Wild Child(ren)

At the age of 10 or 11 I was put into the Children's Home. 
I hadn't seen my father since I was about 3-4.  I had no idea how lucky I was on that. 
My mother was locked up in a mental hospital.  It wasn't her 1st stay.  It wasn't her last stay either.  She hadn't been well enough to take care of us for years. 
We ran wild.  We would be my big brother, myself and my little sister. 
She seldom fed us.  She didn't do laundry.  She sure didn't clean house.  She didn't know where we were or who we were with.  We didn't ask to go anywhere we just went.  Those last few years she didn't get us up to go to school.  What usually motivated me to go was to get something to eat.  They served lunch.  I think my grandparents might have paid for our lunches.  I don't remember ever having to pay.  But the school didn't give food away for free. 
Another mystery from my childhood that I should have asked Grams about. 
The last house we lived in with mom was one block up from our school.  I think my Gramps paid the rent on it most of the time.  Pretty sure my mom didn't.  She couldn't hold a job.  I remember looking all around the neighborhood for empty pop bottles that were thrown out like trash.  We could turn them in for a few pennies each.  The more I found the more junk food I could buy.  One of my favorite things to get was a bottle of Mt. Dew pop and a bag of shelled and salted peanuts.  I would open the bag of nuts and poor them into the bottle of pop.  I think I watched one of my big brother's friends do this.  I was hooked.  It was such a wonderful mixture of salty and sweet.  It wasn't easy to find enough pop bottles for my favorite treat very often.  Most of the time I just found a few and would buy some penny candy.  Laffy Taffy was the good stuff.  Banana flavor was high on the list with sour apple as a second favorite.  We could also get something to eat at one of my brother's friend's house.  His mom was Ms. Ula.  She was a single mom too. She had a big heart and would let us eat with her several times a week.  I don't know how she could afford to feed 3 more mouths.  I still make some of the same types of food that she fed us.  It is my comfort food.
Anyway we had the run of the whole neighborhood.  For the most part we stayed out of trouble.  We were pretty rotten about throwing eggs at cars from the roof of the house.  That was my main crime.  Rotten, but it could have been much worse.  Mom was simply not present in the real world to stop or correct us. 
I know there were many times you could not see the floor in the house for all the dirty clothes, trash and just junk thrown about.  The place was filthy.  It was also infested with roaches.  To this day I can not live with roaches.  I will rip my house apart spraying bug spay and cleaning it, if I see just one.  I still get shivers when I see one of the nasty things.

So this is the wild child(ren) that was/were placed into the Children's Home.  It was a very big change.  We were told when or what to do in everything.  One nice thing was they did feed me 3 times a day! 

Here is a picture of my brother, sister and myself 2 months after we were put in the home. 

We had already been fattened up with 3 squares a day.

Can you imagine how skinny we all were before?

Most of the Children's Home is gone now.  All the houses have been torn down. 

I did go back to visit once after I became an adult.  My daughter's 3 grade teacher gathered items from her class to give as gifts to kids at the Home.  When she found out that I used to live there she begged me to go with her.  She didn't know where it was or how to get there.  It wasn't easy for me to go back.  There was still a big mixture of feelings attached to the place.  I had a few very nice houseparents there.  They never seemed to stay long.  I had several ok houseparents there.  I don't even remember their names.  I also had a few mean houseparents there.  I have a hard time remembering their names too.  The place was ran by the Church of Christ.  So I think the houseparents were supposed to be good Christians.  I did learn that some people that claim to be Christians could be very cruel.  I think most were just there to get on their feet.  I formed this opinion as a child so I could be completely wrong. 

They did not have to pay rent.  They did not have to buy food.  They did not have to pay utilities.  The man always seemed to have a job outside the home and the woman took care of the kids.  There were enough beds for each house to hold 16 kids but I don't ever remember it being completely full.  The Home paid them a bit for this job.  I know they didn't get paid enough.  Not sure if you can pay someone enough to take care of up to 16 wild kids.  But they had their own suite that had 2 bedrooms a bathroom and a den that was separate from the rest of the house.  I don't remember ever being allowed to hang out in their part of the house with any of the houseparents.  Not even the very best of them.  No matter how big their hearts we were still just Home kids. 

They would get a new car.  Then they would get new furniture.  They would get lots of new things.  Then poof they were gone.  In came the next set of houseparents with new rules, an old car and old furniture.

Most of the time I was well cared for.  Fed, warm and locked up safe.  But in the 6 years that I lived there (Off and on with foster care) I grew up to be bitter.  I did let one set of houseparents break my heart.  I believed them when they told me they would stay until I was grown.  After that I let my attitude get the better of me.  I was kicked out of the place the last day of my Junior year in High School.  I took that bitter attitude with me.  I did finally figure out that carrying the anger hurt me more than anyone else.  So I learned to let most of it go.  I wish I could say it is all gone but some of it seems to hide right under the first layer of my skin.