Foster Care From The Shoes of Lydia Joiner

Hello and welcome back to my civic issues blog regarding foster care.

Today I want to put you into the shoes of Lydia Joiner, a former foster child, who has grown and survived the system. Lydia is now an artist, activist, and advocate for children still stuck between the faults of the system. 

Here is her story…

Lydia was put into the system when she was 7 years old. Her mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and which lead to her loss of custody. One day her mother got behind the wheel of her car with Lydia and her cousin who was also 7 years old and she said that she thought there was someone chasing them and they needed to get away. She then proceeded to crash into a tree and this accident was when Lydia was taken away and put into foster care along with her cousin, who her mother also had custody of. At first, Lydia says that she remembers being calm because she had her cousin by her side, but within the first week at one home together, they got moved and separated. This was her first initial interaction with foster care, already beginning a negative journey, and keep in mind she was only 7 years old. Lydia goes on to decribe foster care as “A whole separate world happening among everybody as the go along their day, and people don’t realize that someone next to them is being taken from home to home without anyone following their lifeline.” Lydia states that carrying her trash bag full of things became like her home because its her parents, her cousin and everything she’s known up until that point because it’s “the only thing that stays with you when you’re being bounced around the system and from house to house.” She says that when it comes time to leave the system and you turn 18, the cycle still comes back to haunt you because you’re put out on the street with little knowledge about how to come back from all the years of education and valuable lessons lost.

 

By the time she had reached 18 years old, Lydia had lived in 35 different homes, had 18 social workers, and had her name (First and Last) changed 4 times. Let that sink in for a minute before you continue reading…

 

Lydia describes this as “Being a chameleon everywhere she went.” She was always changing her persona to fit where she was placed next. Now this next part of Lydia’s journey really hit home when it comes to trying to understand what it feels like to be placed in the system. She states, “People are lucky to have their parents for an anchor right, well for me, my anchor was being disassociated where I was looking on the other side of the way other people live and in my brain, positioning myself there.” She said she watched movies often and learned her values and morals through that. If she wanted an adventure, she would watch the Goonies, or if she wanted to see a loving family, she would watch Full House. Watching these things that other kids got to experience helped Lydia learn things she needed to before getting out of the system, but not every kid is this motivated.

 

Lydia continues by explaining her cousin’s story, which was different than hers. Unfortunately, she took a different path than Lydia did, but this is what the system does. It puts kids in with little resources and barely any hope to pursue a successful life. By the time her cousin was 14, she was got preganant by a drug dealer. By 15, she was in prison because she was caught with cocaine and at 16 she dropped out of school. By the time she was 18, she was raped, murdered and left on the side of the road covered in pine needles. Lydia shares her story, along with her cousins because they matter and so do the stories of every foster care child, both former and current. 

 

Lydia states, “You share your story of all of the people who never loved you and you know what, after hearing it, people will love you because they want to see people survive.” There are good people out there, but there are also bad ones. There are bad system and good systems. There are innocent children who are sent down a horrific path to failure. You want to know what else is out there? Hope and need for change. There can be change. There needs to be change, and there will be change if everyone works together to spread awareness. Take Lydia’s story and let it inspire you to learn more, appreciate your own life, and use your abilities to help these children survive. Not one more kid needs to die from the horrific paths they’re lead down by the system, but unfortunately with the current system, it is leading them towards it.

Thank you for reading, and if you would like to hear Lydia’s story told by her herself, click the following link…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyYnw1rrvoM

-Nevaya