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All Our Families: Disability Lineage and the Future of Kinship
A provocation to reclaim our disability lineage in order to profoundly reimagine the possibilities for our relationship to disability, kinship, and carework.
Disability is often described as a tragedy, a crisis, or an aberration, though 1 in 5 people worldwide have a disability. Why is this common human experience rendered exceptional? In All Our Families, disability studies scholar Jennifer Natalya Fink argues that this originates in our families. When we cut a disabled member out of the family story, disability remains a trauma as opposed to a shared and ordinary experience. This makes disability and its diagnosis traumatic and exceptional.
Weaving together stories of members of her own family with sociohistorical research, Fink illustrates how the eradication of disabled people from family narratives is rooted in racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic sorting systems inherited from Nazis. By examining the rhetoric of genetic testing, she shows that a fear of disability begins before a child is even born and that a fear of disability is, fundamentally, a fear of care. Fink analyzes our racist and sexist care systems, exposing their inequities as a source of stigmatizing ableism.
Inspired by queer and critical race theory, Fink calls for a lineage of disability a reclamation of disability as a history, a culture, and an identity. Such a lineage offers a means of seeing disability in the context of a collective sense of belonging, as cause for celebration, and is a call for a radical reimagining of carework and kinship. All Our Families challenges us to re-lineate disability within the family as a means of repair toward a more inclusive and flexible structure of care and community.
Disability is often described as a tragedy, a crisis, or an aberration, though 1 in 5 people worldwide have a disability. Why is this common human experience rendered exceptional? In All Our Families, disability studies scholar Jennifer Natalya Fink argues that this originates in our families. When we cut a disabled member out of the family story, disability remains a trauma as opposed to a shared and ordinary experience. This makes disability and its diagnosis traumatic and exceptional.
Weaving together stories of members of her own family with sociohistorical research, Fink illustrates how the eradication of disabled people from family narratives is rooted in racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic sorting systems inherited from Nazis. By examining the rhetoric of genetic testing, she shows that a fear of disability begins before a child is even born and that a fear of disability is, fundamentally, a fear of care. Fink analyzes our racist and sexist care systems, exposing their inequities as a source of stigmatizing ableism.
Inspired by queer and critical race theory, Fink calls for a lineage of disability a reclamation of disability as a history, a culture, and an identity. Such a lineage offers a means of seeing disability in the context of a collective sense of belonging, as cause for celebration, and is a call for a radical reimagining of carework and kinship. All Our Families challenges us to re-lineate disability within the family as a means of repair toward a more inclusive and flexible structure of care and community.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published April 5, 2022
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1714 people want to read
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June 15, 2022
I have to be honest. As a firm believer in disability justice, and someone on the spectrum myself, when I started this book my kneejerk reaction was “uh-oh, it’s an autism mom.” But I’ve been on a journey of acceptance and not judging people by snap impressions, so I kept reading, and I’m really glad I did! All Our Families takes a unique angle by targeting families not in the deeply problematic ableist style of organizations like Autism Speaks, but instead through a call to focus on our disability lineages and how family might actually be reincorporated into radical ideas of care, interdependence, and disability gain with implications for disabled people, care workers, and anyone who disability touches (spoiler alert: that’s everyone).
Through her focus on lineage, author Jennifer Natalya Fink asks us all to consider the question of how disability has been erased, ignored, or misunderstood in our family lines and to take on the project of “re-lineating” the disabled members of our families so that disability is seen not as an aberration but as part of an unbroken and common thread that exists in every family. Fink focuses especially on family members with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as those most often erased and stigmatized. This radical project is supported by an intersectional approach that comes from an academic perspective but considers a range of narratives including disability justice, queer theory, and care work.
Fink’s own experience is central to the narrative both as a parent to a non-verbal autistic teen (significantly, a queer Jewish parent with a Korean-American partner) and as a member of a family that includes at least two members with Down’s syndrome—one who was institutionalized and erased (de-lineated) from the family narrative and another who was (imperfectly, but nonetheless) embraced. Fink’s research into these family stories inspired her focus on re-lineating, while her experience as a parent coming to terms with her toddler’s diagnosis led her to seek alternative narratives of intellectual and cognitive disability. Her academic background led her to consider a range of theoretical perspectives, and her Jewish heritage adds another layer of consideration around what it means to be family. If you’re a fan of the feminist tradition of incorporating memoir, research, and politics, you’ll love Fink’s style.
Fink evokes the Jewish concept of mishpacha in considering kinship networks and how severely disabled people get left out of that generous cultural view of interdependence and extended family. She grapples with her grandfather’s loving acceptance of a big, blended family alongside how he pressured his children to de-lineate a severely disabled child. In discussing this family narrative, one striking thing is how Fink does the difficult and vulnerable work of confronting how her Jewish family both practices the traditions of mishpacha and cultural preservation and took part through this de-lineation in the same kind of categorizing and erasing that led to the Holocaust.
This history is, of course, quite complex. Fink’s academic background is an asset as she weaves together the many layers of how the white, heteronormative family ideal has been protected over time and across cultures through erasure of the severely disabled—through de-lineation, but also through genocide. She explains Nazi beliefs about the ideal body in parallel with how Black bodies, especially Black disabled bodies, are demonized in the United States. In considering the history of institutionalization, she shows how it allows families to distance themselves from disability, but also how these institutions tend Christianize their residents.
While she generally supports deinstitutionalization and reincorporation of disabled members back into the family, Fink troubles how this model relies on racist and misogynist conceptions of family and care. She writes that “fear of disability is, fundamentally, a fear of care,” which stems from the norm of shoving the “burden” of care onto mothers who are then fully subsumed into the identity of caregiver (and perhaps become the problematic “Autism Speaks mom” as their only way to find support and community). This model deprofessionalizes women, unless they are able to pay for professional caregivers. And if they are, those caregivers are very likely BIWOC who in turn may be unable to care for their own families as they work these underpaid jobs caring for someone else’s children. Fink also ties this story to genetic testing and how selective genocide and attitudes like “I don’t care the gender, as long as it’s healthy!” are normalized even by feminists, presuming women wouldn’t want to take on the solo care of a severely disabled child rather than asking how care might be more supported.
Of course, the situation of care for people with severe disabilities is a complex and tangled mess that engages a range of societal problems: racism, anti-Blackness, immigration policy, lack of public support, misogyny, and ableism are just a few. But Fink proposes that re-lineation would be a step towards a more collective model of care through a cultural mindset shift. Once we see disabled family members as a normal part of lineage rather than something shameful or burdensome, perhaps adopting the model of “disability gain” and recognizing severely disabled folks’ unique contributions, we might be more able to creatively imagine collective care structures and advocate for supportive policies.
In other words, re-lineating disability is also about re-lineating care, “the hidden twin of disability.” Rather than expecting moms or underpaid BIWOC to take on all the care work, heroizing a sacrifice narrative, this lens would recognize a communal role of care. We might also be more critical of the current tendency to shame and criminalize non-normative bodies out of the public eye, a trend Fink describes from multiple angles, and instead embrace different ways of being in public and see the reciprocity in relationships with our disabled community members.
This may sound idealistic, but I’m inspired by this vision for a way forward, which isn’t just about disability and would honestly benefit all of us in these burnt-out, disconnected times. It’s easy for me to see personally, for example, how embracing autistic people with all our stims and non-normative social behaviors would not only end situations like Fink describes where mothers are shamed by their children’s behavior, but also could encourage play and diversity of expression across our culture, benefiting everyone who struggles under norms of Puritan suppression and “professionalism.”
The vision of re-lineation starts with acknowledging disability in our families: talking about it, learning about it, and normalizing it. Fink is critical of the conception of diagnosis as an unquestioned trauma, which assumes a rupture from the family that separates, rather than an experience that occurs within a known lineage of disability. Parents are expected to be shocked by diagnosis and process that trauma individually before taking on a private and heroic care burden, rather than experiencing parenting in community. Of course this narrative completely erases disabled parents and for normatively abled parents often changes their understanding of their child, even though the child themselves has not changed.
One of the strengths of Fink’s community-centered approach is that it connects disability justice to other forms of radical discourse. For example, she introduces queer and crip time in the context of ancestry, raising exciting possibilities I would describe as delightfully anti-capitalist. In one powerful moment Fink names that she’s been quoting disability activist Stacey Milbern in the present tense, when Stacey is in fact dead. That really hit me as someone who is/was in loose community with Stacy, an activist who’s contributed so much to overlapping queer and crip communities. Not too long ago I was reading a radical text she sent me years ago when cleaning out her book collection, and the memory brought me back with a smile, a moment of time-travel that brought Stacey into the room. This is just one of many ways Fink weaves in the voices of other scholars and activists, de-centering her own voice in sharing the threads of theory and praxis that inform it. In this volume you’ll learn about queer relationship, different ways of viewing disability and community, care over cure, and many more concepts from first-person perspectives.
In naming that radical lineage, I will admit that I was somewhat challenged by Fink’s criticisms of mutual aid and chosen family as too temporary and exclusive of biological family. I think it’s important to acknowledge that some families do refuse to acknowledge a diagnosis and get onboard with re-lineation, and that their disabled members may not be able to include biological family in their lives. At the same time I appreciate the point that when we’re forming these radical ideas of interdependence we may be missing out on possibility. When we assume that families are white, heteronormative, ableist, and individualist, we may be missing opportunities to create more lasting multigenerational networks of care that include folks who are highly dependent on blood family. In welcoming blood family of disabled folks into radical communities, I just think it’s very important to acknowledge the realities of abuse and to center disabled voices so our words don’t get swallowed.
I can’t help but relate this consideration of family to my own experience. While I used to see my radical politics as separating me from my Southern family as a queer person, more recently I’ve found work around roots and ancestry to be a deep and integral part of my spiritual practice revealing continuity and nuance. The more I question identity politics and start to consider a framework of healing and acceptance as key to justice and liberation for marginalized people, the more I reconsider my own judgments of family.
I think a lot of us hope to find a magical apocryphal ancestor in the family record, whether a feminist witch or a flaming queer crip, but typically the story is messier and less obvious. It’s easy to see family flaws but perhaps not always so easy to deeply listen. I’m also aware that while I’m disabled and neurodivergent, but I have a lot of privilege and can’t know the experiences of severely intellectually and developmentally disabled folks. I finished this book curious to learn where my own family might have erased and disconnected me from them, and how I can consider different models of partnership in my activism.
Overall, I found Fink’s portrayal of disability to be compassionate and center people with disabilities, while also calling for a more just consideration of how families fit into the picture. While I’ve covered a lot here, there are far more details in the book, including some fascinating stories. I would highly recommend the book to disabled folks and their families, but also to activists and those interested in interdependence in general to ensure that we’re considering that complex legacy of disability and family as we build new models for community and care.
(ARC provided through Edelweiss.)
Through her focus on lineage, author Jennifer Natalya Fink asks us all to consider the question of how disability has been erased, ignored, or misunderstood in our family lines and to take on the project of “re-lineating” the disabled members of our families so that disability is seen not as an aberration but as part of an unbroken and common thread that exists in every family. Fink focuses especially on family members with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as those most often erased and stigmatized. This radical project is supported by an intersectional approach that comes from an academic perspective but considers a range of narratives including disability justice, queer theory, and care work.
Fink’s own experience is central to the narrative both as a parent to a non-verbal autistic teen (significantly, a queer Jewish parent with a Korean-American partner) and as a member of a family that includes at least two members with Down’s syndrome—one who was institutionalized and erased (de-lineated) from the family narrative and another who was (imperfectly, but nonetheless) embraced. Fink’s research into these family stories inspired her focus on re-lineating, while her experience as a parent coming to terms with her toddler’s diagnosis led her to seek alternative narratives of intellectual and cognitive disability. Her academic background led her to consider a range of theoretical perspectives, and her Jewish heritage adds another layer of consideration around what it means to be family. If you’re a fan of the feminist tradition of incorporating memoir, research, and politics, you’ll love Fink’s style.
Fink evokes the Jewish concept of mishpacha in considering kinship networks and how severely disabled people get left out of that generous cultural view of interdependence and extended family. She grapples with her grandfather’s loving acceptance of a big, blended family alongside how he pressured his children to de-lineate a severely disabled child. In discussing this family narrative, one striking thing is how Fink does the difficult and vulnerable work of confronting how her Jewish family both practices the traditions of mishpacha and cultural preservation and took part through this de-lineation in the same kind of categorizing and erasing that led to the Holocaust.
This history is, of course, quite complex. Fink’s academic background is an asset as she weaves together the many layers of how the white, heteronormative family ideal has been protected over time and across cultures through erasure of the severely disabled—through de-lineation, but also through genocide. She explains Nazi beliefs about the ideal body in parallel with how Black bodies, especially Black disabled bodies, are demonized in the United States. In considering the history of institutionalization, she shows how it allows families to distance themselves from disability, but also how these institutions tend Christianize their residents.
While she generally supports deinstitutionalization and reincorporation of disabled members back into the family, Fink troubles how this model relies on racist and misogynist conceptions of family and care. She writes that “fear of disability is, fundamentally, a fear of care,” which stems from the norm of shoving the “burden” of care onto mothers who are then fully subsumed into the identity of caregiver (and perhaps become the problematic “Autism Speaks mom” as their only way to find support and community). This model deprofessionalizes women, unless they are able to pay for professional caregivers. And if they are, those caregivers are very likely BIWOC who in turn may be unable to care for their own families as they work these underpaid jobs caring for someone else’s children. Fink also ties this story to genetic testing and how selective genocide and attitudes like “I don’t care the gender, as long as it’s healthy!” are normalized even by feminists, presuming women wouldn’t want to take on the solo care of a severely disabled child rather than asking how care might be more supported.
Of course, the situation of care for people with severe disabilities is a complex and tangled mess that engages a range of societal problems: racism, anti-Blackness, immigration policy, lack of public support, misogyny, and ableism are just a few. But Fink proposes that re-lineation would be a step towards a more collective model of care through a cultural mindset shift. Once we see disabled family members as a normal part of lineage rather than something shameful or burdensome, perhaps adopting the model of “disability gain” and recognizing severely disabled folks’ unique contributions, we might be more able to creatively imagine collective care structures and advocate for supportive policies.
In other words, re-lineating disability is also about re-lineating care, “the hidden twin of disability.” Rather than expecting moms or underpaid BIWOC to take on all the care work, heroizing a sacrifice narrative, this lens would recognize a communal role of care. We might also be more critical of the current tendency to shame and criminalize non-normative bodies out of the public eye, a trend Fink describes from multiple angles, and instead embrace different ways of being in public and see the reciprocity in relationships with our disabled community members.
This may sound idealistic, but I’m inspired by this vision for a way forward, which isn’t just about disability and would honestly benefit all of us in these burnt-out, disconnected times. It’s easy for me to see personally, for example, how embracing autistic people with all our stims and non-normative social behaviors would not only end situations like Fink describes where mothers are shamed by their children’s behavior, but also could encourage play and diversity of expression across our culture, benefiting everyone who struggles under norms of Puritan suppression and “professionalism.”
The vision of re-lineation starts with acknowledging disability in our families: talking about it, learning about it, and normalizing it. Fink is critical of the conception of diagnosis as an unquestioned trauma, which assumes a rupture from the family that separates, rather than an experience that occurs within a known lineage of disability. Parents are expected to be shocked by diagnosis and process that trauma individually before taking on a private and heroic care burden, rather than experiencing parenting in community. Of course this narrative completely erases disabled parents and for normatively abled parents often changes their understanding of their child, even though the child themselves has not changed.
One of the strengths of Fink’s community-centered approach is that it connects disability justice to other forms of radical discourse. For example, she introduces queer and crip time in the context of ancestry, raising exciting possibilities I would describe as delightfully anti-capitalist. In one powerful moment Fink names that she’s been quoting disability activist Stacey Milbern in the present tense, when Stacey is in fact dead. That really hit me as someone who is/was in loose community with Stacy, an activist who’s contributed so much to overlapping queer and crip communities. Not too long ago I was reading a radical text she sent me years ago when cleaning out her book collection, and the memory brought me back with a smile, a moment of time-travel that brought Stacey into the room. This is just one of many ways Fink weaves in the voices of other scholars and activists, de-centering her own voice in sharing the threads of theory and praxis that inform it. In this volume you’ll learn about queer relationship, different ways of viewing disability and community, care over cure, and many more concepts from first-person perspectives.
In naming that radical lineage, I will admit that I was somewhat challenged by Fink’s criticisms of mutual aid and chosen family as too temporary and exclusive of biological family. I think it’s important to acknowledge that some families do refuse to acknowledge a diagnosis and get onboard with re-lineation, and that their disabled members may not be able to include biological family in their lives. At the same time I appreciate the point that when we’re forming these radical ideas of interdependence we may be missing out on possibility. When we assume that families are white, heteronormative, ableist, and individualist, we may be missing opportunities to create more lasting multigenerational networks of care that include folks who are highly dependent on blood family. In welcoming blood family of disabled folks into radical communities, I just think it’s very important to acknowledge the realities of abuse and to center disabled voices so our words don’t get swallowed.
I can’t help but relate this consideration of family to my own experience. While I used to see my radical politics as separating me from my Southern family as a queer person, more recently I’ve found work around roots and ancestry to be a deep and integral part of my spiritual practice revealing continuity and nuance. The more I question identity politics and start to consider a framework of healing and acceptance as key to justice and liberation for marginalized people, the more I reconsider my own judgments of family.
I think a lot of us hope to find a magical apocryphal ancestor in the family record, whether a feminist witch or a flaming queer crip, but typically the story is messier and less obvious. It’s easy to see family flaws but perhaps not always so easy to deeply listen. I’m also aware that while I’m disabled and neurodivergent, but I have a lot of privilege and can’t know the experiences of severely intellectually and developmentally disabled folks. I finished this book curious to learn where my own family might have erased and disconnected me from them, and how I can consider different models of partnership in my activism.
Overall, I found Fink’s portrayal of disability to be compassionate and center people with disabilities, while also calling for a more just consideration of how families fit into the picture. While I’ve covered a lot here, there are far more details in the book, including some fascinating stories. I would highly recommend the book to disabled folks and their families, but also to activists and those interested in interdependence in general to ensure that we’re considering that complex legacy of disability and family as we build new models for community and care.
(ARC provided through Edelweiss.)
September 17, 2023
If you picked up this book as a Disability 102 overview, then this is a solid read and you'll learn a good bit. However, if you picked up this book because the title and blurb suggests that this has something new to offer the disability justice discourse, then you are sorely mistaken. Fink spends 60% of this book rehashing the work of DJ writers, thinkers, etc. and 40% grappling with her family's legacy around disability. Try as she might to separate herself, Fink still comes off as an able-bodied person trying to fit herself into the disability discourse. She is class-aware in her retelling of experiences as a mother to an autistic child, but she conveniently glosses over her own privilege that put her in that room in the first place. Kinda like the Robin DiAngelo of disability, yanno? I'd skip this book and read anything by Eli Clare, Mia Mingus, or Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha instead.
July 18, 2023
Learned a lot and really liked the message, especially about the impact of quality-of-life outside care homes.
"People with Downs Syndrome were institutionalized close to 100% of the time until the 1980s. In 1985, their average lifespan was 28 years. In the 1990s deinstitutionalization became the norm so now people with Downs Syndrome live most commonly in families. According to recent studies, the average lifespan of a person with DS is now 60 and the average IQ increased 20 points in the past 30 years."
"By and large, most people with DS are now attending public school and most are graduating with a typical degree. Some of gone on to achieve college degrees and hold down jobs. It is families who connected with activists to reduce barriers and build community."
content warnings: Graphic: Ableism, Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, Sexism, Medical content, Colonisation
Minor: Suicide, Police brutality.
"People with Downs Syndrome were institutionalized close to 100% of the time until the 1980s. In 1985, their average lifespan was 28 years. In the 1990s deinstitutionalization became the norm so now people with Downs Syndrome live most commonly in families. According to recent studies, the average lifespan of a person with DS is now 60 and the average IQ increased 20 points in the past 30 years."
"By and large, most people with DS are now attending public school and most are graduating with a typical degree. Some of gone on to achieve college degrees and hold down jobs. It is families who connected with activists to reduce barriers and build community."
content warnings: Graphic: Ableism, Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, Sexism, Medical content, Colonisation
Minor: Suicide, Police brutality.
October 1, 2022
2.5 overall. This has good information no doubt, but the writing style was ironically a far too elitist imo. She says a lot without saying much at all. Felt like she was using extreme academic words in every sentence and while I have the privilege to be well educated there comes a point where I’m not sure if the writing was for the benefit of disabled folks and their caregivers or to showcase the author’s impressive vocabulary. As someone who works with families (some have disability in their lineage and household) I probably wouldn’t recommend this. If someone wanted to learn about the intricate intersections of disability than I maybe I’d recommend.
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August 2, 2025The structures of anti-Blackness and anti-Black racism are glaringly absent in this book and all of her conclusions suffer strongly because of it. She briefly touches on these topics, but mostly avoids them when they play key roles in the ideas she is discussing, and in some cases would serve to significantly trouble the conclusions she draws!
August 5, 2023
I loved the topic of this book and I adore how obvious it is that time and care was put into this book. My critique is that I feel like the book repeats itself A LOT, so if it was more precise I feel like it could garner 5 stars.
September 8, 2022
Great critical text! Incredibly informative. It was really packed with content, so I actually wasn't able to read the last chapter (since the loan expired/ was maxed out). Will come back to this some day/ definitely interested in purchasing.
December 10, 2022
An informative and often personal glimpse into how we perceive disability in our society, starting with how it is discussed in our own families and social circles. A must read for those interested in disability activism and anyone with a desire to understand how to make our societies more equitable for people of all abilities.
July 11, 2023
This book hit me so deeply. The author’s conversation about the ableist medical model of disability, the more progressive social model, and even thinking beyond the social model of disability is really informative, and I love how examples of this are integrated into the entirety of the book. The much needed incorporation of queer theory and CRT into the disability justice narrative are meaningful and necessary.
There are so many important lessons in this book, but in short, people with disabilities belong in our lives and lineage. The removal of people with disabilities from our families and public spaces, perpetuates ableism and a culture of segregation. We have a responsibility to acknowledge and denounce our sexist, racist, and ableist institutions and systems, and engage in restructuring work. On a more nuclear level, we must just simply see, normalize, embrace, and celebrate disability in our own family systems and in our every day lives.
There are so many important lessons in this book, but in short, people with disabilities belong in our lives and lineage. The removal of people with disabilities from our families and public spaces, perpetuates ableism and a culture of segregation. We have a responsibility to acknowledge and denounce our sexist, racist, and ableist institutions and systems, and engage in restructuring work. On a more nuclear level, we must just simply see, normalize, embrace, and celebrate disability in our own family systems and in our every day lives.
August 5, 2025
“What would science, care, and yes, cure, look like if they weren’t ruled by the thirst for normativity? Can there be a science aimed at reducing pain and suffering that honors our bodymind differences? What might the radical recent discoveries of genetics look like through such a lens? So many discussions about disability are shadowed and framed by cure.” All Our Families: Disability Lineage and the Future of Kinship by Jennifer Natalya Fink is the best book I have read on the subject of disability rights since finishing Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner. Both of these books are very exciting to read because they make the idea of a more inclusive world feel more possible.
Aside from disability rights, All Our Families: Disability Lineage and the Future of Kinship also effectively argues for the total inclusion of relatives with disabilities within families and family histories. Throughout the book, Jennifer Natalya Fink discusses her first cousin with Down syndrome who was abandoned and institutionalized, and the decision’s aftereffects on her family: “The unmarking of Cousin XY has in fact rendered him largely unreclaimable. Unnamed, erased. Dehumanized, in a more totalizing, absolute fashion than the term ‘disabled’ possibly can.”
It was also particularly moving whenever Jennifer Natalya Fink discusses her own role as a mother of a child with disabilities, most especially in relating her typical experience of mentioning her daughter in a conversation with a stranger: “It’s the face that counts. If pity and fear shadow their eyes, I know instantly: This person is uncomfortable with disabled people. This person does not have a healthy, lived relationship to disability. This person will see me as a hero for loving my own daughter. And I know what’s next: a sort of amateur intake, wherein they ask a series of questions to ascertain if my child qualifies as human. How disabled she is. How far from the tree she’s fallen. If their face does not change, and there is perhaps even a nod of acknowledgement, then I know we’re okay.”
Fink’s discussion on the problems of pregnant people using the phrase “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, as long as it’s healthy” was also excellent: “The real fear underlying the proclamation ‘as long as it’s healthy’ is that otherwise we, the mothers, will be consumed and subsumed by care needs.” Fink also takes care to mention how life expectancy for individuals with Down syndrome has improved dramatically due to deinstitutionalization: “Moreover, it is not society’s investment in medication and cure that has enacted this profound transformation: it is families, who connected with activists to work to eradicate barriers to inclusion.” This is an excellent book that I hope you read too! I hope to find more books like this when I can.
Aside from disability rights, All Our Families: Disability Lineage and the Future of Kinship also effectively argues for the total inclusion of relatives with disabilities within families and family histories. Throughout the book, Jennifer Natalya Fink discusses her first cousin with Down syndrome who was abandoned and institutionalized, and the decision’s aftereffects on her family: “The unmarking of Cousin XY has in fact rendered him largely unreclaimable. Unnamed, erased. Dehumanized, in a more totalizing, absolute fashion than the term ‘disabled’ possibly can.”
It was also particularly moving whenever Jennifer Natalya Fink discusses her own role as a mother of a child with disabilities, most especially in relating her typical experience of mentioning her daughter in a conversation with a stranger: “It’s the face that counts. If pity and fear shadow their eyes, I know instantly: This person is uncomfortable with disabled people. This person does not have a healthy, lived relationship to disability. This person will see me as a hero for loving my own daughter. And I know what’s next: a sort of amateur intake, wherein they ask a series of questions to ascertain if my child qualifies as human. How disabled she is. How far from the tree she’s fallen. If their face does not change, and there is perhaps even a nod of acknowledgement, then I know we’re okay.”
Fink’s discussion on the problems of pregnant people using the phrase “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, as long as it’s healthy” was also excellent: “The real fear underlying the proclamation ‘as long as it’s healthy’ is that otherwise we, the mothers, will be consumed and subsumed by care needs.” Fink also takes care to mention how life expectancy for individuals with Down syndrome has improved dramatically due to deinstitutionalization: “Moreover, it is not society’s investment in medication and cure that has enacted this profound transformation: it is families, who connected with activists to work to eradicate barriers to inclusion.” This is an excellent book that I hope you read too! I hope to find more books like this when I can.
June 6, 2025
DNF. I got about 15% of the way through before putting it down. I love the premise of this book and really wanted to like it. In the introduction the author states she is writing the book in a non-academic manner in order to be more accessible to people across the ability spectrum but I found the writing pedantic. It was also repetitive; the 35 or so pages I got through could have expressed the same ideas in 5 pages. But what really brought up red flags was when the author talked about her daughter communicating through a letter board. I cannot assume to know anything about the particulars of this family’s situation but if by “letter board” she means rapid prompting method/spelling to communicate/facilitated communication (all iterations of the same thing), I am on high alert. I could go on and on but in short, resorting to a form of facilitated communication is at its very core ableist. There’s good information at facilitatedcommunication.org.
December 2, 2025
3.5 stars. Every family has disability lineage, yet Western society views disability as this rare tragedy that should be kept out of public. The author does a great job discussing how our culture needs to adjust its views on individuals with disability and their caregivers. While I think the message is strong and an excellent contribution to the field, it was repetitive on the basic topic points and lacking when discussing the systems that fueled this negative worldview. The author asserts often that they are not disabled and therefore not really an "expert" and then strings together discourse taken from multiple disabled activists and professionals working in disability justice. I listened to the audiobook, and the writing style coupled with the narrator's tone felt sometimes like I was being lectured on a topic I'm very familiar with, but for someone else it might be extremely revelatory. We all have something more to learn about disability. One big takeaway from this book: children react to seeing disabled people in public based on their own exposure or lack thereof to people with disability in their private lives. Also, a parent's lack of exposure to disability within their family and lineage has an impact on their feelings of adequacy when parenting a disabled child. We ALL have disability in our family tree. When we cut them out, we lose part of the whole. If we can but connect our lineage and understand disability better, we can develop better systems of care and cultural acceptance of all people.
January 27, 2026
This was a book of hypocrisies. A woman who claims to want to speak to broad audiences but seems to open a thesaurus for every other sentence. This in turn makes every sentence clunky and not exactly make sense because a lot of the words chosen aren't the best fit for the sentence itself, just chosen to be long. And more importantly it's written by a wealthy, white, cisgendered, woman in america who says she doesn't want to be an Autism Mom tm but somehow manages to make this entire book about disability and her daughters disability about herself. This book felt incredibly self centered. She seemed to try to take her daughters race and disability onto herself. Saying things like "those of us who aren't white" which isn't her, it's her daughter. I don't know.. if this had been marketed as a book about one woman very slightly finding information on her ancestral disabilities and then talking about how that made her feel for 200+ pages I might have been more generous in my reading. As it stands though, I would not recommend this book.
Side note, in listing every single sort of minority one can be it does seem very intentional to not mention transgendered people even once as far as I recall...
Side note, in listing every single sort of minority one can be it does seem very intentional to not mention transgendered people even once as far as I recall...
April 7, 2022
A superb work of nonfiction. It’s similar to Rachel Louise Snyder’s book, “No Visible Bruises”, but necessarily more complex in scope - how disabled people are more or less marginalized and endangered at every stage of life within a variety of spaces known to them as “home”. Ms. Fink describes ableism as domestic violence that is managed and underwritten by the state and the healthcare system, provides an authentic recounting of disabled life histories which nearly were lost forever, and debunks the excuses and double-standards typically used to justify domestic ableism, the last “acceptable” form of domestic violence. Fink’s book packs a huge intellectual and emotional punch. Personal and public history are disseminated through intuitive and fearless cultural criticism. By the end of page 1, you’ll be unable to tear yourself away from this book.
Probably the first book of its kind, it’s an essential read for disabled people and anyone who may become disabled or love someone who is - in short, everyone.
Probably the first book of its kind, it’s an essential read for disabled people and anyone who may become disabled or love someone who is - in short, everyone.
August 6, 2024
NF: 1 , Me: 0. I struggled w writing style so it took me longer to get through even though it was <200pgs, I will say it got easier as I got used to the writers voice, also helped when it was commentary woven into story, not just commentary/analysis on its own. I do like the overarching concepts and recognizing that while categorization/labels/our current understanding does have value it is important expand definitions, examine oppression within systems, and that the integration of these ideas will benefit everyone, not just the 'target' group- better disability lineage/kinship is out there we just need less black-and-white thinking and to know it's a process, not a specific destination. Love the ideas, just wish I was able to understand what they were saying better/more in-depth as I was reading.
May 30, 2022
I'm not that familiar with disability justice literature yet so I don't know how revolutionary the author's ideas are within the movement itself, but certainly to most people it's unthinkable to admit to having developmental disabilities, let alone to take pride in having them and encourage your kids to be more like disabled uncles/aunts/grandparents.
It also occurred to me while reading this book that a lot of disability justice advocates seem to guest-speak a lot but haven't necessarily written a book, which is unfortunate because I book-binge-read better than I do binge-listen.
It also occurred to me while reading this book that a lot of disability justice advocates seem to guest-speak a lot but haven't necessarily written a book, which is unfortunate because I book-binge-read better than I do binge-listen.
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December 10, 2025there’s a lot to dislike or be frustrated by about this book, which contains one core good idea about which i would have loved to read an essay.
let’s say this book is a house. you pick up the idea at the entrance of the book, lovely, great. you enter the book hoping to explore the idea. you look around at the walls and the ceiling. there is no floor. there’s not a foundation to the building, just the ground. the walls are crumbling. the ceiling collapsed a long time ago. you get the hell out of there
let’s say this book is a house. you pick up the idea at the entrance of the book, lovely, great. you enter the book hoping to explore the idea. you look around at the walls and the ceiling. there is no floor. there’s not a foundation to the building, just the ground. the walls are crumbling. the ceiling collapsed a long time ago. you get the hell out of there
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2022
Compassionate and insightful, this book may change the way many people think of disability. It's a necessary source for anyone in disability studies. Also, it's a powerful work of nonfiction by an award-winning author who shares stories of her own family and has much wisdom from life experience and careful research. Highly recommended!
June 3, 2022
I received a free copy of this book from Goodreads.
I'm actually glad that I received this book from Goodreads or I might not have read it. In fact I found this book very informative. While reading, I really had to rethink the way I thought about the disabled. This was eye opening. The fact that she included her own personal family made it even better. I will definitely pass this book on.
I'm actually glad that I received this book from Goodreads or I might not have read it. In fact I found this book very informative. While reading, I really had to rethink the way I thought about the disabled. This was eye opening. The fact that she included her own personal family made it even better. I will definitely pass this book on.
January 23, 2023
This writer contextualizes herself weirdly by immediately (1) naming an abandoned child based on chromosomes despite being queer, and (2) identifying as someone who has not personally experienced disability. Overall, it is a solid critical text that helps to situate a variety of disability and different ability activism/care/family structures/etc., but took a while to get into it
July 15, 2023
I found this a very wise combination of personal family history and disability narrative with critical analysis of how family of origin and chosen family, care work, and family lineage play into the quality of life and joy for disabled family members (who previously existed, exist, or will exist for everyone, regardless of whether they are aware of them).
August 19, 2024
Really beneficial overview of disability justice from a personal memoir-style perspective. This book challenges feminist misconceptions around care work and disability while simultaneously making the case for how disabilities produce individual and social gain. Imo critical read for any prospective parents 🫶🏼
July 6, 2023
I wish I could do half stars, this is a 3.5. Really interesting read in the concepts it lays out but I would have actually loved for this to be significantly expanded upon. I feel like a lot of Fink’s ideas feel unfinished and I want to know more.
March 24, 2022
Illuminating examination that questions common misperceptions of disability and a powerful instruction of how we can reclaim our lost, sometimes erased ancestors.
July 30, 2023
Moving and thought provoking. I used Fink’s exercise in disability delineation with students and it was quite a transformative experience.
February 9, 2024
this was a haul but worth it I learned a lot
March 27, 2024
Wow wow wow, everyone should read this please and thank you
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January 7, 2023Notables 2022 #130
Want to read
December 14, 2023The Atlantic
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