Free Essay on Didn't Ask To Be Born | This American Life

Debra Qwartney after her divorce decided to move from Arizona to Oregon with her two daughters Amanda and Stephany whom she loved as much as she loved herself. Debra believed that things we be alright with her family but it was not the case. Things changed from bad to worse. Her daughters still held loyalty for their father and they never understood why they had to leave him. They got depressed and guilty and all they wanted was isolation. Their personalities changed drastically; they started moving out with bad company, they started acting violent, going out for parties, skipping school and getting involved in drugs. Their situation got worse when they dropped out of school; Amanda got arrested and suspended from school as a result of bad behavior, her sister Stephany developed a negative attitude towards everything including school. While at the ages of fourteen and thirteen, Stephany and Amanda ran away. This brought their mother to a desperate situation but luckily she was able to find them with some help from a stranger ("209: Didn't Ask To Be Born | This American Life").

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Amanda and Stephany failed to cope with their personal troubles when their parents divorced. They felt that their old way of life was gone and they will never recover it. This feeling demoralized them to a point of joining bad company going to extents of using drugs. For them, coping with their new situation and new way of life was impossible. It was a point in their lives when they did not understood the meaning of their lives, the values that they used to cherish had vanished and in the process of defending their selfhood, they ended up being morally insensible. But what they failed to understand was that, their private matters had changed to public matter and they did not have to keep living as private individuals (Mills 132).

According to Mills, Debras daughters lacked the skills of reasoning as a result of the situation they were going through (135). Due to depression and guilt of having to live without their father, a lot of unnecessary information occupied their minds and their attention got diverted. Their quality of mind that they once had which enabled them to have a proper reasoning and understanding what was happening with their lives had disappeared. Due to the troubles they were going through, they felt uneasy and different from others and this led them to getting involved with public issues for example parties. Amanda and Stephany never factored in the situation of their mother. They were in the same circumstances as her and yet they disrespected her. They never understood their experiences and their fate at the moment since they lacked the skills of reasoning.

When the girls ran away from home they were not mindful of how their mother will feel or react. According to Mills they lacked self-consciousness (139). Amanda only realizes that it was wrong for her for running away when her sister, Stephany went away for 9 months. This was the time when she realized that her old decisions that she had made were not correct. It is the time that she becomes self-conscious about her deeds and behaviors ("209: Didn't Ask To Be Born | This American Life"). Later in their lives, the three are once again rebuild their relationship. This is the time that the girls realizes that their past way of life was not proper.

From the above it is evident that the personal issues of the individuals dragged them to get involved in the public issues of the social structure. The private matter which the troubles of Debra and her husband changed structurally to public matter which are the issues that the family were involved in. all this was a result of divorce.

Works Cited

"209: Didn't Ask To Be Born | This American Life". Thisamericanlife.org. N.p., 2002. Web. 1 May 2016.

Mills, C. Wright. The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press (2000):132-140