Top Ten Ways You Know You've Been in Care

By: 
Rhonda Sciortino
  1. You try to help others who are still being abused or are in care now—it doesn’t matter how busy you are, you do what you can to help another foster kid or to improve the system.
  2. You are crazy about fairness. You can’t stand unfairness or injustice—you’ve experienced a lot of unfairness, and you can’t stand to see anyone treated unfairly. You stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.
  3. You work three times harder than anybody else, and you will never, ever give up—you know that there are lots of people who came from solid families, were given what you’ve had to earn, and had lots of good breaks in life, but that doesn’t stop you. You make up in hard work and good attitude for whatever you don’t have.
  4. You know that your experiences don’t limit you, but rather qualify you—you know people who had every advantage, but who aren’t able to do some of the things you can do. Because they haven’t been through tough times, they haven’t learned how to figure things out. They don’t know how to read people’s faces, how to figure out who’s in charge, how to get along with rough people… in other words, they aren’t street savvy. And sometimes, street smarts is what keeps you alive.
  5. You run toward problems rather than away from them
  6. You can handle just about anything because you’ve handled worse—people who ran full speed with fists swinging at the guy beating up their Mom when they were 5 years old, will run full speed into any problem they encounter.
  7. You can adapt to almost anything because you learned how to adapt to different personalities, beliefs, and rules—foster kids who moved from foster home to foster home learned early that there were very different rules in different houses, that different families eat different (sometimes weird) food, that different people believe some very different (sometimes weird) things, so we can adapt to just about any situation!
  8. You can get along with just about anybody because you learned how to go along to get along—to survive in foster care, you had to deal with bio kids who bullied you while their parents weren’t looking (and acted nice when their parents were looking), other foster kids who stole your stuff while you slept, relatives, neighbors, and friends of the foster family who didn’t want you around, and teachers who were hard on you in their effort to head off the trouble they expected from you before you could start any.
  9. You are fiercely loyal to the people who’ve helped you. and you NEVER, ever forget someone who’s helped you—you remember the teacher who was nice, the foster mom who made sure you had shoes that were cool and that really fit, and the kid who invited you to her birthday party. You would do just about anything for the people who have been kind because so many have not.
  10. You are protective over the people who’ve helped you—you know you’ll lose your good sense and all self-control if anyone tries to harm the people who’ve helped you. You’ll move Heaven and Earth to protect those who have done good by you.
Volume 5 Issue 1