I used to give presentations to help abused kids. Sometimes these kids were ushered from home to home, house to house, with little grounding ability, then blamed for becoming what we nurtured them to become. These are foster children. The reflection we give them is not pretty or fair.

Have you known any? Yes. You very probably have. Do you kids ever play with foster kids? Probably not.

My speech would be to city organizations. Organizations wanting to make their City and State a better place. They want to show they care.

Think about the life of a foster kid for just one minute.

Your parents are not getting along. They fight. Maybe you’re molested. (It’s difficult for a young woman to reach the age of 18 without being sexually molested in our country.) You might be hit, or punched. You might need to take care of your drug addicted parent, instead of being cared for by them. This is unfair to a minor. This is their world:

One evening, the doorbell rings. People are standing there, strangers, talking to the adult present. In less than 10 minutes, you are being transported ‘somewhere’. You were asked by a stranger what you want to take along. Hopefully, you remember your backpack, your teddy bear, your favorite jammies, your hair and toothbrush. You are a kid. You’ve never had to make these decisions. You have little time and are completely confused. What in the world is happening?

They remove you from your home, from your parents’ care, from your life.

Tomorrow, after no rest and much angst, you find yourself registered into a new school. You know none of the kids or teachers. Your trust is zero. You are frightened and angry. What in hell did YOU do?

You live in a different house. Maybe it has 10 people in it, maybe it has 3. You have new ‘parents’, but they aren’t your parents, and they get to tell you what you can and cannot do. You have a bedroom that you’ve never seen, probably shared with someone you’ve never known. This is your new life. Why? Because your parents were not doing the job they needed to do for you to develop into a productive adult and member of society. What in hell does THAT mean? Why are you in trouble here? Where is your mom or dad? Where is your aunt? Your best friend? Your cousin?

Gone. Everyone familiar is gone. You are in the system. You don’t know where you supposedly live because they want to be certain you cannot run away. New house, new school, new family, new part of town.

Now you live ‘here’, wherever that is. Now you attend this school. Now you need to comply to adjust and live. You become a change-agent. You begin to morph into whatever is required to exist.

This is the life of a foster kid. To add insult to injury, we often prevent our kids from getting to know these kids. Why? Is it because they are not ‘normal’? They have done nothing wrong. They are total victims. They are children. Now, we shun them. Why? Because we teach our kids not to accept different and new. Parents worry that foster kids are going to cause trouble.

So, a child, dragged crying and screaming from their home is shunned by everyone new. People they need. People they must adjust to in order to survive.

Why are we allowing these feelings to continue with abused children? Instead of giving them a wonderful, warm, loving environment, we give them the ‘look-away’ and tell our kids that they are ‘not really our kind’. What kind of future does this portend? Those kids are in the worst possible situation. Can’t we offer more help than this? Will we?

I view every child as my future support. I admit that. If we do not include these kids into our working society, where will my social security come from? When will my family recognize that elderly people have value and education? If we don’t incorporate everyone into our society, how much longer can our society exist? We need everyone. We have no right to discriminate. We created everyone we see. They are the product of our living values and rules. Isn’t it time to bring everyone home?

I worked as CASA (court appointed special advocate) in Colorado for 4 years. It was difficult emotionally. It was time-consuming. It was the most rewarding thing I had done in a very long time. Our generation has the time and energy to put things right for our future generations. More importantly: they deserve and desperately need our input. Should we sit, complaining?

Our future is on our shoulders. Shouldn’t we stay involved? It’s for our kids. Not the ones we gave birth to but the ones who will shape the future with them. Let’s stay involved. For everyone. All of us are foster kids, dependent on strangers to show us the proper path. Start in the mirror.

You deserve to know where you live.

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Tags: bureaucracy, CASA, children, court appointed special advocate, family units, helping children learn to be productive, life experiences, loss, parenting, trust, vulnerable, working together

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 27th, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under common sense, fear, giving, housing, leading by example, loss, loyalty in relationships, trust. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.