Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison

Separated Love

In the “Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day In Federal Prison" Amanda Coyne takes us into Federal Prison Camp for woman in Pekin, Illinois for Mother’s Day. The focus of “A Long Goodbye” is the relationships between incarcerated mothers and their children. This story made me sympathize the children as well as the mother.  I personally couldn’t imagine how I would live with myself knowing that I had to leave my child in the care of other people.  I also couldn’t even picture myself having to grow up without my mother by my side. I couldn’t exactly relate to this story because I don’t have a family member that I know of that is incarcerated but I have had friends that had to grow up without a mother or father due to that reason.  In my opinion it is the kids that have to suffer because they have no fault in the fact that they have to grow up without their mother and father. They do not get to experience special moments with their parents that every child should have the chance too. In the story it also tells of a mom that gets punched in the face by her own son. That was hard for me to read because I don’t understand how a son could treat his mother in that way. I sympathize for the mother because it must be so frustrating feeling as if you can’t discipline your own child because of the fact that you may feel like it is your own fault that they are behaving in that manner because of the situation you are in. All in all I believe that Coyne’s goal was to get the audience to be able to feel sympathy for the children of these incarcerated mothers.  I believe that Coyne is bias towards the women because she knows firsthand what the children have to go through due to the fact that her sister is imprisoned as well. So although I also feel sympathy for these children I do feel that there is a whole other side of these stories for example, why are these woman imprisoned? What reckless decisions did these women make?  There is two sides to every story and I believe we are not getting the whole thing in this one.