Human Growth and Development
Emerging Themes
From Gloria’s point of view, a big issue here is poverty, and the housing insecurity it brings with it, and the struggle to raise a family when the odds are stacked against you.
Gloria
Gloria is torn between the conflicting necessities of providing emotionally and materially for her family. She knows that they need her there in the evenings, but she needs that second job in order to pay the bills. She is stretching herself financially because she saw it as a priority to move her children from what she saw as a potentially damaging social context. In doing so, though, she will probably also have cut herself off from parts of her own support network, although she does still have her church community, which is an important resource for her. In addition, she is still grieving for the loss of her mother, first when she returned to Jamaica, and now through her death. This, combined with financial pressures and a demanding and sometimes stressful work life, and now the threat of homelessness, is putting her mental health at risk.
Max
Max’s relationship with this family clearly goes beyond what would be usual between a letting agent and tenants, and there are some clues as to why this should be so in the case study of Max’s own family. He notices that his contact with Gary makes him think about his own son and regret the aspects of that relationship that he feels are lost to him, and Gary is clearly responding enthusiastically to the interest Max shows in him. We see Max’s capacity for empathy in his awareness of Gloria’s struggles. It may be that Max is more comfortable at the moment in his contact with Gloria and her family than he is in his own family. Here, any personal investment he makes is clearly above and beyond what would be expected of him in his role, whereas in his own family he is sensitive enough to know that he is failing to provide the emotional support that Penny and Jack need, but perhaps because of his own unresolved grief, he is finding it very difficult to do this.
Max’s professional perspective on changes in the housing market highlights some of the structural problems in society which are at the root of Glora’s difficulties.