On Writing my Hybrid Memoir

By Amy Mackin

Author of Henry’s Classroom: A Special Education in American Motherhood

My son, Henry, was diagnosed with developmental delays at 16-months old. That determination was an inflection point that started me on a journey to understand America’s special education laws and systems. As I learned about and sought access to the federal, state, and local services that were supposed to help kids like Henry, I was not prepared for the obstacles I’d face, particularly within our school district.

In 2012, exhausted by a decade of struggling to get Henry the help he needed and feeling like we had no other options, I took him out of traditional school altogether. But I struggled with that decision. Was I making things worse for Henry by taking this step? Where would I find the resources to ensure he received the education he deserved? What kind of social opportunities would be available to him?

At the time, I was taking a night class that required me to write a long-form essay for my peers to critique, so I wrote about these concerns. At the end of the semester, the instructor encouraged me to submit the essay for publication, and a version of it was later published by The Atlantic. 

I received many emails in response to that essay; teachers, parents, and clinicians wanted to know more. Their curiosity inspired me to continue documenting Henry’s and my experiences as we designed an individualized, creative education system that would work for him. In 2016—over three years into our alternative schooling experiment—I started pulling the pieces together into a manuscript. I believed that what we’d discovered was worth sharing.

Henry’s Classroom began as a traditional memoir documenting our personal endeavor to create a new, interests-based, flexible education system. But while I was facilitating Henry’s middle- and high-school curriculum, I was also pursuing my own educational goals. 

By the time I’d earned my undergraduate degree in Communications, followed by graduate degrees in American Studies and Creative Writing, I’d developed a much deeper understanding of the way narratives form and shift over time and the influence they have on how we view ourselves and the larger world around us. It was then—well after the events of the memoir took place—that I began investigating how the intersection of motherhood, labor practices, disability policy, and women’s social history may have affected my own experiences. 

I embarked on a wide-ranging review of current and past research on these topics, and my personal story quickly began to feel like a chapter within a much longer and larger struggle for social justice. The discovery of several studies that documented challenges similar to my family’s, but whose results had not yet made their way into public policy, was revelatory to me. I wanted to provide this context to the reader, too. 

So, I went back to what was then a traditionally structured memoir and began infusing academic research throughout the manuscript. Navigating the inconsistent and outdated systems that were supposed to help kids like my son was a profoundly isolating experience. But the scientific research confirmed that I was not alone. Families in the U.S. and around the globe were experiencing similar challenges and outcomes. As parents and loved ones navigate complex caregiving, our cultural frameworks and systems can make us feel as if we’re outliers, but that’s simply not true.

Writing memoir is a deeply personal undertaking, and a parenting memoir brings another set of challenges with it. For me, the research provided a foundation from which to reveal difficult truths. The hybrid form allowed me to reflect on my own experiences with a new level of compassion, for myself and others, that didn’t appear on the pages of the earlier drafts. It transformed feelings of powerlessness into advocacy. 

I approached the writing with a broader sense of responsibility—not only to tell my own truth with candor and dignity but also to bear witness to larger societal struggles and critically examine both their root causes and possible remedies. By grounding my personal story in these external elements, I hope to foster a sense of shared responsibility and inspire meaningful dialogue among readers, with the ultimate goal of realizing a more equitable society.

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Amy Mackin writes at the intersection of education, cultural history, public health, and social equity. Her work has appeared in outlets such as The Atlantic, Chalkbeat, The Washington Post, Witness, and The Shriver Report. She earned her MA in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts and her MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Over the last several years, she has held leadership writing roles in the public health, science, and higher education sectors. Amy loves the fickle weather and spectacular landscapes of New England, where she resides with her family and always at least one friendly feline. 

Henry’s Classroom: A Special Education in American Motherhood

Over 7 million students ages 3–21 across the United States receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Amy Mackin’s son, Henry, is one of them. As she navigates the medical, social, and educational systems that are designed to help families like hers, she discovers that staffing shortages, budget restrictions, ineffective communication practices, and a resistance to innovative ideas all threaten her son’s ability to reach his full potential. 

Henry’s Classroom takes readers on Amy’s often frustrating, sometimes funny journey with her son—from the initial signs of a developmental delay, through early intervention, eventual diagnosis, and Henry’s challenges within the public education system—until they finally turn away from traditional structures and create something new instead. As much a work of cultural criticism as it is a memoir, Henry’s Classroom argues that an expanded, more flexible vision of American schools and workplaces is essential for our society to realize true equity and inclusion.

 

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Category: On Writing