I’m finding myself wondering where the word “inspiration” fits in the real, and I think useful quest for a vision of my child’s future, for role models on a path that’s out of step with how much of the world works.

I blogged recently about an encounter with an autistic piano tuner who didn’t speak until he was eleven, and was able to move forward as a student when his mother realized that he responded to music as a way to teach and learn. I didn’t use the word “inspire” or “inspiration” in that post, but learning of his successes made me feel really good, as a mother of a child who does not yet speak (much) at eight, struggles to communicate in general, and responds to music as she learns to read and draw. The word “inspiration” does speak to, for me, at least some of what I felt as he tuned our piano.

How to navigate such a set of maternal feelings and wishes without engaging in disability inspiration porn?

Are you (or maybe your husband) descended from the Rottenbergs (e.g. Samuel Rottenberg) who were involved in the founding of the Brooklyn Jewish Center on Eastern Parkway and Brooklyn Avenue just after WWI?

I find the name “Cohen-Rottenberg” amusing, because the two big factions in that founding were my great-grandfather, Louis Cohen, who wanted the place to be Orthodox, and Samuel Rottenberg, who wanted it to be Conservative. Rottenberg won, having put up more money. The two families are buried across the path from each other in the BJC plot at the Old Montefiore Cemetery, glaring at each other, as it were.

Since there wasn’t much real difference liturgically between the Conservative and the Orthodox before WW2, the Cohens stayed active in the shul, until they lost their money in the Depression and moved to Manhattan. Another Rottenberg wrote a book on genealogy called “Finding our Fathers”; he grew up in the building next to my parents’ in Manhattan.

Contact me at thanbo at gee-mail dot com.