I couldn't really tell from the This American Life segment exactly what had led to such an extreme situation, and I can't completely tell from this interview either. I really feel for this mother.

It seems so weird that she sent them to a long wilderness camp after they returned. But what do I know?

...how Gwartney doesn't understand how and why this happened. Her daughter told her. She felt like a pawn between the parents. Gwartney felt anguish. Gwarthey felt anger. Gwartney shut down which means she closed them out. She chose herself and her pain and anguish over her children. Then she let the two younger ones check out of life and stay home and take care of her.

If their parents betray them -- not necessarily by absuing them -- sometimes just by letting the children be less important than whatever the parents are going through, children will find a different place to live. Some find it in a drugged up state, some find it in a new 'family' they find on the street.

The only mystery here is how Gwartney's introspection doesn't lead her to seeing her own complete and utter self-involvement in how she describes events. The only people I feel sorry for in this story are the four girls who's parents so utterly and completely let them down.

I wonder if you have kids. Mine are too young to run away, but sometimes their need is overwhelming in the face of other traumas in my life. I am sure that Debra Gwartney wished that hse had more tools, more resources. Much as I may want to be perfectly there for my kids, I probably am not. All parents struggle. You just sound awfully judgemental. Have you been there?

Gwartney talks a lot about autonomy, the attraction autonomy had for her daughters, and I think that's valid. In American culture we're terrified of agency. We do children's homework for them. They do schoolwork which accomplishes absolutely nothing of real world value. Most teenagers today don't have jobs. Teenagers in America aren't allowed authority over their own bodies, to have sex or not to have sex, or even to decide whether to accept medical treatment. It's illegal simply to BE a child - you can't, as a child, go to work, rent an apartment and pay for it, and live there and mind your own business. It's a horrible, horrible thing to do to anyone.

I know I hated it as a teenager, and I know that it was years before I realized that I could actually accomplish things, that I was a useful being. People like being useful. Children in particular derive a huge amount of self-esteem from being useful.

Not too long ago there was an interview in our local paper with a group of children at a bilingual church. About half of the children were American, and about half were immigrants from Vietnam. One of the questions was, "What do you like to do best?" The American children would answer that they liked playing with My Little Pony or skating. The Vietnamese children would answer that they liked doing dishes or helping their mothers care for their little brother. This was presenting with an undertone of how tragic and sad it was - those poor fucked up little Vietnamese children, miniature adults who thought work was fun! But it's us who are fucked up, who have taught our children that the highest ambition is to be absolutely selfish and useless, the best use of free time is to waste it, and the goal of life is to be a dependent child for as long as possible.

I read this article really wanting to have compassion for parents of runaways. Gwartney is making it really difficult.

Gwartney admits that she over-identified with her daughers and tried to make their lives projections of her wants...and then as a means of solving the problems this created for her kids, wants running away to be re-criminalized?

It sounds to me like the girls simply couldn't tolerate what their mother was trying to do to their lives. Research now on reward systems indicates that very young children will identify and resist attempts to manipulate their behavior. It doesn't have to have been abuse; if their mother was trying to control her children's personhood to an extreme degree, it doesn't boggle the mind that they reacted extremely. Not well, not wisely, but in a way that makes total sense. They weren't abused, but from their perspective, they were probably protecting themselves.

I'm not sure I believe that 95% of runaways are abused at home, either, but does she realize what effect criminalizing running away would have on the still large proportion who are? I think I tend to agree with the shelter system in that the help should be focused on the kids. And even for her daughters--she seems to understand now why they did what they did-- why should their running away have been a criminal matter? How would it have helped them to end up with a criminal record? Would they be leading the fascinating and productive lives they are now? Their parents couldn't provide them with appropriate support, freedom, limits, acceptance, security, or emotional nourishment; they reacted immaturely and dangerously...and they should be treated like criminals?

I don't want to slip back into automatically blaming parents for runaway children--teenagers are independent beings and not always good people even if they have good parents--but the author and her ex don't sound like good parents. I'm sorry she went through hell, but I'm having a hard time blaming her daughters.

That said, I probably will read this book--it sounds fascinating, and I get the feeling there was a lot left out or left unsaid in this interview that I'd like to have a fuller picture of.

I'm a parent of a teenager and I find Debra Gwartney an advertisement for waiting to have children--fewer of them--when you are more mature. I would have LOVED to have more kids, but when I assessed my own temperament, my marriage, my finances, and then the wonderful but complicated kid I ended up with, it was clear to me that one was all I could successfully handle. I have friends who made a similar decision to limit the size of their families.

It seems to me that what each child will need will differ from one child to another but every child will need parents who make decisions that serve the children's interests above their own. This seems so obvious it's painful, and yet--so often it's clear that hasn't been the story for troubled kids. Why didn't Ms. Gwartney get some therapy so she could grow up a bit--instead of making the younger girls as much her victims as the older ones?