Three Ways to Celebrate World Down Syndrome Day

Macy was three years old when we celebrated our first World Down Syndrome Day. 

When I learned about World Down Syndrome Day, established in 2012 and celebrated on 3/21 to reflect the third copy of the twenty-first chromosome, I was excited to celebrate but unsure what to do. That first year we wore our mismatched socks. We learned that mismatched socks were a thing because socks look like chromosomes and when people wear mismatched socks  others will notice and point it out, opening up opportunities for conversations around Down syndrome. Since 2012 this simple yet impactful idea has spread far and wide with whole companies starting mismatched sock brands and dozens of organizations offering their own unique socks for sale to be worn on 3/21 for people all over the world to wearThe mismatched socks were not the only thing to grow and expand over the years. 3/21 has become a catalyst for non-profits, organizations and families alike to launch products, initiatives, fundraisers, books, podcasts and more, all in the name of Down syndrome awareness. 

For example

• 2017 my first book titled, The Lucky Few, came out on 3/21 (which I had nothing to do with and was a bit of a sweet nod since books come out on Tuesdays and in 2017 3/21 was on a Tuesday!). 

• 2018, I launched my podcast, The Lucky Few Podcast on 3/21.

• 2022, I launched our non-profit, The Lucky Few Foundation on, you guessed it, 3/21.

Today there are quite literally hundreds of ways for anyone to Shout The Worth of people with Down syndrome. Still, if you are not sure where to start I’m going to offer three ways you can celebrate World Down Syndrome Day with us:  

One: Is there a better way to sport your support than a rad t shirt? In the vein of thinking back over the years, over at The Lucky Few Shop we are going to be launching our “OG Collection''. A collection of all our past t-shirt designs. Already have the OG designs? No problem, we’re also going to be launching a bunch of new ones. Order today to get it in time for World Down Syndrome Day. Or order it to wear anytime because Down syndrome should be celebrated everyday. 

Two:
Another fun way you can join us in celebrating? I’m going to be launching a first ever: “The Lucky Few Book Club”. The other day I realized I have not read The Lucky Few since it came out in 2017. While I’m quite familiar with the story, I also know I’ve grown and changed over the past seven years and I’m curious to go back through the book, relive that time in my life and see all the ways in which I’ve grown. And I want to invite you along for the ride. To learn more about The Lucky Few Book Club and to sign up you can head over here. 

Three:
Both of my children’s books, Different - A Great Thing to Be! And Everyone Belongs, are tools to help us talk to our kids about differences, inclusion and belonging. And both star my daughter Macy, a girl with Down syndrome. Setting up a time to read this book in your child’s class makes for a great way to Celebrate World Down Syndrome Day! As a bonus, each book has a set of free downloadable printables you can do along with the book. 

Free Everyone Belongs Classroom Kit (PDF)

FREE Different Classroom Kit (PDF)

Here’s to shifting narratives and shouting worth on World Down Syndrome Day and everyday! 

What People With Down Syndrome Really Have to Contribute

The BBC news headline jumped off the page, 

Spain elects first parliamentarian with Down’s Syndrome.

The words lay over the photo of Mar Galcerán, a 45-year-old woman who made history by becoming Spain’s first parliamentarian with Down syndrome.

The photo and the headline from one of the world’s leading news sources had me grinning from ear to ear saying out loud, “yes! Mar! Get it.” 

My joy quickly shifted when I turned to the next image. I saw the same woman but this time sitting in The Cortes Generales, the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, with these words typed under her image, 

Society is starting to see that people with Down’s syndrome have a lot to contribute.

Big sigh. 

Here we go again.

You might be thinking “Heather, what is the problem?” Well, allow me to explain further: 

First, I LOVE this news story about Mar Galcerán. A woman with Down syndrome committed to inclusion and civil service having the same access and opportunities as civil servants without Down syndrome. It is a huge win for inclusion, belonging and the Down syndrome community at large. 

Three cheers to Mar Galcerán and to the world for paying attention. 

However, things go wrong for me with the way the BBC frames this story. What they are communicating with the headlines they chose is, a person with Down syndrome who is able to do something like be elected as a government official, has a lot to contribute to society. This framing communicates to the world that people with Down syndrome have a lot to contribute only when they can accomplish big things or only when they can accomplish the things that people without Down syndrome more commonly accomplish. This framing is problematic and I would argue, counterproductive and ultimately harmful for people with Down syndrome. Rather than shouting the worth of a person with Down syndrome there’s a need to prove the worth of a person with Down syndrome making it seem as though people with Down syndrome only deserve a space in this world when they can meet certain criteria. 

Yes! Let’s celebrate Mar Galcerán but it starts to get tricky when we leave it at that and ignore the bigger conversation or worse, allow a narrative to take place telling the world that people with Down syndrome have something to contribute only when they are exceptional or more like people without Down syndrome.

No one is questioning if myself or my non-disabled daughter have anything to contribute to society. Because we are non-disabled it is assumed. Let that sink in. We live in a world telling us disabled people are less human and in a culture telling us our value and worth is directly linked to our accomplishment. We have built our government systems, school systems, communities and personal belief systems on the idea that non-disabled people are preferred to disabled people. Access and opportunities are assumed and plentiful for non-disabled people.

If we want to make progress and even begin to undo ableism in our own lives, communities and societies, then we need to call it out when we see a national news story communicating to us that a person with Down syndrome is contributing to society only because she is doing something grand like holding a political office. 

This harmful yet subtle narrative shows up over and over again in news cycles sharing inspiring stories highlighting disabled people “overcoming” their disability, and is further perpetuated by our Down syndrome community when over and over again we point to and celebrate the accomplishments of people with Down syndrome when they are able to be more like people without Down syndrome. So much so that many of us raising kids with an extra chromosome are willing to try just one more thing in order for our kid to be “more like that!”

As a parent to two kids with Down syndrome and as an advocate and ally in this community the soapbox I find myself standing on time and time again is this: 

The greatest contribution my kids and friends with Down syndrome are making in this world is showing people that a human’s value and worth does not hinge on what we can and cannot do. Their greatest contribution is showing up in the world exactly as they are and challenging a narrative telling us our value and worth as a human is earned. Their greatest contribution is their existence. 

Period. Full stop. 

I am not saying the BBC should not have shared the story of Mar Galcerán. For the Down syndrome narrative to shift we need these stories to be told and heard. What I would challenge is for the folks at the BBC as well as those of us consuming the headlines, to do the hard work of undoing ableism in ourselves so we can truly see the value and worth of all people with Down syndrome. Then, maybe the story can be told in a way that helps all people with Down syndrome to be seen as fully human and worthy of a space in this world, not just those who are more like people without Down syndrome. Tell the story but reframe the headline to go something like this:

Society is starting to see that we are better off when people with Down’s syndrome are included. 

Can you see how that shift in the framing changes the whole story to be one in support of inclusion for all people with Down syndrome? 

By including Mar Galcerán into the Spanish parliament the people of Spain have stopped towards an invitation into what I believe every life of every person with Down syndrome invites us to.  An invitation to reconsider what it means to be human. An invitation to view the world in a less inhibited and more graceful way. An invitation to grab ahold with all our might to the truth that our value and worth is innate and the breath in our lungs, the heart beating in our chest and our ability to love and be loved are what make us human and should not have to be earned. As far as I’m concerned, this invitation to a shift in a narrative that every person with Down syndrome I’ve ever met offers society, is as great a contribution as there’ll ever be. 

The Advocacy of Showing Up

We are two weeks into the summer and I’m beginning to notice summertime offerings for school age kids are more segregated and less inclusive than our already segregated, non-inclusive public school counterparts. At least in our community.

Sigh!  

Week one of summer had me looking for ways for my kids to be engaged and entertained in our community. I had heard from my friends about a sports camp for kids and so I went on-line, did a little research, filled out the forms and signed my kids up. 

Now, if I was only sending my non-disabled daughter the story would conclude with an 8:45 drop-off in which I give her a squeeze and say, “have the best time babe!” Followed by a 12:00 pick up in which she’d say, “I had so much fun!” 

A simple, sometimes boring story. But not our story.

Instead, as a parent looking for opportunities for all of my children, including my children with Down syndrome to be part of their community’s summertime activities, signing up for a day camp is anything but boring. It becomes an act of advocacy. 

After filling out the forms, the advocacy adventure of follow up emails, phone calls, being passed over to the boss because the person running the camp wasn’t able to make “these kinds of decisions,” and finally a visit to observe the camp which included sports such as basketball, dodgeball, soccer, skits and swimming, to see if it would work for my kids with Down syndrome, begins.

I let the boss know that my kids love to participate in sports, do skits and swim he said, “okay, that’s good to know. We’ve never had kids like this attend before.” He then explained the camp had been around for 30 years and Macy and Augie would be the first people with Down syndrome to ever attend.

There was no hiding my shock and disappointment about this fact. I know my kids are not the only nor first people in our community who have Down syndrome. Far from it. Learning such a fact got me thinking: where are all the kids with intellectual disabilities? Even more importantly, for 30 years how have they not been missed? 

I know where we have been. Out of town. Every summer since we’ve lived here we have been traveling or getting ready to travel the first couple weeks of summer. Which is likely why Macy and Augie have never tried to attend this camp before. It’s also why they have always said no to the offer of Extended School Year (ESY), a special education service, essentially summer school, that is provided to a student with a disability during extended school breaks. I wondered if this is where most of the students with disabilities are and why they’d never been to this camp. I wondered if there could be another way?

Monday came around and I sent all three of my kids to camp. Support was put in place in the form of an additional adult volunteer in both Macy and Augie’s groups as well as us sending our own personal support worker to assist as needed. 

The verdict: camp was a success! All three kids had a blast and loved being part of it. There were some bumps along the way but at the end of the week Macy and August were given the same opportunities and access as their non-disabled peers and they thrived. 

Something I’m wrestling with over here: the overall feeling is that we should be thankful. And I am. I’m thankful for adults and teens who care about the youth in our community and provide camps like this. I’m thankful for the ways they are mindful of all the kids attending and meeting their needs. I'm truly thankful for the openness from the camp director and his boss about making it work for Macy and August. But should I be thankful they let my kids with Down syndrome attend? Or thankful that only after me giving a decent amount of my time and expertise as well as providing a support worker, were they willing/able to put support in place for “kids like mine”? I find myself oscillating between feeling this need to say, “thank you so much for accommodating my children!” to wanting them to say to me, “thank you so much for bringing your kids and trusting us to include them. We’re so lucky to have them at camp this week.”

Even with the week at sport’s camp being a success, there is a thing under the thing which an experience like this tends to highlight and that is this: to continually have to convince people that my kids with Down syndrome should have the same opportunities and access as their peers without Down syndrome is beyond exhausting. It’s insulting and frankly a civil rights issue. The constant  pressure to prove they can be in a space instead of the space proving they can support my children is backwards, othering and dehumanizing. 

All I wanted to do was send my kids to summer sports camp. A five day, four hour a day camp where kids their age play games, eat snacks and swim. A camp all three of them would love to attend. Unless it’s a disability specific program, the idea that you sign a kid up, drop a kid off and pick a kid up is not our reality. There is no ease to the extra curricular life of a child with an intellectual disability.  And it doesn't help that as a society we continue to ignore the fact that so many programs separate, segregate and other.

The reality is a community with separate programs and classrooms for disabled students throughout the school year is not going to, all of the sudden, become inclusive in the summer months. The fight for inclusion and belonging doesn’t end when the bell rings to usher in summer. Instead we siphon kids with disabilities into summer and extracurricular activities specifically for disabled people. Programs like ESY or Special Olympics have filled a need for people in the disability space and their families. I can see the good in there. Please hear me, I support these programs and we participate in them when we are able to. Yet, as we like to say around here, two things can be true at once. So while I can see the good, participate in and be deeply grateful for the separate sports, camps and extracurricular activities for disabled people I can also hope for and work towards a community in which sports camps and extracurricular opportunities are set up in a way to support their disabled community members and when kids like Macy and August are not in those spaces they are deeply missed. 

The question I propose is this: should needing additional support exclude a person from a community activity or event? Is there a level to the support needed in which it can no longer be expected to be provided? Are our communities places where everyone truly does belong? 

When I picked the kids up on the first day of camp and asked the director how it went, I could tell it had been bumpy for Macy. I listened as he listed off some of the bumpy moments then assured him, “that all sounds pretty on brand for Macy.” with a smile I added, “around our home we like to say, tomorrow’s a new day.” He gave me a curious nod. Then I added, “is there any additional support you think you need or anything else we can help with?” he shook his head. “Alright then. See you tomorrow.” 

That night I plopped on the couch next to Josh and said, “I feel like after all the time and energy we spent convincing them Macy and Augie can go there, today he just handed all the hard back to me. As though Macy needs to be fixed or something. I’m tired.” Then rhetorically I asked, “should we just keep her home?” 

Josh pulled me closer to him, “First, she loved it and overall she did fine today. Second, this is the advocacy babe. This is the work. We show up and we show up and we show up.” 

And he’s right. And it’s exhausting. And it’s worth it. 

If Isolation Were A Color

If isolation were a color it would be the gray of a California June-gloom sky. Vast and intense. Solid. Heavy. It’s the very gray filling our skies most days leading up to the end of the school year. It’s the gray I find creeping into my mama heart more and more this time of year as Macy gets older.

I find this gray there in my inbox as it expands with announcements and details about end of year parties, banquets, dances and field trips. 

Sometimes when I’m not sure who the announcement is for I catch myself holding my breath opening each email. I exhale as I read about an end of year opportunity for my 6th grade, social, exuberant, non-disabled, middle daughter Truly. I fill out the permission slip, hand her some cash and send her on her way smiling ear to ear thinking about the fun she will have. I listen with matched excitement as she recalls the day’s events and how she sat next to Lily and how funny it was when Jacori did that thing. Honestly? Even with all the social drama and trauma that can happen for an adolescent girl, there is an ease to her social life as a non-disabled 12 year old, which tends to leave me baffled.

 I watch her connect with friends. Greeting them at the gate and walking into school together. Linking arms and circling up to talk about what middle schoolers talk about. I find myself remembering from my adolescent days, “That’s right! This is how it can be?” Huh! It’s starkly different from her older sister’s social experience. Her older sister who has been at this adolescent friendship thing for a few years longer. Her older sister, Macy, who too is social, and exuberant but who also has a cognitive disability. Down syndrome. A disability she wears on her face and carries in every single cell in her body. A disability which sometimes outside of her control, sometimes not, ushers her into certain social settings and ways of being.  A disability which makes her her and adds so much goodness, beauty and excitement to a world where her worth and humanity continues to be questioned.

I’ve watched her this year, an 8th grader, during those early morning school drop offs. She walks past kids greeting each other. She walks past kids linking arms. She walks past kids circling up. Sometimes she continues walking straight to her class. Sometimes she stops in the middle of the sea of students and looks around, talking to herself. Either way she is always alone. Somehow even on the sunniest days the sky is so gray, so heavy.

I want to believe she doesn’t care. I want to believe she is totally fine without friends and a sense of community at school. But she’s a human, and as humans we are created for community and long for belonging. Once she’s home I hear her in her room talking to herself and acting out the interactions she wishes would take place, 

“Hi Macy!”

“Oh, hi!”

“Wanna come hang out?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I love your shirt.”

“My shirt? Thank you.”

Sometimes I hear her while I’m sitting on the couch in the living room, looking out at the gloomy gray sky. So vast. So intense. 

Sometimes she’ll yell to me while she sits on the vintage quit on her bed in her room, “Mom! I wanna hang out with my friends.” This statement, stated on the daily by teenage girls around the world, hits differently when Macy says it. Like a blow to my gut. I think to myself, What friends? Please just name one! I catch my breath and walk to her room where together we put her name and phone number on a piece of paper she can pass out to her “friends” at school. 

No one calls. No one texts.

A month ago I opened an email announcing the end of year 8th grade dance for Macyn to attend. I remembered my end of year 8th grade dance and how I got ready at my friend’s house. How we helped each other zip up the dresses we had gone shopping for together. How after the dance we all piled into my friend’s mom’s SUV. Linking arms, laughing and exclaiming, “can you believe…?” as we rode together for our final destination, a sleepover. 

Knowing that Macy can’t name one friend at school, I hope there are other 8th graders in the segregated special education Life Skills class. I hit “reply” to the email and asked her teacher if any other students from her Life Skills class would be going to the dance. 

Please dear Jesus let there be one more kid going to this dance. 

I knew if there wasn’t that Macy would have to go alone. Her school friendship story lacked the viral appeal of, well, inspiring feel good stories of good friends at school going to dances with a student with Down syndrome. 

The other day my parents came over, “Macy, will you show us your dress for the dance?” 

“Oh, sure.” Macy beams.

“Are you going with some friends?” My dad's question, although completely reasonable, brings me to tears.

“I don’t know!” Macy’s reply to my dad has a bite to it. In her own ways she communicates her loneliness. I make teary eye contact with my dad and shake my head.  

Meanwhile I see so many friends raising their kids with Down syndrome surrounded by friends, with Down syndrome and not, convinced my daughter with Down syndrome is the only one entering the summer months without a person from her school to call her on her phone. This friendship thing has only gotten harder as Macyn’s gotten older.

I can’t help but believe I’m the problem. Can’t help but wonder where I went wrong. How can a kid as rad as Macy transition from 8th grade and make her way to high school without one single school friend? Surely the fact she is going into the summer without a single phone number to call and person from school to hang out with is my fault? Macy is too amazing to take any of the blame. 

I sit in my kitchen crying, the conversations with my husband familiar ones, sending me down a hopeless, gray, spiral:

“Maybe we should never have moved to this town.”

“Was inclusion in middle school a huge mistake? We should have just kept her with her disabled peers!”

“Was sending her to the Life Skills class a huge mistake? How can she make friends in a separate, segregated class? We should have fought harder for her inclusion.”

“Should we have signed her up for more extracurricular activities?”

“Should I have been more assertive with the other parents with students in the Life Skills class and made more of an effort to create friendships there?”

“Would it have been better if I signed up for the PTA?”

“What if Covid never happened?”

“What if Makinzie never moved?”

“What if we worked harder on ‘social appropriateness’ for Macyn?”

“What if she didn’t drool and wasn’t such a mess eater? We should be doing more oral motor and speech!”

“What if we gave her an iPhone sooner and spent more time with her on learning how to use it.” 

“We need to create more social stories for her.” 

My husband wraps his arms around me while I weep. “I don’t know babe,” he says. It doesn’t take much for the intense, vastness of the gray to swallow me whole.

The teacher replied to my email: one other 8th grade student from Macy’s Life Skills class will be going to the dance. 

Exhale!

I reach out to his parents in hopes for them to meet outside the theater before the dance so our kids can take some pictures and go in together. This visual along with the fact that I know Macy will not stop dancing for the entire three hours of the dance is a salve to my broken mama heart.

Still, the dance will end and the summer will begin. The gray of a Southern California June-gloom sky will fade as the desert heat creeps in and takes over. I wonder if I will feel even more alone in its absence, staring at my daughter’s phone which never seems to ring. Tearing up each time she watches her sister run out the door, “she’s going to hang out with friends?” she’ll ask.

“She is.” I’ll say as I lean over and kiss her on the head. And we’ll sit there together, alone.

Why Kindness and Good Intentions Are Not Enough

I called my 14 year old daughter with Down syndrome into the room, “Macy, did you know there is a Down syndrome awareness event at your school tomorrow?” 

She sat next to me on the couch and I showed her the announcement in the form of a poster with the words, “Down Syndrome Awareness Month” painted in blue and yellow poster paint which had been shared on her middle school’s ASB Instagram page. I read the caption outloud to her; “Join us tomorrow, Oct. 21st at both lunches to help spread awareness and show your support during Down Syndrome awareness month. Get information, stickers, and handmade braided bracelets to wear in support of DS awareness during both lunches while supplies last.” 

“Macy, did you know about this event?”

“No.”

“Have you helped make bracelets for this event?”

“No.”

“Has anyone talked to you about this event?”

“No.” 

I found this to be problematic so I dug a little deeper. What I learned was that an awareness day for people with Down syndrome had been planned without a single person with Down syndrome involved in the planning, preparation or execution of the event. I’m going to say that again: an awareness day for people with Down syndrome had been planned without a single person with Down syndrome involved in the planning, preparation or execution of the event. In the year 2023 I found this very hard to believe. Imagine something like this happening with any other marginalized people group! We’d have ourselves a national news story. 

I knew I only had part of the story so with curiosity I reached out to the staff member who had initiated and overseen the event. I was familiar with her because we are both moms to kids with Down syndrome. Her daughter with Down syndrome was three or four years old at the time.  She shared with me that right before lunch started they had invited the students with Down syndrome to help pass out the bracelets but none of them wanted to. I was not surprised by this. A last minute invitation by a person you do not know to participate in an event about you that you know nothing about will most likely result in a strong ‘no’! I brought up the idea that to invite the students with Down syndrome at the last minute to participate in something they have no prior knowledge nor information about is to tokenize them at best. Unfortunately the event took place, without a single person with Down syndrome included. My concerns were dismissed as I was told the event went well, that the students seemed engaged, had a lot of questions and they ran out of bracelets. “Every activity helps,” is what I was told.

There was a time in my early years as an advocate when I would have thought the same thing. A time when I wasn’t listening to the voices of disabled advocates. A time in my advocacy when I couldn’t see how the execution of a “Down Syndrome Awareness Event” like this risked perpetuating the harmful narratives about Down syndrome that an awareness event could and should help dismantle. 

You can’t know what you don’t know. Which is why the conversation is crucial.

No one involved in this event, students, teachers and other adults alike, were challenged to think past their good deeds to the impact it might have on the students at the school. It’s as though society has made it easy and preferred, to hop in a bubble with like-minded people and make decisions for others while skipping over the conversation about recognizing our unconscious bias and the harm done to our collective humanity when we don’t do the hard work of knowing better and doing better. 

Fast forward to today. It’s the last month of school. I dropped my daughter, a student with Down syndrome who has been part of this school community for two years, off at school and watched her walk up to a crowd of students hanging out and waiting for the bell to ring. Because of the directness and ease in which she approached the group I assumed she knew them and they knew her. I sat in the car and watched as Macy tried to insert herself into the group while mostly being ignored. 

I cringed.

I watched my daughter standing alone just outside their circle and doing “self talk”, while she acted out the interaction she wished had taken place. 

My heart broke. 

Then I watched as the girls finally acknowledged Macy only to point at the boys and encourage Macy to shake her booty at them. Which she did while everyone laughed. I jumped out of the car, not even knowing what I would do but knowing I couldn’t just sit there and watch, just as the bell rang and all the students scattered to class.

I cried. 

Recently, I shared on my Instagram page about Inspiration Porn and stated “I will not be celebrating a non-disabled person asking a disabled person to prom.” Whew, this got some reactions! This post was met with a lot of “yes!” and “amen!” and with a lot of, “I couldn’t disagree more!”, “Posting this is so harmful and hurtful for our kids with disabilities!” and “you are wrong!” just to list some of the kinder opposition.  The main pushback I have been thinking through is the idea that because we live in a world where our kids with disabilities continue to be overlooked and excluded, any of these “acts of kindness” as long as they are well-intended are inspirational and should be shared because it leads as an example for other kids to also be inclusive. 

I hear this. I’m thinking on this.

I’m also thinking about how kind and well-intended both adults and students were behind the “Down Syndrome Awareness Event” that took place at school last October. How natural and easy it was to fail to see the full humanity in a person with Down syndrome to the extent of excluding them from the event. And when I called out this concern it was dismissed and met with a defensive posture. I can’t help but make the connection to the end of the school year watching my daughter, who is longing for connection and belonging at school, be made the butt of a joke. The thing about it all is I bet none of those kids had mean or bad intentions. There’s a good chance they were wearing a blue and yellow bracelet last October and that they say “hi” to Macy in the halls and maybe they’ve even taken the time to invite her to join them at lunch. Macy was drawn to them for a reason. This group of students were not strangers to her. And I really do believe if we got all 15 or so of those kids in a room and gave them the opportunity to have a conversation about their unintentional bias towards people with Down syndrome and disabilities at large, and how that may influence their actions in using Macy for their entertainment, and how wearing a blue and yellow bracelet, giving out high-fives and being considered kind because you interact with a person with Down syndrome is entry level to being a good-human. I believe if we had that conversation they would want to hear it and learn. 

I think the young people at the schools, saying “hi” to Macy or inviting kids with disabilities to prom are the very humans in our world who are going to help foster future spaces of belonging for my kids with Down syndrome and for that very reason they deserve to have conversations in which their intentions are questioned so they can learn and grow and become better versions of themselves. But if we don’t have that conversation then I worry we end up with kids being told how good and kind they are for wearing blue and yellow bracelets, and saying “hi” to a kid with Down syndrome all while being unable to see the harm in making a kid with Down syndrome a tool to be used for their entertainment. 

What I’m realizing in this 15th year of parenting Macy is she deserves so much more than another kid’s act of kindness. What she deserves is belonging. What she deserves is to be viewed as a full and complete human, with Down syndrome, with differences and with a unique way of engaging with the world. What she deserves is to be included and embraced and invited into a circle of kids hanging out in the mornings at her middle school. What she deserves is for her peers to view her as an asset to their lives and to invite her into genuine friendship. What she deserves is for us to have a conversation about the harm that could unintentionally be caused when we don’t teach our young people, and ourselves for that matter, about the risk of perpetuating ableism when we don’t ask ourselves what the impact of our kind acts and good intentions may be. I also think our young people deserve more than accolades when they are kind and inclusive of their disabled peers. I believe young people deserve to have the conversation about unconscious bias and what that means for them. They deserve to be challenged to think about the impact of the decisions they make and to be guided and taught how to see the full humanity in every person. 

How can we create spaces of belonging if we leave out the hard conversations about why we are not there yet and what needs to change in ourselves in order to get there? 

In closing I’ll say this: There’s a lot I don’t know. A lot. There is so much room for growth in my advocacy journey. Along the way I’ve made it a habit to ask myself these three questions. Maybe you’ll find them helpful too:

1. Am I listening to and following the lead of disabled advocates? 

2. Do I see the full humanity in the person I am advocating for?

3. What unconscious bias have I not dealt with and how will that impact the outcome of my advocacy?

Here’s to continuing the conversaton. Thanks for join me. 

The Dark Side of Down Syndrome Awareness

“I don’t think it is good for my head or my heart to be on social media this month.” I told my husband after scrolling through Instagram and seeing all the World Down Syndrome Day posts. 

For people who know me the statement may seem a bit backwards. I am Heather Avis, the founder of The Lucky Few. For over a decade I’ve been an active voice in the Down Syndrome advocacy space. I’ve authored four books, spoken all over the nation, worked in collaboration with major global brands, hosted the number one Down syndrome podcast and started a foundation, all in the name of Down syndrome advocacy. For over a decade I’ve been showing up on social media, especially during the month of March, to shout the worth of my kids with Down syndrome, of all people with Down syndrome. I love Down syndrome and I love the Down syndrome community. 

14 years ago I entered the Down syndrome advocacy space and during these past 14 years, with advances in technology and social media as part of our daily lives, advocating for Down syndrome has spread across the globe. With videos and stories being shared about people with Down syndrome going to college, starting businesses, being included in their community schools, completing IronMan races, acting in major television shows and films, modeling for global brands, speaking on large stages and lobbying in our country’s capital, just to name a few, a new kind of story about Down syndrome is being told. A story communicating to both active and passive consumers “no need to worry or feel so sad about Down syndrome because look at everything a person with Down syndrome can do.” 

I get it, this need to prove that people with Down syndrome can. It wasn’t that long ago when a new Down syndrome diagnosis meant your child will never be able to know you as their mother or father so what is best is placement in an institution. It was even less time ago when people with Down syndrome were not given a free and appropriate public education. Even with so many advancements made for people with Down syndrome, sometimes I fear we’ve replaced institutionalization with terminating pregnancies with a positive in-utero diagnosis. And a person with Down syndrome’s right to a free and appropriate public education has become a fight for instilling inclusive practices. The rejection of a Down syndrome diagnosis is palpable for those of us who love a person with Down syndrome. Over the past few decades as we’ve worked to prove to the world people with Down syndrome are worthy of life, of an equitable space and of celebration, we’ve done so by showing the world what people with Down syndrome can do. And amazing organizations, like Ruby’s Rainbow, led by my dear friend Liz Plachta, have been created to dream big and celebrate the incredible capacity that so many people with Down syndrome have to pursue their goals. Of course we are proud of them. Of course we applaud the people with Down syndrome who are showing the world what they can achieve. But if that becomes the only story we tell, what message are we actually spreading?

While we’ve been clawing our way out of a harmful and deadly narrative, we’ve begun to tell, and expect, a narrative riddled with a different kind of harm. A narrative in which we communicate: “Look! Down syndrome isn’t bad because look what people with Down syndrome can do!” We’ve changed the narrative yet somehow communicate the same harmful messaging, replacing, “Down syndrome is bad because people with Down syndrome are unable to do A-Z.” with, “Down syndrome is good because people with Down syndrome are able to do A-Z.” It’s the same story told through a different lens. We’ve traded one harmful narrative for another, communicating loud and clear: “there is a best way to have Down syndrome and that way is to be more like people without Down syndrome.” 

Yikes! 

The harm around this kind of narrative is it leaves those with Down syndrome who can’t read, aren’t walking or need help toileting, not only constantly faced with the need to be more and do better, but it communicates to them and to everyone else that as they are, they are not worthy of a space in this world.

Our very own Down syndrome community is telling a narrative in which ableism is perpetuated. Over the years I’ve learned that loving a person with Down syndrome does not automatically undo the ableism each of us carry. Undoing a harmful structure, one on which every system we function in was built upon, requires of us an undoing. My kids with Down syndrome have been my invitation into this undoing. But like all invitations, I had to accept it.

May this World Down Syndrome Day be that invitation for us. Yes, this day is an invitation to celebrate and invest in the amazing accomplishments for people with Down syndrome and like my girl Liz from Ruby’s Rainbow is doing, to always dream big! And may it also be an invitation for us to truly restore the Down syndrome narrative by telling the whole Down syndrome story. A true story in which we see people with Down syndrome as worthy. Period. Full stop. It’s a story of people with Down syndrome being worthy of a space in our families, schools, communities and world because they have breath in their lungs and a heart beating in their chest. A story that tells us people with Down syndrome, just as they are, are worthy of a family, friendship, love, community, education, dreams, pursuit of dreams, to be human. Not because of what they can do, but because they are. It’s a story where everyone with Down syndrome can be celebrated and embraced. 

A few blog posts ago I asked the question, “What If My Kid With Down Syndrome Can’t?” And I shared a magical moment with my daughter Macyn. A moment full of love and magic not because of anything she was doing, but because of who she is. A spectacularly, fully human, worthy person, with Down syndrome! Her existence is one that tells this story. I consider myself the luckiest gal I know to have accepted her invitation as side by side we live this story out. 

The Story of The Lucky Few Tattoo and Three Arrows

It started like so many good stories start, with 24 strangers spending a weekend together. Okay, maybe we weren’t exactly strangers. While the majority of us were in fact meeting for the first time there was an overwhelming sense amongst us of knowing and being known because what brought us together that weekend was our child/ren with an extra chromosome. Another way to say it is like this: It started like so many good stories, with a room full of moms loving and raising a child with Down syndrome.

The retreat we were gathering for was the first ever Lucky Mama’s Retreat. The Lucky Mama’s Retreat started when my dear friend and founder of Ruby’s Rainbow, Liz Placta, reached out to see if I’d be interested in attending a weekend with other moms who have kids with Down syndrome. Not only was I interested but I shared with Liz that this exact kind of retreat was one I had dreamed of putting on myself and wondered if she would be interested in a partner. Liz said “yes” and in the middle of October, 2017 in the Hill Country of Austin, TX, Liz and I gathered 24 moms for an epic, good for the soul, weekend. 

I remember it was day one of four. Moms were arriving from all over the country. As they trickled in I found myself standing in a room with a handful of my new friends and the topic of tattoos was brought up. I said to the group in the room, “let’s all get matching tattoos.” The moms all laughed to which I replied, “I am very serious!”.  I spent the next two days telling all the moms how very serious I was and convincing them that a matching tattoo with 24 strangers was in fact a brilliant idea. 

As these things go, and by “these things” I mean gathering a bunch of women who love someone with Down syndrome, we all fell pretty hard for each other and by day three of our four day retreat I had convinced the majority of the group to get matching tattoos. 

Next step: what in the world do we all want tattooed on our bodies? We knew it needed to be something that would work for everyone including people who had zero tattoos. We also wanted it to be classy, gender neutral and timeless. We didn’t want yellow and blue ribbons or butterflies. As the group of moms began brainstorming, sharing ideas, photos and sketches, a fellow Lucky Mama, Mica May, who happened to be an expert graphic designer told the group about a dream she had about her son with Down syndrome. In this dream she got a giant tattoo of three chevron arrows on her forearm. As soon as she said it out loud a collective, “yes! That’s it!” resounded amongst the moms. It was perfect! Down syndrome is defined by three copies of the 21st chromosome, thus the three arrows. Arrows are significant because they represent a tension or pulling back before being able to be released and soar. This has been the story for so many parents loving a child with Down syndrome and for people with Down syndrome. 

The next thing you know Mica has a sharpie and is drawing a variety of chevron arrows in a set of three, on different body parts of the moms in the room. Simultaneously one mom, Lisa Eicher, was on the phone with local tattoo parlors seeing if we could make mountains move and get 24 women tattoos at the very last minute on a Saturday night. 

As luck would have it, we landed on a final variation of the three arrows. As not luck would have it, logistically it was not an option for 24 women to show up, last minute, at a tattoo parlor.

Alas. 

But we were not going to give up. We’re raising kids with Down syndrome for goodness sake. Giving up is not in our vernacular. We are arrows being pulled back just waiting to soar! A new plan took shape which looked like a handful of mamas, six of us to be exact, who either lived local or had a later flight out, getting appointments at a tattoo parlor the next day. 

That next day was Sunday, the last day of The Lucky Mama’s Retreat. After saying our goodbyes to our new best friends forever, six of us including myself, Mica May, Lisa Eicher, Katie Pokrana-McElroy, Amber Davis, and Erin Morrow, showed up at a tattoo parlor and became the first people to get the chevron arrows tattooed on our bodies. As it goes in this social media world, we took some photos, shared them on Instagram and went home to our families. 

Little did we know that the photos we shared would make a huge splash rippling across the globe. Within days of coming home I began to hear the buzz. Other people who loved someone with Down syndrome wanted to know more about The Lucky Few Tattoo. Within the week, I began to see photos pop up of total strangers tattooing their bodies with the three arrows. Within that first month the dang arrow tattoo was popping up all over the world. I had never heard of a tattoo going viral, but if that’s a thing, that’s exactly what happened. Down syndrome associations all over the country held tattoo fundraisers, booking their local tattoo parlors while families lined up to get The Lucky Few Tattoo. Parents, grandparents and even great grandparents sent me photos showing off their first ever tattoo; the three arrows. I was invited to participate in local tattoo events and asked to FaceTime all across the country with families as parents, aunties, uncles, grandparents, friends, teachers and coaches got The Lucky Few Tattoo. 

By the middle of 2018 the arrows had moved from tattoos on our bodies to symbols associated with the Down syndrome community. They began to pop up on t-shirts and other apparel. In fact, the number and variety of items you can get on Etsy with The Lucky Few Tattoo arrows may be unlimited. In the fall of 2018 I went to a different and much larger retreat for moms who have a child with Down syndrome and when I sat down at the table and looked at the forms offering information about the weekend I noticed those three arrows sprinkled into the design. I thought, “okay, so this little idea I had about a matching tattoo and Mica May sharing about her dream of the three arrows has really stuck!” Amazing. 

It has been almost six years since The Lucky Few Tattoo made its way into the world. I know it is not the first time people who love someone with Down syndrome have tattooed something in threes on their bodies, or gotten matching tattoos to represent their loved one with Down syndrome. Nor is it the first time the three chevron arrows have appeared as tattoos, in fact the three chevron arrows as tattoos have been around for decades. Still, there is something so powerful, even hopeful when I think about The Lucky Few Tattoo. It’s not just a symbol to represent Down syndrome, it’s a symbol of connection and belonging. If anything, the viral nature of the three arrows in the Down syndrome community show us just how much we want to be seen and known. How much we want to connect with others. It tells the story of a community resisting the negative narrative about Down syndrome constantly being thrown our way. It tells a story of just how important our loved one with Down syndrome is to us.

What If My Kid With Down Syndrome Can’t?

“I just feel kind of lied to when people say that people with DS can get married or go to college, etc.”. A mom who listens to the The Lucky Few Podcast wrote as she reached out to share her frustrations with progress, or lack thereof, of her son with Down syndrome. I could feel the desperation, disappointment and heartache in her message and it took me back to those first months and years raising Macyn when I had similar thoughts and feelings as I watched other kids with Down syndrome complete tasks and reach milestones that Macyn continually missed. Sure people with Down syndrome can get married or go to college, etc. But what about the kid with Down syndrome who doesn’t achieve the things so widely expected and celebrated in our society? What happens when our kid with Down syndrome can’t?  

Look, I am all about celebrating the amazing things people with Down syndrome are doing around the world. And it’s really important for the world to see and celebrate it too. Still, in our efforts to convince the world that people with Down syndrome deserve to live in it, I fear we, the Down syndrome community, have done so without undoing the ableist ideas in our own lives. 

Allow me to expand. I believe the feelings of sadness and devastation met with a Down syndrome diagnosis has a lot to do with ableist thinking. A way of thinking which says Down syndrome is bad because disability is bad. This messaging is woven into the foundation of our medical, social and societal thinking and ways of being. So it’s not surprising when we learn about a baby with a Down syndrome diagnosis we go in search of some goodness and hope. Often this looks like hopping online in search of videos and articles about people with Down syndrome. Or maybe even getting plugged into the Down syndrome community where we find messages of hope, goodness and light. This hope, goodness and light often comes to us in the form of, “look at what people with Down syndrome can do!” attached to videos of a person with Down syndrome reading, happily attending social gatherings with peers, graduating high school, attending college, getting a job, finding love. Then there are the stories which make their way into the headlines about people with Down syndrome who compete in ironman races, start and run successful businesses, lobby in DC, and star in major motion pictures and on television shows. As we learn about a baby with Down syndrome we grab at these stories circulating around the globe and instead of saying, “your baby with Down syndrome is good and worthy of life and love.” with a period at the end, we say, “sure your baby has Down syndrome but they too will be worthy of life and love because look what they can do and become!” Somehow in our efforts to say to the world, “people with Down syndrome are amazing and worthy of a space in this world!,” we’ve missed the “period, full stop.” and managed to move forward in our love for and celebration of people with Down syndrome based on what they can or will do and especially so when what they are able to do makes them most like people without Down syndrome. 

When my daughter Macyn was five years old I sat in a class for parents learning ways to academically support our child with Down syndrome. The woman moderating the class, who had a son with Down syndrome the same age as my daughter, at one point stated, “isn’t that why we do all this for our kids, so they can be more like their typical peers?” Her statement gave me pause, creating a moment for me to stop and ask myself who I want my daughter with Down syndrome to be. The answer? I want her to be her best self. Her best self as a person with Down syndrome. There is no way to separate Macyn from Down syndrome and even if there was I wouldn’t want to. I love who she is with Down syndrome. 

Macyn is now 14 years old. For the past 14 years I have been unraveling the ableism in my own life. Picking the pieces of ignorant, judgmental, fearful shrapnel set on convincing us there is a best way to be human, from my heart, mind and soul. Just because I have a child with Down syndrome doesn’t automatically undo my ableist ways of thinking and living. Instead, Macyn has been an invitation for me. Down syndrome has been an invitation to step away from society’s ideas about what gives a human value and worth so I could more clearly see the intrinsic value and worth in her, and in so doing seeing it in everyone, including myself. 

The fact is, there is so much my daughter with Down syndrome can’t do, especially when compared to her peers with Down syndrome. She can’t read a book or count past 50. She doesn’t get invited to hang out with friends and she can’t easily fit in with her peers in social settings. She can’t be left home alone or care for herself like most 14 year olds. And while I don’t want to place limits on her, I can also guess it is unlikely she’ll go to college, live alone, or start a business. Yes, maybe someday she will do all of those things, but that’s not the point. The point here is none of them give her value or make her a person worth knowing, celebrating and loving. There are so many tasks society has tied to our value and worth, that Macyn can’t do. But what she can do is show up in this world unapologetically as herself, as a person with Down syndrome. She can see your value and worth and embrace and love you exactly as you are. Her life is an invitation to question the harmful ideologies of this “do more - be more - made for more” hustle culture which has us constantly tripping over comparison, feeling miserable about ourselves and cynical about each other. In other words, she is doing so much good for the health of our collective humanity by being nothing more than a kid with Down syndrome. 

Last night after getting ready for bed, Macyn walked into the kitchen in her pjs. She came up to me, said, “I love you mom!”, and gave me a hug. She’s not very tall and the top of her head doesn’t even reach the chin on my 5’10” frame. So I got down on my knees, eye to eye with my girl and wrapped my arms around her. Once again I found myself holding on tightly to some kind of sacred magic and she took my breath away. Not because of anything she did, but just because of who she is. 

Reflecting back on the message from the podcast listener who reached out, “I just kinda feel lied to…”. You feel that way because you have been lied to. But I would challenge the way in which we see it. The lie is not found in what we’ve been told our child with Down syndrome should be able to do someday or that there is a best way to have Down syndrome. Yes, those ideas are extremely harmful, yet the lie is a bigger, a more impactful and harmful lie than that. The lie is that your son has to do/be anything more in order to be seen as valuable and worthy. It’s a lie not only believed about people with Down syndrome but one being fed to people everywhere.

The kicker is, our loved ones with Down syndrome hold the key to the way out of this harmful thinking, offering us an invitation to step towards the truth.

An invitation to begin to undo ableism and superiority thinking in our own hearts, minds, and souls so that someday we will be able to see the value and worth in our kids with Down syndrome, each other, and ourselves just as we are…period, full stop. Our loved ones with Down syndrome have invited all of us into this sacred journey. When will we accept? 

When Everyone Doesn't Belong

A month into my son’s second grade school year I listened in frustrated disbelief as both his general education teacher and special education teacher shared with my husband and I all the concerns they had about our son August’s behavior. They painted a picture of a disrespectful, unruly, violent student. A boy I was not familiar with. 

That conversation was followed up with a long string of emails, phone calls and meetings to address August’s behavior and needed support. I very clearly expressed how out of character his extreme behaviors were. I asked about a plan for support. I felt as though we went in circles, his needs going unaddressed. At one point it seemed as though we were sending him to school to practice these out of character and destructive behaviors and so a week before Thanksgiving break I told his IEP team that he would not be going to school until they were able to get a consistent plan in place to address the antecedent to the behaviors, and implement the necessary supports so he could participate in his school day with the rest of his peers. 

August was out of the classroom for nine weeks. During that time it became clear that the damage done to him those first few months in his second grade class would take an effort not everyone was willing to give in order to make repairs. So we made the decision to pull him from his class. Creating a plan to move forward meant a new teacher. Just before Christmas break, we sat across the table from a different second grade teacher. A teacher unfamiliar with real breathing people with Down syndrome. A teacher who, through folded arms and cold eyes, told us in so many ways, she had no idea how to work with a child like August. She sat across from us and rejected our son because he had Down syndrome. 

Weeks after making the decision to pull August from the given school environment he needed to be on campus for a session with his speech therapist. As he approached the steps to the school he stopped dead in his tracks and said, “they don’t want me here.” 

Let me be clear here, all of the aforementioned conversations and meetings happened without August present. His dad nor I had never talked about our frustrations with the school in front of our son. We tried to protect him from the behind the scenes as best we could. No one ever said those words to him. The worst thing about it is they didn’t have to. During those first days of his second grade year August felt rejected. We don’t know in exactly what ways. Maybe it was how his peers avoided conversations with him because his communication is a little different than theirs. Maybe it was because of how difficult the tasks expected of him were and he needed help but didn’t know how to ask. Maybe it was because of the ways he would need to bend, flex and change in order to fit within a school system, prohibiting him from showing up as he was. Whatever the reason he felt a lack of belonging, his behavior was a direct result: he would rather be rejected because of the way he behaved than for who he was as a person with Down syndrome. 

When I think about August’s first few months in second grade I’m not frustrated so much with a teacher or students as I am with a system functioning in a world where the worth and value of a person with Down syndrome is constantly in question. A world where it is acceptable and even expected for my son to walk into a space needing to work 10 times as hard to be seen as half as much, a world that doesn’t know people with Down syndrome and is therefore unrelenting in the ways it excludes, segregates and others. 

You see, I think if every person in August’s 2nd grade class had access to real, breathing people with Down syndrome, to the stories of those who know and love a person with Down syndrome, they would have been able to see humanity in August just as he was. They would have known that just like them, people with Down syndrome want to know they belong. They would have been quick to embrace him rather than intuitively reject him. 

Last week a dear friend of mine who I do not see nearly as often as I’d like sent me a text message about a book she was reading by Cole Arthur Riley called This Here Flesh and she shared this quote,  “We cannot help but entwine our concept of dignity with how much a person can do. The sick, the elderly, the disabled, the neurodivergent, my sweet cousin on the autism spectrum — we tend to assign a lesser social value to those whose ‘doing’ cannot be enslaved into a given output. We should look to them as sacred guides out of the bondage of productivity.” 

My friend went on to tell me this truth was recognizable to her because she knows August (and Macy). She said her heart and life will be different because she knows my kids with Down syndrome and can see their worth fully. She went on to say this truth would be known by her son, and his sons and daughters, etc. 

There is power in the knowing. There is narrative-shifting strength in a connection to a real breathing person with Down syndrome.  

The truth is we live in a society obsessed with connecting our worth as humans to what we can do. We look to the doers to guide us into doing more, equating our value to our productivity. The lies are dressed up as opportunities constantly whispering to us, “be better, do more, climb higher, achieve, succeed, produce!” We get lost in this hustle, and shape shift our way out of facing the stark reality that the lies of our worth being found in our productivity has untethered us and we are flailing, feeling miserable and alone. Soon we cannot recognize ourselves in this constant equating of our own value and worth.

The narrative shift needed to happen for people with Down syndrome, for them to be seen as fully human, worthy of belonging, and treated with value and dignity, is not just for people with Down syndrome and those who love them. This narrative shift is an invitation for everyone who has ever felt that they are not enough. It’s an invitation to make space in our lives for people with Down syndrome and their stories, to help guide us along this one and only sacred, messy and glorious life. 

When we tell the stories of people with Down syndrome we tell the human story: a story with a desire for belonging at its core. 

I believe this story of belonging is the story the students in Augie’s class and the teacher who rejected him are longing for. And so we will keep on telling it. We will commit ourselves to telling the stories and shouting the worth of the 6 billion people in the world who have Down syndrome and the billions more of those who love them. And we invite you to join us! 

Working Toward a Brighter, More Beautiful World (Everyone Belongs is here! My newest children’s book!)

One day, years ago, I dropped my middle daughter Truly off at preschool. As I approached the teacher to ask a question about an upcoming event I observed my daughter walk up to two girls sitting on the rug playing with blocks.

“Can I play with you?” Truly asked

The girls hesitated, looked at each other and then one of them replied, “No, you can’t play with us. But maybe we can play together at lunch.” 

My eyes darted from my disappointed daughter, to the girls on the rug, to their parents standing by to the teacher, who overheard the exchange. I waited for one of them to interject, offering all three of these girls an opportunity to learn how to be inclusive. When no one seemed to bat an eye I made my way over to the rug, placed my hands on my daughter’s shoulders and with as much gentleness and kindness I could muster said to the girls on the rug, “Of course Truly can play with you.” I knelt down, picked up a block, patted the floor and said to Truly, “How about you sit right here?” Then looking at all the girls I handed Truly the block and said, “what are you playing?” 

Later that day I shared this story with my online community, encouraging parents to make sure we are having conversations with our kids about inclusion and kindness. Most parents joined me in solidarity. But a few parents did not, saying, “there is nothing wrong with the way the girls responded. They shouldn’t have to play with everyone if they don’t want to. Plus they gave her an alternative for a time she could join them.” Honestly? Their reactions gave me pause and made me reevaluate my reaction. Yet the more I thought about it the more I disagreed with their response to the situation, especially considering the setting. We were not talking about an established college study group taking place in a library. We were talking about three year old girls sitting in a communal space in their preschool class. If anywhere should be a place of inclusive practices and learning how to make a space where everyone can belong it is preschool! Maybe it’s the fact I was often the child who felt left out and insecure with my peers, or maybe it was because all three of the children I have, find themselves in marginalized groups, all too familiar with exclusion and its toxic effects. These collections of experience led me to stand firm in my feelings that when three year old Tru asked to play with the girls the only answer should have been yes. It made me feel even more strongly how important it is for us to teach our kids to scoot over and make room on the rug, at the playground, in their classrooms, in their friend groups, or even when planning to put on an epic show in the park. We all have so much capacity for kindness, and we can share with our kids how amazing things can be when we say yes to inclusivity. Afterall, this world should be one where Everyone Belongs. 

Friends! I am beyond thrilled to share with you my newest children’s book, Everyone Belongs. A story about sisters named Macy and Tru who head to the park to put on a show in which Everyone Belong. It’s a book that encourages children to not only value all people but to also make room for their differences in order to make a better, brighter, and more beautiful world.

I am so proud of this book and its message and I think you and your children are going to love it! And guess what? The book is available for pre-order TODAY. You can pre-order the book anywhere books are sold. Here are some links to make it easy: 

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Thank you for joining me in creating a world where Everyone Belongs!