How would you feel if you had to leave your children behind to serve prison years? Would it make you feel like a bad mother? Who would be there to teach your children right from wrong? I remember when I was about 4 or 5 I had a friend whose mother went to jail due to prostitution. Throughout the time she wasted in prison, peers, family members and strangers looked at my friend's mother as being an unfit mother. When she got out, she noticed the behavior of her son had changed. He would talk back, he wouldn't listen, and his attitude towards her as well as life had a negative vibe. Is it possible that he resented her because of the embarrassment she had caused him?
During 1999, women incarcerated in federal and state prisons or in county jails were mothers to about 250,000 children (Greenfeld & Snell, 2000). I read two articles that were specifically about incarcerated women and it was unbelievable. The first article is entitled "Incarcerated Mothers" by Susan George and Robers LaLonde and the second article is entitled "The Study of Incarcerated Women and Their Children" by Dr. Susan Sharp (I linked the titles to the webpages). Both article talked about the main reason mothers go to jail are due to drugs and sex. They also expressed how much of an disadvantage this leaves the children while the mother is away. I noticed that the majority of information came from single mothers research. I guess this is because if you're married or the child's father is around, there's no need for committing a crime. I could be wrong though.
Reading these articles made me glad to have a mother with a good head on her shoulders. My dad put her through so much when my siblings and I were younger that she could have tried drugs to ease the pain or had sex with a stranger to make herself feel wanted. I really appreciate her thinking of her children.
So how would you feel if someone else had to raise your children while you did time?
"Incarcerated Women". harrisschool.uchicago.edu. web. June 2002
"Study of Incarcerated Women and their Children". okkids.org. web. 21 November 2008
Tanai K.
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