Far from the Tree

- What happens if fiction continues to be fiction?

Can you deal with that?

I can't deal with that.

I can't. - No?

How about things that you know are fiction?

What about things like Cinderella or Snow White?

- No, no. What I'm trying to say is that, um, that, um,

can I fall in love with my own imagination?

- Well, we've gotta be really careful

when we deal with what's real and what's fiction.

- I don't-I don't even know what's real or not.

I know.

That's the problem.

It's not very cold out.

- It's not very cold out? - Nope. Not too bad.

"All the world's a stage

"and men and women are merely players.

"They're the exits and the entrances,

and each man in his life plays many parts."

Once this guy said to me,

"Man, if I were you, I'd probably kill myself."

You know, just by seeing me

and my body in a wheelchair,

he thought that I must be miserable.

And, um, you know, I think that it's probably,

um, a pretty common assumption.

And so what body you're in

has everything to do with your perspective of the world.

Push the button!

You can push.

- It was not a normal mother-son relationship ever.

- Jack, do you wanna hear the volume?

It was overwhelming.

I didn't want it.

I did not want it.

- I think in some ways, I wrote the book

to understand what happened.

And maybe I wrote it to forgive my parents.

I think my mother imagined that her first-born son

would be part of the real mainstream,

the kind of kid who was popular at school,

athletic, at ease in the world,

and basically quite conventional.

And instead, she got me.

When I was growing up, I had a lot of weird hang-ups.

I mean, I refused to wear blue jeans.

I refused to listen to rock music of any kind.

I was obsessed with Emily Dickinson's

poems of anguish,

and told my friends the plots of operas.

I was a weirdo.

And, you know, my parents were really good.

My mom, in particular.

She would sort of get on board

with the things that interested me...

...even when they were a little bit strange.

I feel like there was a lot of leeway for me to be...

...different in all kinds of ways...

...but my parents really didn't want to have a gay son...

...and I thought if I tell them I'm gay,

they're going to be brutally disappointed.

And I told them, and they were.

It was a catastrophe.

My mother sort of lectured me about

what a sad and lonely life it would be,

and I mentioned some gay family friends

and I said that they'd done all right,

and my mother said,

"If I had thought that inviting them into our house

"was gonna make you think that was an acceptable way of life,

they would never have crossed the threshold."

For many years after that, I was...

...angry, I was ambivalent.

I wanted to understand

why my parents dealt with me the way they did.

I wanted to see how other families managed it.

I thought I don't wanna know just about families

of gay people.

I wanted to look as widely as I could.

I set out to write Far From the Tree,

which was my attempt to investigate

how families go about

dealing with children who are very different from them.

I spent 10 years researching and writing this book.

- We'll look at things like dwarfism,

an autistic child,

a child who commits a crime.

It's a tough thing sometimes for a parent to reconcile with.

- There are some children who were born with an identity

or a way of being, or a set of priorities

that are completely foreign to his or her parents.

The stories I heard felt so alien at the beginning,

but bit by bit, they came to feel very real

and very intimate to me.

And I realized that in telling these stories,

I was investigating the very nature of family itself.

You know what?

This actually looks very modernistic.

This could be by Picasso. - Yeah.

Doesn't that look very modern?

And look at this.

- Looks like Turn the World Around.

Turn the-- It looks like what?

- Turn the World Around. Like Harry Belafonte stuff.

- Yes. Yes, indeed, it does.

I think that's where they got their inspiration

for those masks.

Yeah.

Ooh.

Ooh!

Where is everybody?

We are the last people on the planet.

Hello!

When Jason was born,

the doctor said,

"What we do with children like this

is we send them away before an attachment is formed."

I mean, this is so ludicrous

that an obstetrician doesn't understand

that you have spent nine months forming an attachment.

What did they think this was?

All right, my love. I had a wonderful time.

Be good.

- Love you. - Love you, honey.

Okay. Talk to you soon.

Okay.

Oops.

You got it?

Come here. Give it here.

Let me get you.

Yeah?

I was born with Down Syndrome.

This is what we called "retarded."

We don't want to say that word because it's banned from...

...it was banned from conversation.

Down syndrome is a chromosomal mishap.

It's-it's an extra chromosome.

Never ever goes away.

Hi!

- The doctors told us, "Your child is a Mongoloid.

"He's not gonna walk. He's not gonna talk.

He's not gonna read. He's not gonna write."

And I was frightened.

It was as if Jason had this rubber stamp,

this great black rubber stamp

with the word "retarded" over his forehead.

- Jason. - Jason.

- Jason, would you put your hands on your head for Daddy?

Yay!

- But Charles and I decided that you don't write off

a person because of a label that he carries.

That Jason was a person who could learn.

Jason, what does that say?

Over.

- Okay. What does this say?

Under.

What does this say?

Across.

The point that I'm driving at

is that when you walk out of here today

and somebody says to you, "Retarded people,

Down syndrome people, they'll never learn to read,

they'll sit against the wall and just grow big."

and so forth and so on.

And you could sort of give the lie to it

and won't take the opportunity at any time to...

...come and talk to people.

As you get to know them,

you realize that friendship and warmth

are things that they respond to.

- As Jason started accomplishing things...

When you have four bagels

and you take away one bagel...

Three.

We were so excited.

It was such a miracle.

- Hey, you know what? Can you count to 10 in Spanish?

Okay.

He walked, he talked,

and he did all kinds of things

that he was not supposed to do.

- What does it mean to be retarded?

Do they think like we do?

Do they have the same feelings?

And now I'd like you to meet

Emily and Charles Kingsley, Jason's parents.

- He is now reading on a second-grade level.

The child they told us to junk and throw away

is doing second-grade reading, first-grade math.

And he became a bit of a celebrity.

Meet Jason Kingsley.

You might think Down syndrome hardly gets in his way.

- I was studying sound, electricity, and energy.

- I literally thought, "Well, this is a piece of cake.

"This is-this is really- this is really thrilling,

and they must have been just plain wrong."

- Hi, Jason. - Hi.

I worked here about 18 years.

I deliver the mail and deliver the packages.

When I work here,