Who is Carrie Morrison
Mackenzie’s mom, Carrie Morrison, writes an email to the university lawyer: “Mackenzie ‘has been loved and cherished every moment of her life.’ She said that ‘when Mackenzie imploded”–at the time of her hospitalization–she had just failed the first AP Chem test and was overwhelmed with the workload in other class. . . . she was falling apart under the academic stresses at school and was exhausted, and I believe looking for an out'” (15).
The New Yorker article describes Mackenzie’s mom as “A respected figure in the St. Louis medical community” (3). More specifically, Morrison at the time was the director of breast imaging and mammography at St. Luke’s Hospital, in Chesterfield, a wealthy suburb of St. Louis” (2).
Whitfield, a private prep school in St. Louis, has a wellness director, Ginny Fendell. Fendell states she had seen “text messages in which Morrison has lashed out at Mackenzie, call her ‘a fucking piece of shit’ or telling her, ‘Get your fat ass home'” (6).
Mackenzie awakens in her mother’s bed to find her mother’s boyfriend on top of her. “Mackenzie “got out from under him, ran into her own room, and eventually called her mother. “She just bursts out laughing,’ Mackenzie wrote. Her mother told her that it was an accident, saying, ‘I’m flattered that he got me mixed up with my 15-year-old daughter'” (4).
Like other images we have in this case, Carrie Morrison, Mackenzie’s mom, presents a complex image. How do you view Carrie Morrison? Is she an incompetent parent? Has she willing let her boyfriend sexually assault her daughter? Explain. Use evidence, not labels. (No psychological tirades.) A 250-word minimum
