Kid Catalogue

I was in “Kid Catalogue” a few times.

I’d say… probably close to a dozen times before my picture was taken out of the sleeve of page 189, a page near the end of the book and the basis of my mixed up emotions of fear, curiosity and excitement.

Maybe I was going to a much more terrible place, but, maybe I was going to finally be allowed to go back to the only place I knew as home before this whole ordeal began. Time and time again I tried to recall who it was I was actually missing but with very little avail.

There is only one image and three names that I could and still remember but remained foggily in my mind.

A lady. Walking away with very long, brown hair, faded blue jeans and a pale yellow tshirt. I even remember how she walked. Slowly. Slumpily. It’s only like a split second long though. For years I believed the one male name to be my fathers name but it turned out to be the lady’s brother, my uncle. The other, I had no idea but it turned out to be my fathers.

I assumed because of how much harder it was to recall anything relevant to it, that it was a friend. A neighbour maybe.

A female name was the other name. I had no idea who that was but it stuck in my head so clearly that I even gave my eldest daughter that name for her middle name. Its spelt different I now know since I’ve met my biological 1st cousin and third child of my uncle, who wasn’t even born at during the time I was with the mother. coincidence? Maybe I’d heard potential baby names being talked about. Who knows.

July 1986.

I had just turned 7 a couple months prior and I really didn’t have to much of the regular kids idea of a birthday party because I always lived with tons of kids who were always coming and going so frequently that the front door might as well have been a revolving door so, yeah, never had one. All I knew was that my picture was getting closer and closer to the back of “THE” book each year I turned older. I always wondered what happened to the kids who DID make the back of “Kid Catelogue,” as it was dubbed by the older foster kids. Thousands of kids made it into the book. Thousands made it out of the book. Some from the beginning. Babies mostly. Some from the middle but very rarely from where my picture was quickly closing in on the pictures taken out, which were never seen again. I was torn between whether I thought that it was a very good thing or a very bad thing, because it seemed like with the disappearance of the each picture, the disappearance of the kid in it was imminent shortly after. I never seen anyone after they were hussled out of their bedroom, accompanied with the black garbage bag we each received that held whatever belongings we acquired since being “scooped”up by some people in church suits and herded off to “a much more civilized family hopefully,” if you happened to be one of the lucky ones to get adopted that is. Whatever happened to the kids that “graduated from kid catelogue?”Eventually I would understand that they were to old for the homes and were the unlucky or lucky ones, unable to get adopted out so they were “released”back into the world. I hope that they found their way back home but not very many of us would see our real families again until adult hood, if they were still alive.

It took some kids hours, to get chosen from the parents of their “Forever home”. Sadly some kids would be in kid catalogue until they turned 16 and just vanish. It took me 5 years before my lucky number came up.

My picture was taken along side of two other younger kids. The newest two additions to this last home we’d have to endure. A younger boy and a girl. I never seen them before and I never paid much attention to who they were, until our “Forever family” came one day to take us home and they came along as well. My paternal younger brother and our baby sister.

I’ve recently lost my “Kid Catelogue” picture. It was sent with us for, whatever reasoning, along with a hand written,back story in a similar book, but this time it was only about the three of us. Name, birthday, place of birth and the terrible back story of unfit parents.

Most of this information was completely fabricated by the ministry, I’ve learned recently, so that heart strings were pulled of the Caucasian families adopting us. We were to be “cured” of any and all things indigenous. Which worked so well that for years I hated those who had darker then white skin. This was only because we were conditioned to think this way in the homes.

I believe that I handed this thinking down to my oldest child unknowingly because I didn’t try to school her into the same thinking. I was shocked when I found out I was not only indigenous but status and part of a band. I battled for a long time and finally relented in my thinking as I thought back to the children in kid catalogue. Almost all had dark skin. Mine is very fair but I’m still an Indian none the less. The final straw was finding out that my daughter refused to go into the sun without a sweater on because she is has darker skin that turns a really beautiful brown in the summer but for apparent reason, hated it.

Children listen to their parents and cling to every word, so I believe I am the reason for this. I have so much remorse over it. Today we both have our Indian names and colors. We both have made a ribbon skirt and embrace who we are. As much as can be expected with all the years lost of our heritage.

Kid catalogue was photo albums filled with the faces of the children scooped up in “The 60s scoop,” by the government and shipped off the group homes, day schools and residential schools. Couples could look through the book and read the back stories then decide who looked like a good fit for their own families. It was closed adoptions, keeping families from ever being found in some cases, but separated for our entire growing up years by us all.

A lot of us didn’t even realize this occurred until very recently.

Canada had apologized after a class action suit, which we still wait for the the compensation today but to Canada, it’s a dark chapter concluded. No not for most of us. The damaged mentally and emotionally remains, getting deeper as I grow older. It is affecting my childrens lives and grand childrens lives indirectly by being kept away from them, as I continue to battle my demons. Although I have questions answered Ive had throughout my life, I’m no where writing a book about my experiences, simply because I am still struggling to find my

“happily ever after,”

and well, I would want to end it with, “and she live sadly ever after on the couch she’s surfing on for the night”… now would I? No.

With these stories I’m finally sharing with the world, stories that I’ve never spoken to anyone about before, I hope to close my own book of a dark past and begin a new one. The happy one I’ve only ever dreamed of.

Now go hug your loved ones, because we’re not promised another second, nevermind tomorrow and never assume that all is as it should be because you never know the secrets held from you in childhood.

Bliss Crystal Tait