What We Didn't Get

What We Didn't Get is a book about generational trauma in the African American community. It explores how systemic racism, historical trauma, and poverty have disrupted the critical stages of child development, and how Black families can begin healing.

What We Didn't Get is a research- and evidence-based work, grounded in scholarly study and documented sources, while also drawing from lived experience and the perspective gained through a lifetime of reflection. Written in a memoir-style form, it blends personal memory with research, evidence, and analysis to examine not only what was experienced, but what the broader record reveals about why those experiences matter. Drawing on and critically examining Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development alongside the developmental theories of Abraham Maslow, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Urie Bronfenbrenner, nurse educator Linda Landum examines how missed milestones in trust, identity, and emotional security become childhood trauma and emotional neglect that affect children, families, and entire communities across generations.

Challenging traditional Eurocentric developmental theories, this book reframes growth and healing through a culturally responsive lens. It speaks directly to intergenerational trauma, racial trauma, and Black mental health, highlighting resilience, reclaiming lost stages, and offering practical, affirming strategies for healing childhood trauma, reparenting yourself, and raising emotionally secure children.

A companion workbook, reflection questions, and guided prompts make it a resource for individual readers, parents, educators, counselors, book clubs, and classrooms.

At its core, this work calls for action: break generational cycles, repair what was interrupted, strengthen emotional foundations, and ensure every child has the opportunity to thrive.

Linda Landum, RN, MA, MSN-Ed, is a nurse, educator, author, and lifelong advocate for learning, equity, and human dignity. With nearly three decades of experience in nursing and healthcare, her career has included medical-surgical nursing, critical care, quality assurance, telephone triage, nursing leadership, and nursing education.

As an educator, Linda has taught students across multiple levels of healthcare education, including nursing and nursing-assistant programs. She has developed curriculum, conducted clinical and simulation-based instruction, and helped prepare future nurses for professional practice and licensure. She is also a former education business owner, an experience that further strengthened her understanding of curriculum development, student achievement, educational leadership, and the barriers that can shape access to learning and opportunity.

Her professional experiences, combined with a lifetime of observing the ways race, poverty, opportunity, family, education, and social systems shape human development, became part of the foundation for What We Didn't Get.

In this research- and evidence-based work, Linda brings together scholarly research, developmental theory, historical evidence, and lived experience. Drawing upon theorists discussed throughout the book-including Abraham Maslow, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Urie Bronfenbrenner-she examines what happens when essential developmental needs and milestones are interrupted by systemic racism, historical trauma, poverty, and social inequality.

Written with elements of memoir, What We Didn't Get allows Linda to move between scholarship and personal reflection, connecting established theory with the realities experienced by individuals, families, and generations. Rather than examining African American experiences solely through traditional Eurocentric developmental frameworks, she asks readers to consider how history and environment can alter the conditions under which development occurs.

Linda writes from the perspective of a nurse, educator, researcher, former education business owner, and woman whose professional and lived experiences have given her a close view of both human vulnerability and resilience. Her work challenges readers not simply to recognize what was lost or interrupted, but to consider what can still be reclaimed, repaired, strengthened, and passed forward to future generations.