Demolition Derby Parenting Quotes

“Danielle Elizabeth Henderson! Get your ass over here!' she shouted. Grandma always used my full name when she was angry. None of the shoppers around her turned a head or lifted a finger to help; in the 1980s, department stores were full of people shouting the names of temporarily lost children, a cacophony of negligent parenting always ringing out like the last act of an opera.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry

“My grandparents got creative to make space for three kids in their two-bedroom home. They took one of the bedrooms, my mom and aunt shared the other, and my uncle Bobby slept on the screened-in porch. Every single one of your neighbors would call Child Protective Services if you put a child on the porch these days, but this was the seventies, which was basically a lawless decade where children were concerned. Lawn Darts -- a game where one child would stand in a Hula-Hoop placed on the ground and another child would aim for the hoop by launching oversize, spiky metal darts at them -- hit its peak in this year for a reason: if your child was fed and moderately clothed, people turned a blind eye to your second-degree murder-adjacent shenanigans.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry