A Child Called Noah

             Greenfeld, Josh. (1972). A child called Noah: A family journey. New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
             This is book tells the story of a family with a child named Noah that is Autistic. Josh Greenfeld is an author by trade but displays a unique perspective on his families struggles with Noah. He has chosen to write this book as a collection of journal entries, as he says in the opening, "Let me cull some entries from my journal, for although often muddled and uninformed, I think they can best communicate who we are as people, and the nature and quality of the experience." I believe that by using this approach he has done a masterful job in conveying the genuine emotional struggles that a family with a child who is disabled might go through.
             The story is set up with the author painting a picture of he and his wife Foumi are as people, as all too human people with their frailties and complexities. Greenfeld even goes as far as to admit that had his wife and him had the money they would have aborted Noah. I was quite surprised by the raw truth that he displays throughout his book. What I found interesting for the type of free spirits and given that this was the sixties the Greenfelds quickly settle into middleclass life of diaper, mortgages and taxes.
             As most literature suggests Noah is quite normal at birth and continues this way for the first 6 months. Now here it is important to recognize the complexities involved with being second time parents and worrying that you are being overly protective. Josh and his wife have one other child Karl that although having the normal baby things has had a quite normal development. This does not seem to be the case with Noah, and will not be the case for the rest of his life. At the age of two, an absolute diagnosis of autism is made. What I found interesting is the calm that comes along with a diagnosis, for parents the not knowing must be the hardest part, because with a d...

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A Child Called Noah. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 16:55, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/77154.html