An Ordinary Future: Margaret Mead, the Problem of Disability, and a Child Born Different

This vivid portrait of contemporary parenting blends memoir and cultural  analysis to explore evolving ideas of disability and human difference.

An  Ordinary Future is a deeply moving work that weaves an account of  Margaret Mead's path to disability rights activism with one  anthropologist's experience as the parent of a child with Down syndrome.  With this book, Thomas W. Pearson confronts the dominant ideas,  disturbing contradictions, and dramatic transformations that have shaped  our perspectives on disability over the last century.

Pearson  examines his family's story through the lens of Mead's evolving  relationship to disability—a topic once so stigmatized that she advised  Erik Erikson to institutionalize his son, born with Down syndrome in  1944. Over the course of her career, Mead would become an advocate for  disability rights and call on anthropology to embrace a wider  understanding of humanity that values diverse bodies and minds. Powerful  and personal, An Ordinary Future reveals why this call is still  relevant in the ongoing fight for disability justice and inclusion,  while shedding light on the history of Down syndrome and how we raise  children born different.