by Guest Blogger, Sara Brunsting
“I can’t protect you.”
Those were the first words whispered to me by my new birth mom. That was
right before I was blindfolded along with all the other foster kids and
auctioned off to foster families around the room. And when I say auctioned, I
mean auctioned. Those two experiences were the most haunting parts of the
foster care simulation I took part in called Life in Limbo. This simulation experience was created to help
people step into the shoes of birth parents, foster children and foster
families and really learn what it feels like live their lives. It definitely
did that for me.
For my birth mom to tell me that she couldn’t protect me was
both heart-wrenching and eye-opening. I have often thought that parents whose
children have ended up in foster care are irresponsible and could have kept
their children if only they had tried harder. But to hear these words whispered
in my ear really drove home that sometimes parents simply cannot protect their
children. It could be that they are struggling with addictions that are helping
them cope with the tragedies of their own past. Maybe they have fought tooth
and nail to keep their children but lack the support system that they need to
make it work. Perhaps they believe that foster care is the only way to protect
their children from the harsh realities of this world. Whatever the reason, the
words “I can’t protect you” are not
to be taken lightly. My heart broke for my birth mom and whatever drove her to
say these words. Compassion welled up within me for birth parents around the
world and for the children that they could not protect.
The second part of the simulation was what I call “The
Auction.” As my birth mom blindfolded me and the other foster children around
the room were blindfolded by their birth parents, the facilitator of the
simulation starts calling out the ages of the children and asking the foster
parents to take the children. “I have a
16 year old and a 13 year old! Who will take them? Come on, someone needs to
take them! The 13 year old is really nice and the 16 year old is not that bad.”
“I have two 8 year olds…they’re both
well-behaved and fun. Who will take them? What about you, sir?” “I have a sibling group of three, two 3 year
olds and a 6 year old. Any takers? Okay, we will have to break the siblings up
– who will take the 6 year old? Will anyone take the 3 year olds?” And on
and on this went until all the children were accounted for.
I will never forget the feelings I experienced during this
part of the simulation. First, I felt completely worthless. Here I was,
blindfolded and auctioned off to whoever would take me. I wanted to scream,
“Why are you doing this?! I have a name! I am not a piece of property to be
given out! Why don’t I have a say in this?!” Then the helplessness set in. It
didn’t matter what I wanted or how I felt. I was going to end up in a foster
home…and not even one that I chose. All I could do was hope that my foster
parent would be a good person and would treat me well. Finally, I felt
resigned. This was my fate. I had no idea if I would ever get to see my birth
mom again. I had no idea if I would even stay in the home of the foster parent
who chose me. I had no idea what was going to happen to me.
I didn’t know what to expect going into Life in Limbo. To be honest, I went into it thinking that there is
no way that a simulation experience could ever really help me understand the ins
and outs of foster care. I am happy to say that I was completely wrong! It
really did help me “walk a mile in their shoes” when it came to understanding
the feelings and frustrations of being a child in foster care. The sad part is
that this was just a one hour experience for me and yet it is the 24/7 life for
children all over the world. Friends…that fills me with such sorrow that there
are hardly words. These are children with names, with stories, with heart aches
and with hopes and dreams. They are not “foster children” – they are children!
They are the most vulnerable people in our world and they deserve our love, our
compassion and our time. They need us to give them hope – what are we waiting
for?
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