Laura’s Mom Learns

Laura’s Mom Learns speaks to the heart of raising a child with disabilities through evocative, poignant, and honest essays. The topics highlight unique challenges in raising and protecting a child with special needs and movingly relate lessons learned and strength gained. Insightful, inspirational, and ultimately joyful, Laura’s Mom Learns offers meaningful reading to everyone seeking a broader understanding and appreciation of the disabled and their caregivers.

Ruth Smith writes boldly and honestly about the challenges of parenting a child with a disability. Hers is a voice of compassion tempered by reality; she shares not only the progress her daughter has made on this journey to young adulthood but writes with candor about the doubts and heartaches that she, as a mother, has experienced along the way. The story she tells is, at times, disquieting but also is an undeniably powerful one, not only for those who share her parenting challenges but for those who do not know what it is like to deal with them.

Roger J. Di Paolo, Editor
Record-Courier, Kent-Ravenna Ohio
    

Space is always tight on the op-ed page. We have fewer pages per week and more must-run features. Our page size shrank - twice. And over the last decade, we’ve honed our focus to politics, analysis, the work of a half-dozen Plain Dealer columnists and syndicated columnists such as George Will, Maureen Dowd and Tom Friedman.
           
Sure, we run the occasional wooden piece by a mover and shaker, but the op-ed page doesn’t put out the welcome mat for freelancers offering lifestyle essays – except Ruth Smith.

For the past four years, she has been a frequent contributor to the page, even as I have dropped most other essayists. Her subjects are compelling, and her writing is evocative and concise. Many of her pieces accomplish more in 15 inches than George Will does in 24. Sometimes hers is the “think-piece” of the day; at other times she sends readers to the Kleenex box.

My colleagues often comment admiringly on Ruth’s work, and we receive positive letters to the editor after her columns run, especially the columns about her daughter and the challenges she faces.

It’s said that everyone has one good book in them. My guess is that Ruth has several. A collection of essays on her daughter would be a treasure for every parent, not just those who care for a developmentally disabled child. 

Gloria Millner
Editorial Page Editor, past
Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ruth Smith brings a refreshing and welcome voice to readers of the Akron Beacon Journal. Honest and insightful about who she is, Smith is able to capture, in words, a passing world that is true to the readers' own observations of it. She is especially eloquent in telling the story of her daughter, Laura, a developmentally disabled 20-year-old. Smith's tenderness and motherly concern are tempered by a clear-eyed refusal to sink into sentimentality, thus allowing Laura to blossom as an individual before our eyes. Smith's sensitivity lends her work a personal strength that is a pleasure to read.

Bob Springer
Commentary Editor, 1994-2008
Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal

I am thrilled that Ruth Smith is sharing her perspectives and experiences in parenting through a collection of her essays! One of the greatest challenges we face in preparing teachers is helping them understand the wisdom, love, dreams, heartbreaks, and joys that parents of children and young adults with disabilities bring to educational decision-making. Ruth eloquently and candidly captures the highs and lows of parenting, and brings a voice to family issues that are critical for educators to consider.

For several years, Ruth has shared her essays with undergraduate and graduate students at Kent State University’s Special Education program. In fact, several instructors hold her essays as required readings for their course and she is a frequent guest speaker. Her voice rings true and her essays consistently rate high among the most meaningful experiences our future teachers have. I know that adding a book of her essays would be of great value to our reading list and I look forward to having them available in one volume.

Melody Tankersley, PhD
Professor and Chair Person, Special Education
College of Education, Health, and Human Services
Kent State University