Growing Up Abandoned

When I was three years old my mother abandoned me, signed away her parental rights to the state. I became a ward of the court that day and I began my life not as an orphan exactly, but as something much more complicated.

I think now that in the public's eye, orphans are still considered somewhat romantic. Their parents are dead, absent through no fault of their own. It is a tragedy with no one to blame and whether they are adopted or placed in an orphanage or foster care, an orphan is a child worthy of society's pity and compassion.

An abandoned child is something altogether different. Abandoned children are more likely to come from poor families, from parents with histories of mental illness, drug abuse, or alcoholism. An abandoned child has likely experienced neglect or abuse, taboo subjects in most polite society.

My own mother was severely mentally ill and addicted to drugs. I've been told that I was neglected, malnourished, and physically abused before she was committed to a psychiatric facility and chose to relinquish her parental rights over me. There is nothing romantic here. It is an ugly, gritty story that most people simply do not want to hear.

I also believe now that adults consider an abandoned child as being full of potential trouble. If the parents were mentally ill, has that mental illness been passed to the child? If the parents were alcoholics will the child grow to be one as well? If the child has experienced abuse, will he become a predator later? Are they emotionally broken and beyond help? None of these ideas are necessarily true, yet a child with this kind of history is not as desirable as, say, the poor orphan whose parents were killed in a tragic accident.

And so, society sweeps these children under the rug, so to speak. Statistics on the children abandoned or otherwise placed in foster care in the United States has not been collected since 1990. World-wide, over 60 million children are growing up without parents, many of them homeless or in otherwise unsafe conditions. Research suggests that in the United States there are over 100,000 children abandoned every year. While not every abandoned child is so unlucky, many of them wind up in less than ideal situations, suffer further abuse or are even killed in foster care. At best, a child who has been abandoned is guaranteed years of therapy and emotional pain. There are few people willing to protect an abandoned child and ensure that their basic needs are met and those who do strive to protect the rights of such parentless children are often faced with too many children and not enough resources to perform their tasks adequately. These are children who simply slip through the bureaucratic cracks of the state and federal programs meant to protect them.

Now, you may be wondering where was my father in all this? As an adult I have discovered that my father has left illegitimate and abandoned children scattered across the country. He left my mother and I before my first birthday and I have no memory of him whatsoever. He has never tried to contact me and my attempts at contacting him have been answered with a couple letters and then silence. I have not heard from him in over ten years.

The irony here is that I was considered one of the luckier ones. Three years after my mother abandoned me to the state, I was legally adopted by biological relatives. The social workers, the judge, everyone involved with my case was pleased with this outcome. What they didn't realize was that they were sentencing me to years of abuse more extreme than anything I had survived while living with my mother.

One of the hallmark traits of an abandoned child is a sense of deep unworthiness. We ask ourselves what we did wrong. Was I such a horrible child that my mother could not love me? Was I such a difficult child that I literally drove her to madness? As an infant I was colicky - is that why my father left? As an adult and now as a mother myself, I know that these are the wrong questions, that nothing I may have done would justify my parent's decisions. And yet, the idea that I am so intrinsically flawed that my own parents could not love me prevails into adulthood.

That sense of being unlovable in abandoned children is often combined with a deep hunger for unconditional love and affection. A love-starved child will turn anywhere, absolutely anywhere, for the sort of affection she did not get from her parents. Abandoned children, unfortunately, are prime targets for predators with candy in their pockets.

As a young child I was groomed for such a role, taught horrible lessons that no one regardless of age should ever learn. I was given ice cream for being a good girl, and being a good girl meant allowing men to use me and my body in ways no child should ever experience. It was many years before I realized that not every girl grows up being taught that their role is simply to be quiet and endure the shame and pain of rape and sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.

I still believe, however, that in the grand scheme of things I was one of the lucky ones. Recently newspapers have reported on several very young children who have been killed in foster care, beaten to death, starved, tied up and locked in a closet. While I suffered horrible abuse that left me severely scarred physically as well as emotionally, I did survive. I did not die. My mind is whole though sometimes still in great pain. My body has healed even if it is scarred. My spirit never faltered completely though today it is still hurt and unreasonably angry.

That anger is another trait of many abandoned children. And I believe that we have every right to be angry. Every child who has been abandoned has been let down in the most terrible ways by the people who were meant to protect and nurture them most. Their parents, regardless of situation, have not lived up to their duties as such. The organizations, federal and state, set up to serve and protect abandoned children seldom have the necessary resources and too often fail in their tasks. Even one failure, one neglected, hurt, or dead child is one too many.

But, again, I did not die. I ran away from the abusive home I had been left in despite several attempts over the years at convincing social workers of the truth. I scraped and struggled through high school and later went to college. I married and was blessed with a beautiful daughter. I survived and for that I am forever grateful.

Yet survival is not enough. At the bottom of my soul is a wound that is perhaps irreparable. As a grown woman and a mother, there are times when I still just want my mommy. Whether it be for advice, consolation, unconditional love, or a more grown up sense of camaraderie, there is a deep wound in my heart, knowing that I will never have the close moments and rapport that other women seem to have with their mothers. There is hurt, anger, shame, and a sense of being unworthy and broken that hangs over my head even in my happiest moments.

I can only go on in spite of it. Go on and refuse to let it touch my family even at my darkest moments. I dream of a day when that hole in my heart, left by a mother and father who could not care for me as they were meant to, will heal completely, leaving a scar perhaps, but still healed and whole. Until then, I can only go on. It is far from an easy road, but it is the one I must follow, the path of one who has been abandoned so very early and while still so very young.