.)



That makes such sense.  And I said that all the time when I was pregnant, both times, to everyone, possibly including to my friend who has an autistic son.  Lin's perspective shocked me in its simplicity: it was a paradigm shift, and it made realize that as much as I try, special needs is often not on my radar in a way that matters.  And it needs to be, not just for myself, but for society in general.

Anyway, just food for thought.