The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Introduction

We have all heard the tune of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”. Lovely tune if you asked 5-year-old me.

Naive and blind.

Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout . Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain . And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

In advance, I am sorry for the 5-year-old me. This is the real world. And in the real world more than 17,000 young people aged out of foster care without permanent families in 2019 according to childrensrights.org,

For some kids...their rain...never stopped...the sun never came out…there was no spout to climb.

With the much-appreciated pieces from:

Statistics from the foster care section of the children’s rights website, an article from the American Press, and The Focus for Health

I grew up in the foster care system By Kaitlin Chamberlin

Six things you should know about foster kids an article from the HuffPost

Tim’s Story from the Human Rights Campaign

Can anyone hear me a poem by Katie M. Elliot

A Survivor Tells of the Nightmare of Foster Care a story from the New York Times

Silence by Thomas Hood

The Itsy Bitsy Spider - A story of the spider that never reached their sunshine or the end of the rain.

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Many of America’s child welfare systems are badly broken — and children can suffer serious harm as a result. Some will be separated from their siblings. Others will be bounced from one foster care placement to another, never knowing when their lives will be uprooted next. Too many will be further abused in systems that are supposed to protect them. And instead of being safely reunified with their families — or moved quickly into adoptive homes — many will languish for years in foster homes or institutions.

Here are three things foster children and youth want you to know.

1. Many of us could avoid foster care if the right help were provided to our parents.

Intensive services that strengthen and restore struggling families can keep children out of foster care entirely.

That’s best for most kids — and society.

Just the act of entering the foster care system, being taken away from your family, is traumatic and can cause serious emotional damage.

The state just isn’t equipped to be a parent.

I was born in Oakland in 1986.

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And according to Children Uniting Nations’ foster-care statistics, there are more than 463,000 children in foster care in the US, with California having the largest foster-care population.

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My first memory isn’t the most beautiful one, but I think a lot of people can relate.

My mom and I were sitting in a waiting room on yellow plastic chairs. She was really anxious and impatient as I proceeded to dump out the entire contents of her purse. Frustration was all over her face; she shoved me aside, crying and scrambling to pick everything up.

The lady at the front desk called her name, and we went into a room with thick glass and rows of desks. There were telephones, and on the other side of the glass, I saw my dad.

My mom picked up the phone, and I could tell how much they missed each other, but I didn’t know why or where we were or what it all meant because I was only two years old.

My parents were both drug addicts. My dad tried to buy drugs from an undercover police officer, just like dumb criminals do in the movies, and was sent to prison. Not too long after, my mom was found unfit to take care of my brother and me.

Initially, my grandparents took us in, but they just weren’t in a position to take care of two babies. It was a tough decision, but they released us to social services, and we were put into the foster system.

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2.

The system is a scary place for children.

Even if your family is chaotic, neglectful, or abusive, being taken away from everything you’ve known is terrifying.

Imagine having to go live with strangers, often a series of strangers, and there’s nothing you can do.

Foster children have no control over their lives, and that lack of control causes continual insecurity.

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I entered foster care at age 12.

I was in an abusive home and would act out so that I could get in trouble and hopefully get recognized so that I could get help.

Life in foster care as an LGBTQ youth was far from easy.

When I went into my first group home I was young and scared so I tried my best to hide who I was.

My first foster home was not really supportive of me being LGBTQ, however, they were not very supportive of me in any way.

While in this home I suffered from several forms of abuse.

When I left this foster home I was placed into a different organization.

To this day I can still not figure out why the department thought that it was a good idea to put an LGBTQ youth in a Christian organization that is openly against LGBTQ. While with this organization I felt like I was a prisoner and could not openly be who I was.

As if the organization being against LGBTQ youth was not enough they also decided appropriate to place me in a county where there was maybe 1 other LGBTQ person and that person was constantly being shunned for who he loved

1 in 4 LGBT people report experiencing discrimination in 2016

Over the past decade, the nation has made unprecedented progress toward LGBT equality. But to date, neither the federal government nor most states have explicit statutory nondiscrimination laws protecting people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

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3. Most foster parents are good people, but there aren’t enough of them.

Most foster parents aren’t like the ones you see on TV news in unfortunate ways.

They try hard and do the best they can to help the children who come to them.

There just aren’t enough good foster homes.

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I passed through 12 foster homes and never did I find the ''stability, love and affection'' that a foster home is supposed to provide.

Instead, I was an unpaid babysitter and an unpaid housekeeper and was not given the support the foster care system purports to provide.

I was merely a servant.

I was served food different from the family's. I never received the clothing money set aside for me and instead wore clothing from the Salvation Army.

Parents thought I was a bad kid and had been removed from my poor mother's breast.

So I was labeled, abused, and shuffled around as if I were someone's unwanted baggage.

I had many social workers - some good, some bad, but most of them indifferent.

I knew that children received beatings.

My one sister was raped by a foster parent and she was not believed.

A John Hopkins University study of a group with foster children in Maryland found that children in foster care are four times more likely to be sexually abused than their peers, not in this setting, and children in group homes are 28 times more likely to be abused.

Can anybody hear me?

Does anybody care?

Does anybody even know

I'm dealing with despair?

There are voices in my mind

Saying I should die.

Will anybody even tell me

They're only just a lie?

Does anybody love me?

Would they shed a tear?

Would anybody even care

If I were to disappear?

The ones who preach friendship

Have left me all alone.

The ones who are not here

Promised not to let me go.

Can anybody see me?

Does anybody care?

Does anybody even know

The burden that I bear?

I've built up this wall

To hide who I am,

And now that I need help,

I'm alone behind it all.

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound maybe