"Lullabies for Little Criminals" by Heather O'Neill
Baby
Heroin addiction Prostitution
Bad relationships
Bad parenting
Lack of positive role models
The women Baby hangs out with/looks up to are...
Mother died shortly after child birth
Jules
Alphonse
Zoe
Prostitutes/Drug users
Encouraging sex at a young age
Leelee
Prostitution/sex at a young age
Friend that's older
Selling her body for money
The idea of sex
Makes Baby believe doing this is normal
Pressures Baby into thinking she should do it too
Starts by befriending Baby at her most vulnerable stage of neglection
Lures Baby in by buying gifts and showing fake love
Takes her virginity
Prostitute
Baby getting abused by Alphonse when she does not comply with his rules
Baby using/getting addicted to Heroin
Single parent
Young/inexperienced
Stressed from bills/responsibilities
Abandons/neglects Baby
Unemployed
Heroin addiction
Abuses her when she resists his strict rules
Baby yearning for a mother figure
"I didn't feel any pain when Alphonse slapped me on both sides of my face." (O'Neill 306)
"I didn't go home the next day or any day after that. As far as I could tell, it was true that you go hooked the first time you used heroin. I was stoned right down to my bones most of the day." (O'Neill 286)
" 'I had sex with a man for fifty bucks', she said. 'Me and my cousin have been doing it on Ontario Street. It's easy. She made two hundred dollars one night.' " (O'Neill 16)
" 'You have to lose your virginity when you turn twelve,' she told me." (O'Neill 15)
"I wish Leelee had told me about some of these details." (O'Neill 227)
"As I lay in the dark I knew everyone was thinking about their mothers. I wanted to think about my mother, too, but I couldn't come up with much." (O'Neill 44)
"Jules and his friends had been calling heroin chocolate milk for years." (O'Neill 10)
"As I opened my mouth, he stretched out his arm and punched me in the eye." (O'Neill 156)
