The people I grew up with and the people I know were generally from two-parent homes where the parents were generally the biological parents. So it was with a lot of fascination that I read Rob Henderson’s book Troubled, which was a look inside the lives of his childhood network, where most kids were from single-families or foster care.

It reminded me a lot of Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance’s book of a similar nature. Like Vance, Henderson managed to escape the destructive lifestyles around him to become a Yale graduate.

The stories of self-destructive behaviour from those in Henderson’s past are sad and bewildering. But they are so much more likely to happen to children of broken homes.

The most interesting part of the book may be the last couple of chapters, where Henderson offers some solutions to reduce the problems that plague this population segment. Henderson blames ideologies of the elite (e.g. defunding police, permissive drug/alcohol use policies, polyamourous relations) for a lot of society’s problems. The vulnerable need police protection, avoidance of substances, and traditional family units to succeed. But the elites hypocritically benefit or are robust enough to survive the harmful effects of the ideologies they profess, so life becomes relatively worse for those who don’t.

I highly recommend the book.