Welfare Brat: A Memoir

With this engaging and thoughtful examination of her difficult early years, the author breathes messy life into the issues of poverty and welfare dependence, childhood resilience, the American work ethic, and a popular culture that values sexuality more than self-esteem.

"Exceptional...A classic American success story, Horatio Alger's "Ragged Dick "come true, told here utterly without self-congratulation or sentimentality.""--""Washington"" Post"
Mary Childers's intimate and frank memoir tells the story of growing up in a family in which five out of seven children dropped out of high school and four different fathers dropped out of sight. With this lyrical and often humorous examination of how she became the first person in her family to attend college, Childers illuminates the causes of welfare dependence, generational poverty, and submission to a popular culture that values sexuality more than self-esteem and self-sufficiency.