HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
COURTESY OF ANDI SLIGH
Voices
ANDI
SLIGH
How My Children Have Helped
Me Become Perfectly Human
I
was raised to achieve things. ¶ I was a third-generation
valedictorian of my high school class, like my mother before me and her mother before her. Both of my parents have
master’s degrees. Growing up, I was The Smart Kid, voted
Most Likely to Succeed. I went to college, earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, started climbing
the corporate ladder, and went back for an MBA. ¶ Then
my daughter, Sarah Kate, was born. ¶ She was premature,
small even for her gestational age and fragile. But she survived and today she is a healthy 10-year-old — with cerebral palsy. The diagnosis was a blow, and as much as I love
being her mom, in the beginning I felt cheated. I had done
Sarah Kate
and Nathan
have cerebral
palsy and
Down
syndrome,
respectively.