Lamont's 'Training School For Girls'

Overview The story focuses on Shirley Wilder and her experiences with the system and then her son, Lamont’s life as well. Shirley Wilder was born in 1959 to Helen Wilder and Jay All. In the story, her parents had a very unhealthy relationship consisting of a lot of violence and alcohol consumption. After a tragic death of Helen from tuberculosis, five-year-old Shirley was to be taken care of by her sixty-five year old grandmother and later her father and step mother. Another big part of the story was that Shirley suffered from behavioral problems and ran away often to avoid beatings when living with her father and stepmother—both of whom seem not to care. Later in the story Shirley’s father turns the stepmother over to the court. The outcome

One social institution that affects children in this story is the Training School for Girls. This was the only place that would accept Shirley at one point in the story. This is the part of the story where she was accepted into “the racket” a group of lesbian girls at the school—in order to be initiated she was raped with a broomstick. Also at this social institution if Shirley ever acted out, they would put her in solitary confinement, which made her run away, and because she ran away the authorities diagnosed her with Personality Disorder. Overall, this social institution seems to be very disempowering and oppressive to children, especially Shirley. Instead of seeing Shirley’s attempts to run away as being scared and needing to get away, they classified her as having a mental disorder. As for Lamont some of the social institutions he was involved in include, a psychiatric hospital, foster homes, the Astor Home, and a home in the Bronx. Lamont was in the Astor home from around age seven until his teens. By the time he had reached his teens, Lamont found himself in the same situation his mother had been in, diagnosed with psychiatric diagnoses. When he outgrew the Astor Home Lamont was sent to a home in the Bronx, where he was a troubled teen and his ex-girlfriend gave birth to his son. Lamont has described some of the

It was a long book; however, an easy read and it did flow together very nicely. However, the book was not my “cup of tea”, it did contain a lot of super interesting parts to me personally. To be whole-heartedly honest, I tend to like fiction books like J.R.R Tolkien stories; I am also a sucker for love stories, specifically Jane Austen as well. Additionally, I was upset by the anticlimactic part at the end where Lowry really was unable to make a difference. The Lost Children of the Wilder says that society’s treatment of children can be very poor; however, a lot of times children need the voice of child advocates to give them a voice—especially those more vulnerable children. The social institutions specifically were very poor to the children. I think that often, similar to the story, some adults often forget to put the child first. For example some of the social institutions just assumed things about children and did not really consider other options. Furthermore, some of the most palpable moments for me included Shirley’s experiences at the training School for Girls; specifically with the group of lesbians she was involved with, like her initiation and such. I also was just beside myself when Shirley had her son Lamont and later when it came full circle and Lamont had impregnated his ex-girlfriend. Overall, the book was a good book and I would recommend it to other CHAD certificate or