A mother faces her child's learning disabilities

In her candid memoir, “Special Education,” Dana Buchman, reveals her ordeal to understand and accept her oldest child’s learning problems. A successful clothing designer, Buchman writes about feelings of anxiety, guilt, frustration and anger. When her daughter Charlotte was diagnosed with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and other learning difficulties as a toddler, Buchman had little knowledge about learning disabilities. She describes searching for the right schools and care for Charlotte and the stress that this process put on her marriage — and her relationship with her younger daughter. Buchman also acknowledges her struggles with drinking and workaholism, and about how she let go of her drive to be perfect. But the efforts were worth it — Charlotte is now in college. Buchman visited “Weekend Today” to discuss “Special Education.” Here’s an excerpt:

My adult life has been shaped by many things. Being the mother of a child with LD [learning disabilities] has turned out to be one of the major, defining details. It’s been a rigorous education — nineteen years and counting. And now it’s hard to recall a time when LD-speak wasn’t a part of my vocabulary.

Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1950s and 1960s, I can assure you I never heard the term learning difference, or even the less politically correct learning disability. Back then, unfortunately, the kids who had difficulty reading and spelling and doing math were labeled “the dumb kids.” Knowing what I do now about LD — how it is the result of different brain wiring rather than a lack of intelligence — I tend to think many of those kids were probably pretty bright, and it breaks my heart to think of the kids I and others judged unfairly.

Me, I was always near the top of the class, an A student who loved sitting at the front of the classroom, raising my hand for the teacher to call on me. I was the youngest of three kids in a family that placed a high value on academic achievement.

Two years after graduating from Brown and with some very whimsical, fantastical student sketches in my portfolio, I embarked on a three-week job search.

I pounded the pavement of New York City's Garment Center day after day, ducking between the men pushing wardrobe racks along the sidewalks, from one company to another, before I finally landed a job as a junior designer at a small sportswear company. Once I found work, I was on my way. I found a huge, bohemian loft in Tribeca to live in — with no real bathroom and no buzzer from downstairs — so I felt like a cool, downtown New York chick. I was loving life, working hard, and playing hard, sometimes staying out all night at loft parties or at Tribeca's legendary dive, the Mudd Club.

One position led to the next, which led to six years working with Liz Claiborne as a knitwear designer. And that ultimately brought me to my own brand. Liz Claiborne and her husband, Art Ortenberg, had decided to add a higher-end label and asked if I would design the collection. They actually asked me if I would be willing to put my name on it. Willing? Willing!

This was a Cinderella dream — what every young designer longs for. I had worked hard since I got out of school. The fashion business is cutthroat and difficult to get ahead in, but I just kept at it. In my years working as a knitwear designer for Liz Claiborne, I put in long, long hours, traveled to factories in Asia, sometimes as often as nine times a year. In that time, I got to work closely with Liz. I admired her tremendously, and we became good friends. But I never dreamed that would lead to her and Art offering me my own label. I was over the moon.

I got pregnant shortly after I received the offer. Soon, I would be living out the feminist fantasy from my college days — I'd be a high-powered career woman, but that wouldn't interfere with my being a wife and a mother, too.

So there I was, 35 years old, with a new husband, a new company, and a new baby on the way. I was exhilarated. I felt proud, powerful, and optimistic. It would be a long time before I would realize just how difficult some of the aspects of this “having-it-all” lifestyle were. For the moment, I was convinced that I was creating an example for other women to follow.

I loved being pregnant. It was a wonderful pregnancy — a little bit of morning sickness the first three months, then nothing. It was an exciting time for Tom and me. We were still in the blush of new romance, and we reveled in our adoration for and support of one another.

I worked until two weeks before Charlotte was born.

Long before I didn't know what it was like to have a child with LD, I didn't know what it was like to have a child at all. If you can believe it, all the time I was pregnant and enjoying those pregnancy hormones, I thought very little about what it would be like to have a baby. I was so wrapped up in work, the whirl of thinking about my own collection, of being a newlywed.

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