Life for me ain't been no crystal stair
By: Susan Sheehan
Edition: 1st Vintage Books ed
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 1994
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 174
Subjects: Teenagers with social disabilities -- United States -- Case studies; Teenage mothers -- United States -- Case studies
Genres: Case studies
Description: "On October 7, 1984, in the seventh month of her pregnancy, Crystal Taylor gave birth to a son. Because Crystal's mother didn't have her own apartment, Crystal had been living temporarily with the baby's father and his parents. But what concerned the hospital case worker was Crystal herself. According to law, fourteen-year-old Crystal was too young to be discharged from the hospital on her own. Both mother and baby would have to be placed in foster care."--BOOK JACKET.

"There are nearly half a million foster children in the United States. The emotional consequences of foster care - of being moved from one home to another, from foster family to institution and back - on any child are unpredictable.

Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair charts a terrifying legacy of institutional abuse and neglect, shows the damage that has been inflicted on three generations of one inner-city family, and paints a haunting portrait of children growing up without childhood."--BOOK JACKET. "Susan Sheehan has written an astonishing and harrowing account of the consequences of a mother's homelessness and drug addiction on her child and grandchild."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Originally published : New York : Pantheon Books, 1993