Here it says that her mother was struggling, and she had a hard home life. Netflix says that her mother was in rehab. I had the impression that maybe her mother was dying of cancer or something, since they seemed to mention that she was getting therapy and that Kenzie would never see her mom again.
shareIt seemed like the mother had either some sort of mental illness or a drug addiction. It sounded like she was maybe in a halfway house or other housing arranged by the state. It could be that she had been in legal trouble, or simply that her problems had gotten so bad that she couldn't maintain a home on her own.
I don't think that the mother was physically/terminally ill.
Thanks for answering, That makes sense. I wish there was more development of what was going on.
shareIt might also help to remember that the mother's husband had died suddenly just in the last year.
So if the mother had a drug problem or a mental illness issue, losing her husband and becoming the primary caretaker for her daughter may have just overwhelmed her. And if the father was the one earning all of the money, then they could have hit some very sudden financial hardships.
I didn't mind that the backstory wasn't fully explained. It was just important to understand that McKenzie didn't have any stable adults in her life to help her with what was happening with the uncle. Because in a normal family the mother/parent would be constantly calling McKenzie to check in with her (and might have also been more perceptive about McKenzie's anxiety about going to Alaska). But clearly the mother is too wrapped up with her own issues to put much attention toward McKenzie--it's part of what makes McKenzie so vulnerable to the uncle's abuse.