{"id":2208910,"date":"2024-03-29T07:19:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T11:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heartbreaking-memoir-troubled-indicts-the-elites-tearing-apart-two-parent-homes\/"},"modified":"2024-03-29T07:28:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T11:28:05","slug":"heartbreaking-memoir-troubled-indicts-the-elites-tearing-apart-two-parent-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heartbreaking-memoir-troubled-indicts-the-elites-tearing-apart-two-parent-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"Captivating Memoir Reveals Impact of Elites on Two-Parent Families"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fheartbreaking-memoir-troubled-indicts-the-elites-tearing-apart-two-parent-homes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2208910&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The summary highlights Rob Henderson&#8217;s\u2064 memoir, &#8220;Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class,&#8221; showcasing his journey from challenging beginnings to academic achievements. \u2063It delves into his resilience, childhood\u2063 hardships, experiences in foster care, and the impact of unstable environments on his life. The narrative addresses the role of elites and societal\u2062 issues affecting individuals \u200bfrom diverse\u200b backgrounds.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>A Korean boy makes good by overcoming significant childhood disadvantages in Rob Henderson\u2019s new memoir, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Troubled-Memoir-Foster-Family-Social\/dp\/1982168536\/ref=asc_df_1982168536\/?tag=hyprod-20&#038;linkCode=df0&#038;hvadid=663329725623&#038;hvpos=&#038;hvnetw=g&#038;hvrand=3869426950626778469&#038;hvpone=&#038;hvptwo=&#038;hvqmt=&#038;hvdev=c&#038;hvdvcmdl=&#038;hvlocint=&#038;hvlocphy=9011293&#038;hvtargid=pla-2186513907256&#038;psc=1&#038;mcid=c36d23a9062b30aaa88808179b869e6f\"><em>Troubled<\/em><\/a><em>: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class<\/em>. Henderson recounts how he landed a coveted op-ed in The New York Times, graduated from Yale, and earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge. Yet, he writes, \u201cI would swap my position in the top 1 percent of educational attainment to have never been in the top 1 percent of childhood instability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My body shook with tears before I finished the preface. What was so unsettling? Twenty-one years ago, my ex-husband had an affair and sought sole custody of our daughters, seeking to use them as bargaining chips in our divorce. I opposed the lawsuit. I knew instinctively that inevitable suffering awaited if he abandoned our family permanently, even though our children had economic privileges Henderson didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1899963687\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b00cadf38646a02603d9e40d7066af14 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b00cadf38646a02603d9e40d7066af14\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Pain Etched Deep<\/h2>\n<p>At 3, Henderson clutched his drug-addicted mother and sobbed. It\u2019s his earliest memory. He has no recollection of the father who abandoned them after his mother became pregnant. In his second memory, he spills chocolate milk. But his abusive mother can\u2019t help. She\u2019s in handcuffs beside him, about to be deported to Seoul. He never sees her again.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next five years, he\u2019s shuffled between seven foster homes, his only constant being the social worker who ferries him from place to place. He throws a fit the first time she collects him. By the last, he\u2019s resigned. Before third grade, he attends six elementary schools, always competing with other foster children for scarce resources such as food. His word to encapsulate those years? \u201cDread.\u201d Mine? Harrowing. The prose is spare. Henderson has no need to embellish.<\/p>\n<p>At 8, a working-class couple adopts him, and his life improves briefly. He bonds with \u201cDad\u201d and blows out candles on his first birthday cake. When his younger sister gives him toys of his own, her kindness burns so deeply within his memory that he\u2019ll never forget it, he writes.<\/p>\n<p>The trouble is that the pain brought on by unstable environments etches itself as deeply down.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b5e9e1f58b020bb82657fefdd3481e36 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b5e9e1f58b020bb82657fefdd3481e36\"><\/div>\n<p>A year after he\u2019s adopted, his parents divorce. \u201cMom\u201d announces she\u2019s gay. \u201cDad\u201d seeks revenge by cutting off visitation with him. His mother\u2019s girlfriends move in, then out, along with assorted relatives. They relocate from house to house.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the habits he honed in foster care resurface. With a rotating cast of other unsupervised children from broken homes, Henderson smokes weed and cigarettes, gets plastered, curses, fights, steals, and refuses to do schoolwork.<\/p>\n<p>Short-lived respites such as boxing, therapy, and part-time jobs are never curative, although reading \u2014 he teaches himself \u2014 becomes a thin lifeline. The undercurrent of rage that percolates beneath the surface boils over in moments like the day he smashes cars with a baseball bat.<\/p>\n<p>Like Henderson, I buried my pain. Taking care of my daughters gave structure to my days. At night, I contemplated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/voices\/2019\/09\/29\/suicide-prevention-month-divorce-rates-risk-column\/2430536001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">suicide<\/a>. If an adult like me with a law degree who\u2019d grown up in a stable, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jussie-smollett-tells-court-he-had-cocaine-fueled-gay-bathhouse-escapades-with-alleged-attacker\/\" title=\"Jussie Smollett Tells Court He Had Cocaine-Fueled Gay Bathhouse Escapades with Alleged Attacker\">close-knit family<\/a> had difficulty coping, be assured my children suffered. After failing to save my marriage, I fought for the small measure of stability provided by my children remaining in the same house, neighborhood, church, and schools. Their father had successive wives and stepchildren. During visitation, my daughters lugged their belongings to about nine apartments. I got the house, thankfully, but the family court penalized me for my opposition.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-26f9403a7ad22a9f1d9a3f29529e5edb fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-26f9403a7ad22a9f1d9a3f29529e5edb\"><\/div>\n<p>Like me, Henderson sensed something amiss in his chaos. The families on television shows confused him \u2014 they bore no resemblance to the adults in his life who came and went. Until he impulsively joined the military at 17, survival mode governed his actions.<\/p>\n<p>By providing the structure, discipline, and caring that all children need and long for, the military gave him time to mature and process his past in silence. And, for the first time, contemplate his future. It also kept him out of jail. At Cambridge, he organized what time, experience, and inner wisdom had taught him into a book.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Elite Causes Doing the Most Harm<\/h2>\n<p>While Henderson doesn\u2019t absolve the adults who abandoned and neglected him, he indicts the main culprits: elites, driven by self-interest, moral superiority, and often faux compassion, who use their money and position to influence policies that maintain the false \u201cluxury belief\u201d that stable families are unimportant and that education and upward mobility can repair volatile upbringings.<\/p>\n<p>Renowned Yale professor Harold Bloom told Henderson that he was forged in a fire. While his classmates attended recruitment sessions for Goldman Sachs, Henderson taught poor kids how to read, hoping to forge another type of connection that would give them hope.<\/p>\n<p>He points out that popular elite causes (defund the police, sexual freedom, drug legalization, etc.) disproportionately harm the classes beneath them who have inadequate resources to cope.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, elite lawyers, legislators, and feminists are primarily responsible for our nationwide system of unconstitutional no<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/parental-guidance-suggested\/\" title=\"PG\">-fault divorce laws<\/a> and continue to oppose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/beltway-confidential\/2771905\/there-is-no-republican-plot-to-end-no-fault-divorce-but-there-should-be\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">divorce reform.<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4240051\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Research<\/a> refutes their banner cry that children are resilient. Family courts give lip service to the legal mandate they act in the best interest of children. Like those in foster care, children of divorce suffer lifetime <a href=\"https:\/\/ifstudies.org\/blog\/the-adult-children-of-divorce-find-their-voice\">anguish<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And lest anyone attempt to reduce Henderson\u2019s horrifying tale to an isolated anecdote, he coughs up proof to the contrary. Eighty-five percent of children in upper-class families are raised by birth parents compared with 30 percent of those from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidens-commerce-secretary-is-a-former-venture-capitalist-but-some-gopers-warn-shell-be-soft-on-china\/\" title=\"Biden\u2019s Commerce Secretary Is A Former Venture Capitalist, But Some GOPers Warn She\u2019ll Be \u2018Soft On China\u2019\">working-class families<\/a>. Boys raised in broken homes are five times more likely to be incarcerated. Children from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-releases-list-of-president-trumps-accomplishments-and-it-is-historic\/\" title=\"White House Releases List of President Trump\u2019s Accomplishments \u2013  And It Is Historic!\">low-income families<\/a> are no more likely to commit crimes or take risks than those from wealthy families, unlike children raised in unstable environments.<\/p>\n<p>If education alone wasn\u2019t the touted cure-all, how did Henderson, in a sense, make it out of his predicament alive? He got lucky, he says. It is a miracle, really.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s another one. He emerges from his ordeal not with the hardened heart one might understandably expect, but rather with a loving, kind spirit that thinks about a kid like him stepping into a library looking for his own inspiration, and pledges to be a better dad to his own family one day. A warning to us all not to underestimate the power of a simple act of kindness like his sister\u2019s, tucked away in an 8-year-old boy\u2019s heart, waiting to flourish.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, despite all their mischief, his group of ragtag friends come off as far more likable and decent than Henderson\u2019s college peers who demand that a professor who offends them be fired, criticize white privilege, and tell Henderson they condone child\/parent and brother\/sister incest. Henderson doesn\u2019t call them hypocrites by name; he doesn\u2019t need to. They educated him so well that he can effortlessly take them down.<\/p>\n<p>When word got out that he was writing a memoir, a dean at Yale asked him to be \u201cgentle\u201d to the university, he says. Henderson chose truth instead.<\/p>\n<p>He sums up the message of <em>Troubled <\/em>near the end: \u201cA solid two-parent home is critical for a child\u2019s future. There simply is no shortcut.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2c691869d026be914361c4250358db9f fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2c691869d026be914361c4250358db9f\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Rob Henderson&#8217;s latest memoir, &#8220;Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class,&#8221; a Korean boy triumphs over childhood challenges to achieve remarkable success. From securing an op-ed in The New York Times to graduating from Yale and earning a Ph.D. from Cambridge, Henderson&#8217;s journey is a testament to resilience and ambition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2799,"featured_media":2208911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Book-Cover-Featured-Image-6.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2208910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Book-Cover-Featured-Image-6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2799"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2208911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}