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Addicts as Parents, Part IV: When Kids Matter Little

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


This post is part of a collaborative narrative series composed of my writing and Chris Arnade's photos exploring issues of addiction, poverty, prostitution and urban anthropology in Hunts Point, Bronx. For more on the series, look here.

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Tiffany: Hunts Point, Bronx. Courtesy of Chris Arnade.


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Trust, No, One. Chest, wrist, wrist.

Right now she has Trust tattooed across her chest, and the wrists are to come. She has to save up for them, or find someone skilled enough to complete the task. Eventually. They'll match her sister's. Neither sibling, she says, has had reason to trust.

Tiffany likes wearing loud colors, being the most wild on the street, and drinking.

This day, she could barely keep upright, laughing, thin straps on her dress falling down.

This side of town, with all its industry, boasted truckers, uneven roads and emptiness.

As she walked, her face made sultry looks at nearby workers operating a forklift. Her shoes made grating crunches across the loose gravel with slides and missteps. There were many.

Tiffany had birthed a baby a month before, not the first, second, or third of her children.

When there was nothing else to do, she clicked through a couple of baby photos on her phone, inciting mandated oo's and ah's from her company, before coming to a nude series of herself. She showed those off too. A curl of tiny baby versus wide-open mom.

This baby was six pounds, eight ounces, a fine weight. It doesn't seem like a drug baby at all, does it? Size, a full tally of health.

Tiffany, pregnant: Hunts Point, Bronx. Courtesy of Chris Arnade.

She repeated the weight as though the baby weren't dependent upon drugs, as though his mom didn't shoot opiates and smoke crack throughout her pregnancy, as though she, this moment, was listening for his breathing on a baby monitor the next room over, not as though she hadn't seen him in weeks.

The baby's with a relative, one she likely won't see, like the rest of her children. But it gives her something to claim while living this life. A measure of pride. Look at her normalcy, her son.

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About Cassie Rodenberg

I write, I listen, I research, I tell stories. Mostly just listen. I don't think we listen without judgment enough. I explore marginalized things we like to ignore. Addiction and mental illness is The White Noise behind many lives -- simply what Is. Peripherals: I write on culture, poverty, addiction and mental illness in New York City, recovering from stints as a chemist and interactive TV producer. During the day, I teach science in South Bronx public school.

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