The System Kid

I spent almost my entire childhood life, moving from school to school trying to navigate through the foster care system.

During this time I was bullied relentlessly from early grades all they way up to grade 7.

I was the smaller kid in school, so this immediately gave people a ‘target’.

They had something called ‘block parents’, in my local neighborhood. These were people with red and white signs in the window of their home, which showed that, that place was a safe place for people to go when in need. I was constantly running to block parent houses and getting them to call my parents because I was always getting bullied, chased and beat up by kids at school.

I don’t forget these bullies either and I don’t think I ever will.

Bullying has lifelong consequences on everyone. Situations can be abusive and traumatizing and have lifelong lasting negative impacts and consequences both mentally and physically.

In my neighborhood, there was one kid who bullied me all the time. I can remember my mother constantly telling me to ‘stick up for myself’, but I never did.

Until this one day I was on a swing in my friends backyard when this ‘bully’ approached and demanded my swing or he was going to beat me up. I had enough of him at that point so I punched him in the face, ran home, and told my mom what I did. She took me in the house. A few minutes later the bully and his mom showed up at the door and the mother was upset about what I did to her son. My mother explained to the other mother what the bully had been doing to me and he looked ashamed and she took him home.

I remember in grade 3, one child ‘pretended’ to be my friend and stated he wanted to walk home with me, only to find out half way home that other kids were hiding in the woods waiting for a ‘sign’ from this child so they could jump out and beat me up.

In grade 5, I was going to a school with some local child hockey team members. They thought it was a good idea to pull my shirt over my head like I was in a hockey fight and just beat me senseless.

I was covered in welts and bruises.

And ya know what?

Even though I didn’t do anything, did not instigate the situation and didn’t even ‘fight back’, I was still suspended from school simply because I was ‘involved’.

The school said that it was their ‘policy’ to suspended anyone that was involved.

It was in this instance, I started to realize that some systems weren’t there to actually help children.

Makes sense right?

When grade seven hit, with all the abuse and trauma I suffered at home, and with all the bullying I experienced in schools, I think I just had ‘enough’. I had one kid try to bully me one day and I grabbed him by the next, pushed him up against the school and told him if he ever did anything to me again, I’d beat the shit out of him. No it wasn’t the right thing to do, but put yourselves in the shoes of me as a child. What do you think I was feeling in the moment? What was I thinking in the moment?

When talking with the principal he told me he understood why I did what I did, but that it wasn’t the right way to handle things. I received an in-house suspension for a few days and understood why.

So from that moment, I realized I had to get smarter.

I just didn’t know ‘how’.

I can remember being pushed into lockers, tripped in the school hallways, dunked in toilets, had my books thrown down the hallway, and was pushed, punched and kicked almost on a daily basis.

It made me angry.

I was angry at the world and angry at myself.

I eventually started to fight back, and in grade 7, when a kid tried to say something to me, I grabbed him by the neck, pinned him up against the school, and said “If you ever do shit like this again, it won’t end well for you”.

I received a 1-day, in house suspension for this.

What I appreciate the most about this situation, was the talk the principal had with me.

“George, I understand everything you’ve been through and I’m sorry. But you can’t just go around putting your hands on people”.

He was honest with me. Down to earth, and validated my feelings.

I appreciated that.

I appreciated him and appreciated our talk.

But it didn’t change the fact that I was still angry.

I was living in a foster home at the time and some of the things the foster parents did, actually contributed to me being bullied.

For example.

Every Sunday, the foster mother would ask me to pick out one shirt, and one pair of pants to wear to school, as ‘school clothes’ all week.

The same shirt, and the same pants; every day.

I was called a dirty kid and no one wanted to even come near me.

I wore clothes I got made fun of.

Like little rubber shoes the foster mother called ‘duckies’, that I was supposed to wear when it rained outside.

They were too small and I hated them.

I would often try and sneak other clothes in my book bag, walk to school and wait until I was out of sight of the house, and then change my clothes in one of the walking paths.

My shoes were too small.

To the point where my toes started to curl.

I tried to tell her this but she wasn’t having it.

I eventually ended up requesting to go to the doctors, which I knew she couldn’t deny, and asked the doctor what they thought. They confirmed I needed new shoes and I had to ask him to write this on a doctors note for the foster mother.

What kind of person should have to do something like this just to get new shoes that fit?

I was off and on in this foster home for years.

I would end up going home, something would end up happening, and I would end up going back.

When I was home I didn’t take care of my personal hygiene, never brushed my teeth and never took baths or showers.

One time, at the end of November, there was an incident at home, which caused me to return to the foster home.

I still had hair dye in from Halloween.

I hadn’t bathed in almost a month.

This is when the foster mom thought it was necessary to have me bathe, lather myself up with soap, cover up my man bits, and then call her in so she could see that I had washed my body.

It was uncomfortable and demoralizing.

But as a kid I didn’t get much say in anything I did.

I didn’t get much say in anything that happened to me.

And I didn’t get much say in anywhere I lived.

As much as my family home was an unhealthy place for me, I missed the only home I ever knew, and the only family I ever loved.