Robert C. DeLena
About
Robert C. DeLena was raised in Revere, MA, and is a graduate of The Governor’s Academy, Trinity College, and Northeastern University School of Law. After practicing law unhappily, he founded a small recruiting company called Legal Staffing Solutions, and for over twenty years has advised law firms, lawyers, and law students on legal hiring. Rob lives in Sudbury, MA with his wife, Mary Beth, and his daughter, Abigail, who currently attends Hamilton College. He spends time skiing with his son Ryan and the great friends he’s made during his journey from beginner to reluctant adventurer. Rob has skied all over the United States, internationally in Canada, Chile, and Argentina, and even survived a backcountry expedition in Antarctica. He is planning to return to Antarctica with Ryan in late 2022.
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Excerpt from 'Without Restraint'
Raising Ryan
As a toddler, Ryan’s emotional intensity, perseveration, and defiance caused my wife, Mary Beth, and I to seek professional help to nudge him onto the traditional pathway for success. Instead, expert assumptions about his intellectual limitations bound Ryan to a flawed system purportedly designed to aid him. If you are a parent, particularly a parent of a child with a disability, we hope you learn from our mistakes.
Through skiing and the adventures we experienced together, I learned everyone was wrong about Ryan, especially me.
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… on the rear deck during our final day of sailing, I allowed myself to be judged by the one person I had never managed to please: myself. Like any person approaching a milestone birthday, I had suffered my share of days spent pondering my existence—wondering if I was making an impact on the world. Yet, as I looked out across the Beagle Channel, there was one aspect of my life that I knew, with certainty, had mattered. My refusal to give up on Ryan changed his world, and that was plenty.
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