listening to Mariah Carey as one does (aka my Max playlist or whatever) and am griped again by just how they paralleled almost all the rnm characters through trauma and the abuse whether from guardians or from governmental systems (or both)
like “I was wayward child, With the weight of the world that I held deep inside, Life was a winding road, And I learned many things little ones shouldn't know” and just how it applies in so many different ways to the squad, like
Liz- aside from being abandoned by her mother she is also forced to grow up and have responsibilities and choices children shouldn’t have due to the immigration enforcement and the cruelty of that system, her and Rosa preparing plans for if they were separated in foster care as well as her growing up knowing not to call an ambulance for her dad
Max- imma just leave this one here cause I exhaust myself at least once a week, lol
Isobel- just a look at the way being born with a uterus forces a strange level of oppression and emotional exploitation, not to mention the casual emotional abuse and cruelties from being raised by a woman not breaking toxic cycles
Michael- he was his only safe place, his only guardian, like- he was forced to be his own emotional regulation and his own adult, like just for basic things while suffering so much cruelty at the hands of guardians and the foster care system
Rosa- see the same as Liz, but add being an older sister with an absent mother
Alex- from being abused at home to not having a trusted adult ever manage to pry him out of said abusers hands to the treatment at school and joining the Air Force- well going to war was safer than staying at home, a choice a child shouldn’t have to be leveled with
Greg/Flint- older and not physically abused (to the same level- I’d argue corporeal punishment was used at home on all of them which allowed Jesse to actually blur the lines which is why Flint thinks that “bad” things can be beat out), but still just the trauma that would have come from watching and living with such a volatile man that you have to perform “perfection” for would force any child to grow up- if like they weren’t already do boot camp at like ten yrs old
Maria- her grandma and mom’s brain degeneration plus just the look at the financial strain that caused leaves almost no doubt to me that she was performing a role of caregiver at a very young age, plus just the way she was treated by the town because of the color of her skin
Kyle- barely slides under the wire cause his parents worked so hard to keep him carefree it kinda backfired? but imo that was largely because he’s performing for social acceptance, which he did warn- it’s echoed by Jordan before he kills him that he’s “not the problem” because his family came over legally and he spent so much of his childhood being the perfect all American boy
just- I have so many feelings about all of them, and the way their journeys and developments echo so strongly through each other, they’re all just hurt kids trying to love themselves and each other
