Remembering the Forgotten Australians

[tcpip]

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said 'sorry' (MP3 file) to those who were neglected or abused as state wards. As someone who was a state ward from eight to my eighteenth birthday, it has given me opportunity to thank Mr. Rudd for his concern, and to compose a few words of my own experiences on the subject.



My own entry in wardship was due to the incarceration of my adopted mother into a mental health institute. She was the step-mother who engaged in a post-natal kidnapping mentioned in my userinfo, but that's for another story. My adopted parents split up when I was seven and she developed a case of violent paranoid-schizophrenia. There are no prizes for guessing who was the target of the violence; a seven year old boy. Every day as I returned from school would descend into beatings whereupon I would barricade myself in a room to get away from her. I had cigarettes stubbed out on me, I was stabbed with kitchen utensils, I had crockery thrown at me. Inevitably, some of this came to the attention of neighbours and one day the Department of Community Welfare took me away.

I found myself in a place called the Catherine McAuley Centre, run by the Sisters of Mercy. For some time I was in a rickety old building, in a small partitioned room. There were bunk beds for seven or eight in the room which would have been about 2.5 metres by 3 metres. There was one young boy in the room named Michael, nicknamed "Monkey" on the account that he would climb the rafters of the building and howl like said simian. He seemed unable to speak, and looked like he was four years old; later I discovered he was seven at the time. Soon after my arrival there an elderly nun came into the bathroom as I was taking a bath; she told me that the warm water had made my dick big, and if we played with it we could make it even bigger. As she ran her hands up my inner thigh and touched me, I bolted upright and glared at her, shouting "No!". A look of fear came over her face and she made for the door. I didn't see much of her after that.

For most of the following decade I was either in the Catherine McAuley Centre or back with my adopted mother if the various mental health authorities deemed her of sufficient stability of mind to look after me. This was an invariably wrong assessment, so I can only suppose she was a brilliant liar when the need suited her. Her violence did not decrease in ferocity, but it did become less effective. She was increasingly in ill-health and I was entering puberty. I found now I could simply shut a door and lean against it whenever she had a turn (which was every night) and wait for her to exhaust herself. Her delusions and hallucinations become more prevalent at this stage as well; she claimed that God visited her, she would wander into the loungeroom naked asserting that I must fuck her, because I was the man of the house now, and other such grotesque things.

Back at the Catherine McAuley Centre the old building was knocked down and alas, so was the abandoned school with its tunnels. In a reform-orientated perspective everyone was distributed to houses that had been built on the old estate, managed by a "mum & dad" pair who had decided to take upon a family of eight to ten wards. The one I ended up with had a couple of children of their own, who were a right pair of little shits. The youngest one took delight pulling the hair of the wards, climbing all over them and generally being a twit. On multiple times he managed to slip and land rather heavily on the floor with a delightful thump. Of course, the 'dad' came out and saw his little boy on the floor crying, decided to engage in some beating of those present. Evidently, 'dad' must have passed on the dickhead gene to his son. After a few beers he would often grab one of the three barely adolescent boys (myself and two others) throw us on the dining table and kiss us in a sexual fashion - and then upon releasing us call us 'poofters'.

After this delightful experience I found myself back in the formal care of my adopted mother again where I remained in from my mid-teens until, on my 17th birthday, I decided to make my own in the world. Alas, as I was still at school and my place of employment vanished, I found into bad and criminal company fairly quickly. Not 'criminal' as in anarchistic intellectual types who are rebels against the laws of the land, but lumpen-proletariat types whom I suspect would be criminals in any society, no matter how liberal or how finely crafted the welfare state was. Stealing, drinking and fighting was the interest of these types and they would apply it among their own just as regularly as among strangers. Somewhere among all this my social worker directed me to a clever scheme were I received some minor financial assistance from the state government for being my own carer. You see, you could be 'under care' if you were under eighteen. But you could be a carer if you were over sixteen. So as a seventeen year old, I could be both.


Somehow out of all this I managed to finish my year twelve and sat university entrance exams including History and Ancient History despite having not actually having taken the courses themselves. By this stage, I was also quite involved in what was a Marxist political organisation. Receiving good marks, I had offers from all four universities in the state; I chose Murdoch and thus began another chapter of my life.

I don't want to make it sound that my experiences as a state ward were all bad. There was some very enjoyable YMCA camps that I was sent to, which had a high degree of freedom. The private education that the state paid for was of a very high quality, albeit with a sectarian religious component. The carers at at the Short Term Crisis Centre (where I stayed for over six months) were kind and intelligent. In many ways becoming a state ward for me was beneficial; certainly being in the Catherine McAulley Centre was largely an improvement from 'home' life. Indeed, despite all I have written the worst aspect of my childhood was the relentless and grinding poverty. Neglected and abused? Well, yes, I know that experience. It was almost inevitable part of being raised in the wrong social class. But the experience of being a state ward could have been worse, and for many others it was. For them, Mr. Rudd, apology accepted. Don't let it happen again.

Comments

[allezbleu.livejournal.com]

another state ward here (14-17) i feel for you. luckily enough, i didnt have any abuse, in fact i delighted in fucking off from my hostel whenever i pleased and providing my social workers with many, many late nights.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Heheh.. You cheeky little troublemaker!

Wait... What's changed? ;)

[silverblue.livejournal.com]

This was a very powerful thing to read.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suppose it was... It was all a long time ago of course and I have sometimes wryly remarked it was all character building. It certainly gave me some insight into what genuine psycho/socio pathologies are like.

[purples.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing.

This is a very familiar story in our family too.

I hope that with this all now being so public other children will get the courage to speak out and not have to wait until they are adults, some elderly, to deal with what goes on.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how state wards are handled these days; I wonder if there has been any significant institutional reform which makes it a better experience.

Text version of Rudd's speech

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

http://www.theage.com.au/national/for-these-failures-x2026-we-say-sorry-20091116-iia3.html?skin=text-only

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for sharing this Lev. It's great when people are brave enough to be open about these things and not keep it behind closed doors- gives hope to others who have experienced similar things.

You must have a very resilient character to have experienced such events and to cope with them in the way you did, sadly many other kids arent as fortunate.

While I think Rudd's apology is a good first step, I'll remain sceptical until I actually see changes in the child protection system and foster placement system. As someone who works in that field, adolescent residential centres are still rife with violence, sexual abuse and drug use. There arent enough foster placements for children in the community so children are frequently placed in less than ideal homes where they are at risk, and are often shipped from foster home to foster home every couple of weeks. The children have no stability and often feel it's their fault for being taken from their parents. Our child protection system is still in a state of crisis (average employee stays 3 months) as there isnt adequate support to do the job and resources are stretched so thin, so many cases get closed unless there is physical evidence of sexual or physical abuse, which leaves many children living in very unsafe situations. Unless a major reform of the system is done with the input of adequate funding and resoucres then I feel Rudd's words are empty...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Whilst no expert in this myself (except through personal experience and an interest in developmental psychology), I think the needs between children and young adults is substantially different. The latter group, imo, really need financial and educational security more than anything else, that way they would be in a much better position to acquire a better circle of friends and associates.

The fact that there's such turnover in the child protection system is a hell of a problem.

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

Re:the needs between children and young adults is substantially different

Absolutely- young kids need stability, someone to attach to who loves them, and opportunities to meet their developmental milestones. Young adults (especially those who have to a large extent had negative experiences in both their families and in welfare) often have better outcomes if they are given some opportunity for independance while having access to positive role models/mentors who support their goals and independance.

A lot of new grads go to CP as the pay is good for a new grad, so it is flooded with inexperienced workers who then leave once they have enough experience to get them a job elsewhere. Not many people can handle working there long as it isnt paid highly enough to compensate for how stressful and unrewarding the work is, so people rapidly move on. Most CP regions run at between 50-75% staffing levels as well which is also a huge problem...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Isn't there some sort of due warning to students about the amount of stress and turnover involved in CP? (I remember a cartoon of a miserable social worker who used to have a 'happy face mask' so they could actually get through their day's work..) Or are those warnings largely ignored with the attraction of lucre?

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

There is due warning, but faced with unemployment it's seen as a better option and pays about $10-15k more than other entry level social work positions. Lots of grads are happy to do it for a little bit knowing they can use the experience to get another job in the not-too-distant future. Most welfare type work involves working with a lot of trauma and misery, but for example in my work I a) get a chance to debrief about it and b) not all my work is at that level so I'm not constantly overwhelmed, whereas in CP you're dealing with high-end risk and awful scenarious for your entire working week.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I suppose with the extra dollars and the knowledge that if they can make it through the 'baptism of fire' in the profession they could probably be ready for anything it would serve as some inducement.

What's your opinion on the theoretical grounding of child/young adult care? Is there a disjoint between the theory and the practise? I have this mental image of devo psych and social workers trying to suggest policy in one direction and politicos, sensitive to morally conservative lobbyists, proposing the opposite.

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

The theory in recent years has come a long way thanks to research showing the neurological links between brain function and trauma. Bruce Perry leads a lot of this work in the US and has the site-> http://www.childtrauma.org/

The Vic Govt did a theoretical overhaul of the Child Protection and Family Services in Victoria which can be seen here-> http://www.cyf.vic.gov.au/every-child-every-chance and Family Services has to a large extent adopted these changes. Child Protection is still underfunded though, still major worker issues as noted above, and to get a statutory order (because most parents wont cooperate with CP voluntarily) you have to go through court and get a judge to grant the order, and a lot of orders dont get granted as judges still often focus on parents' rights over childrens' rights. For example, the inclusion of 'cumulative harm' in CP policy and theory (see-> http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/presentations/2009/cumulativeharm.pdf) has been great, but most judges wont issue an order on that basis due to the non-tangibility of evidence. They prefer dealing with episodic and tangible events like sexual abuse and physical abuse as it's more clear cut.

Basically it comes down to the govt not wanting to put in the funding (even though it has been shown that early intervention us about 25 times more cost effective than letting these kids grow up damaged and the cost to society that entials through Centrelink, Medicare, crime, prison, drugs etc etc) and also the notion that private life is private and the govt doesnt want to cop backlash from conservatists who argue that leftist social workers are destroying the foundations of Australian family life...

[txxxpxx.livejournal.com]

Well written. Thank-you for sharing.

[imajica-lj.livejournal.com]

.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey it ain't so bad. Really!

[zey.livejournal.com]

I can empathise with your childhood, having grown up with a mother with a range of mental problems — from paranoid schizophrenia through to a botched leucotomy (botched in the sense that she's actually far more lucid, independent and self-aware than most and not far away from normal).

I'm far luckier than most people in my situation though. Her various disorders have locked her personality into a sort of state of innocence: she's essentially the same person she was at 15. Childish, selfish, loving the ones she loves blindly, non-violent but moody. She can be endlessly frustrating sometimes, but, she was never an abusive parent in any way.

Looking back, it's amazing that we almost never had social workers call by to at least check up and see how we were doing. Still, it all worked out okay in the end.

It really is remarkable that you've thrived so well, but, you've got a good head on your shoulders and that egregious, engaging personality to serve you well. Plus that never-ending enthusiasm for getting stuck in and getting involved :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I remember you mentioning the leucotomy a couple of times many years ago... From your description, I suppose it was fortunate that it was botched.

I sometimes wonder where those personality characteristics that you refer to came from. There is certainly many others who have no thrived as I. The never-ending battle between being reflection and transcending experience with forward-thinking, and those who are weighed down by the nightmares of the past.

[mireille21.livejournal.com]

Wow, so much there I never knew about you, and now that I do makes me only respect you all the more.
Interestingly another friend of mine was adopted by a paranoid schizophrenic, and thus had an 'interesting' upbringing, although not nearly as bad as yours from the sounds of it. With that sort of track record though, one can understand why they have much more stringent requirements for adoption these days. Yes, here is hoping the state ward system has, and continues to improve too.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Livegerbil ate my response twice, so here's to a third attempt..

Paranoids I can handle; they usually need an environment where they feel safe and people who do not spur their sense of paranoia. Schizophrenics I have found I can handle too... Once you work out the code they're speaking in..

But combined... Well, I've only had the one experience.

[aske.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if "admire" is precisely the correct word (being in Japan for a length of time affects my command of English, heh) but I certainly feel something akin to that for your ability to maintain an upward and positive momentum and for what you've accomplished despite these experiences.

[ultraviolencia.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[angel80.livejournal.com]

Pretty amazing story - and at the same time too bloody common. Good that you turned out to be so resilient.

I wonder if it's any different now.

[frou-frou.livejournal.com]

Thanks for filling in the gaps of what I knew of your childhood. I feel for you: if anything it's worse than I imagined but as you say, it's part of your character now. It makes you strong and resilient.

I don't want to defend your adopted mother but I can't help feeling sad that she didn't get the help that she needed for her illness. Whatever hell she put you through, you know that she was in the same awful place herself and although you could leave, she couldn't. I take it you don't have any contact with her (and I wouldn't either)? Please don't think her a "brilliant liar". She didn't want to be sick and probably believed herself to be better. I blame the medicos who failed to diagnose her or treat her properly.

Paranoid Schizophrenia is one of the worst things to suffer from. My aunt Carmel had it and died recently (of lung cancer) aged only 50. Her life was one spent in institutions, raped by a fellow inmate and her (healthy) child stolen from her. It's a very sad life.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying. Of course, I feel no malice towards her (not that she'd be alive anymore) and actually never have. She was a victim of circumstances as well, the youngest in a family of seven also raised in dire poverty.

As a youngster I used to wonder why we never had friends or visitors, or received invitations to go places. In hindsight it could have only been because her illness drove people away.

It must have been a terribly lonely existence.

[tzunder.livejournal.com]

I am very touched by your post about your childhood and also the compassion you show your step mother. Your calm humanity is inspirational. Thanks for sharing.

[jayfurr.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you had to go through all that. A trite statement, but true.

In a perverse way, I'm grateful to have read your account. It reminds me that I could have had a lot worse upbringing. Beaten and kicked in the head? Check. Told constantly that I was an absolute failure who would never amount to anything? Check. Raised by parents who devoutly believed that telling me I had done something right or well would swell my ego and lead to high self esteem (which in their eyes would be bad)? Check.

But I don't recall leaning against a door night after night to defend myself or being sexually assaulted or having cigarettes stubbed out on me. Gad. I'm impressed you're not one horribly scarred individual unable to function as an adult.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Not trite at all; I honestly appreciate these remarks and I also feel for what happened to you. And I also understand the relative nature of these assessments. It is hard for a kid when you're the target of an out-of-control adult.

Of course, if a ban on corpereal punishment is suggested the conservative media go ape-shit over parent's rights..

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

i am more determined than ever to be a foster parent after reading your story here. i hope i will be a good one.
xo

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I am absolutely sure you will. Your sense of sublime beauty of the gifts of providence could not help but serve as a great role model.

[decrypt-era.livejournal.com]

I've heard you hint at your childhood circumstances throughout the years,
but always felt it wise not to dig any deeper than what was offered.
Thank you for sharing all this with us.

When I was aged from 14 to 19, my parents were emergency foster carers.
Over that time I shared a house with about 50 temporary brothers and sisters.
Although they were only meant to stay a maximum of two weeks,
my parents often had them stay three or sometimes even six months,
simply because my parents could see they craved nothing more than stability,
and couldn't bring themselves to shuffle these kids back into the machine.
My experiences with them left me with a deeply-ingrained awareness
of how lucky I was to have a smooth and loving start to my life,
and how deeply broken and shaky our 'society' really is.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

When I was aged from 14 to 19, my parents were emergency foster carers.

I recall you mentioning that many years ago. It was very good of your parents to have the insight that most of these youngsters sought stability (and security).

It is true when you imply how important such circumstances are so important for future life. I often ponder what it was that led me to the life (fairly well-educated, fairly stable, fruitfully employed, financially stable) that I have now when I have little doubt that most of those who I knew back probably have not had this lifepath.

[decrypt-era.livejournal.com]

It comes down to nature, in the end.
You and I don't have a great deal in common,
but we both have the ability to detach somewhat,
view our own lives from an outside perspective,
almost as an avatar or puppet.
This has its advantages and disadvantages.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I raised that possibility in the last Philosophy Forum: Is adaptive expertise itself largely a disposition or it trainable?.

If it was entirely the former it would come down to some individuals people can and some can't and that's all there is to it. It was entirely the latter, then there is the possibility of people learning how to be reflective. In all likelihood it is somewhere in between; but to what proportion I do not know.

And yes, it does have advantages and disadvantages. I am reasonably sure we both know what they are.