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Thursday, April 5, 2012

Stirring the soup

Funny how somethings don't change in people. There was a time I felt huge injustices were being served to me and other girls at St. Agnes. I felt that my basic right to be heard as a concerned mother was ignored. As with all injustices I see now, the need to speak my mind and be heard was a force so great inside me, I could not hold it in if I tried.

With the Department of Children and Families monitoring me and all the other girls in the home, all our actions both good and bad were charted and filed by the St. Agnes staff for review. Knowing this, I was always very careful to choose my battles carefully, if not covertly.

What would concern, if not out-rage a working older mother, was expected to be unquestioned and accepted by us. A major red flag for me was the use of volunteers in the daycare center. These were people from the outside who signed up to volunteer, male and female, young and old. Most came from the church which was heavily affiliated with the home, actually I believe the church own the actual building.

These people to my knowledge were not screened or qualified care providers. They were average citizens. In a real world daycare, I don't think that would be very legal, if nothing else, it would be high risk and I don't think many parents would accept it. Being fifteen I was supposed to not even question the practice.

When I came home from school and looked around the daycare not seeing my baby I almost choked to death on my panic, seeing all the workers and babies in the main area of the day care and her not there. In a connected, somewhat open yet separate room where the babies cribs were, an elderly man I did not know was cradling her to sleep.

When I questioned them about this, they said the issues was in my head. That the man had volunteered for years and contributed toward my cash allowance along with other expenses in the home and I was just being mean. I'd like to think my reaction to the situation would have been the same had the volunteer been male or female. For someone who was not qualified as a child care provider to have hands on access in a not so supervised area bother me.

They implied my issue must be stemming from some childhood past abuse and that I had no right to demand permission or dictate who would care for her while I took advantage of free daycare services.







That's when my little revolution began. That was one of many straws on the camel's back. I knew how to access not only the computer room but the printer. I knew when the door was left unlocked and when no traffic would be in that area of the building. As I do with so many things, I put the issues with the home into words.

My first action was to grab my note pad and pen. When I knew staff were busy I went room to room and questioned each girl about the issues they had with the home. What changes they wanted to see and if they would be willing to sign a petition of sorts. This went over well, there were complaints like crazy and they had someone to listen to them.

Late that night, I snuck down to the lower level. This was my hang out, actually a few of us went down there and popped locks to the doors on a regular basis. Not to the offices them selves because well felt that was crossing a line. If anyone ever did get into those rooms it wasn't with me.  We definitely go into  the other rooms, like the classrooms and the computer room, just because we could sit unheard and be away. Doing something we shouldn't was exciting to us because of our ages. I wasn't very good at it breaking and entering, but two of the girls could pop a lock like the best little burglars, using nothing but a metal spatula and a butter knife. I was lucky that the room I needed to get in was unlocked.

The downstairs was scary at night. If you believe in ghosts like I do, this was a very charged and active area. The air was so thick it almost vibrated, you'd catch glimpses of the shadows of who I can only assume were the nuns who once resided there. You could almost feel their disapproval staring at you for being where you shouldn't be. I went down there often, I hated using the shared bathroom upstairs so much that I snuck down every night to the only one on the lower level. It was rarely used by even the staff and I knew it was cleaned each night before the one night staff woman came on.

Ghosts or not, I had work to do. With one of my friends listening for Deana, I got to work typing. When all was said and done, I had a five page booklet ending with a signature page of which we all signed off on.

Now what we should have done with the booklet was turn it over to someone within the home or in charge of but above the home. What we decided to do with it, was pass it out to every girl who came to tour the home when no one was looking. With the hopes that she would in turn, give it over to her DCF social worker and someone, somewhere,would do something. Nothing really came of it, but we tried.

Its not that we didn't want new girls to come in, we wanted things fixed for us, for them, for the purpose and mission of the place.

When the news crew came in to do a story on the home, I was kept away. They interview three girls who spoke of the pluses. I probably would have to. I'll never know if the staff got wind of what I'd been up or if it was because I'd decided to dye my hair the greenest green ever the day before. Blending in with the crowd of Rave going kids I'd linked up with at school and definitely not representing the wholesome mommy image I had previously taken on.









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