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Some of the blame goes to your parents. But most of the blame is society. At one point, kids were moved every 2 to 3 years. After it came out that most people in the prison system and homeless people were foster kids, did society decide to change.
I was adopted at birth in 1962, and two baby brothers were adopted when I was 3 and 6. Up until I was 9, our family was pretty much "normal." Then, my parents decided they wanted more children and arranged to adopt a sibling group ages 9, 10,and 11. This is the story of an EPIC fail on the part of a couple who didn't have any business adopting children, and the foster care system in the state of Georgia in the 1970s...
These three children were taken into state custody when they were 1, 2, and 3 years old. Apparently they had been severely neglected; they were dirty and malnourished with vitamin deficiency diseases, and the baby covered with sores from never being changed. The situation was horrible, but they were put into a foster home where they were lovingly raised along with the family's three biological children. They grew up calling the foster parents "Mama and Daddy," and they were safe and well-cared for in a stable environment for nearly eight years (a lifetime to young children!)
However, this family was in a low income bracket and depended on the stipend and medical care provided by the state to be able to care for these children. When the state eventually got tired of paying the stipend, it was decided that the children would be put up for adoption to get them off the foster care rolls. The foster family wished to keep them, but felt it was not within their means to provide for three extra children without the stipend. It was with great sorrow that they had to relinquish the children they had raised as their own and grown to love.
So these three kids were suddenly uprooted from the only family they'd ever known and adopted by my parents. My parents had adopted three children before, all at birth, but had no idea what to expect from older children who would be bringing emotional baggage with them. Everything they did made the transition as traumatic as possible for these kids as they tried to FORCE them to assimilate to their new family. The first thing they did was tell them they'd all be getting new first names (since new amended birth certificates would be filed, any names could be put on them.) So in addition to losing the only "parents" they'd ever known, they also lost the only sense of identify they'd had ever had.
When the children cried for their foster "mama and daddy" they were told by my parents, "If they had loved you, they would have adopted you, but they didn't. So WE are you mom and dad and you are not ever to refer to them again." These three children were not allowed to process their feelings about the situation or express any grief over their loss. They were punished if they mentioned the foster parents, or if they failed to show proper "gratitude" to their new parents. The youngest, who missed the foster family the most, was severely abused by my parents since they decided he was purposely refusing to accept them and had to be punished. The more they abused him, the more he acted out, and they increased the severity of the punishment accordingly.
Now, while it sounds like my parents were the "bad guys" - and yes, they were - the question remains: What role did the state have in this situation? A few home visits where they casually asked "so how's everybody doing?" and these three kids who knew they'd get beaten with a belt if they said otherwise answered, "We're fine, yes we like it here." The state never followed up with any counseling to help these children adjust to their new home. No one came forward and objected when their names were changed to make them "forget" who they were. In fact, the case worker encouraged my parents to cut off all contact with the foster parents, since it was felt it would be "confusing" for them to ever see or speak to them again. These children were traumatized by my parents AND the state's case worker whose only objective was to check off all the boxes and move on.
(Years later, after they were grown and got back in touch with the foster family, these kids found out that the foster parents had tried for years to get in touch - to send them birthday presents or call and see how they were doing. But my parents blocked all these attempts, making the children believe they had been rejected and forgotten by the "parents" they thought had loved them.)
Result? Every one of those three have grown into severely mentally disturbed adults. All have been institutionalized, the youngest one was first hospitalized for mental illness at the age of 12. Not one of them has led anything close to a normal life. They never grew to love my parents, and no longer have anything to do with any of us. And as bad as it was for them, it also traumatized the rest of the children in the family. The oldest brother - once he was about 13 - started raping my youngest brother (who was about 5-6 at the time) and continue to do this for several years. As their behavior escalated in their teens our family life became a nightmare. My parents who had been "normal" before they adopted these kids became child abusers who took out their frustrations on ALL of us, even the three of us who had never been any problem to them before. These three grew to hate our family, and my younger brothers and I grew to hate them in return. NOT ONE GOOD THING came from this adoption - not ONE.
So I have to give a big old middle finger to the State of Georgia who ruined ALL our lives simply to save a few thousand dollars. The best interests of these children weren't served - they were damaged for life just so the state could get them off the foster rolls and call it a closed case. My brothers and I bear the scars of this as well. My parents have ruined their relationship with ALL their children because they handled this so badly. Even the foster family, who did nothing but love three kids and treat them like their own, were devastated when they were taken away.
All these lives ruined because children are just treated like objects to be passed around with no regard to their feelings or emotional wellbeing. Shame, shame, shame on all involved. Looking at YOU State of Georgia.
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