It's the Ryan Lair Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. How many of us love someone

with a developmental disability? I assume many of you listening have a clear picture of

person in your family, maybe a child who you love deeply despite the extra care they

require to move about in this world. Can you imagine your life without them? Can you picture

your family tree without their presence? Well, for much of the previous century, families

across the United States did live in such a way. Per doctor's orders in many cases, children

possessing certain disabilities were sent away to institutions, effectively disappeared

from society and delineated from their family trees. Now we bring you a story of a family

that endured the lasting consequences of this practice and the implications for today. Joining

us now is Jennifer Senior, staff writer at the Atlantic, an author of the book on grief,

loss, love, it's love, loss, memory, published this year, an excerpt from that book won the Pulitzer

Prize in 2022 when it was published as a magazine article in the Atlantic. Her latest Atlantic

article is called, the ones we sent away, I thought my mother was an only child. Jennifer

always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC. Oh, I'm always so excited to be here. Thanks

for having me. So originally you believed your mother to be an only child as the subtitle

of the article says, how did you discover that your mother had a sister? I was 12 and it

was an idle conversation. It wasn't idle. I shouldn't say that. I guess it was a serious

conversation. It was late at night. We were sitting in the kitchen and I conjectured. I

just asked them loud. I said, gee, we must have been discussing a friend's child. And I

said, I wonder what I would do if I had a child who had a disability. And my mother took

this as an opening and looked at me and said, there's something you should know. I have

a sister. And until that moment, I had thought she wasn't only. She had been spoken of

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