Story
Teachers in Kindergarten were the ones to notice it first. Lyric couldn’t sit still and had trouble socializing with the other children. They recommended he be tested, which lead to a diagnosis of ADHD and the suggestion that he take medication. Lyric was only 3 years old at the time. In this State, 14% of children ages 4-17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. This is 3% above the national figure and twice that of California.
Lyric is the third child of Traci, a single mom who likes to party and can’t seem to settle into any stable relationships. Even though she has held a steady job for the last three years as a beauty consultant in a Mall, she remains one of the “working poor”. With a yearly income of 18 000$, she can’t support her family (the government defined poverty line is at 23 000$ for a family of 4). Because of this, both Lyric and his 13 year old sister McKenna live most of the time with their grandmother, “Mother” (aka Terry), who just turned 75 years old.
Jané, Mother’s oldest daughter, lost her house to hurricane Katrina in 2005 just a few years after losing her oldest daughter in a violent accident. That’s when she decided to leave Mississippi and move to Florida. Her idea was to build a new life for herself, her children, and her stepchildren. Jané’s own son Sterling (20 years old) also suffers from ADHD but has consistently refused to take medication for it. Kathy, Terry’s middle daughter, lives in northern rural Mississippi with her own daughter Christy who is in and out of rehab. Like her mother, Christy takes a lot of medication, including those for ADHD, but with no oversight by a doctor.
From her own two marriages and all her daughters’ relationships, Mother has a total of 22 grandchildren. Her own mother, Ruby, born in 1917, also lives with her. Ruby’s late husband was the grandson of Fernando Gautier, homesteader and businessman in the mid-19th Century. A nearby town is named after him. The family embodies one century of the State’s history, from its early economic growth and prosperity – Mother’s great grand father - to today’s unstable social environment, which some blame for the unprecedented rise in ADHD diagnoses and the consequent explosion of medication usage. It is both an economic and a social “rise and fall” story that might find an echo in many parts of the country today.
Mother lives of Social Security checks (800$/month), but her daughters are likely not to be so lucky. What will happen to their children then?
Lyric is the third child of Traci, a single mom who likes to party and can’t seem to settle into any stable relationships. Even though she has held a steady job for the last three years as a beauty consultant in a Mall, she remains one of the “working poor”. With a yearly income of 18 000$, she can’t support her family (the government defined poverty line is at 23 000$ for a family of 4). Because of this, both Lyric and his 13 year old sister McKenna live most of the time with their grandmother, “Mother” (aka Terry), who just turned 75 years old.
Jané, Mother’s oldest daughter, lost her house to hurricane Katrina in 2005 just a few years after losing her oldest daughter in a violent accident. That’s when she decided to leave Mississippi and move to Florida. Her idea was to build a new life for herself, her children, and her stepchildren. Jané’s own son Sterling (20 years old) also suffers from ADHD but has consistently refused to take medication for it. Kathy, Terry’s middle daughter, lives in northern rural Mississippi with her own daughter Christy who is in and out of rehab. Like her mother, Christy takes a lot of medication, including those for ADHD, but with no oversight by a doctor.
From her own two marriages and all her daughters’ relationships, Mother has a total of 22 grandchildren. Her own mother, Ruby, born in 1917, also lives with her. Ruby’s late husband was the grandson of Fernando Gautier, homesteader and businessman in the mid-19th Century. A nearby town is named after him. The family embodies one century of the State’s history, from its early economic growth and prosperity – Mother’s great grand father - to today’s unstable social environment, which some blame for the unprecedented rise in ADHD diagnoses and the consequent explosion of medication usage. It is both an economic and a social “rise and fall” story that might find an echo in many parts of the country today.
Mother lives of Social Security checks (800$/month), but her daughters are likely not to be so lucky. What will happen to their children then?
