Childhood Is Not An Institution

She was born in New Jersey. The road from there to here went though Amarillo, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Round Rock, San Marcos, Brownwood.

The home into which she was born was no home, more like a festering wound. When it was lanced by officials who found sexual abuse and brutality, out she came, age 6.

Eleven years, 20-plus institutions and five foster homes later, she’s 17 and could pass for 30. That says a lot. With her vitae, she should be pushing 50.

With all the cavalier talk about orphanages lately, finding a face like hers is instructive.

The longest she’s ever stayed in one place is a year and a half. She was a regular Steve McQueen in her ability to run away from institutional settings. She didn’t run from them all. Avalon Center, a Bruceville-Eddy residential facility for teens, is a great place, she said. But it’s also temporary.

A real home is what she always wanted, and foster homes came closest to being that. But foster homes are temporary as well.

Hearing her life story, one senses that what abandoned children need more than anything else is simply to be children, not to be wards or patients. The word “therapy” makes her tongue recoil.

At too many places, she said, people seemed fixated on analytic brain surgery, probing her mind. She just wanted to be a child.

The typical institution tried mightily to pry thoughts and feelings out of her. “If I didn’t tell them my feelings, they would take away privileges.”

One place took away books as punishment for her non-cooperation, telling her she was withdrawing into the pages of fiction, becoming the characters in someone else’s mind.

Whereas it was OK for these institutions both public and private - to come down so hard, when the situation called for gentleness, too often it was unequipped. No hugging. No touching - except for restraining an unruly child.

That was one thing that set Avalon off from other places, she said. “There’s a lot of love there.”

While she definitely would choose foster care over group care in general, there were bad situations with foster families, too. She ran away a couple of times. Other times she wanted to stay, but foster care is temporary by design.

So childhood was always a moving target - either as she was being moved or as she was running away. Her penchant to flee earned her a felony rap. She slugged a police officer once with the handcuffs he’d placed on her.

What could have made her stop running as a child?

“Warmth,” she said.

“These kids need love, not, ‘Well, they need a place to stay and eat. We’ll stick ‘em here.”’

Another thing children need, she said, is a chance to be by themselves, genuine emotional sanctum. In most institutional settings, she said, personal space is at an extreme premium.

She will have the right to be herself, by herself, pretty soon if she chooses. She’ll be turning 18 this month, suddenly an adult in the eyes of the law. She said she wants to finish school, though, and will remain with her current Waco-area foster family, which she joined in December.

In parting, I asked perfunctorily if she was optimistic about the future. When she said “yes,” I asked “why?” (Did a “therapy” alarm sound in her head?)

Her answer was apt for a 17-year-old going on 30.

All the bad stuff of her growing up - the running away, the drugs (oh, yes, the drugs) - that was past her, childhood, too. She’d grown up, maybe too fast, maybe against her will. Her childhood was history and she had survived it.

What small consolation. And what a way to get from there to here.

xxxx