“A deeply human story of motherhood and the resilience necessary to navigate a world not designed for her child; an inspiring act of love.”
HANNAH LAVERY
This is an unforgettable story that shows what a gift it is to see someone not as the world tells them they should be, but as they are.
It was obvious to Catherine Simpson from the beginning that there was something different about her first child, Nina.
Motherhood had always felt like Catherine’s destiny, and she’d grown up nurturing joyful visions of the family she’d create. But her dreams crashed headfirst into the reality of parenthood. It seemed that the world was not Nina-shaped, and no matter how hard they both tried, they had to fight almost everything – especially once Nina started school.
Aged ten, Nina’s autism was diagnosed and a door opened. It became clear why she didn’t think or behave the way other children did, but faced with school bullies, dismissive doctors and insensitive peers, her difficulties were far from over. She and Catherine still felt as though it was them against a world that demanded Nina change as a child and Catherine as a mother.
This is an unforgettable story that shows what a gift it is to see someone not as the world tells them they should be, but as they are.
The bureaucracy of disability, the impact of autism on a sibling, family in-jokes, empathetic pals, the rollercoaster of exhaustion and guilt for the primary caregiver: Simpson covers it all….Falling in love with her daughter’s idiosyncrasies, translating constantly between the neurodiverse and neurotypical worlds, struggling to find her own identity amongst it all; perhaps that complicated commingling of stories is parenthood in a nutshell
– The List
