Our children mean the world to us. They are so central to our hopes
and dreams that we will do almost anything to keep them healthy,
happy, and safe. What happens, then, when a child has serious
problems? In Family Trouble, a compelling portrait of upheaval in
family life, sociologist Ara Francis tells the stories of
middle-class men and women whose children face significant medical,
psychological, and social challenges.  Francis
interviewed the mothers and fathers of children with such problems
as depression, bi-polar disorder, autism, learning disabilities,
drug addiction, alcoholism, fetal alcohol syndrome, and cerebral
palsy. Children’s problems, she finds, profoundly upset the
foundations of parents’ everyday lives, overturning
taken-for-granted expectations, daily routines, and personal
relationships. Indeed, these problems initiated a chain of
disruption that moved through parents’ lives in domino-like
fashion, culminating in a crisis characterized by uncertainty,
loneliness, guilt, grief, and anxiety. Francis looks at how mothers
and fathers often differ in their interpretation of a child’s
condition, discusses the gendered nature of child rearing, and
describes how parents struggle to find effective treatments and to
successfully navigate medical and educational bureaucracies. But
above all, Family Trouble examines how children’s problems
disrupt middle-class dreams of the “normal” family. It captures
how children’s problems “radiate” and spill over into other
areas of parents’ lives, wreaking havoc even on their identities,
leading them to reevaluate deeply held assumptions about their own
sense of self and what it means to achieve the good life. Â
Engagingly written, Family Trouble offers insight to professionals
and solace to parents. The book offers a clear message to anyone in
the throes of family trouble: you are in good company, and you are
not as different as you might feel...
General
Imprint: |
Rutgers University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
September 2015 |
Authors: |
Ara Francis
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 11mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
192 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8135-7052-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Social sciences >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8135-7052-2 |
Barcode: |
9780813570525 |
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