Write a story about a courageous class mate
Answers
Answer:fourteen. Courageous Classmate.
I had a classmate come up to me this year and tell me that the pieces of my foster care story that she has heard didn’t always seem truthful.
My first thought after she said it was, “Wow, that took tons of courage to say.” My second, “Yes, I suppose you would think that since you are not from where I am from you couldn’t possibly understand.” My third thought, “I am going to stop telling any of my story to people all together. It’s too much work and I can never tell all of it.” Being misunderstood can be hurtful to the ego, I suppose.
I started in a really healthy place on this thought process, but then I dove right in to the deep dark black canyon of judgment, embarrassment and anger. How could someone who grew up with parents ever understand the journey of the American foster care system? How can anyone who didn’t grow up as a foster kid understand a foster kid’s story? I resolved that they simply cannot.
From the perspective in that canyon, girls like her were the problem to why little about the system is improving. People don’t want to hear hard stories of kids being passed around from foster home to foster home, especially not if abuse is involved. I get it, world; believe me when I say I think often about putting all the stories in a box, burning them, and letting that part of a long time ago disappear with the rising smoke.
People don’t want to hear that a transient lifestyle is a habit of the system, because foster parents most often have little training on how to deal with kids who are working through trauma. Instead of sticking with kids while they hurt and heal, they give up on them time and time again and pass the “problem” to the next home. These kids are now even more hurt and are expected to start the hurt and healing process over again with the population who has continually hurt them the most: adults. It’s no surprise what happens next. 86% of all foster kids that age out are either pregnant, imprisoned, or homeless by the time they are 19. That is a consequence of our actions as a system.
Like many issues our society is dealing with today, it’s complex. Instead of taking the much-needed time required to work through it and create new solutions, we ignore it, shove it down and say to ourselves, “ There is nothing I can do!” Once again we point the finger at someone else. The easiest scapegoat being the intangible: government who always seems to be looking out for big money instead of invisible kids.
Anger comes rushing in writing this, and there I go again collapsing into the black canyon one more time. Only now I find blame down there too. I am blaming the government for their lack of perspective, kindness, and action. The government is blaming the Department of Child Services. DCS is blaming “lack of funding.” Foster parents are blaming the kids who are hurting in their homes for not acting more like adults. The kids are blaming God, the world, their foster parents, and their real parents who were suppose to love them no matter what but didn’t. Biological parents are blaming their own parents for addiction or abuse never talked about.
I am sick of being in this canyon. But here I was now, blaming a girl who simply hasn’t taken the time to look into an issue, because she assuredly has her own life and her own issues.
It’s often a surprise to people when they hear what foster care is like for many children in the United States. There always seems to be this Christian, uncondionally loving and kind stereotype of what a foster parent looks like. This is not the reality. Homes are hard; parents get in it for the wrong reason and stay in it long after they have started grouping all foster kids as problems and tapped out. The system does not always investigate the intention or safety of the homes they place kids in. I already mentioned how complicated this all is, right?
People ask me, “Where are these kids now?” Well, I am right here writing this frustrated blog with reluctance and worry of sounding unresolved, unhealed and angry. I am loudly articulating what it was like for me, because the only way I know to change something is to talk about it, gain understanding, and transform things from there.
Talking about it, even for me, is a new thing, though. When I was in foster care, I straight-up lied about it for years. No one knew. (Yes, it was as exhausting as it sounds). Not even my closest friends knew and I moved around 15 times- I lost count now. My story was always that I was moving in with my mom’s sister, because she was traveling, or my parents flipped houses, so that is why the bus always picked me up from new neighborhoods. I would spend all of my time convincing the world of these stories; sometimes I even believed them myself.
