Cupcake Brown Essay

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Cupcake Brown’s memoirs entitled ‘A Piece of Cake’ identify how sociological constructs and adult constructed frameworks impacted on her journey through childhood and into adulthood as she resigned herself to loss, hurt, disgrace, shame, depression and defeat. Cupcake’s (Cup) story supports Locke’s (1632-1704) socialisation theory that a child is an ‘empty vessel’ and will learn from experience; her childhood was influenced by bad experiences which culminated in yet another blackout, finding herself lying raped behind a dumpster with no recollection of the previous night. Cup realised she had agency as she began to make sense of her culture. Her bravest act was to finally ask for help. Cup’s childhood, which at the age of eleven one feels should have been full of love, innocence and free from harm, was lost following the sudden death of her mother. Californian Law entrusted Cup to her birth father, a man she had never met who totally neglected her by instantaneously putting her into pre-arranged foster care. Cup suffered intensely from the suffering endured once placed in the foster care system with those in authority not wanting to listen and her voice being stifled. The adults in Cup’s new stage of childhood resisted the idea of her being a social agent; she became locked in a childhood, which excluded her from being heard or able of making decisions. Considering Maslow’s theory on attachment and hierarchical needs Cup’s basic needs of social, emotional and physiological needs were not met. Johnston & Nahmad-Williams (2009:31) suggests “Maslow believed that physiological needs are at the base of the hierarchy and if these physiological needs are not met, then children will not be able to move up the hierarchy and concern themselves with safety needs.” The cultural determinism of being a foster child shaped Cup’s behaviour; lack of self-respect,

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