TOW #11- Nonfiction Piece-Whose Family Isn't Crazy

"Whose Family Isn't Crazy" is an piece by Dr. Peggy Drexler an author, social psychologist and gender scholar. She wrote the book Raising Boys Without Men and was a nominee for the Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction. In her piece she talks about the holiday motif of the crazy rambunctious family and ties it with the stress many people with mental illness deal with during the holidays. In her piece Drexler juxtaposes the crazy family occurrence to the actual crippling time many mentally ill people face during the holidays. Her main purpose being that even with your hectic family life to look out for the people like ones with mental disabilities because the holidays can become a stressful time. Drexler most evidently juxtaposes these two topics when she first mentions the topic of mental illness. She writes "Entire movies are based on the hilarious, madcap mess of forced holiday family fun, and every year we watch them with collective nods of recognition: Christmas Vacation, The Family Stone, Home Alone, and countless others. But what if your family really is dealing with mental illness, as so many are?" (3-4). By successfully juxtaposing these two topic she connects her audience, families, with the real life topic of mental illness. Making the topic seem closer to home as "61.5 million Americans suffer from mental illness in any given year"(5). By utilizing juxtaposition she not only connects with her audience but shows how the seriousness of mental illness during the holidays and how hectic for you could be torture for some members of ones family.