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.

In theory, it would be easy to age-out and never talk about it again. I could make up a new romanticized story of my past, stick to it, and move on; I flirt with this idea a lot. I have even tried it a few times with strangers. This is what many of us foster kids want: to choose to leave the past in the canyon where it belongs and move on with our lives since we finally have a say in what happens in it.

Telling our stories means we would have to be vulnerable again, and the world taught us that is a big risk. It means a classmate someday in graduate school would tell you that your story is hard to believe, to hear, to process. It means we would have to think about it again.

In theory, it would be easy to move on and never talk about it again. In practice, there is something constantly yanking at my soul, refusing to let myself sit in silence. I feel responsible for making things better.

I am responsible for making things better.

We will not unless we can form a community of “invisibles” and help the world to see what solutions exist and create a new path in life for those who come after us.

I know that deep change comes from truth, empathy, time, collaboration, and determined action. I am going to have to ask a large group of kids who have been hurt over and over by the world to trust in it again and share. I need to encourage these kids, myself included, to be seen and to know their importance without anyone telling them of it. I am asking them to jump out of the canyon, but to remember it and use it as a tool for a better future. Am I asking the impossible? Is it fair? If we don’t change the system, who will? How can they know our urgency in fixing it if they simply know with their minds and do not authentically feel with their hearts the need for a drastic change?

It won’t change.

That change has to come from us in a solution prescribed by us, not one, not taking one given to us, but made for us.  

Shortly after my classmate had the courage to tell me how she felt, I knew that her statement might be the most important thing I have been told in a few years. I am so grateful to her for it; I wish the world could take on her willingness to be transparent.

Her statement makes me think clearly about what pieces I tell and in what settings.

It’s pushing me to see that this foster care “issue” is one that I deeply understand, which is only giving me more ownership of it.  

It reminds me of why it’s hard for other foster kids. Feelings of embarrassment, worry, the need for love, and the will to not ruffle feathers, just in case someone may leave you yet again is still strong, even for a girl almost fully healed 10 years after her journey through the foster care system has come to an end.

My first reaction was to stop sharing. My response after some deep thought and continued discovery of who I am is to tell it more fully, more often, and more openly when people ask.

I’ve rewritten this blog 5 times already.

I am publishing now, and it’s hard to do that still.

There still seems much more to say.