I'm glad people are asking why parents choose to drop a problem child off with the nearest professional (fill in your own finger-quotes). But the self-righteous tone of some of these anonymous posters is pissing me off. Just like 007's asinine rant about cocktail-swilling socialites, your blanket assumptions are entirely off base and (just as entirely) unhelpful.
In the interest of full disclosure (an interest I wish more of you shared), I am Tha Truth's older sister. She was sent to the Whitmore when she was about fifteen; I have mixed feelings about my parents' decision then as now. But let me tell you who my parents are and who they are not. I understand that I can only speak for one actual case, but I feel that that has more value than an infinite number of speculations.
My parents have been married for twenty-nine years; they have six children. For those of you pining for the picket-fence days, we come pretty close to the Moral Majority's ideal family. Dad worked, Mom stayed home, we went to church. And, Antigen, we were home-schooled. Our parents were and are deeply thoughtful people who are not susceptible to fads (which, of course, psychologism has been judged to be for a couple decades now).
All the misty-eyed nostalgia and half-baked theories must take into account that human beings don't and haven't ever worked according to one philosophy, one equation, or one recipe. We are infinitely complex. Rich, poor, ignorant, educated, neglected, loved--none of these factors determines what a person becomes. Five of the children in my family did OK; one of us became determinedly destructive.
What do you do when, despite discipline, "toughing it," counseling, cajoling, and, finally, asking for professional help, your child persists in endangering herself and everyone around her? No one--grandparents, pastors, friends--knew what to do. She was mixing pills and alcohol and having sex with strangers in exchange for drugs. Our family was falling apart; we were being physically threatened; we were cruising the streets in the middle of the night trying to find her. I defy you to live with this and come up with a glib solution. It doesn't exist.
Raise six children on one small paycheck. Pay bills, fix cars, run errands, fight your self-doubt, try to please God, discipline, listen, consider, nurture, worry. My parents agonized over what to do with Anneliese. They sent her away because they didn't have anything left to try. There were no shrugs or deep sighs of relief. Do you understand despair?
