For six years, our family lived at Boys Town. If you
aren’t familiar with Boys Town, here is a 10 second history lesson. While
ministering to the homeless on the streets of Omaha, Nebraska, Father Edward
Joseph Flanagan developed a lifelong interest in young people and their
struggle to grow into responsible, productive members of society. Over 100
years later, Boys Town is still a place where children and families are valued
and supported. Our role at Boys Town was that of Family Teachers. We had the privilege of living with almost 50
girls during our time there. While it is
true that each one brought something new to my life, there was one who changed
my perspective on foster care.
In the days leading up to Josie* moving into our home, we
had a meeting with our boss who told us “You need to read this file. She looks
like a pretty tough kid. I’m not sure she will make it here. She has run away from almost every other
placement and it looks like she is a pretty angry girl.” I don’t remember any of the details, but the
truth was, she did look rough. We had learned, however, that rarely does the
paperwork tell the whole story. What looks scary on paper could turn into
easy and what looked easy on paper could turn our house upside down.
The first thing that I realized when Josie moved in was how
bright she was. She was curious, she threw herself into her schoolwork,
she asked for help when she needed it, and she liked to have deep
conversations.
As usually happened, I heard stories about her years in
foster care. I heard the stories behind why she would run away. She shared stories of trying to get help from
caseworkers only to be told “you are not being abused”. She
described the feeling of being told that “foster kids are dirty” and how she
was made to sit at a separate table during meals and was only given tv dinners
while the family ate their meals at the dining room table and was told not to
ever walk on the carpet. She told me stories of Christmas when she was
given a package of men’s’ socks even though she knew that foster parents were
getting a stipend. Sadly, these stories, though heartbreaking weren’t
surprising. After having many girls who
had been in foster care, the stories weren’t new to me.
The day that my heart was changed was the day she was
talking to guests in our home and when she walked into the living room, she
said “This is my favorite room because it is the first time in over 6 years
that anyone has ever hung my picture on the wall. I finally feel like I
have people who don’t see me as disposable.”
Later, when the two of us were alone, I asked her about her comment and
she said “if someone had hung my picture up, I could’ve dealt with all the
other stuff and probably wouldn’t have run away.”
From that point on, I realized that it’s easy to get caught
up in worrying about feeling equipped to be a foster parent, worrying about
deadlines and paperwork, worrying about home visits and therapy appointments,
but at the heart of every one of us is the need to not feel disposable.
From that point on, one of the first things we did was hang up a picture
of the youth in our home because, if we got everything else wrong, at least
they would know that they weren’t disposable!
*name has been changed
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