The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The background is dark blue. Down the left centre of the book, the title reads “We’ve Got This” in large yellow caps with orange shadows. In the lower left corner, smaller white text reads “Edited by Eliza Hull”. In the lower right corner, the subtitle “Stories by Disabled Parents” in yellow caps. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Ableism
• Child/Infant Death
• Abortion
• Medical Trauma
• Medical Content
• Miscarriage
• Homophobia
• Racism
• Transphobia
• Suicide
• Suicidal Thoughts
• Eugenics
• Medical Abuse

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Summary:

How do two parents who are blind take their children to the park? How is a mother with dwarfism treated when she walks her child down the street? How do Deaf parents know when their baby cries in the night?

When writer and musician Eliza Hull was pregnant with her first child, like most parents-to-be she was a mix of excited and nervous. But as a person with a disability, there were added complexities. She wondered: Will the pregnancy be too hard? Will people judge me? Will I cope with the demands of parenting? More than 15 per cent of Australian households have a parent with a disability, yet their stories are rarely shared, their experiences almost never reflected in parenting literature.

In We’ve Got This, twenty-five parents who identify as Deaf, disabled or chronically ill discuss the highs and lows of their parenting journeys and reveal that the greatest obstacles lie in other people’s attitudes. The result is a moving, revelatory and empowering anthology. As Rebekah Taussig writes, ‘Parenthood can tangle with grief and loss. Disability can include joy and abundance. And goddammit – disabled parents exist.’

Contributors include Jacinta Parsons, Kristy Forbes, Graeme Innes, Jessica Smith, Jax Jacki Brown, Nicole Lee, Elly May Barnes, Neangok Chair, Renay Barker-Mulholland, Micheline Lee and Shakira Hussein.

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Notes:

I do believe an international version of this book came out not too long ago (this version is part of the Growing Up…In Australia series).

People who contributed to this book:

• Eliza Hull
• Jamila Rizvi
• Micheline Lee
• Sam Drummond
• Brent Phillips
• Nat Bartsch
• Jeremy Hopkins
• Jax Jacki Brown
• Renay Barker-Mulholland
• Jacinta Parsons
• Leah Von Poppel
• Ben Van Poppel
• Debra Keenahan
• Elly May Barnes
• Jasper Peach
• Brian Edwards
• Kristy Forbes
• Graeme Innes
• Mandy McCracken
• Heather Smith
• Carol Taylor
• Shakira Hussein
• Jaclyn Lynch
• Garry Lynch
• Nicole Lee
• Neangok Chair
• Lefa Singleton Norton
• Liel K. Bridgford
• Jessica Smith
• Rebekah G. Taussig

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Archivist Comments:

I don’t have a list of all the disabilities present in this anthology but I’ll update this if I find one.

Sometimes my mother tells me stories about the things she had to deal with as a disabled parent.

A review said it’s good that this book exists because there are rarely resources readily available for disabled parents, nevermind for disabled parents by disabled parents.

Now, there are apparently a lack of trigger warnings at the start of the essays and some of them delve into some pretty heavy stuff. So I’ve done my best to curate an overall list of what crops up in the book. I cannot gurantee that everything is there, and for that I apologise, so please, if you notice that I’ve missed something, just tell me.

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