My memories of living in a foster home don’t exist in vivid, chronological order or even as straightforward flashbacks. Rather, those 18 months are preserved as a series of faded snapshots, each one retaining its own unique flavor of despair.
I won’t get into the specifics of how I got there. Suffice it to say that a dire mistake was made, the wrong people got involved, and I entered the foster care system in the fall of 1990 at 10 years old and spent my subsequent two Christmases with the Macks and their ever-changing family of dejected children.
The Macks (not their real name; it was Mac-something, but I can’t quite remember how to spell it) were foster parents in their early 60s who maintained a disdainful tolerance for each other that was evident in the amount they communicated — very little — and where they slept (he in the bedroom, she on the couch). Mr. Mack was the disciplinarian — a chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking Jack Palance look-alike who kept us in line from his permanent position at the head of the dining room table, where we’d gather for meals, card games or to write sentences that promised we’d never do the bad thing (“I will not play with fire”) we just got caught doing.
Mrs. Mack had no bad habits other than her Amway membership, and when she wasn’t attending Amway meetings or trying to convince others to come to them, she was running errands and managing a full house of unruly kids, which pretty much involved putting us all to work on a never-ending list of household chores. Mrs. Mack did her own share of yelling, but she was nice enough and nurturing in an impersonal sort of way. Her deepest affections were reserved for the couple’s two granddaughters and 4-year-old adopted daughter, all of whom lived resentfully among us “temporaries” and made us pay for their frustration about the arrangement frequently, with great relish, and away from the watchful eye of any grownups.
The Christmas holidays offered a break from the tedium and child-on-child cruelty, but I don’t remember feeling any joy. There was no authentic Christmas cheer, no family togetherness, no chestnuts roasting on an open fire (though the Macks did have a fireplace) and really no fun to be had. By the first weekend of December, we were lining up well-used lawn ornaments in the yard while Mr. Mack put up the lights and barked directions from his roost atop the ladder or yelled at whoever wasn’t holding the ladder steady enough. (Surprisingly enough, we really didn’t want him to break his neck.) After arranging the ornaments — a Nativity scene, some reindeer, a truly scary Santa — and getting berated when certain components came up missing — a few sheep, some candy cane lights, the baby Jesus — we were finished, if beaten down and covered in a year’s worth of dust. I don’t remember feeling a sense of victory, just a vague relief that we were done.
Christmas was recognized and celebrated by all of the Hillsborough County foster care families. Most families attended one (or several) of a series of holiday-oriented socials that paired foster-parent networking with a sit-down turkey dinner, an awkward gift exchange, visits with Santa and much rowdy cavorting by a herd of barely controlled foster children. For the Macks, these socials were a way to publicly demonstrate they were doing a good job. In preparation, Mrs. Mack brought home a bundle of fancy clothes from God knows where and assigned an outfit to each of us to wear at every function. Mine was a dress, and of all the things I had to endure in foster care, wearing the (Goddamn) Dreaded Dress was among the most unforgettable.
I had always been a tomboy, so when I dressed up, it was after careful consideration and a long shopping trip with my real dad that usually involved him pointing out dozens of dresses he liked and me rejecting each one until finally settling on the least frilly, most neutral option. In foster care, I was not only not given an option, but I was made to wear the most hideous dress created, ever, for two years in a row. The bodice was red velvet, the sleeves and skirt were made of some sort of puffy white taffeta-like material that was littered with bright red polka dots, the underskirt was itchy lace, and to add insult to injury, I was forced to wear the (Goddamn) Dreaded Dress with a pair of obnoxiously generic white dress shoes that were spruced up with fat, 1980s-style bows. Bows, for chrissakes! I was young, but not young enough not to be mortified.
The (Goddamn) Dreaded Dress came to symbolize everything I hated about being in foster care: the scarcity of options; the crushing feeling of isolation; the loss of personal identity; the humiliation that came with the utter lack of control I had over my life and the painful awareness that I was away from home and didn’t know when I’d be going back. I don’t think I ever really understood the importance of family togetherness on Christmas until I was forced to celebrate the holiday with virtual strangers (wearing that repugnant dress). I didn’t enjoy the experience, but it gave me a profound appreciation for the people I love.
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2006.
