Dennis Mansfield, a Boise blogger and former Republican congressional candidate, has written a book re: the life and death of his son, Nate. Simon & Schuster provides this introduction to “Beautiful Nate”:
In this heartrending memoir about faith and family, a conservative spokesman writes candidly of his beloved
son and how even when you follow the “rules,” life can go very wrong. Family-values guru Dennis Mansfield and his wife Susan planned for and expected every parent’s dream when their son Nate was born. Instead, they lived every parent’s nightmare. A leader in the evangelical public policy arena, Dennis Mansfield was a candidate for U.S. Congress in 2000 when he learned of his oldest son’s drug use. Though Dennis and Susan turned their attention to helping drug addicts and their families, they were powerless to stop the death of their own son in 2009 at the age of twenty-seven.
Beautiful Nate
lucidly recounts these difficult years while painting a picture of what did and did not work in raising a child within the evangelical framework. Rather than lose faith in the God he trusted, Dennis eventually found new joy and purpose—with a much more compassionate and realistic view of the role parents play and the guidelines they follow.
Question: Did you have a child who gave you far more trouble than the others, despite being raised in the same environment?