The novel Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill is narrated by Baby -- the 12 year old protagonist and daughter of a single father and heroin addict, Jules. Baby never knew her mother and is unaware that she has any other family. They live in various shabby hotels in Montreal’s red light district. This paper is an exploration of the pathway effects caused by lack of familial support and how Jules addiction created a milieu that leads to Baby being ostracised by society. Suggestions are offered to alleviate their struggles.
As Karl Marx famously said “[People] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." Likewise, the selection of her family and the environment in which she lived were not determined by Baby. Baby was born in an unstable and derelict environment, paired with fledgling parental support from a heroin addicted father, which hindered her childhood development. This significantly affected the choices she made -- especially during the formative years of twelve and thirteen years old. Consequently, her understanding of social and moral values deviated from societal norms.
Firstly, the unstable environment was saturated with prostitutes and drug addicts who negatively impacted Baby’s well-being. Baby strongly believes a mother will make a positive difference in her life upon meeting the pimp name