by Gay Courter
If you think that the world is fine because you have enough food, shelter, clothing, and love in your life, think again. If we don’t raise strong healthy children who not only want to contribute but also have some skills to offer, we end up with parasites whom we will have to support with expensive back-end facilities like prisons. Studies conclude that most criminals were consistently mistreated, demeaned, and neglected as children. Also there is evidence that the degree of adult criminality may be in proportion to how seriously abused they were. The roots of crime are in the home. Alcohol abuse and family violence are found in the parents of most male rapists and robbers. Most female prostitutes had abusive, drunken parents. It costs more to keep one child in prison than in the finest prep school. With the exponential growth of serious crime, we will be paying a major portion of our tax money for prisons. And no matter how secure and healthy you are, you will not feel safe when those children who have been neglected and abused find illicit ways to settle the score.
In order to prevent a fear-ridden society, we have to prevent children from suffering through pitiful childhoods. These children deserve to be wanted. Unplanned pregnancies result in neglected children. Neglected children feel unloved. Unloved children don’t care about anyone else. In fact, they hate everyone for making their lives miserable, and as soon as they are strong enough—or have access to weapons that make them feel strong—they vent that rage indiscriminately.
Lydia and Alicia, Rich and Cory, Simone and Julie, Nicole and Sharonda, and all the others in the system represent children in dire situations. These are children whose nightmares begin when they wake up each morning.
Who will chase their very real monsters for them?
Marian Wright Edelman entreated all of us to “offer your hands to them so that no child is left behind because we did not act.” Don’t think that one person alone can do nothing. There are many people who can point to such a one caring person who made all the difference in their lives. Advocate for a child, just one child, and start making a significant difference, for the ripple effect of little victories will help win the war and change the future for all our children.
8
It All Depends on What You Mean by Home
Where Are My Children?
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
—ROBERT FROST
I SHOULD HAVE CALLED IT SOMETHING YOU SOMEHOW haven’t to deserve,” is the way Frost talked about a home, and yet most of my guardian children are homeless either in the mind, body, or heart. Deep inside, in that place where we know who we are, they don’t feel that they ever deserved to be cherished and kept forever in a place called home. While I know I would receive an unconditional welcome in many homes of family and friends, Alicia and Lydia and Cory and Rich had nobody they could trust who would take them in. Sadly most of the 20,000 children who graduate from foster care without a permanent family each year end up with no place to go in times of trials, triumphs, or even for school vacations or work holidays. According to the Child Welfare League of America, as many as 36 percent become homeless, 56 percent become unemployed, and 27% of male former foster youths serve time in prison. Fewer than one in eight graduate from a four-year college and less than half even graduate high school. Forty percent become parents as a result of an unplanned pregnancy.
In the first edition, I proposed that if the state, in its wisdom, accepts the burden of becoming a parent for abused and neglected children, we must insist that they not abandon their progeny on the date of their legal majority. Finally the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, commonly known as the Chafee Act, after the late Senator John Chafee, an advocate for foster youth, began meeting their needs. The federal act funds mental health services, life skills classes, mentoring, employment preparation, continuing education, stipends for housing, extended Medicaid eligibility, and more.
All of this came too late to help the children in this book, many of whom have kept in touch. Few have had even moderately happy lives.
When Lydia Ryan (“The Girl Who Loved Robert Frost”) turned eighteen, she was still in her adult education high school program, making excellent progress. She was eligible to participate in the state’s independent living program, which theoretically would have helped her get housing, start a savings account, and finish school. But after an argument with her caseworker about her choices of friends, Lydia decided to strike out on her own. She phoned her mother and told her this decision, and surprisingly, her father agreed to allow her to return home for the first time in several years. For six months she remained with her parents and completed her high school equivalency requirements, but she was soon asked to leave again. Her boyfriend Nick’s family permitted her to move in with them. However, his mother had psychiatric problems, and after a psychotic incident, Lydia and her boyfriend moved to the home of the boyfriend’s grandmother, who allowed the young couple to camp out in their toolshed.
For several months I visited Lydia. Her weight plummeted and her health declined. I took her to a doctor, who volunteered his services, and he diagnosed an ulcer and anxiety, as well as malnourishment, but Lydia could not pay for her medications. Lydia expressed interest in birth control but didn’t have transportation to the health department. When I came by to deliver her Christmas gifts, she confided that she was pregnant. She was tense, but happy.
“Now I can get the medical care I need,” she said.
Indeed, as a pregnant mother, she was eligible for Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, and other maternity benefits. However, her boyfriend’s grandparents decided that it was not good for Lydia to sleep around paints and chemicals in the toolshed now that she was pregnant. After a few months of living with friends, Lydia and her boyfriend were able to rent a trailer.
As the first edition of this book was being readied for publication, Lydia said, “I am determined to love my baby the right way,’’ Lydia told me, her eyes shining with expectation. Sadly, determination was not enough. In training guardians are taught about the cycle of abuse and how powerless victims often grow into powerful abusers. Knowing this, I wanted to help Lydia as much as I could. I stayed in touch throughout her pregnancy, bringing her and Nick groceries and visiting frequently when baby Nathan was born. When Nathan was two months old, Lydia told me that Nick had been having jealous rages and she was afraid of him. Even though her relations with her parents had thawed, they wouldn’t allow her to move back home with her baby. My husband and I offered them our spare bedroom. We helped Lydia find a job as a part-time medical receptionist. The only other condition was that she was to stay away from Nick.
After less than a week, Lydia quit the job. She neglected Nathan at our house, knowing that my husband or I would pick him up if he fussed. One night she asked if she could run to the store with her friends while Nathan slept, but didn’t come back until dawn. When we told her that we would not baby-sit so she could spend the night with Nick—or anyone else—she disappeared with the baby for a few days. At that point we “loaned” her the money for the first and last month’s rent and she moved out. A few weeks later Nick moved back in.
When Nathan was three, Lydia called in a panic. She had been separated from Nick for almost two years. Nathan was living with his father but she had custody on weekends. The previous week Nathan had refused to mind and she had spanked him hard enough to leave bruises. When she returned him to his father, Nick lodged an abuse complaint against Lydia. “What should I do?” she sobbed.
My heart filled with lead as I talked her through the legal steps she needs to take. Lydia now has three children and I saw a picture of Nathan holding his mother’s hand in the local paper on the day he entered Kindergarten.
At the end of the book, the Stevenson siblings were still apart. Cory and Alicia finally did visit their mother Tammy in Washington. They enjoyed the visit, but both were anxious to return. Cory wanted to be with his father and grandfather; Alicia was too tied to her current boyfriend and Ruth to consider a
change. Also, Alicia said she was uncomfortable with her stepfather. A few months afterward, though, Cory and Red Stevenson began to clash. After one heated battle, Cory asked if he could go to live with his mother. Alicia was furious and tried to talk Cory out of it, but in the end she decided he was better off with their mother than their father. Tammy welcomed her son, but within three months he clashed with her husband. After Cory had some minor trouble with the police, Tammy placed him in foster care in Spokane. He remained with the same foster family for more than two years but did poorly in school and was arrested a few times for minor offenses.
I knew Cory was back in Florida when I saw a notice in our local paper that he had been arrested for stealing car parts. I’ve heard that he has stayed in the area, is married, and has settled down.
Rich Stevenson and his young wife, Janet, continued to live together, although they were legally divorced. I last heard from him when his father made headlines again, and gave him what information I had about his siblings.
Alicia’s life took a difficult turn when Ruth Levy decided not to continue as a foster parent for health reasons. All the girls in her care were divided among several foster homes. In November of her senior year in high school Alicia moved away from her schoolmates, foster sisters, and the security she had known for the past three years. A week after she moved, Alicia turned eighteen. I asked Mitzi about putting Alicia in the independent living program. “She won’t qualify,” Mitzi said. “She’ll have to get a job and catch up on the eleventh grade classes she failed and finish her senior credits.”
I bristled at Mitzi’s negativity and stopped by her foster home regularly to help her with her homework. At first she was enthusiastic and got a few As. When I dropped off some library book she was home napping. “Is she sick?” I asked the foster mother.
“I cut school at her age,” she replied. “Besides she was out late.”
Alicia admitted she had a new boyfriend who had invited her to move in with him. I explained that the minute she left the foster home, she would no longer get any benefits and urged her to say until she graduated.
During spring vacation, Alicia took her foster sister, who was only fifteen, to a party and they stayed out most of the night. Mitzi heard about this and Alicia was blamed for corrupting the younger child. Angrily, Alicia went to a pay phone, called her boyfriend, and disappeared for the night. The next morning she was told to gather her possessions. The paperwork was processed and she had officially “aged out” of foster care—the term used when someone leaves the system without a permanent home through reunification or adoption. I was also discharged as her guardian.
Two weeks later her foster mother died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage and I took Alicia to the funeral.
A month later she asked me to come for her because her boyfriend was going to kill her. I arrived to find her sitting on a curb with a small sack of clothing. “Alicia! Look at you! You’re a homeless person.” I tried to convince her she needed more stability. She cried and agreed. I called Ruth Levy, who came to get Alicia.
Ruth offered to keep Alicia until she finished school, provided she would attend classes and come in at a reasonable hour. That afternoon Alicia phoned a boy she knew in the neighborhood. He came to get her that evening.
A month after that Alicia landed with a young married couple who invited her to live in their trailer and help with housekeeping. Something about the situation made me uncomfortable, but Alicia seemed content. Then she left abruptly and moved to South Carolina with the Chuck, the husband, but not the wife. She claimed that the couple had originally asked her to conceive a baby for the infertile wife, but she and the husband had fallen in love.
When she could not get medication for her ulcers, she told me, “My best bet is to get pregnant because they’ll give me money and medical care. I also knew that she thought a baby would give her something to love, and just maybe someone to love her. The health department, which would not fill her prescriptions, did remove her Norplant birth control for free.
After six years and two children, Chuck and Alicia married. Their son is autistic. Domestic violence and poverty issues plagued their marriage and they eventually separated with Chuck getting custody of the children. There were abuse reports in his home and the children went to foster care. According to Ruth Levy, Alicia’s children disappeared in the system and she did not try to retrieve them.
Once again the cycle of abuse continued.
Ten years after the Stevenson family became my first guardian case, my phone rang. “This is Emily Monaco, do you remember me?” Before I could plumb my past, she continued, “I was Bernadette Stevenson’s best friend.”
Bernadette, who started dating Red just before he was arrested for sexually molesting his children, had been his staunch supporter during the trial, and had married him after his not-guilty verdict. “Do you remember my daughters?” Emily asked.
The last time I had been in the Stevenson home Emily had been visiting with two adorable towheads. I had walked into the living room and seen them sitting on Red’s lap—one on each knee—and he was tickling them. They had been about two and four years old. The sight of his hands all over their sweet arms and legs made my flesh crawl.
As I was leaving, I asked Bernadette to follow me outside. I said, “I will never know what truly happened between Mr. Stevenson and his children, but I don’t believe they were lying. So please, whatever you do, don’t let him alone with little girls because if something were to happen, you would never forgive yourself.”
“Yes, I remember,” I said warily. “Are they okay?”
Emily’s voice cracked. “Red did it again—this time to my daughter, Angel. I even warned her never to be alone with Red because he had been ‘in trouble’ with another girl once.”
She told me that after her divorce, she picked up some night shifts at the hospital to help with the bills. “The girls were asleep and I was only five minutes away,” she said defensively. “Then I came home one morning to find Angel missing. My other daughter admitted that she ran away with Red!” She gasped as if this had just occurred.
“When we caught up with them, Angel admitted that they’d been having sex for more than a year—since she was eleven! And do you know what she said? ‘We love each other.’” Emily took a deep breath. “She even told me she enjoyed it! How could she?”
The story sickened me—this was exactly how Red had groomed his daughter.
“Have you called the police?” I asked.
“Yes, but now I wonder whether I should have. His daughter went through hell and Red got away with it.”
Ten years…how many other girls had Red violated since the first trial? “You’ve got to stop him now,” I said in a strangled voice.
Later that day Red Stevenson was arrested. I called Alicia to tell her the news. “Finally they’ll believe me,” she said, more angry than pleased. “Promise you’ll let me know what happens.”
Red refused a plea bargain that would have allowed his release in ten years. By that time he would be over 60 and Angel would be a young adult. Instead Red chose to roll the dice again. Alicia’s incest case had received a great deal of publicity and every courtroom seat had been filled, but no mention of it could be made because Red had been proven innocent. At this trial there were only four or five observers—one was Bernadette. No members of the press were in attendance.
When Angel testified, I was struck how much she looked like Alicia. In fact, they had the same middle name, the same initials, had been the same age when intercourse began, and many of the other details were eerily familiar down to the words he uttered, his promises to her, even some of the same gifts. How often had he used the same modus operandi and never been caught?
The detective, who had taped his first interview with Red, took the stand. A public defender—instead of the highly-paid private attorney who had represented him in the first trial—argued to disallow its use. The judge ruled that the tape could be played. Red so
unded contrite. “I’m sorry for what I did,” he said. “I knew she was too young.”
Just as he had done in his daughter’s trial, Red Stevenson testified in his own defense, claiming that the detective had offered to exchange counseling for a confession. After deliberating overnight, the jury declared that Red Stevenson was guilty on four counts of sexual battery on a child younger than 16 and two counts of lewd or lascivious conduct with a child between the ages of 12 and 16.
At the sentencing hearing Angel read her victim’s statement in a calm, compelling voice. “Don’t walk out of this courtroom and think you’ve gotten the best of me. If anything, you made me stronger and wiser.”
Emily, who appeared much more distraught than her daughter, spoke next. “Only you and God know the extent of all the crimes you have committed,” Emily said, trembling. “But Red Stevenson, I hope you die in prison, alone.”
Red remained impassive, his arms folded across his chest, while the judge slapped him with six concurrent life terms, decreeing, “Richard Stevenson, it is the desire of this court that you are never again released into society for the remainder of your natural life.”