What is it like to be a parent of a child with disabilities? This has become a very common question as I’ve started to share more publicly about the challenges my child faces and how they impact her and our family. The truth is that there is no exact answer. Each parent has their own unique story and each child’s disabilities and strengths are completely different. Each day more kids are born with disabilities. You would think that by this point our society would have grown to have tolerance, understanding, and empathy for these individuals and their loved ones; sadly, this is not always the...

As a mother of two, including one with special needs and a birth defect, I have seen first-hand how parents, children and society all win when families have access to high-quality affordable childcare, early learning programs, and mental health programs that take children’s social and emotional needs into account. Several years ago I had to take my daughter, who was two at the time, out of child care because I lost my job and couldn’t afford the fees. I applied for Early Head Start, and she was accepted. It made a world of difference for her. You see, my daughter has special needs. She only...