Rose’s Story is a book that examines the social systems in society. It demonstrates how the diversity of culture and relationships between individuals and the environment can be detrimental to one's development and general self-awareness. The Story of Rose also helps to understand how professions on human service such as doctors can ruin and help their clients. It brings the concept closer to individuality so that people learn that some of the systems that are expected to be holding good intentions and high standards of virtues sometimes amounts to no good in the society (Geels, 2004). The book provides a clear expression of life experiences that we go through under very unavoidable circumstances but still, we struggle through and come out successfully. The writer of this book is the subject of the story, Wanda Rose Bibb, who narrates her whole life story since her childhood to the period of her adulthood.
The story starts when Rose was adopted in a foster home which apparently belonged to her step-mother. During her stay there, she received very bad treatment from her stepmother together with the household. She did all the house chores in the house while her stepmother and her children watched. Her stepsister Julia who was the eldest, left her to take care of all the chores and the little ones singlehandedly (Bibb, 1991). Julia did not really care about the welfare of Rose and did not bother to help her in any way, rather she only cared for her wellbeing.
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The stepsister was a very self-centered person, which is an exact illumination of some people in our society. It came a time that Rose‘s stepmother asked her to move out of her house and get married since she was living in a stereotypical society where when a girl showed some signs of being an adult it meant she was ready to get into a marriage relationship. She embraced that tradition and insisted that Rose should get married as soon as possible. Rose endured rape at age 15 which left her traumatized (Bibb, 1991). However, after high school, she fell in love with a man whom she was about to marry but her happiness was cut short when the man was killed. The stepmother encourages her to marry an old divorced man which makes her go back to emotional trauma leading to mental disorder.
Rose goes to the hospital due to the mental issues that she had developed only to find that the doctors who were supposed to attend to her were rarely in the hospital even during the working hours of the day. Rose and other patients who were supposed to be attended by those doctors went through a very rough time since they were not attended to as they expected. All the doctors in the hospital were generally not concerned about their patients not even for the sake of working.
Despite Rose attempting to take away her life through suicide because of the problems she was going through, no one really seemed to be bothered except for the help of well-wishers in the hospital who tried to provide her with the basic helpful services. She survived through the help of good-hearted people who offered her relevant services until she finally got well. She appreciated them for their help and left the hospital.
While at the facility, the doctors had arranged for therapeutic sessions with Rose together with other patients in the hospital (Bibb, 1991). They were more concerned with the physical sicknesses and did not quite understand that Rose’s problem was different. She had a mental illness. She explained in the book that the doctors mostly perceived that mental illness or mental instability was more of a personal problem and that someone was in a position to stabilize their minds without treatment. Therefore, they were not allowed to receive such services and treatments in a hospital. They did not understand that personal health involves everything from physical well-being to mental stability and also spiritual awareness. From this ignorance, the doctors did not offer complete services to their patients, which was so unethical of them. The services that Rose accessed were not in terms of Welfare necessary for a mentally ill person. This made her very hopeless and helpless such that she never knew that she would one day get well and experience success in her life.
In addition, the condition of the house that Rose and other patients were living was dirty and unbearable. The social workers who are obligated to work as cleaners in the facility never bothered to do cleanliness in the area since they had other responsibilities to take care of hence they had less time to perform the duties on the patient side. This showed how careless and disorganized they were since they knew how harmful such environments were to the patients. The condition added harm to patients and prevented them from getting well as quickly as they could.
The family Psychiatrist and one doctor who visited sometimes were among the few people who helped Rose get through together with her situation. Rose expressed how the doctor had made a huge impact in her life by encouraging her and helping her get over the depression that she had developed due to the fact that she was going through a hard situation of rejection from not only her family but also the society at large.
Rose indicates that the nurses did not perform their responsibilities of taking care of the patients and therefore the created a negative impact in her life. She adds that when the doctors were absent in the hospital, the nurses did not offer the patients good medical care. These nurses showed a lot of irresponsibility and disrespect to both professionalism and the patients. They went ahead and lied to the very patients whom they were to take care of and show love and affection. The patients were treated with disrespect and contempt instead of being taken care of by those concerned.
Rose parents showed her love and affection in her childhood. They cared for her and even invited family psychiatrist to check on her when she was unwell due to eating disorders. She experienced the total opposite treatment when she moved to stay with her stepmother. Rose narrates what she used to go through in the house, which apparently is part of her family and it is not pleasing. She says that the stepmother was always insisting on her getting married in her tender age. The stepsister was also not human enough since she kept threatening Rose and she would often go to their room to confirm that the house was clean and the kids bathed. They mistreated and took advantage of her and even blamed her for everything bad that happened in the house.
The experiences affected Rose so much that she even went through a mental breakdown. She did not know anything about romantic relationships with men and her experience was a total disaster for her. The rape at the age of fifteen disturbed her so much that she started suffering and progressively became mentally unstable. Rose felt useless and suicidal caused by the experiences she went through together with the feeling of being rejected by society. When she was diagnosed with mental illness, the doctors started relating everything that she had done with the mental disability even when Rose was clear about everything that happened.
Despite all these, Rose was lucky to find a man who was loving and caring for a husband. The story also implies that Rose’s husband could remember everything that happened the time he was taking her to the hospital. She becomes a loving and caring mother. The story ends when she was living happily and appreciative of every situation that shaped her life. (Mattson et al, 2000)
Rose’s story shows how the social systems as provided in the systems theory fails to take up their responsibilities as expected of them both professionally and morally. It is exactly what happens in our social systems especially those set to serve humanity such as hospitals, nursing houses, and care centers. It also demonstrates how the human spirit can be so strong and persevering and is still willing to fight through even in the time of adversity.
This book also provides a very critical lesson to social workers in whatever institution that they work for. The responsibilities of professional social workers are to provide support to particular individuals together with their families when they are faced with problems or calamities. It is their obligations to ensure that people come out of such situations better than they were, perhaps more successfully. They should always maintain the spirit of professionalism and good relationships with their clients during service and act as advocates all together (Diewald & Mayer, 2009). Social workers should learn from the story of Rose and try to better themselves in terms of respect to humankind and commitment to their social services.
The doctors who were supposed to attend to Rose were rarely available in the hospital, they only reported once or twice a week yet they knew they had sick patients to take care of. The same to the nurses, they provided little treatment and little support to the sick especially when the doctors were away. This showed a lot of unprofessionalism in them an inability to show empathy and compassion to those who deserved.
Human diversity is also another lesson paused by Rose's story. Diversity in terms of culture, gender norms religion and lifestyle can make a huge impact on the social development of human being. It impacts social interactions together with personal integrations with society. Therefore, people are made to be aware of these differences so that their interactions with various people and systems should be that of mutual respect for humanity. Rose lived with her stepmother whose believes were rooted in the norm that when a girl reaches a certain age, she should get married immediately even when they have little knowledge of marriage life. This impacted Rose's life negatively. The doctors and the people who were present at the hospital who blamed Rose for what had happened, claiming it was due to her mental illness were also too quick to judge instead of trying to understand her situation and her family background.
The story is a true reflection of the different perspectives of how many people fall into the fissures of the bad social systems of welfare in society, not by choice but by fate. It shows how significant it is for the social workers to keep their clients informed about their lives and the progress they are undergoing including what changes they need to make. This will make the clients feel loved and taken care of. Failure to do so, many will end up frustrated and feel a lot of stress emotionally concerning their living condition just like Rose did. They should be in a position to reach to the needs of the clients as much as possible.
Another profound theme in Rose's story is gender discrimination. Being a woman in such as a society that Rose lived in is almost like a curse. Women sometimes go through a lot of social challenges in society especially in the process of getting to be aware of themselves (Rudman & Glick, 2001). The story shows how women, due to some reasons are mistreated and subjected to forced marriages just because their tradition dictates so and as if that is not enough, she underwent the crisis of rape at a very tender age of 15 (Mattson et al,2000). However, as they grow and advance their knowledge, they get to know who they should trust with their lives.
Rose was a victim of such circumstances and because she didn’t have any choice then and the fact that she was a small girl and had little knowledge concerning the service system at her childhood, she was trapped into the unfortunates of gender-related abuse and misuse. Some social systems in the society today still have such related norms and beliefs which can really endanger the life of a girl child and therefore the social systems should be refined to ensure gender equality and equity.
I would surely recommend this book to anyone who has a passion for humanity and most especially those in the field of social work. The story narrates the life of a girl who grew and went through a lot of social systems starting from her childhood when she went through a child service system under the foster care of her stepmother to the social systems of healthcare at the hospital. All the social systems proved to be hostile to her but she was able to overcome and was in a better position to live a better life. She is, therefore, a very exemplary human being especially in her courage and zeal to push on with life even in the face of social injustice in the society and harsh environmental condition. It is also very informative on the issue of social developments, the changes that people go through in life and the way one can cope with every situation in society.
References.
Bibb, W. (1991). Rose’s story. Long Grove, IL: Waveland.
Diewald, M., & Mayer, K. U. (2009). The sociology of the life courses and life span psychology: Integrated paradigm or complementing pathways? Advances in Life Course Research , 14 (1-2), 5-14
Geels, F. W. (2004). From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory. Research Policy , 33 (6-7), 897-920.
Mattson, M., Clair, R. P., Sanger, P. A. C., & Kunkel, A. D. (2000). A feminist reframing of stress: Rose’s story. na.2000.
Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2001). Prescriptive gender stereotypes and backlash toward agentic women . Journal of social issues , 57 (4), 743-762
