When the Bough Breaks: The Story
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS explores the emotional impact on children whose mothers are imprisoned for non-violent crimes, particularly drug-related prostitution and theft. The children's day-to-day lives give a clear, up-close picture of how the American justice system perpetuates the very problems it seeks to prevent.
Filmed over the course of a year, three Missouri families tell their stories as the children are bounced between social workers, foster parents, grandparents and visits with their moms in prison. This intimate documentary reveals how entire families are punished when mothers are imprisoned.
These youngsters are often left in the custody of extended family members where their needs are misunderstood, where poverty prevails and where they suffer emotional neglect and abuse. With prison populations quadrupling and more than a quarter million children left behind, responsibilities confronting our society become real through their young, articulate voices.
Although those who break the law must expect punishment, how can we balance the needs of children against a justice system that often deals lengthy sentences for victimless crimes? When drugs are the cause, why is prison the solution? And who does the harder time, the mothers or their children? The youngsters make clear that regardless of a mother's crime, the urgent desire for her love shapes their lives.
As sons and daughters reveal their longings, which are palpable especially during their visits to their moms in prison, their common desire for love makes them eloquent examples of the more than 250,000 youngsters in the United States who suffer from this separation daily.
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS asks whether separating families is wise public policy, and raises real questions about the nature of a society that prizes punishment more than restorative justice.
In the hour film, mothers, their children and their caretakers openly discuss their personal experiences and heartaches. The following summarizes their stories...
Laura and Missy
Eight-year-old Laura cannot control her temper, while six-year-old Missy cannot control her tears. "I see changes. I know Laura, my eight-year-old, she is angry, she's so angry. Missy, she's just withdrawn. She still sucks her little finger," says their mother Susie, who has been in jail for two years for one count of forgery.
There was no one else to care for them, so they moved in with their ailing grandparents. Their grandmother resents the burden, while their loving grandfather cares for the two girls' emotional and physical needs. "It's hard on me, hard on her grandmother. It's hard on a lot of people. You think you send one person to jail? Uh-uh, it affects a lot of people," says Grandpa.
As months stretch ahead before their mother's release, Grandpa suddenly passes away and the girls are moved down the street, forced to cope with their aunt who is herself in emotional distress. She says, "They latched onto me, to where I can't...God bless their heart -- I don't mind, but they just, I couldn't hardly breathe."
Meanwhile, the children fear they will never see their mother again.
Roosevelt, Jr.
Handsome 15-year-old Roosevelt, Jr. calls three different women "Mom": his inmate mother, his stepmother and his favorite foster mother. He returned to live with his stepmother and ex-convict father after three years in the foster system. His stepmother Ophelia, who has cared for him the longest, is determined to keep him from repeating his parents' mistakes. "Just 'cuz his mom's been there, his father's been there, it's not like a hereditary thing. You don't inherit incarceration." Since Roosevelt's father has spent most of his own adulthood behind bars, he is at a loss as to how to nurture his son. "It was something new to me, really, after being away so long. 'Cause when moms and grandmothers were standing in for the sickness and all them nights up, I didn't have to deal with it."
His new wife, Roosevelt's stepmother, is a strong and caring woman. "He's my kid. Yeah. And even when his mom comes home, he's still gonna be my kid. She's gonna have to really prove herself to get my baby back. She's not gonna get him back really easily. She's gonna have to deserve him back, earn him back. Not because she's just Mom," says Ophelia, Roosevelt's stepmother.
"You go through changes with children coming into the foster care program. They come into your house. So you go through a honeymoon stage. And then they're mad, they're angry, 'Why is my life like this?'" says Roosevelt's foster mother Sonya.
As Roosevelt, Jr. admits, "With your mom and dad, you score a touchdown. With your step-parents, you're always one yardline from the goal."
Once his mother is
released from prison, who will he choose to live with? About his
mother, Roosevelt says, "It's nothing she can do to bring it back
or anything. It's like a big piece of a puzzle missing. And when
she gets out, we'll just continue it from there. Within time,
I guess it'll fit itself back in. But we'll have to wait on that."
John, Angie and Tanya
"She says that she hopes that I don't end up like her and stuff. I tell her I ain't gonna end up like her. I ain't." --Angie
"I don't never cry or get mad when she gets arrested. 'Cause it's her fault. Ain't nobody's fault but hers. I ain't cried in three or four years. I don't never cry." --John
John has spent most of his teenage years in homes for troubled youths. "Me and my mom's boyfriend used to get into fights a lot. He used to try to beat me up until I started hitting him back. One time I got fed up with it and started trying to hit him with baseball bats and stuff. That's part of the reason I got a behavior problem now."
Thirteen-year-old Angie counts her foster homes at five, but their younger sister Tanya thinks she has lived in fewer than that. Sometimes they all stay together with their grandmother. John, Angie and Tanya are but three of their inmate mother's seven children; three others have already been adopted out of the family. Then, a year ago, their baby brother James was born while their mother was once again in prison. The infant was immediately placed in foster care where he has just begun calling his foster mother "Mama."
From prison, Denise, James's birth mother, fights for custody of James. "I want a life, I want a family, I've had seven children, haven't raised one of them, so it's time for me to buckle down and raise the one I had, the last one I had, at least." After Denise's upcoming release, James might be returned to her custody -- if she finds housing, a job and stays drug-free.
"This is my sixth time in prison. And, I would think after five times, if it was going to help me, it would, " she explains. "It's not going to change me. It makes you harder. It makes you not as caring." She will return once more to society unprepared, impoverished, but optimistic -- though there are no residential treatment programs immediately available to her.
Mechelle, James's foster mom, says, "I see myself as his mother. I didn't give birth to him, but I've had him since birth. I just don't wanna think about losing him." The baby's fate is observed through the anguish of his foster mother and the hopeful eyes of his older siblings. When John, Angie and Tanya get evicted from their rented dilapidated flat, their dire circumstances underscore how repeated prison sentences for addicted women magnifies the instability of their children's lives.
