Have you ever seen that movie Matilda?
My sisters and I watched that frequently as kids. It’s a pretty good story. At one point, Matilda learned she has special powers to make objects move, turn lights on and off, and all the things weird like that. Sorry for the spoiler alert.
I vividly remember being a kid and attempting to do the same things after watching that movie. One time, I was laying on the bottom bunk of our bed (probably Kelly’s bed…sorry sister) and I was super tired but the lights were on. I remember hyperfocusing on the light switch from across the room hoping that my hidden powers would emerge and the light switch would flip off.
I hoped that all I had to do was believe with my being that I could flip the light switch off and it would.
The light never turned off.
I have since stopped trying. It’s sad, I know. But I kind of grew up. I suppose I never really thought the force existed but I wasn’t afraid to try. I mean, what’s the harm in trying, right?
Regardless, the hope that I might be able to flip the light switch without burning the calories it takes to stand up from my bed and walk across the room is gone. I will never believe I can harness the power to flip a light switch again. It has been wrecked.
The same thing happened with foster care. It wrecked me. I’ll never be the same.
I will now always be aware of the approximately 400,000 kids across America in foster care. Of those, nearly one-quarter of them are ready to be adopted, but only just over half of those will actually be adopted. I will never unlearn this. I’m wrecked.
I will also always be aware that of those 400,000 previously mentioned, over 23,000 of these children will age out of foster care. Aging out means they turn eighteen years of age and are no longer required to be in a foster home. But often they leave the system failing to officially be attached to a family unit. A longitudinal study of these kids found they, by the age of 26, were half as likely to be employed, just over half as likely to have earned their high school diploma, were nearly ten times as likely to be receiving food stamps (women only), and over seven times as likely to be incarcerated as an adult (men only). From 2013 until 2019, anywhere from 251,000 to 264,000 children entered foster care…. EACH YEAR!
I’m wrecked.
The sheer size of these numbers is overwhelming…staggering really. But focusing a little closer to my home and my context, Iowa had approximately 4,500 children in foster care in 2016. Even that number is a little daunting. All 4,500 have their own stories. Some enter care with siblings, some come alone. Some are babies and some are teens. Most if not all have parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. Every single one represents a beautiful human.
I have heard many stories from around my area of the world. I have heard stories of parents who work hard and fight like crazy for their kids. There are some parents who reject a life of drugs and substance abuse, desperately wanting to have their children return to their home. I have also heard stories of parents who don’t show up to court, don’t return the phone calls of their lawyers, and who communicate volumes with their absence. And I have heard (and seen) stories of parents who do show up and seem to care little when it is pronounced, “There has been no compliance. There has been no progress.”
I’m wrecked.
Is it wrong that I want to go grab them by the collars of their shirts and shake them? THIS IS YOUR CHILD!
But see, I’m wrecked for them too. For many, this is all they have known. It is possibly exactly how they were raised. It is them using and employing the only tools they have ever been given and have ever seen modeled in parenting. So some part of me softens even for them, as broken and unhealthy and disheartening as that reality is. I’m wrecked so bad that I look into their eyes and feel love and compassion, amidst the anger and the disbelief.
So, I’m wrecked. I’ll never turn off that light switch with the force. And I’ll never be as blind as I once was to the stark reality that children right here, in my town, need love and need care…and in your town, too.
Koko
