Oregon Foster Youth Connection is a statewide, youth-led advocacy group of current and former foster youths ages 14 to 25. OFYC trains and empowers youths to actively participate in the development of policies, programs and practices that improve the lives of the thousands of kids in foster care. Today they’ve decided to share some of themselves with you.
Empty Promises
By Glayz Welch
My entire life is fueled off of
The empty promises
“I promise this is a forever thing”
“I will never leave again”
“You will always be my baby girl”
“I swear you’re the only one”
And that’s only a few of them
The list goes on and on
It surely doesn’t help when my Daddy sometimes says,
“Try not to keep your hopes up
You’ll just regret it in the end”
And then there goes my Mommy,
“I wish I’d never let you in
I truly don’t want to see you,
Never again”
I mean,
I know my Daddy is a drunk
And my Momma’s an addict, too
But I really thought
For once that
Their love had broken through
I know everybody says
My parents will always care
But if I’m being honest
I just want them to be there
If not for me,
Then most certainly
For the siblings that I love
Because in my mind
There is a list and they are most certainly above
They’re my little angels
No matter what bad they have done
I will always love them for being them
All four of them, not just one.
By Glayz Welch
I wonder if you know
That I am doing fine
I usually don’t
Understand why
Why did you leave
After promising so much
Mommy, Mommy, please
I just want one more hug
I know it seems silly,
But no one has asked why
Why it hurts so much
And why I always cry
Because the one thing in this world
I’ve wanted since I was young
Is for my bio mom
To save me from my tongue
I put myself down
I mess my world up
I hate it when I do these things
But I am not done
Mommy, could you tell
That I was hurt so bad?
That no matter what happened
I could not be saved
Unless I put my mind to it
And learned a different way
I won’t be sure until I know
That I will be okay
Consistency is what I need
But it can’t be that way
I miss my family
I miss the way
That we could act
Like it’s okay
Because what I’ve gone by
My whole life
Is
Fake it till you make it
And it’ll be all right
By DeAnna
She was a diamond lost between the cracks of social norm. A young girl with no stability and no control. She never had a consistent home. Addictions were the only thing she was ever shown.
She’s a disaster with an innocent smile. A storm ranging in a precious mind. A brain that had limitless secrets to hide. She was everything and anything but a naive child.
When she was drowning in doubts she learned drugs made life’s problems disappear. She learned it made people’s faces fuzzy, and the venomous words no longer hurt. She saw her body change but she wasn’t fazed. The disgust on people’s face when her problems came uncaged was nothing compared to self-hate locked in her brain.
She wasn’t always this way. Growing up in the system, she was told she’s just another kid in need of a new foster home. Sometimes she wished time could rewind and she could try life in a different time.
She deserved more. More than sleep that consisted of constant nightmares. More than parents that forgot her. More than the hurtful words of strangers taunting her. She deserved more. She deserved to know she could never be replaceable.
By DeAnna
I wake up in the morning and tell myself it’s going to be OK. I walk out of my room and have to remind myself that this family isn’t the same.
Every home is different, the rules always change. Stability is a luxury not a lot of us are given a chance to waste. Cultures are different, we’re never raised one way. Growing up with strangers, sometimes it’s hard to stay sane. Counseling is a given, we’re all fucked up some way. Adults like to make our life seem like a game THEY can dictate.
Schools change and friends are hard to make. Moving from house to house messes with a young brain.
My parents are still in the picture much to some people’s distaste. Adoption’s a word that’s always shoved in my face. My decision doesn’t matter because of my age. I’m unlucky enough to fall in an awkward age frame. I’m too young to have a say but old enough to have a functioning brain. I know everything that’s going on, whether people like it or not. Some people want to shelter me but what they’re too blind to see, is growing up in the system, you’re not given a chance to be naive.
My Life in Foster Care
By Josh Baker
It all started when I was about 9 years old, when my father and mom got divorced. My mom had drinking problems so my dad made her go to rehab. She didn’t mind that, but while she was away, my father started seeing another woman. When she first started seeing my father she was the nicest person I had ever met. That didn’t last long because about six months later my father decided to propose to her; at that time I always thought that it was awesome my best friend would become my brother.
About three months after my father proposed, my soon-to-be stepmom and dad went down to tell my mom that she wasn’t able to come back and that it was time for her to move on. He was getting married in three months. From that day forward, my mom would never call or visit.
I always thought it was my sister’s and my fault for her not wanting to come around or that she was too sad to come around because my dad was getting married. So one night I asked my father, “When is mommy going to come and see me?” He never answered me with an actual reason. He would always make up an excuse so I just stopped asking after a while.
The next few months before the wedding we were always busy doing things to get ready, but it was still on my mind: What ever happened to my mom? At night I would always look up to the biggest star and ask it, “If you ever see my mom tell her I miss her.”
The wedding went fast and so did the party. One minute we were at the wedding, next thing you know it’s over and I’m in bed wishing that my mom was there to see how good I looked in fancy clothes. But I already knew that she wasn’t coming back.
About a year after my stepmom married my dad, she became very mean to me and my stepsister, always getting us into trouble for things we didn’t even do like saying bad words or hitting. That wasn’t even the worst thing that she did. After months of using little things they started getting bigger like they started saying I was threatening to kill my stepsiblings, but the worst lie that she ever used was when she went around and told my father, the school and all of my friends’ parents that I was sexually touching her 7-year-old daughter. I was 10 when she started, and she kept it up until the day DHS came to the door to take me away.
Everyone always asked me if I was scared when I left. Yes, I was scared. Who wouldn’t be? Even though my stepmom was making up all these lies about me, I still didn’t want to leave the comfort of my home to go live with complete strangers. But at this point DHS wasn’t asking to remove me – they were demanding it.
The first place I went to was in Hillsboro. It was a group home so there were a lot of us there. I didn’t know what to do or say to people so I would always keep to myself. I was always described as the quiet child who didn’t talk to anyone. After being there for about three months, I finished the fifth grade and they moved me to another placement in Portland. I hated it there. It was one of the worst placements ever. The lady I was living with would always yell at me and then go drop me off at her friend’s house. When she would drop me off there her friend would always come out and walk around with no clothes on. She told me that if I ever told someone, she would beat me to death, so I did what any 12-year-old kid would do and kept my mouth shut.
After about two weeks of living there, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed a bag and threw all of my stuff in it and left while she was sleeping. It was the first time I had ever run away in my life. It was hot out, and I was scared. I was just walking around Killingsworth by myself, hoping not to be seen by people who were probably looking for me. So there I was, just walking around a town that I have never even been in before, alone. So while I was walking, I had to stop at random small restaurants like Pizza Hut to get some water. It was really hot out that day. It got up to 97 degrees when we left at around 1:30 that afternoon. After a while I was so hot that I ended up going to this retirement home, and told them what had happened. About 10 minutes after I had arrived, the police showed up. I told them everything that my foster mom had done to me in the two weeks I had been there. He sat there and listened – the first time anyone had ever listened to me. After I was done explaining to him what had happened, he told me that I didn’t have to go back there ever again. You could tell by the way his voice had changed that he was not happy with her.
After we left the retirement home, he told me that we were heading to a new home on the other side of town, and that if I ever had a problem to call him. So I took his card and when we arrived at the house that I had thought I had never been to before, but it was never that easy. It happened to be my previous foster’s good friend. I didn’t say anything because I knew that if I did they would try and move me. I was tired and hot and just wanted a good night’s sleep.