Troubled
A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
In this raw coming-of-age memoir, in the vein of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, The Other Wes Moore, and Someone Has Led This Child to Believe, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities, and pioneering the concept of “luxury beliefs”—ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.
Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school.
An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. He retreads the steps and missteps he took to escape the drama and disorder of his youth. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in. His greatest achievements—a military career, an undergraduate education from Yale, a PhD from Cambridge—feel like hollow measures of success. He argues that stability at home is more important than external accomplishments, and he illustrates the ways the most privileged among us benefit from a set of social standards that actively harm the most vulnerable.
Customer Reviews
An Excellent Childhood Memoir with a Call for Help
The author makes it clear that he is not calling for help or pity for himself, but for all of those in his cohort, children being raised in chaotic environments, without stable families.
Rob makes the case that while ensuring education is available for all, a stable family is what we should be striving for. As he says; “Going to school is far less important than having a person who cares enough to make sure you get to class every day.”
Perhaps he can follow it up with another book that would serve as a guide to those wanting to foster those stable environments.