One of the biggest takeaways from this book for me was the theme of family and the importance of having strong relationships with your children. Throughout the book, we are given examples of how Kayla and Jojo are left motherless and fatherless even though they technically have parents. Leonie, a drug addict, completely neglects them, which is very unsettling as a reader, especially since Jojo had to be the one to take on being a father. In chapter 5 Jojo tells a story about how Leonie killed his beta fish and says “Leonie kills things” which reiterates the fact that she is unfit to be a mother. This element of the story is powerful to me because of how common it is especially in the United States for parents to neglect their children. The neglect from the parents only strengthens Jojo and Kayla’s relationship. Jojo understands that Leonie can not take care of them and when Kayla is sick Jojo explains that Leonie “doesn’t know how to make medicine from plants, and I worry for Kayla”. This quotation explains how Leonie is a neglectful mother and how much Jojo cares for his sister.
I find it illuminating how Leonie seems to know how to be a good mother but refuses to. I think the reason she despises Kayla is because of how much Kayla looks up to her older brother. Maybe this reminds Leonie of how she lost her brother, Given. Seeing Kayla and Jojo could remind her of her and her brother and it could develop feelings of guilt Leonie has deep down about being with Michael and seeing flashes of Given. I truly think that at this point in Leonie’s life she knows it is too late for her to become a good mother so there is no point in changing anything. She resents her children because they resent her and it reminds her of how she failed to raise them properly. Leonie explains to Michael that “if we had another baby, we could get it right”. I interpreted this quote as her feeling guilty about how horrible of a mother she was with Jojo and Kayla so she wants to redeem herself by becoming a good mother for another child. This quote interested me because it could also be interpreted as her not liking the children she raised which is unfair because the kids have done nothing wrong and are arguably the most moral characters in the novel.
The theme of family and relationships was a big takeaway for me too. The importance of family to each character was there too just in a different way. When it comes to Leonie, she loathed others for their strong connections. Even when it came to her own children she became jealous of them. At Al's house she walks in on them sleeping together and she "wants to shake Jojo and Michaela awake, to lean down and yell so they startle and sit up so I don't have to see the way they turn to each other like plants following the sun across the sky" (Ward 151). Before this sentence Leonie had compared their sleeping to her and Given in the past. This leads me to believe that in this moment she is jealous that Kayla still has an older brother and she misses Given. She is missing the times where her and her older brother could sleep together and not think about parents or school or anything that went on. The other relationship she might be jealous of but the author doesn't mention is that they're also sleeping like a child clinging to their parent. Leonie is jealous that Kayla doesn't even call her Mama and goes to Jojo for everything. Just a couple pages before this Leonie "want[s] to give her one slap, or maybe two, enough to sting her good, but I don't know if I'll be able to stop" (Ward 147). This reaction, this feeling came right after she went to put Kayla down and she started to say Jojo. Leonie craves the mother-child relationship yet she won't put in the effort or commit herself into fixing her actions to fulfill her desires.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that the importance of family is a crucial theme throughout this novel. Ward explores the different, somewhat unconventional relationships and family dynamics in this book. Her purpose in doing so is to illustrate that a parental figure is someone who puts in effort to understand and care for the child or children.
ReplyDeleteThe original post’s author brings up an excellent point—Leonie does have a general sense of what is right and what is not in the context of child-raising. Mam excuses it to some degree by saying that Leonie “ain’t got the mothering instinct” because she bought and ate food in front of her child that cried of hunger (253). Regardless of how “good” one is at parenting, it is confusing that she refuses to meet her children’s most basic needs, even when it is in her power to do so.
I also like the description that the above post provides, about how Jojo and Kayla are essentially parent-less despite having two living parents. Michael and Leonie are extremely neglectful and do not care for their children. Consequently, their kids are primarily raised by Mam and Pop, who pour in time and effort to care for them. This points back to one of the themes of the novel, where parents are who raises a child irrespective of their biological mother and father.
Hi! I totally agree with the theme of dysfunctional families being a huge role in Sing, Unburied, Sing. It is crazy how much Jojo must grow up and be this parental figure for his younger sister, Kayla. Even when Leonie tries to make this blackberry tea for her, it looked muddy and “not right,” and Jojo is very concerned to the extent of making Kayla throw it up. He has to take on this role that he was essentially forced into since Leonie is unfit to be a mother. It is interesting how you connected this with how common it is for parents to neglect their children in America. I would say neglect is common everywhere in the world and it not only affects the person being neglected, but all parties involved. I also do agree there is this guilt that Leonie holds because she fails to be a parent, but it is also mixed with jealousy of the children being so close-knit, and uncertainty of when to act like a parent. It is interesting that she stated that if her and Michael had another baby, they “could get it right.” I think she mainly says this because she knows the horrible job she’s done with Michael to be parents because they are so absorbed with their own relationship, they don’t care about their children’s relationships with them.
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