Children and Reunification Are Difficult
Beyond the love between respondents and their children, and the other practical concerns of reentry, the women interviewed for this study also spoke about the difficulties inherent in keeping and maintaining relationships with their children. Most of the women said that one of the hardest parts of their incarceration was the fact that they had to be away from their children. Almost a quarter of the women spoke specifically about regret for what they lost due to their priorities while they were engaged in criminal activity or incarcerated:
Sandra: Yeah, because, you know, when I was away, it was like the most, I can’t even describe the feeling of being away from them. And I would never want to go through it again in my life.
As they re-entered the community, some of the women were interested in making up for the lost time and the ill-effects their incarceration and street-life had upon their children. As a part of the interviews, many respondents spoke about their desire to be role models to their children, a mentality that often led to desistance, as respondents were worried that their children would mimic their “bad” behavior:
Mara: I want him to look at me as a role model, as his mother also, as a good mother, you know, not everybody can be a mother. You can be a parent, but you can’t always be a mother, you know, big difference. So that’s what made me really change, too. Even though I had him after I came out of jail, but it’s still, it motivates me to do good and stay outside, you know, cause of my son, and because of me.
Beyond being role models, many respondents spoke about simply wanting to build relationships with their children. Some of these respondents expected to have difficulties because their relationships before incarceration were difficult or nonexistent:
Kristina: I go to see her, you know, I go to her assemblies, or whatever she has in class, you know, parenting class and whatnot there, you know, I go there with her, you know, I try to build that bond back between me and her. I know it’s gonna take time, but, yeah, it’s working.
Troubled relationships with their children or not, many respondents spoke about how parenting is difficult, particularly after periods of separation. Specifically, some women spoke about the ways in which reunification required one to get to know one’s children again:Jasmine: Well, in the beginning it was kind of hard because I didn’t know him well and I had to know how he really was. It wasn’t the same as like every weekend it was fun time, but it wasn’t being a full time mom, so when I had him I went through changes, he went through changes, you know, getting used to my rules, my regulations. He was getting a little disrespectful, thinking that he could get at his way all the time because I always spoiled him every other weekend, so we had a little problem like that but now, we have a good relationship, we’re very close, um, he’s very attached to me.
Some respondents spoke about their children’s troubles, which often included mental health problems, such as suicide attempts, aggression due to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and other unspecified issues. Other respondents talked about their children’s problems with substance abuse and poor physical health. Many of these issues, beyond affecting the children, also made respondents’ lives post-reentry more difficult:
Betsy: I had a part time job I liked doing, like I said, I like helping people, and I was doing outreach for breast cancer, I was working with YWCA, and I felt like things was going good for me, and then, when I got my son, and about two months later, it was like, he started showing signs of his aggression and different things. I didn’t know that he was supposed to have been on certain medications, and then when they released him to me, they didn’t give me all his medications, so, he start, you know, going downhill slowly, and I have to sleep with my bedroom door closed, you know, cause he would threaten to stab me in my sleep, you know, different things, so . . ..
These respondents also often demonstrated worry that these problems meant that their children were following in their steps. In fact, five respondents spoke about the fact that at least one of their children had been incarcerated. Many respondents blamed their children’s problems (emotional or scholastic, for example) on their own incarceration, involvement with drugs, and absence due to criminal behavior:
Meryl: Um, I went to jail in June, and I came back in November. From the time school started in September to November, my oldest and my middle girl, they both suffered in school behind it. I saw the difference in their schooling, my kids go to private school, um, and they’re straight-A students, and my son started cutting [classes], even now we’re having, my son and I are going through a little crisis with that, I have to have him, he’s in therapy now, um, he was. My two oldest ones, they, uh, their school was affected by my, now, I don’t know, it could be just coincidence, and maybe it was just the time and they decided to go to school, or was it really because of my being incarcerated? I believe that that’s what it had to do with. There’s never been a first day of school that I wasn’t there. There’s never been. There’s never been a Halloween that I wasn’t there. And I missed these things. You know, October 13th is my oldest daughter, we call it our Women’s Day, that’s the day she started her menstrual, three years ago. And every October 13th, that’s women’s day for us. Women’s Day came and gone, and I’m sitting in Rose M. Singer House!1
Often, respondents had tense relationships with their children because of their absence, and children experienced fears of abandonment.
- When women are jailed at Riker’s Island Jail in New York City, they are held in Rose M. Singer Center. [↩]
