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

I was in that interim stage where I was mature enough to give Curtis good advice but not wise enough to take it myself. I was still an impulsive, insecure kid and wanted to be tough at someone else’s expense.

As I write this, I’m reminded of a quote from George Orwell: “The thought of not being poor made me very patriotic.”

In our next seminar, we discussed a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

Sometimes actions and outcomes are linked, I thought. But sometimes, shit just happens.

Adults forget how they processed time as children. When you’re a grown-up, time flies by. As a kid, the period between the beginning of a school year in September and winter break in December feels endless. I had lived in foster homes for just shy of five years, but it felt like twenty.

Furthermore, it is harder for wealthy people to claim the mantle of victimhood, which, among the affluent, is often a key ingredient to be seen as a righteous person.

Affluent people, particularly in the 1960s, championed sexual freedom. Loose sexual norms caught on for the rest of society. The upper class, though, still had intact families. Generally speaking, they experimented in college and then settled down later. The families of the lower classes fell apart.

twentieth-century French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu stated that a “triadic structure” of schooling, language, and taste was necessary to be accepted among the upper class. Bourdieu described the mastery of this triad as “ease.” When you grow up in a social class, you come to embody it.

Many students would routinely claim that systemic forces were working against them, yet they seemed pleased to demonstrate how special they were for rising above those impediments.