Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2024
Abstract
Rob Henderson’s breakout memoir, Troubled, gives us a window on troubled youth. Henderson, a brilliant young psychologist, illumines how harmful childhood instability is by reflecting on his own experience. He never knew his father, was abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, and bounced around foster care. After squandering much of his early education and drowning his rage in alcohol, drugs, fights, and vandalism, he made his way through the Air Force to Yale and now Cambridge. But few of his friends escaped the wounds from their childhoods; many wound up unemployed, in prison, or dead. As an outsider to the elites who dominate the Ivies, he also scrutinizes the groupthink and victimhood culture that is strongest among the most privileged. And he critiques the shibboleths that educated American elites use to set themselves apart while ignoring the harm to the rest of society. Henderson shows us how much we miss by focusing on educational attainment and cost-benefit analysis, overlooking emotional attachment. His account undermines our persistent habit of viewing humans as fully informed rational actors—a habit that makes much more sense in corporate law than in criminal law and the like. He showcases how poorly used adult autonomy harms children, leading to broken homes, drug addiction, numbness, and rage. Lastly, Henderson critiques “luxury beliefs,” sociological opinions that are popular only among those who need not worry about their own survival. These beliefs are status signals to the educated elite who are not harmed by the fallout from any cultural shifts they might cause. But these beliefs corrode the social structures that children need to develop. In short, Henderson’s memoir powerfully challenges prevalent views of education, family policy, and class and shows how we hyperfocus on educational outcomes and other quantifiable goals at the expense of softer emotional goods.
Keywords
chaotic childhoods, foster care, criminal justice, education, family law reforms, luxury beliefs, social structure, troubled youths, unstable adults
Publication Title
University of Chicago Law Review Online
Repository Citation
Bibas, Stephanos, "Chaotic Childhoods" (2024). Articles. 400.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_articles/400