2. INFO ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Born in 1965
• Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, With Music
• Written for The New York Times, People, & New York magazine
• She now lives in Brooklyn
4. BOOK SUMMARY
• Love-Hate relationship with her family & Jersey City
• Starts out when she is 5 years old
• Stories about growing up in Jersey City
• Criminal family
• Jersey City’s political corruption
6. HELENE’S LIFE
• Jersey City, New Jersey
• There has not been any evidence that shows that early
exposure to neighborhood crime will cause long term criminal
behavior in a person (Damm & Dustman, 2014).
• Helene’s grandfather “Beansie”
• The Majestic tavern
7. HELENE’S LIFE
• “Swag” from the cold storage company where her dad worked
• Free toothpaste & soap from the Colgate Factory
• Swag wasn’t the same thing as stealing.
• Jersey City had an unwritten rule that you could take as many
goods as you could carry from your job
8. HELENE’S LIFE
• Reporter- The Jersey Journal
• As a young adult, Helene was a risk-taker.
• Having an unpredictable childhood may have an impact on risk-
taking (Thomson & Hill, 2002)
• She gave up her job at the Jersey Journal to go all the way to Alaska
for a radio job. She was tired of Jersey City and needed something
new. After Helene had enough of Alaska, she returned home and
enrolled in a University for fine arts
9. WHY DIDN’T SHE TURN OUT BAD?
• Criminal behavior tends to run in families (Van de Rakt,
Nieuwbeerta, & Apel, 2009)
• She could have easily just become another unlawful Stapinski
• Helene was able to overcome the difficulties of her childhood,
which shows that she is resilient
10. RESILIENCE
• Having an alcoholic father increased her resilience
• The younger the child is, the more vulnerable they are to their
alcoholic parent
• The less parent responsibilities that the child has to take on,
the higher chance of resilience (Park & Scheep, 2015)
• She saw the life of her family and the impact of committing
crimes.
• She learned that she did not want any part of it.
11. Berk, L.E. (2014). Exploring lifespan development. Boston, MA.
Clarkson Freeman, P. A. (2014). Prevalence and relationship between adverse childhood
experiences and child behavior among young children. Infant Mental Health Journal,
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Dallaire, D., & Wilson, L. (2010). The relation of exposure to parental criminal activity, arrest,
and sentencing to children’s maladjustment. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 19(4),
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criminal behavior? American Economic Review, 104(6), 1806-1832. doi:10.1257/aer.10
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urban elementary school children. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 36(5), 454-465.
doi:10.1007/s10865-012-9440-2
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Their inherent resilience and vulnerability. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 24(5),
1222-1231. doi:10.1007/s10826-014-9930-7
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development: Evidence from British longitudinal data. De Economist (0013-063X),
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resilience. Prevention Researcher,13(4), 3-6 4p.
Stapinski, H. (2002). Five-finger discount: a crooked family history. New York: RandomHouse.
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problems: A mediational role for child emotion dysregulation. Journal of Child & Family
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diagnosis and changing family norms on alcohol use and related problems among urban
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