The Prodigal Child Case Study

There were three children in a family: the oldest, a daughter, then a son, and the youngest, another daughter. As the children grew into adulthood, the two oldest stayed in the same city, Atlanta, as their parents, while the youngest child, Vickie, completed an advanced degree and moved to San Francisco, where she had a wonderful professional career. Mary and John were somewhat older than Vickie, and due to the financial situation of their parents at the time they reached college age, they got neither the advanced degrees nor professional training afforded to Vickie, who benefited from improved circumstances at the time she reached college age. As the parents aged, Mary and John found they were shouldering the major responsibilities of taking care of the mother and father as the health of both declined.

Vickie made it to Atlanta only a couple of times a year, usually around holidays or her birthday. After the father died, the mother increasingly made it clear, despite her best efforts, that Vickie was her darling and her favorite. John and Mary, talking to each other, developed feelings of resentment toward Vickie, feeling that she had been favored with special education and benefits they could never have. They had to curtail their own activities and divert some of their attention from their own families in order to take care of their mother, who needed more and more care every year. They loved their mother, of course, but they found her demands were becoming heavier, especially as she seemed to blame them for her growing unhappiness in her health situation. When Vickie breezed into town (as they would put it), she was treated royally by the mothereverything had to stop so that Vickie could receive all the mother's loving attention. When Vickie was not in town, most of the year, the mother extolled Vickie's virtues and how wonderful it was to have her in town, if only for a few short days.

John and Mary began to form the idea, in their conversations with each other, that Vickie was getting off scot-free in San Francisco, enjoying the cosmopolitan city and the success she had achieved. They had to stay near the home in Atlanta and dutifully take care of the mother, who seemed not to show them the gratitude they felt they deserved for their sacrifices (they assumed that had they had the same opportunities as Vickie, they would be having the same kind of professional success). They decided that they should ask Vickie to provide financial support for the care of their mother in place of the hours and work that John and Mary were providing. Vickie enjoyed a far higher income than they did and was free of the major responsibilities of caring for their mother. Further, they wanted to suggest to their mother that the two of them should receive a larger proportion of the property and other inheritance that would come their way when their mother died. After all, they reasoned, that seemed the only fair and equitable way to deal with the unequal burden of parent care.

They met to decide how they should communicate all this to, first, Vickie, and second, their mother.

2.) From a postmodern perspective, what are the hidden social assumptions leading to the pattern of relationships and feelings represented in this case (if any)?

What are the hidden cultural assumptions leading to the pattern of relationships and feelings represented in this case (if any)?

Are these assumptions warranted, why or why not?

Be sure to write in paragraph form with at least 250 words.