The younger Kingsley is an actor who has appeared on programs such as Sesame Street and enjoyed a varied career, despite the family being told early in his childhood that his struggles would prevent him from having a meaningful life.
Their doctor labeled the child as a "mongoloid" that would fail to learn to speak or walk and instructed the parents to act essentially as if the birth hadn't happened, with the mother sent to receive tranquilizing drugs preventing lactation.
[1] Although such medical attitudes were consistent with the prejudices of the time, the distraught family resisted and determined to provide the boy with as intellectually stimulating an environment as possible.
Critical analysis of the work and its influence has compared it to poet Robert Frost's piece The Road Not Taken, which also discusses the human tendency to look back and fret about 'what might have been' after people make decisions.
A response essay describing the possible toll that parenting can take on a family's welfare, such as raising children with severe autism, was created titled "Welcome to Beirut",[1] with the later piece alluding to the suffering from the Lebanese Civil War.