Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars | 1,002 ratings

Price: 15.74

Last update: 08-14-2024


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In this “affecting…intriguing…heartbreaking” (Booklist) coming-of-age memoir, 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. But divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school.

A “vivid, insightful, poignant, and powerful” (Nicholas A. Christakis, author of Blueprint) 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.

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.


Top reviews from the United States

Willow
5.0 out of 5 stars An honest, gripping story with a compelling message
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2024
I liked the way the book is structured. It's mostly memoir, but it also has chapters putting the writer's life story into a broader societal context. I sped read it because it is so compelling and well-written.

Rob Henderson doesn't only focus on his childhood but also talks about life in his 20s and the problems he had then that had developed during his early years.

I was surprised by the number of childhood friends he had who also had unstable lives because of their parents' choices. It's a wonder society functions.

Henderson is very big on the two-parent family, and I do agree that two parents usually have more resources (including twice the love!) to provide a child. But I have known children raised by single parents (women) who have turned out to be healthy, successful adults. All of those situations, though, were very stable. The parent stayed in one house, had a stable job, wasn't drug addicted and didn't have a revolving door of romantic partners. They also had support from friends and family. I also know loving couples who have stayed together, but their children have greatly suffered from drug addictions. That's why it's good that Henderson provides a larger, societal picture, which statistically shows the advantages he advocates for.

The look into the foster care system he provided is jarring and it made me want to read other books about it.

I hope Henderson keeps writing and that publishers will publish his work.
J. Weber
5.0 out of 5 stars A Personal Story That Truly Matters
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2024
The title of Rob Henderson's book couldn't have been picked more aptly. By sharing his experiences in an unflinching manner, he gives his readers access to a perspective that is lacking among people who have never come close to personally experiencing lack, torn-apart relationships, and borderline poverty first-hand. By following him into this abyss of his difficult upbringing, and the initial anything but rosy outlook, I have gained much gratitude for the many good fortunes in my life, and also more deeply understood that many of the measures which we pursue in order to help people may need revisiting. For the past few months, I couldn't wait for February 20 to arrive. And every moment of excitement and anticipation was absolutely worth it.

This is a book for the ages! It demonstrates with incredible clarity that love and care, which are available for children growing up in intact families, is of irreplaceable value. Not because of what it affords people to do with their lives economically -- although that can be seen as a reasonable argument to be made. It simply allows people to aim up properly.

In a one, two gut punch followed by a slap in the face of our current cultural sentiments, Dr. Henderson lays out why and how our current approach to supporting people runs into problems. Humanity is at a crisis point. We seemingly care for one another, and yet our Western societies are coming apart at the seams. How is this possible?

By exploring his own childhood, Henderson reminds us: what people need first and foremost is a reason to sufficiently care for themselves. Only if you can experience yourself as worthy enough to care about what happens to you in the future will you be able to refuse making self-destructive choices in the present. The good life is available for you, and so it is for everyone else -- if you and we collectively can just learn that, no matter how wretched a person may feel in the moment, we all are worthy of being loved.

That is not an easy lesson to come by, however. Without having a secure basis to start from, that is experiencing parents who will again and again affirm this value of life in a child's experience, how would you ever get there. Henderson describes himself as coming from the top 1% of childhood instability. And he has the scars to show it... He escaped from this background -- maybe by sheer luck. And now, he shares with the world his story for everyone to have a chance of getting out. The message is a simple one: provide genuine care and loving challenges to people when it matters, which includes ensuring that children are raised in intact families.

This may sound like a political demand, but it is, I believe, a request for our culture to change. Only if we can connect with this truth in our hearts -- that we are worthy of being loved and appropriately challenged -- can we make change in the world that does not further erode what is left of the precious basis on which our society was founded: that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is every person's God given right. And to deny a young mind the experience of growing up in an intact family is as good as robbing them of that opportunity.

Thank you, Dr. Henderson, for your willingness to share this so openly!
namedoesntmatter
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking and insightful
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2024
Rob’s story is simply inspirational and needed to be told. I learned so much from his perspectives on the effect of family instability on children and the lasting effects that follow them as they navigate family, friendships, the military, educational institutions, and career development. Rob clearly possesses an intellectual curiosity that propelled him to a higher level of the educational system. I appreciated his original thoughtful analysis regarding “luxury beliefs” that are so prevalent today. Rob’s book exposes the irony that these beliefs actually do more harm than good in the lives of disadvantaged people they were intended to help. It’s easy for those with means to flippantly espouse these luxury beliefs without actually having to live with their consequences. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the impact of societal systems on human development and social mobility.

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