(this is the 3rd part of a discussion on the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences – if you haven’t looked at the first two posts, I recommend starting there)
She was beautiful – petite with shoulder-length auburn hair, blue eyes and a quick smile. She sat across the desk from me as we discussed work first, then family, and finally life in general. She was interviewing for a job, but I forgot about that quickly, as I found myself much more interested in her story than in her qualifications. Childhood was not kind to her – she was one of three kids born to young parents who struggled with poverty and substance abuse. Her first contact with foster care was at age 3, but after a couple of years she was allowed to reunite with her parents. Soon they moved to another state – it was easier for her parents than dealing with the close monitoring of child welfare.
Within another year or two, she was back in foster care, and this time she would never leave. She saw her parents from time to time – they were never quite “bad” enough to lose their rights to her, but never quite “good” enough to get her back, whatever that means. It didn’t make a lot of sense to her – she only knew that she missed them. Twenty-one foster homes later, she graduated from high school, went to college, got married, and was now interviewing for a job.
What? How did that happen? Why isn’t she depressed? Sick? On drugs? Who convinced her to go to college? How did she become part of a normal, loving relationship?
That is the million dollar question. And tomorrow, I will give you a million dollar answer. One that you can be a part of.
It makes me happy to know that adults who struggled through the very worst childhood, many times do rise above. Somewhere, sometime, someone made a difference for them. You just never know when your path will lead you across the path of a child for whom you can change the world…….and you may never fully realize the impact you made for that child.