Foster Kids Who “Aged Out” Gather As Family

By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

(Written Sept. 27, 2006)

Many of the kids who were shuffled between foster care, child protection institutions, et al, grow up with no sense of family, feeling very alone in the world. A world they were unwelcome in as a child. Many people who were raised in such societal and familial chaos have mental, emotional, even physical issues from severe child abuse in their past from *both* their flesh family and the state. Many of these folks ended up “aging out” which is a term referring to the state a teen hits, when s/he becomes 18, and no longer qualifies for any state aid or foster care, and literally many of these kids, myself included, landed on *streets* once we aged out, with no family, no housing, no safety net, scattered schooling and usually drop outs, exhausted from surviving childhood. I have done a lot of work in the last 4 years on this issue and I am finding that getting those who “aged out” together, *as family,* has been very healing for many of us.

Rosie O’Donnell came up with a term I find to be perfect for describing this state foster kids and child abuse victims in America’s “child protection” system go through...she coined the term, “living orphans.” Yes, we are living orphans, many of us. Our parents are still out there. Our families, brothers and sisters, cousins and aunts and uncles, are still out there. But the problem is that many of the families of child abusers end up *protecting their own kids,* the child ABUSERS, in deference to their *abused grandkids,* etc. For instance, my dad just remarried new women and dropped new child after new child, without any conscience. His own family protected him, woman after woman, turning on each woman and child as he passed through them. So all of us, his real kids, have ZERO support from my dad, my dad’s family, etc. because to include me or my real sisters rears that ugly head of our child abuse past...so it is easier to make me and my two sisters disappear, than deal with our family history with child abuse. It was easier for my dad to just remarry, get a new batch of kids, and to just pretend the rest of us mothers and kids simply do not exist.

My mom’s family is the same. They can either stand by my mom and abandon me to erase the memories of their own family member raising to criminal level child abuse, where I had to be locked up in institutions and foster homes or they can abandon their abuser child, and support the abused grandkid, but honestly, you cannot do both. It does not work. You *do* have to choose sides. It is easier to erase us kids, now turned adults, than for many of our families to admit the disgrace they participated in...so we are “living orphans.” Our parents and our flesh families are still out there, but we are ostracized, not once via the parental abuse, not twice via the consequent abuses from the state for getting “caught” as a kid in the middle of child abuse, but then a third time, we get ostracized beyond just our own parents and society, by our own extended families tossing us to the curb too.

Many of us who went through this crap ended up as homeless teens...sleeping under bridges, barely surviving, reliving trauma, trying to stay alive amidst poverty, fending off nightly rapes, with low self esteem, with trust issues, alone as alone can be, and exhausted on all fronts. Kurt Cobain was one of my brothers in my extended family who knows what I am talking about here. I have started welcoming previous foster care kids into my life as my actual brothers and sisters lately. And it has been interesting how much that has touched my foster brothers and sisters. Many of those I have been talking to lately have felt so family-less for so long, that for me to say to them that I consider them family since we were in the same “protective care” institutions as kids, well, it has touched their souls, and I can see that. It touches my soul, too.

Last week, I met a man who was really going through hell. I talked to him for a minute to see if I could somehow just give him a little peace, and as he described what he was going through, I immediately recognized certain flags, and asked him if he was raised in foster care and child protection institutions. Surprised, he said, “yes.” I asked a bit about that, and we had similar experiences and at that point, I stood up, hugged him and said that I consider him part of my *family* due to our shared foster past. He lit up in a way, that truly showed his soul was healed a bit, just by me accepting him into a family he did not know even exists...for one minute, he was not alone. He was accepted and had a rightful place. He had sisters and brothers for one minute. I saw him again yesterday, and I immediately greeted him as my foster care brother. He proudly introduced me to a person he was with as his sister in the foster care world, and I could see this really did mean something to him.

I first found out the power of foster care kids who “aged out” getting together when I began doing work against the “child care protection institution” MacLaren Hall (http://resist.ca/~kirstena/pagemaclarenhall.html), a torturous asylum of violent hell we children were warehoused in in Los Angeles, from the 1950’s-2003, when it was, thank god, finally closed. I began putting a call out to other survivors of Mac Hall. And so far over 2 dozen Mac Hall survivors have gotten to me. And every single one of them has thanked me profusely for speaking out about what we endured and also they had a healing in that most of those who contacted me had never gotten an opportunity to talk to ANYONE about Mac Hall. Myself, included. My parents deny I was even there, because to admit I was in Mac Hall in 1969, means my parents were criminally charged with child abuse of me in 1969. So, to avoid that, they simply deny it ever happened...but I have physical evidence that I was, indeed, in Mac Hall in 1969. So many of these survivors even had their own parents deny they were even there, but they were there, and the memories linger, taunt, torment, etc. and it is time this shit was taken out of the closets. It is time we discuss what society and child abuse protection of the ABUSERS instead of the children entails. And if what is necessary to bring that to the table, is organizing the survivors of these asylums for kids run by the state, then so be it. That is not insurmountable, especially nowadays with the internet.

I am asking that any of you that are from this protection institution and foster care “aging out” past reach out to others, as your brothers and sisters, as family, to others who shared this past. It is healing for all involved. Spend some time talking about this stuff together for healing. And you are welcome to contact me at kirstenaATresist.ca, as well, if you are my “living orphan” brother or sister. You actually *do* have family. I have gotten major healing from organizing survivors of the most notoriously hellish institution I was in as a kid, Mac Hall. If you were in an institution, you could post something asking for other adult survivors of the place to contact you, via the internet. Go to your local Indy Media Center (http://www.indymedia.org) and put up a posting saying something like “Adult Survivors from X Institution - Reunite,” and ask they all contact you, then get them together. Be a hub of action for your brothers and sisters from foster care. Help each other heal from past isolation, violations, etc. and also branch out, reach out to local kids JUST ABOUT TO “AGE OUT,” and let them know there is a family of foster care survivors out here, and we welcome them as supportive family. I consider the work I do in this area to be some of the most important work of my life, and encourage you to find ways to reach out, organize, and help living orphans who were shunned by parents, state and family. It is fulfilling work and very meaningful on many levels. Part of why we must organize to tell our stories is to stop future abuse of youth. We must not be silent, as our flesh families desire, and must learn to speak up with pride as survivors of that system and to help each other, as we really are the only family we’ve got.