memories of a "jailed" child

The teenage years can be awkward enough without adding peer pressure to the mix of things. Imagine going through puberty and all the changes of going from a child and entering into adulthood. Also imagine being that child and being over 100 lbs overweight. There is so much pressure to be thin, pretty and popular. Oh, the calamity.



I was that child and I was 12 and over 250 lbs. I entered junior high with the same kids I grew up with. I am said to have an outgoing personality. But does personality get you what you really want? I noticed that the kids I grew up with transformed into something different over the summer. They became teenagers. With this new precipice of their lives, they became shallow and very cruel.



I tried to lose the weight, but to no avail. I began skipping school or all out avoiding everyone. It is a very lonely life being by yourself. I had transcended into a deep, dark hole and there was no escape rope. The school office sent the truant officer to my home on many occasions. Thank god , I thought at that moment, that my mother worked overnights. She did not have a clue until I was petitioned to go to family court. I was, at that time ,placed on juvenile probation. Big deal. I was a teenager and thought I knew it all. I had the world in my hands and besides, they don’t sent juvenile’s to jail, do they?



The answer is quite simple. Yes. Now you are thinking of jail in the context of bars on the windows and guards at the doors. No this jail is not an adult jail, but a juvenile jail of sorts. My jailer was the Family Court System. I had violated a PINS (person in need of supervision) order when I didn’t comply with the terms of my probation. At 12 years old, I became a ward of the court. They removed me from my mothers home and placed me in foster care. To me, this was a new adventure and was excited at first.



Well that excitement does not last long. For the next 6 years, I was shuffled all over the great state of New York. I was in countless facilities and foster homes. Imagine, all this just because I skipped school. I wasn’t a fighter and I certainly didn’t steal cars. What the hell!.To my immature
mind, it was so unfair. I wanted to go home.



That journey to find my way home, was a long and tedious process. It doesn’t matter how good you are doing or how well you behave. Once the court system has their talons in a child, they won’t let go. Whatever the benefits are or the bureaucracy of the courts, the pit bull still continues to clamps his jowls down on justice’s arm.



At 16, I was still in state placement. It was at this very interesting intersection of my life, that I decided, enough was enough. I had begun to run away from the facility and had outside friends to assist me in my endeavor. They too, thought that I should have been able to go home. After all, I was in my home district of school, going every day from the facility. However, the catch was, I wasn’t going from my own home. I ran away a total of 23 times before the courts even intervened.



My repercussions were simple. They moved me over 100 miles away from my hometown. Time slipped by painfully slow. I was out of touch with my friends and family. I was so far away, that my mother was unable to visit me. The most demeaning of all, was having to be transported from each of these facilities and homes via sheriff’s car. They actually had to handcuff me, to move me from one place to another. I felt demoralized. Like the common criminal, who commits a felony. I was 16 years old, dammit and I was truant from school.



Where the justice system doesn’t see their flaws, they are clearly written in the faces of the children they remove from their homes. I wore many faces during my 6 years of court appearances. You become hardened and you feel most days, dead inside. It takes a very long time to feel like you again.



I was finally able to return home to my mother a month shy of my 18th birthday. I finished school and was able to live a normal life. I do know many of the people who were in this facility with me, and they didn’t fare so well. Many went on to commit adult crimes or are dead. You can say, they didn’t survive the hell of child placement.



You see, the workers at these facilities want you to believe they nurture the children and offer guidance. Baloney. I, myself was subject to abuse and worker cruelty. I have had a worker hit me repeatedly with a boot in an isolation room. I never said anything to anyone, mainly because I was scared. If you talked about abuse or mistreatment to anyone who had power, you yourself were deemed a liar. There was also the revolt on the worker’s part. You were denied privileges, and were also appointed extra chores for your big mouth.



The agencies today, still fly under that radar. Children are still threatened to keep their mouths shut. There was a few children, however, that have recently spoken up. This time, it was not a worker hitting a child, but actually being convicted of sexual abuse. Trust me, Law & Order has not even scraped the surface of crime that exists in these facilities.



I have overcome my teenage memories and moved on into my adulthood. I went on to graduate from high school and to complete college. Some of us children of the courts have the determination to turn our lives around. Some of us do not have that fire.



I often pose this question to many parent. Are your children so unmanageable, that you have to seek outside help? Most of the response I have received, are mostly no’s.