Keesha's House

The teen characters find themselves searching for belonging because the adults either don’t care about them or can’t properly express their concerns. Harris’s father doesn’t care about Harris as much as he cares about his anti-gay bias, so he kicks him out. Conversely, the mothers of Katie and Stephie care about them, but they don’t know how to reach their daughters. Dontay has an antagonistic relationship with his foster family, and Keesha’s father is abusive. The long list of flawed or inimical adults sets up an adversarial relationship between the teen characters and the adult characters. It’s as if the two live in separate worlds, and Frost reinforces such an argument by giving the teen characters and the adult characters separate parts. As the teen characters compose six of the eight parts, Frost privileges their voices and suggests that young people have more insight than adults. Harris sums up the combative dynamic when he states, “If people we're supposed to count on can't / (or don’t) support us, it’s up to us to find / the friends who can and do” (108). From Harris’s angle, young people must use their resilience and create support networks that counter the weaknesses of adults and the inflexible families.

From other angles, the motif is less antagonistic and more collaborative. Carmen works with her grandmother to get out of juvenile detention and confront her substance use disorder. The presence of Joe complicates the presentation of adults. He’s an adult, and he’s a positive influence, letting the young people use his house as a safe space. While other adults aren’t positive like Joe, they’re not irredeemable. Keesha’s father wants to change, and Dontay’s foster parents adjust to his needs. However, even when adults try to be helpful, there’s a chasm. Stephie encapsulates the gulf when she argues that adults are preoccupied with surface judgments, so they fail to grasp “those private things that no one knows about” (60). As the teens share similar experiences, they can recognize the “private things” and be more helpful to one another.