Problem
"The Ashley Family
Sylvia Ashley, mother of a six-year old Terrence and four-year-old Ricky, got up quickly when the alarm went off at 6 a.m. She had washed out Terrence's shirt the previous night and wanted to iron it before it was time for him to get up. Anyway, she liked having time in the early morning when the building was still quiet. The rest of the day, there was hardly a moment when someone was not yelling or throwing something. She turned on the kitchen light cautiously, knowing the roaches would scurry away from the sink.
She ironed carefully. She left bad that Terrence had to wear the same clothes over and over, but at least he was always clean and tidy. She hoped the teacher wouldn't notice that and not treat him badly. He had recently made some comments about the boys bullying him on the playground, and she hoped it was not because of his clothes. She hated the way some people treated people without money. She also did not want her kids to grow up thinking they were not as good as everyone else just because they lived in subsidized housing and were in a single-parent family.
She sighed, remembering she had to return to the social services office today to talk to the social worker. She dreaded it, but their check had been reduced two months earlier and she simply could not make it on the lower amount. Last week, she had to borrow $5 from her neighbor across the hall to get some macaroni and milk for the kids' supper. She knew she could not do that again - the woman barely spoke to her anyway. Because she was entering that job-training program, she also knew she had to get a new pair of shoes. Ricky's sneakers had a hole right through the toe, too.
She unplugged the iron and glanced at the clock. Time to get the boys up. They were cheerful and chattered away, and Terrence helped Ricky get dressed. Ricky ate a bowl of cereal. Terrence drank a glass of milk to have something in his stomach until he got to school. He preferred to have breakfast at home, and she had always let him until things go so tight. Because he was eligible for the free breakfast at school, she took advantage of that small opportunity to save money.
She dressed quickly and cleaned up the kitchen. Terrence was ready at the door, hair neatly combed, when she got there. He grumbled a bit every day bout his mother and little brother having to go with him to school, but she was afraid to let him walk alone six blocks through this neighborhood where shots frequently rang out.
Ricky struggled to keep up. They wave to Terrence from the street as he climbed the school stairs by himself. Sylvia worried about him; he never mentioned a friend, and after school, she and Ricky walked him home and then he played with Ricky. She knew he needed friends his own age, but she kept him in the apartment unless she could go to the playground with him. She had seen and heard plenty of fights and wildness from the kids in their building, and she knew some of them were already in serious trouble with the police. She was going to keep her boys free from that. Terrence was a good student - a smart boy; he would grow up differently from those other kids.
She and Ricky waited at the corner for their bus that would take them downtown to the square, where they could transfer to the one that would take them to the social services building. she barely heard Ricky chattering and pointing out cars and asking questions as they rode along because she was busy rehearsing what she had to say.
The waiting room was full: she found one chair and held Ricky on her lap for a while until he got wiggly. Then, she let him sit on the floor beside her. She kept listening for the woman to call her name, knowing that Ricky was getting restless. He asked her for something to eat as he watched a man eat crackers he had bought from the vending machine. Sylvia did not want to waste 85 cents and wished she had remembered to bring something for him. Fortunately, they called her name just then, and moving into the small office distracted Ricky.
At least this social worker was kinder than the last one, who had positively glared every time Ricky moved. Sylvia had been furious underneath; the woman had to have known there was no money for babysitters and that nobody could help them out, but it would not have done to let that anger out.
By the end of the discussion, Sylvia felt very depressed. She hated the questions about whether she had heard from either of the boys' fathers; she always wanted to say she was thankful she had not and would not take a penny from either of them anyway. Now that she was starting the job-training program, Ricky's child care would be paid for until after she was working full time.
Sylvia worried about whether her wages would be enough to support all of them when she was no longer receiving assistance and whether the children's medical expenses would be covered, but she was hopeful about what her work could mean for her small family. Maybe she would make enough to get them into a little apartment somewhere nicer, and she would have some friends from work, and Terrence could have friend to play with, and things would be better. She had to do it. Her kids deserved more.
Ricky was tired and cranky as they waited for the bus home. He started to cry, and she shook him a little - not very hard, but she just could not stand to listen to it or have the bus driver stare at her when she got on with a crying child.
He fell asleep on the bus, and she pulled him against her shoulder, knowing he would wake up when they had to transfer. It had been a long morning for him. Neither of them said much as they rode the last bus and walked home for lunch. Ricky finished his soup, and said she put him in bed for a nap. She sat and thought about Ricky going to child care and about herself starting the training program. She hoped she could do it. It had been a long time since she had been in school - and she did not have any kids and everything else to worry about. She worried about how it would be for Ricky, he had never been way from her at all. The social worker told her that the preschool was a good one, but that did not reassure her that Ricky would not get upset.
She glanced at the clock; in a few more minutes, she would have to wake up Ricky to get to Terrence. He was so worn out that she wanted to let him sleep, but there was nobody to ask to stay with him. She worried briefly about Terrence, who would have to undergo yet another change when she started her job-training program. He would have to come home to an empty apartment and stay by himself for a couple hours until she finished her class, picked up Ricky, and arrived home. She had already lost sleep worrying about that, but there was nothing else to be done. She would warn him about not answering the door, staying away from the windows, not using the stove, and everything else she could think of and then just hope he would stay in the apartment, safely, by himself.
Terrence was quiet on the way home, In the apartment, he unfolded a note and handed it to her. It was a reminder that parents needed to send $5 the next day to pay for a ticket to a play at the children's theater next week. Sylvia avoided Terrence's eyes as she said that she could not send the money, so he could stay home from school the day of the play. Terrence said nothing.
She gathered the laundry, her wallet, and keys and then took the boys with her to the basement laundry room. The children sat and argued. When another woman came in, Sylvia snapped at the kids to be quiet, and they sat glumly until she asked Terrence to help her match the socks. Back upstairs, the boys watched cartoons while she made hamburgers for supper. After supper, Terrence did his homework at the kitchen table, and Ricky sat beside him and colored in a coloring book. She put them in the bath together while she tidied the kitchen. After the children watched some more TV, she put them in bed and sat by herself in the living room, on the couch where she would sleep. There was nothing she wanted to see on TV, but she left it on to keep her company. After an hour or so, she turned out the light and went to sleep."
Task
i. Synthesize your review of the family's stressors (what are they?).
ii. What judgments (judging attitudes from others) did this family face?
iii. What common themes, found in the scenario, do you see for families today?
iv. How could professionals who work with this family offer support?
v. Choose a theory (Family Ecology, Family Development, Structural Functional or Family Systems) and describe how that theory would address the family in the scenario.
vi. What resources would you suggest for this family?