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The Trash Bag Kid Confessionals pt. 2

Removed from home at 13 yrs. old ( a month and 2 days before my 14th) after giving birth to a healthy Boy as a first time mom and ward of the Texas Foster System. Now 31 years old chronically homeless and trying to get my life together so I can save my sixth child from the system that terrorized my adolescence and gave me no foundation to start with when I aged out.

By Rachel SchuylerPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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"They told me they would HELP my mother get me back."

We drove silently from the Metropolitan Methodist Hospital in downtown San Antonio, Texas to the South side where the big red brick building I learned to loathe was located. That building being the Texas Department of Family Protective Services main office in San Antonio. We walked into the doors and I distinctly remember the stale smell of urine filled diapers from the trashcan and mildew. We checked in and the Case worker wrote my name on a name tag sticker that had the word visitor and date pre printed on it and stuck it to my shirt gently. I followed her to the elevator and she looked at me as she pressed the up button and said as kindly as possible "Don't worry, we are just going to help you Mother get you both home as soon as she can sweet heart...". I remember clutching onto my newborn's car seat even tighter in hopes that she wouldn't take him away from me too. It's strange how even now when I think about all this I remember feeling more like Mom had been taken away from me rather than the other way around.

We arrived at the floor she was looking for and she stepped out of the elevator and I hesitated in a daze not realizing what I was waiting for. She turned around as the doors started to close me in and stuck her foot in the way so the doors couldn't close and held out her hand. In fear I turned my baby away from her and instead offered her a cold shoulder to which she calmly stated "Please don't make this harder on yourself or him.". I complied not knowing what else I would do any way and followed her through the maze of cubicles. Some were empty, some with colorful pictures that children had made, some had sobbing mothers in them, and some had ladies with i.d. tags like my caseworker steadily typing away or talking on the telephone. I remember my arm getting tired from awkwardly clutching his car seat for dear life and thinking "when does this maze ever end when she stopped abruptly and introduced me to her supervisor who smiled told me her name said I was such a brave young girl and reached for his car seat. I lurched backwards almost knocking over the cubicle wall behind me and squealed quietly.

The supervisor just apologized and said that he was such a handsome little guy and "congratulations.". I guess I was just in a state of complete shock because I was so confused by that statement. "Congratulations, what?", I thought. The case worker must have sensed my confusion and she said "I know you must be frightened, but I promise you we are only here to help you.", and led me around one more cubicle and into an actual office in a solid wall. I realized this must mean we had walked all the way through the maze to one of the buildings 4 outer walls but I couldn't determine which one after all the turns we had taken to get here and that bothered me because I had been extremely good at mazes and such. We walked into the office and she dropped my trash bag down next to the chair and told me to have a seat that this wouldn't take very long. She just had to update some paperwork and print out some forms to have the placement sign when I arrived.

She then asked me A LOT of invasive questions. Things like how are you feeling right now, and have you been taking any medications, do you know if your mother has been or if she has any thing wrong medically, and does she ever drink alcohol or smoke funny cigarettes...? I just stared at the ground and shrugged my shoulders refusing to talk to the lady. She handed me a big stack of papers that said things like "pursuant to suit affecting parent child relationship" and "service plan" and I remember thinking "what in the world is all of this?" She kept asking me incriminating questions about my mom and anyone else in my family and home. I remained silent. She finally said "Well we are going to have a hard time helping you if you wont talk to us. I'm going to get my supervisor and maybe she can get you talking...?" and when she walked right as he began to grunt and squirm.

I sat there and decided that I didn't like the cold attitude she was giving me and my momma always said that "if you don't have nothing nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all." So at that moment, I decided that silence was probably the best friend I'm ever gonna have until I made it back home to my mother's warm home. Just sitting there listening to the way these two women could twist the words of the questions around so that it sounded as though they were not asking incriminating questions about my mother. I could hear the tones these women were disgusted with the "evidence" they had been provided for the orders to terminate my mother's rights. They stopped when I pulled Johnny's bottle out of his mouth and stared at me with wonder as I burped him and placed him sound asleep back into his car seat. I asked them if either of them had kids of their own and the older one nodded yes step children and the younger said no none but she was an aunt.

These two women in charge of my child's and my own wellbeing for the for seeable future did not have any of there own personal children. Why am I not surprised? TO be continued...

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About the Creator

Rachel Schuyler

Hi! I'm 31 and I am a "classy hobo" have been my entire life basically... well since I was about 13 off and on running from foster care, Now to hopefully share a day to day life story of a real live girl hobo... ME!! hopefully anyway...

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