ONCE UPON A GENE - Episode 115 - Create Conversation, Community, and Change with Author of Loving You Big - Leah Moore
Leah Moore won a prestigious award for being teacher of the year in New York, she's the author of the memoir Loving You Big, and she's the parent of three kiddos, one of which was diagnosed with Cri du chat syndrome.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Can you share about yourself and your family?
I am a high school English and theater teacher in New York and I live in Westchester, which is north of the city with my three kids and my husband. Our ten year old daughter Jordan has a rare diagnosis called Cri du chat which is a deletion of the fifth chromosome. We also have twin boys who are now six, one which has an unnamed disability and the other has Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), which is a rare autoimmune disease.
You talk about loving the disability out of Jordan. Was that the inspiration for your book?
I started writing because my students were doing a personal narrative assignment and they were struggling. To show them how to do it, I wrote what was intended to be a silly example, but what poured out of me was a piece about the irony of language and how I have words and Jordan doesn't. When I read it to them, I realized I was holding on to stories I needed to tell.
What ideas do you have for people to become inclusion allies?
It starts with avoiding staring at the playground, asking how to help, asking a person's name and asking someone to play. Saying hi is an easy first step.
How can we balance chronic stress with joy?
I personally believe that if we only stay in a negative place, it can color everything. I had to work at how to let it out. For me, it's through writing, through connecting to the people in my circle who I don't feel judgment from, or through watching Netflix on the couch. You have to do the work to figure out where you can let it out safely. I don't quite know the formula, I just know it's imperative.
How are you and your husband intentional about tending your marriage?
I think of the days of diagnosis and medical fears as the triage days. One of the fires I needed to put out was not my husband because he was able to take care of himself. And I realized at some point, we were just raising each other's children and our conversations were about milk and epilepsy medication. So I think it's a combination of three things- not taking on too much myself, having a life outside our children, and tapping into each other's humor.
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED
Emotional Agility book on Amazon
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