Customer Reviews

Welfare Brat: A Memoir

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Intimate and powerful, Mary Childers' memoir of growing up in urban poverty in the 1960s Bronx leaves haunting images in its wake. Though arising from the usual sad litany of poverty - alcohol, drugs, unpredictable tempers, frightened children, abused women and dangerous streets - these images are singular, personal and painfully complex.

Like the time they had their roach-infested basement apartment painted, because a guy who owed the older sister's boyfriend a favor sent his crew over (this sister, Jackie, a high school drop-out, is already following in her mother's footsteps). Their mother, Sandy, exuberant at the prospect, drags the furniture away from the walls and urges the whole family to paint pictures of their own, whatever they want before the painters come to cover it up.

On the day itself, "no beer bottles in sight," Sandy takes them all to Coney Island, a trip which involves dragging cooler, stroller and duffle bag on two packed trains, where casual violence is always a danger. "Virtually every family on the train designates a hawk to detect the danger zones where action might flare....Everyone knows what happens if you interfere with teenage boys proving their manhood."

Though the lunch is only PB&J, "I'll be happy as long as Mom doesn't buy beer or, even worse, flirt one out of an innocent bystander." She doesn't and the day is idyllic. They take turns guarding the blanket. "I welcome my turn to guard our stuff. Reading on the beach without any of the kids bothering me is one of the most peaceful events of my life."

Sandy caps the day by taking the whole family on the roller coaster. Her glasses fly off in mid-whoop but her daughter Joan snags them in mid-air. Unfortunately a lurch slams her hand on the bar and a lens pops out. "Oh boy, wait until Mom sees this. She'll lose her temper. The day will be ruined....Mom believes Joan saved her glasses, and Joan and I dread admitting the truth. Joan squeezes back her tears as she rubs her hand with pain and worry." But the charmed day persists. Sandy's left eye is glass and it was the left lens that was lost.

Sandy is a mercurial figure who envelops her surviving seven children - six girls and one silent, outnumbered, beleaguered boy - with love, pelts them with curses, and leaves them hungry while she goes off partying. The atmosphere in their dank crowded apartment seesaws between giddiness and rage. And yet, suddenly, when one of the girls is hit by a car, Sandy promises God to quit drinking if the child survives - and does.

Not that her children trust the transformation. And the grinding cycle of poverty remains unbroken. Worn out by so many pregnancies and "bad habits" Sandy works even less, eking out their living on welfare alone and whatever her children contribute. While the fate of Mary's sisters remains precarious, her own determination is never in doubt.

"Most of the time I tell myself that my family feels like a lifeline, not a prison sentence, but I always have one eye on the door."

She is the one who insists on going to school, who braves any amount of resentment and ridicule to stay on the college-bound, escape-bound path. Taunted and persecuted by neighborhood kids as well as her mother, and even teachers sometimes for her welfare-brat clothing, Mary seldom wavers, as desperate as she is for friends and approval. An adrenaline-spiked stint with a neighborhood gang ends in shame when a boy's sneer jolts her back to herself. These kids are mean, racist bullies, she realizes. "I rolled in laughter when I should have been racked with guilt."

There are many threads that weave through Mary's story, but the cyclic, self-perpetuating nature of poverty is the strongest. There is one message children like her read loud and clear every day: "People who speak well and read widely may be admirable, but if you stand out, you'll be picked out. You're inviting trouble and loneliness when you distinguish yourself from your own by choosing to care about good grades, books, accents and magazine clothes.... Against my will, I've absorbed resentment and the nagging perception that my ambitions are disloyal, and worse, punishable."

Against the turmoil of the times: the assassinations, from JFK to MLK; the race riots and rampaging gangs; the fear of crime on the subway and on the street; the stigma and inadequacy of welfare, Mary keeps her eye on the prize - college. Escape. Her tumultuous, wrenching, sometimes funny story knocks home a serious lesson about the cycle of poverty. It takes more than brains, talent and hard work to escape the underclass. It takes steely determination, a tough shell and a willingness to go it alone.

- Portsmouth Herald

I am constantly amazed that people in our country continue to demonize the poor. Once again, a glorious book appears documenting the extraordinary lives of poor people. In this case, the classic welfare mother with her large, fatherless brood. This book, like The Color of Water - by James MacBride, Nickeled and Dimed - by Barbara Ehrenreich, and any number of Jonathon Kozel's books, indicate to me one clear message. You have to be extremely resourceful to survive poverty in this country. Even with the blessing of food stamps and welfare, it is still a miracle for someone in this situation to surface and take a breath each day.

I loved the characters in this book, warts and all. I imagined the actress from Malcolm In The Middle playing the role of the mother. She was an imperfect creature - flamboyant, tragic, and funny. I loved her because she never stopped struggling to hold her family together. Hit with the daily assaults only the poor understand, she stood up each day and took it on the chin.

This was actually fun to read. I constantly felt as if I were easedropping on a carefully kept diary of a girl as she grew to womanhood. Her feelings, her embarrassments, her dreads, all exposed like a pimple at a prom.

Many people who overcome poverty are too ashamed to talk about it, or just want to leave it behind. They write autobiographies that gloss it over. Then there are those who milk it for undeserved rewards, romanticizing and embellishing a tough start, as in A Child Called It. Mary Childers seems to have written a completely different kind of book, in the hope that others will understand what it was like not just for her, but for any struggling welfare family.

There's nothing whiny or pleading about Childers' account of her youth, yet I squirmed with discomfort reading it. Too many children to feed and her mother produced another, with her teenaged daughter's boyfriend. Childers as a teenager watching someone else's baby so she could earn enough money for a root canal. Did people really live that way, in America, and recently? Her voice is compelling.

The reason for only 4 stars is the rushed ending. Childers writes, as an adult, of forgiving her mother and believing that she had tried as hard as she could to raise her children well. Bullbleep.

That part was not convincing at all--rather, it sounded like the stuff Childers was forced to say to get people to believe she was two years older in order to get a job. My opinion is that Childers wanted us to believe in her forgiveness just as she wanted people to think she was qualified for jobs she shouldn't have to hold.

And then, why was Mary so different from the rest of her family? In my experience, when a child escapes a bad family there is usually a "compassionate witness," one adult who believes in the child and helps that child to want more. There was no such person in the book, and it is hard to believe there was none in her life. Maybe there was more than one; in any case, no clear reason was given for why Mary Childers wanted to and was able to overcome her beginning.

Just the same, it was a riveting book, one that mostly made me cringe, sometimes made me smile, and always made me think.

This is a very good read. The chapters are relatively short so you are able to cart this book to appointments and feel confident that you won't be left mid-chapter. There aren't subtle details that you need to keep track of so if you need to set the book aside for a few days you don't have to worry about suddenly forgetting who a character is or anything like that.

Because she covers six years of her life, some events of the story seemed to be cut short. There is also a lack of detail in some of these events.

She shows a lot of the prejudices and discrimination that she received as someone on welfare such as: "Keening with shame, I no longer wonder why people hiss the word 'welfare' and landlords deny us apartments. We are an infestation (pg 59)."

I really wish she would have given more details about the apartments she lived in, the food she ate, conditions of the neighborhood, etc. She DOES give these details... I just wish there was more!!!

I was also a little disappointed in the way it ended. I hope she comes out with a second memoir that chronicles her college life and after, and also how she and her family got to the Afterward.

Mary Childers delivers an eye-opening account of what it's like to grow up poor. In her distinctive, engaging style of writing, Childers describes what it was like to try to assert her own identity, and initiate her pursuit of academic excellence, even when it was not highly valued by her family.

Vacillating between loving and loathing her large brood of brothers and sisters, Childers describes the process by which she forged a path that was very different from that of her family. Childers' unusual spirit allowed her to achieve academically and socially, however, the author does not leave out the harsh realities of trying to achieve in a world that likes to insist that all it takes to "make it" is hard work, when in reality, the odds are stacked against those in poverty. Despite Childers' sharp intellect and determination, she is still mired in a school system that does little to impart the social capital required to navigate the college application process, or understand how to pay for tuition and so forth (this is indicated when Childers describes the application process while in her senior year of high school).

Throughout the memoir, Childers is working--whether it is taking care of her siblings, or working retail jobs after school. So is mostly everyone else in the Childers household--even Sandy Childers. Despite Sandy being portrayed as a slightly less than likeable mother, she never stops raising her children, never walks away from the responsibility she has to them as a parent. Say what you will about the fact that she was on welfare and had numerous children--unlike the men who helped create Childers' brothers and sisters, Sandy never walked away from her kids.

Overall this is a really engaging book; depending on your own experiences, it can also be very eye-opening. Childers is truthful, and a courageous writer.

Even if Mary Childers' childhood was only half as horrific as the one she describes in her memoir, she deserves the Medal of Honor for having the mental and physical courage to transcend her beginnings.

The book is a riveting description of the worst that life on welfare has to offer, but Childers doesn't explain what factors helped her break out of the cycle of poverty. Was it the moral tenants she was exposed to in her Catholic background? A few good teachers? Caring and involved school counselors? Her exposure to "normal" life via The Fresh Air Fund? Or was she just born with "the right stuff"? Her writing displays a chilling lack of introspection and gratitude for those who may have helped her. But maybe that is all part of being a "welfare brat."

Nonetheless, I think this book should be required reading in the schools. Certainly it is a strong argument for federally funded childcare facilities that might help give children of even the most dysfunctional families a glimpse of the possibilities for a better life.

One of the best memoirs I've read in a long time. I had the pleasure of recently seeing Mary Childers speak and she is as straight-forward and entertaining as her book. She simply tells it like it is--no sensationalism, no sappiness, no "poor me," no "look how wonderful I am!" She just tells a very moving story in a compelling and engaging way. Afterwards, you can't help thinking, "Wow--what a long road she traveled!" and admire her intelligence, tenacity, success, and her unselfish life in helping others. Bravo, Mary Childers!

From the beginning of this book I was impressed with Mary's different-ness and singleminded determination to rise above the vicious circle of the welfare existence. She never ceased to impress me with her work ethic and her higher aspirations.

I have to admit I never felt any compassion for Sandy, her mother. Even when Mary reasoned that she had so many siblings because Sandy kept getting pregnant in hopes that this particular guy (whatever guy at the time) would hang around and meet his committments. After two or three times of trying this method and failing, wouldn't any halfway smart woman close her legs or have her tubes tied?

Another reviewer wondered where Mary's mentor was, that usually people like her have someone in her corner offering motivation and help. Not necessarily, though. For Mary to do what she did for herself completely on her own, even in the face of occasional ridicule by her mother, is a testimony to her resolve and will. My husband is another such person, and he had no one in his corner either - the success he's achieved has been completely on his own.

Like that same reviewer, I also felt the end of the story was wrapped up a little too swiftly and neatly. I also felt a little cheated out of further details about her disturbed brother Ralph, such as, what diagnosis did doctors give him? Reading about Ralph in particular broke my heart; he was so clearly neglected and ignored.

Ms. Childers writes in a compelling way, and I appreciated her overall honesty and unglossed account of her childhood.

This is a real bootstrap story that keeps you turning pages wondering how in the hell a woman who grew up in this way could possibly have lived to write a book about it. But Mary Childers did just that, and she tells her story in a compelling, plain spoken manner that keeps you turning the pages. I read the book in just a few sittings over a couple of days. It's that good, honest.

I know there should be no comparison, but while reading Childers's story I kept thinking of another memoir - Anne Roiphe's 1185 PARK AVENUE. While Childers grew up in truly abject poverty, part of a sprawling fatherless family of several children dependent on welfare, Roiphe grew up in a posh Park Avenue apartment, a child of wealth and privilege. The connection here is emotional misery, for Anne Roiphe's childhood was a cold and loveless thing in a home where her parents fought constantly and viciously, and she longed to escape. So did Childers, but for very different reasons, obviously. Still, misery and bottomed-out self-esteem are classless, I suppose.

Mary Childers is a very good writer. She has much to be proud of, but I think I admire her most for the way she came to understand her mother, rather than simply hating her. Her hard-won higher education - as well as that early school of hard knocks - actually taught her something about life. She had to learn how to cope with all kinds of people and all sorts of situations. Maybe that's how she ended up as a special ombudsman for conflict resolution in higher education. I'll bet she's good at it too. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER