Chapter 1: Is Daddy Coming With Us?

The main theme addressed in this chapter is that of absent fathers. The author, Wes Moore, uses the similarities and differences in the absence of his father, and the other Wes Moore's father, to illustrate a point of how a lack of a father figure affects people differently. On page 15, the author writes, "While I knew something bad had happened, I still wasn't sure what it meant...I heard that my father had 'passed on' but had no idea where he'd gone." Wes was so young when his father died that the whole thing was just very confusing to him. His father had been so important to him and such a big part of his life that it was impossible for him to grasp the severity of what had just occurred. Once Wes did understand what happened, he began to realize the injustices of it. He begins to get angry with the hospitals treatment of his father, and believes the hospital didn't treat him as well as other patients because of his disheveled appearance and unfamiliar name; "The hospital looked at him askance, insulted him with ridiculous questions, and basically told him to fend for himself. Now, my mother had to plan his funeral." (page 14). The loss of his father forced Wes to grow up much sooner than he should have, and made him question the fairness and safety of the world he lived in. However, the other Wes's experience with a lack of a father was much different. Wes's father had left his mother before Wes had even been born. As it says on page 23, "Mary was left with two alcoholic, abusive men who shared the DNA of her two children but no husband or dad for her boys." Wes had to grow up never knowing the love of a father, but also never really having to lose one. At the start of part one of the book, there is an excerpt from one of the Wes's meetings in the jail in which Wes says, "Your father wasn't there because he couldn't be, my father wasn't there because he chose not to be. We're going to mourn their absence in different ways." Both of these men were forced to go through life without a father, but the causes of their absence were very different and cause very different responses in the men. Wes Moore explores the impacts of their absences throughout the novel, and how the differences in the causes of their absences is important.

Another theme that is addressed in this chapter is that of the importance of education. When the other Wes Moore's mother finds out about the loss of the Pells grant, which was helping her pay for college, she is devastated. She is forced to leave the college and turn her temporary job at the Bayview Medical Center as a secretary into a permanent position, since her goal for better work was crushed due to her lack of education. Since she was a little girl, her mother always told her that she had to go to school so she could make something out of her life. Now, that option became impossible. On page 18 it says, "She told herself she was down but not out...but she couldn't deny it: without schooling she was worried." The author chooses to include this story to show just how crucial education is. If Mary had been able to graduate college, she would have found a much better and more satisfying job, and Wes's life may have been completely altered. Instead, his mother feels hopeless and is unable to achieve her goals, which disheartens Wes as well.