It’s a stigma, a black mark of shame, and most people don’t understand anyway and therefore usually say something stupid or hurtful. However, even when you try to keep your life secret, at some point you no longer can. People want to know where you graduated high school, where are you parents (I didn’t have any parents, I grew up in foster care), why have I moved so much (because NO place is home, I grew up in foster care), etc..
To most people these questions are not intrusive but normal questions….however, when you grew up in foster care, it is hard to explain and easier to keep a secret.
No matter how hard you try, at some point, foster care comes up…it just does.
Find out what's happening in Montgomeryville-Lansdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Most people look a bit stunned at first when you say something like “I grew up in foster care” or “I was a foster kid”….and then they ask one of the following Questions that suck. Again in no particular order, because all these questions are just wrong.
1) So, what did YOU do to get in there?
Find out what's happening in Montgomeryville-Lansdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Usually I look stunned when people ask this. What on earth could a CHILD possibly do to get taken away and have to be raised by the state government? What? — Please tell me? Are you kidding me when you ask this? The CHILD did nothing….the PARENTS/CARETAKERS did something wrong; very wrong.
When you ask me this, it makes me feel unloved, unwanted. I already think and feel daily about how people view me and what they think of me and am I beneath them. This question shows me that you believe this too.
2) Why weren't you adopted?
How am I supposed to know? I was Hispanic, I was 8…but NO takers. My guess: “too old and too damaged.” My parent’s rights were not terminated, because my father was charged with murder, and several counts of child abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child and went to prison. And my mother…I don’t know, she just let DHS take me.
But no-one wanted me. That is what is comes down to. No-one. Workers, foster parents all at one point saw me as to damaged to be helped.
When you ask this question, it reminds me of that. I feel it everyday, that no-one ever wanted me as a child; I don’t need that reinforced by you.
3) a. How many foster homes did you have?
After someone asks this question and I give the answer then usually comes “wow, that’s alot.” How many is alot? 2, 10, 15 ,12 homes? How do they know? Listen, ONE is allot. Children don’t belong in foster care, period. Children belong in a family.
After that comes:
3) b. “Were the homes good?”
Please define good? a roof over my head? food on the table? not getting beat, but getting told daily your no part of my family? I grew up in one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the united states. How good could it have been, when many foster parents simply took kids for the money? (well this is what i thought)
What do you expect someone to really say to this question? No-one will tell you the truth. No-one will burden you with the pain…. and trust me, you don’t REALLY want to know.
4) “Do you see your parents now?”
Every time someone asks me this, I am shocked and I cringe. This is an incredibly personal question. Clearly people who grew up in foster care do not have “normal parents”…hello? We have parents may not be the way you see them but we do have parents and YES we love them even just cant live with them.
So, I have to gulp and shake my head and try to mumble a “Yes and No, I don’t.” To which 50% of the time, I get “WHY NOT? or WHY WOULD YOU”
Don’t ask this question(#4), it’s none of your business…
5) “It must have been fun living in all those different homes?”
This question makes absolutely no sense to me. How could it be “fun” moving all the time? How could it be “fun” sleeping in different beds, on different sheets, in different rooms? How could it be “fun” living with different rules and different expectations? How could it be “fun” never knowing where you are going to be living? How could it be “fun” having to go to so many different schools? How could it be “fun” not having any childhood friends because you are always moving? etc…
Don’t you see? There is nothing fun about growing up in foster care. I had a few homes I loved but was removed because the county or agency I was at didn't like them. In Philly I was with a gay man. Moved because he was gay. In Bucks County I was with a black lady that had 7 kids from different agencies and I loved her, everything was for the kids, every penny she spent on us. MOVED because she didnt tell the workers about the other agency. They never asked me how I felt or how I was treated. They just don't ask the kids. They don't care what we think. They are GOD, and they make up the rules.
FUN is having a safe, permanent home where you know your own room and bed; where your friends live down the street and ring the doorbell to ride bikes; where you kiss your first teen crush on the swing that you pushed your childhood friends; where you come home and recognize the people because you have been with them all your life or a large part of your life; and where you can go anytime as you age because they are your family…That is “fun.”
Next time you meet someone who grew up in foster care, remember that we have feelings and what happened to us in care still hurts us today.
