A Mother and Her Family in Urban America: Rosa Lee Essay

The Case of Rosa Lee
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The Case of Rosa Lee
Case Study
Name: Rosa Lee Cunningham
DOB/Age: 54
Date of Interviews: 23/3/2015
Evaluator: Leon Dash
Reason for Assessment
Rosa Lee Cunningham is a 54-year-old African American woman who is of average height and has a slim body. Rose Lee has a husband but has lived with him for over forty years. She has eight adult children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She currently stays with three of her children. Her source of income is from the sale of illegal drugs, sale of stolen goods, and shoplifting. She receives money from the governmental benefits. A hospital admitted her for substance abuse and she has used the opportunity to receive additional income through a governmental program CITATION Leo96 \l 1033 (Dash, 1996).
Sources of Information
The report is from the book by Leon Dash-A Mother and Her Family in Urban America and the interview he conducted on Rosa Lee and her family. The report has both direct and interpretive observations as he observed her and her family CITATION Leo96 \l 1033 (Dash, 1996).
Psychosocial History
Rosa Lee is an only girl in a family of boys. Her mother was a homemaker while her father was an alcoholic. She had no role model for morality, as her mother was cruel. Her mother believed that the position of a girl was at home learning to do house chores as the boys went to school to study CITATION Leo96 \l 1033 (Dash, 1996). Education was not a priority for Rosa Lee and she spent her days in domestic work. She would chop wood, scrub rooms, carry heavy luggage, and cater for her family’s needs.
In her need to please her mother and gain her affection, she would steal or shoplift good things to give her mother, who would later reprimand her or inspect them and approve of them. Her mother would always intimidate her work or physically harm her whenever she displeased her. Rosa Lee felt that she did not get enough love and affection from her mother and she would try her best to get close to her. Her father did not try to be a better role model as he was an alcoholic. He tried to treat her better as he indulged her with a few coins he could spare especially when he was drunk.
Regarding her education, Rosa lee fared poorly in school as she felt her poor status held her back from performing. As she was a slow learner, her favorite teacher threw her out of class and went to a class she did not like. Since she went to a class she less preferred, she did not develop her literacy skills and was never serious at school from then on.
When she got to her teenage years, she began noticing that while others wore better clothes, she wore tartars. With the need to belong and the growing desire for other children to notice her, she began shoplifting. Stealing became desirous as she could hide merchandise below her skirt or into her bag. This type of behavior became troublesome for her that in her thirteenth year she got pregnant. She stopped schooling to have the baby that her mother took care of for her CITATION Leo96 \l 1033 (Dash, 1996). Soon after, she had multiple pregnancies that she has many children before her twentieth birthday.
She justified her promiscuity as the need to leave her mother’s home. When she was successful, she got a husband who beat her and soon she was back in her mother’s house. Her mother had coerced her husband in the first place through threats.
She had to feed her children and resorted to prostitution and selling of illegal drugs. To her it was a means of survival. However, welfare checks were her steady mode of income but her mother took full control of its use. Rosa Lee intended to bring up her children right as she disapproved her mother’s way. She remembered her life was full of beatings and cursing and she swore that those traumatic events and painful memories would not be the same with her children.
She made her own standards as had no role model to enable her bring up her children well. However, she easily bent the rules as she taught them to steal to have good clothes or any merchandise they could sell for food. She taught her children and grandchildren to sell drugs since police could not suspect children of carrying out an illegal activity. She failed to notice that she put them at a great risk.
Rosa Lee became a drug addict and she taught her family to share in its use. She taught her children that it was tolerable to use it, they conveniently justified it, and they eventually depended on her for its supply or for money to buy it. With her six children, the police threw her in jail for drug abuse and later spread the HIV virus to her two children by sharing needles with them. To her realization, she has brought up her children worse than her mother has, as they cannot fend for themselves. She works for to feed, clothe, and even give them money to purchase drugs.
Rosa Lee is constantly sick, first, as she has HIV she has no constant supply of quality food to maintain herself. Secondly, she has a high level of stress and all these cause her seizures, stomach pains, and memory lapse. She manages her condition by receiving a dosage of Methadone in her local community clinic. Although sometimes they are very serious episodes that her children take her to hospital.
Rosa Lee does not mention any form of spiritual history. She does not seem to have had the chance to attend church with her parents or with her children. She claims that there was need to survive at every moment. She states that she has no desire to subscribe to any belief system.
Her mother, Rosetta, is the only support system she can mention. As she is poor, she cannot assist much other than take care of her grandchildren, as they are young. However, she abhors her for her strict and violent upbringing. Her children are dependent grown-ups. They cannot fend for themselves or find a decent job they can sustain. Her father was only nice to her when he was drunk but can no longer support her especially with education.
Current Status
The daily activities of Rosa Lee include waking up very late to go find food or steal. She describes that she feels unrested, as most days she does not sleep at all. She wonders where they will find their next meal. She cannot settle her bills and has had her services cut off. She cannot manage her budget as she gives most of it to her children to purchase drugs instead of paying for utilities or buying food.
Due to her illnesses and continued drug use, she has a hard time for normal functioning. The intake of these drugs depend on their availability. When she has money to purchase a lot, her intake is more. Her constant need to find the drug has replaced her recreational, social and occupational activities. She has missed her medical intakes and commitments due to this problem.
Indicators of Substance Use Disorder
Attitude and Behavior; she focuses on activities that relate to drug use and she often gets ill or dysfunctional after use.
Social functioning of Rosa: she focuses mostly on drugs ad fending for her family. She lacks a support system
Occ...