Thirty Days Out of Thirty
Twenty-nine days out of thirty, I cannot be heard above the cacophony of high-pitched shrieks and monster trucks smashing one atop another. My voice is trampled by the line of children marching to and fro across anything I dared hope to accomplish at the start of each new morning. And by nightfall, every tiny head snug in its bed, I’ve nothing left to say anyways, my throat long since tired.
Twenty-nine days out of thirty, my words are swallowed up by all that these children require. That is the great conundrum of motherhood as I nibble broken Pop-tarts in the quiet hours of evening, trying to remember what it was I thought worth mentioning all those hours ago. These paragraphs penned once a month are my chance to speak without interruption, to finally be heard, but as I sit here tonight, my focus lies squarely on those little interrupters, not the ones I birthed but the ones I am borrowing for a time. This small space my voice occupies can amplify theirs.
As the clock ticks on to midnight, I am haunted by the thoughts swirling inside these borrowed babies – so many nightmares raging where only sweet dreams should live. Yes, children are resilient, but they shouldn’t have to be. They are first and foremost fragile, and once broken, they are ever so difficult to piece back together, especially by hands who had no part in building them.
Thirty days out of thirty, a foster child has no voice at all. Thirty days out of thirty, no one would listen if she screamed. It does not matter what she says or thinks or wants. She has been plucked from her life and set into the middle of a wholly different scene on a completely foreign stage, one she is racing to adjust to while clutching the script she’s always known.
In this new production of her life, she is the least of all the moving parts, though everyone swears her to be the center. Anyone who’s seen foster care up close knows this to be the shiniest of all the lies. Child welfare rarely centers on the child. Instead, it hinges on the performance of moms and dads, step-parents and boyfriends, girlfriends and grandparents, whose rights are almost always considered before the child’s.
As a foster parent, I have felt the sting of indifference to my position within this complex system. I know the frustration of sitting silent in the back of a courtroom while strangers determine the future of a child I am raising, one they’ve never held, one they have no knowledge of outside of transcribed notes and 90-day reports. That frustration is all-encompassing, but it is nothing compared to the ever-present anger of a child old enough to understand that their life hangs in the sterile air of that courtroom but no one saved a seat for them. Such is the role of a child within the system.
Our first child in care was spared much of this pain given his age; my husband, myself and his mother carry the burden for him, at least during these early years of his life. But for older children who find themselves thrown into foster care, the dedicated adults stationed all around them can do very little to lift the load. There are fierce advocates and blazing hearts throughout the foster community, but even the best among us struggle to elevate the voices of children in care. The rigid regulations and web of bureaucracy stifle the child’s rights at every turn – their right to information about their own lives, their right to liberation from their abusers, their right for prompt medical and emotional care, their right to have a voice in the decisions being made on their behalf. These decisions that shift entire futures are dictated by flowcharts and reams of policy, while the child in the middle begs to be heard from some house that may or may not become home.
Tomorrow, I will observe a court hearing for a child who has been in my care for three years. Three years, he has sat inside this system that swears it is working for his best interests. No child should have to wait this long for assured safety and stability. And just as his case has taken far too long to reach permanency, the system responds equally as slowly to requests for increased advocacy and resources for children in care. Need access to counseling services? Behavioral evaluations? Respite care? Forensic interviews? Answers to any of the nagging questions keeping tiny heads awake? Get in line – a really, really long line. The social workers, CASA volunteers, foster parents, therapists, and attorneys dedicated to child welfare are in short supply. They are under-valued, stretched thin, and hands tied, but while everyone outside and inside this busted system acknowledges this, reinforcements never come and policies rarely change.
Child welfare doesn’t need reform; it needs a revolution. In this country of gross prosperity where it is common place for people to own two homes, how is it that children should wait so long for just one that is safe? Where people of means receive medical care and mental health services on demand, why should abused and neglected children wait months for a referral? Thirty days out of thirty, we’ve allowed our most vulnerable populations to be silenced by our apathy. Tonight, my tired voice cries out for a revolution.
Ashley, Woman of a Certain Rage