By Bonnie Buxton; 331 pages. From the book cover: "Part heartfelt memoir, part practical guide, 'Damaged Angels' recounts Bonnie Buxton's years-long struggle to raise a child whose biological mother drank alcohol during pregnancy."
Like most FASD memoirs, this one is full of tragic and scary choices that will make you want to hold your child a little tighter. The fact that Buxton's daughter survives to the end of the book and seems headed for a better future makes it a relatively upbeat entry in the genre.
- Family's fight to get the right diagnosis for a child will resonate with many special-needs families
- Offers a moving rebuttal to those who say drinking in moderation is fine
- Gives a glimpse of FASD as a global problem
- Includes some upbeat stories of parenting children with fetal alcohol exposure
- Has a less-tragic ending than most FASD memoirs
- The ending may be less-tragic than most memoirs, but there's plenty of tragedy along the way
- Despite those few positive stories, the mood of the book is mostly downbeat
- Hard knowing that after all these years people are still in denial about alcohol use in pregnancy
- The struggles of this and other families to get proper care may make you angry
- Chapter 1: Rogue Sunflower
Chapter 2: Demon Angel - Chapter 3: Crashing Into the Iceberg
- Chapter 4: Diagnosis: An Excuse for Bad Behavior?
- Chapter 5: The Myth of the Safe Threshold
- Chapter 6: Society's Children
Chapter 7: A Life Full of Misunderstands - Chapter 8: "Once I Started, I Just Couldn't Stop"
- Chapter 9: They Come Without Cookbooks
- Chapter 10: "This Mask I Wear -- Can You See Through It?"
- Chapter 11: A Lifetime Sentence
Chapter 12: The Puzzle of Pain Felt Around the World - Chapter 13: Marvels, Miracles, and Dancing at the Mall
Chapter 14: The Spinning Kaleidoscope
Reading this book made me mad, really mad. Mad at doctors who refused to diagnose Buxton's daughter with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder when that diagnosis would have done some good. Mad at the professionals who destroyed opportunities for other families profiled here. Mad at posters in internet discussions like this one who insist that drinking during pregnancy is A-OK, and that FASD is only a figment of the imagination of North Americans. So much denial, so much evasion, so many children and families destroyed, just so no one ever has to make a judgment about whether drinking is good or bad. It makes my blood boil, reading a book like this, and my heart break a little, too.
Books like this one, that tally up the cost of FASD and depict the hard battles faced by children and parents, are useful for advocating against alcohol use and pregnancy, and for supporting families who are walking the same hard road. Yet parents for whom a child's FASD diagnosis has been a challenge but not a tragedy may wonder, again, why every memoir of raising an alcohol-exposed child has to be such a sad, sad story. A few profiles here give a somewhat more upbeat look at the not inconsiderable joys of raising a child who maintains youthful innocence and enthusiasm well beyond the point at which most kids have become jaded and sarcastic. One day, I hope, there will be more memoirs with that less desperate outlook, ones that don't make me weepy. Or mad.
