Abstract
This book is a memoir that clearly traverses the terrain of multiple vulnerabilities of a child given up in a foreign land to foster care and then institutions. Lemn Sissay, born of an Ethiopian mother, is stripped of his name and identity as he traverses foster care and then increasingly severe incarceration in ‘care’ institutions in Britain in the 1980s.
The ‘authority’ that reports on him is a strong character in the book, as Sissay shares actual notes and letters from his file that he accesses as he writes this memoir. The system, mandated to be benevolent and caring, is unable to see, hear or touch the child as it constantly pronounces on him, keeps information from him and changes his name to Norman Sissay.
In the book, Lemn Sissay takes us through the particularly heartbreaking journey of a young, bright, friendly, outgoing black child living in long term foster care with a religious white household, feeling very loved in the beginning but slowly realising that he is different and that the difference is not tenable to his foster family or the community and society plagued by racism.
The bewildering and hurtful narratives of being deceitful and volatile and a threat to himself and his family that are woven by the family and the authorities are in direct contravention to what the young child assumes are his rights within his family. Fighting with his brother and often winning, eating a piece of cake even though he was not allowed to, till his mother would not have him any more. The author goes from ‘I loved my life’ to ‘home was hell. I couldn’t do anything right. The better I did, the worse I was treated. I was tricking everyone into thinking I was a good kid. For the life of me I didn’t understand’ (p. 60).
Lemn Sissay’s story also begs the question of how we choose the family that will foster the child, their motivation to do so and how these decisions are made in any country. Clearly, the system is flawed here. Sissay was placed with a family that was unable to take him in for the long haul, to make him their own no matter what!
The question of who takes responsibility for a child with no family of their own is another important one raised by Lemn Sissay in the book. ‘Neither the social worker nor the foster parents took responsibility for what happened to me—certainly not the blame’. This is, indeed, a fundamental question that all societies must grapple with. In all kinds of care for children, what are the checks and balances that will operate that will ensure that a child without a family can thrive and develop in a nurturing environment? Apart from the family and the state, does the community have a part in it?
In this particular case, the authorities/state seems to take many decisions that are against the principles of alternative care. The first and most important one is the lack of urgency to return the child to his birth mother. According to the UN Guidelines on Alternative Care, all decisions made for the child must ‘respectfully the child’s right to be consulted and to have his/her views duly taken into account in accordance with his/her evolving capacities, and on the basis of his/her access to all necessary information. Every effort should be made to enable such consultation and information provision to be carried out in the child’s preferred language’.
The will of the child is paramount in considerations of placement. At no point, as he grows older, is there an indication that decisions have been made respecting the views and needs of the child.
The right to identity is another right that all children have, especially those in alternative care. As Sissay points out in the preface of the book, ‘At fourteen I tattooed the initials of what I thought was my name into my hand. The tattoo is still there but it wasn’t my name I was not who I thought I was. The Authority knew it but I didn’t’, denying the child his identity by changing his name and, therefore, causing great confusion and hurt.
Then, at the age of 12, starts the journey of the young child, from one institution to another, each increasingly severe in its treatment of those incarcerated. From Woodfield to Gregory Avenue to Oaklands to Wood End ‘the horrific place where the system stopped pretending’, Lemn Sissay grows, encountering isolation, seeing and enduring abuse, being ‘re-programmed’ and spiraling into a mental breakdown with constant run-ins with the police.
In the trajectory of institutions, the Wood End is at one end where the word ‘lock up’ is far more appropriate than the word ‘care’ with twenty-four hours of surveillance, order and conformity. If anyone stepped out of line, they were beaten. It is here that Sissay comments on the personnel who work in such institutions. From his description of the personnel at Wood End, it seems that there is no focus in the system on choosing and training people who are humane and have an understanding of the various ways in which children and young adults who grow up without the love and care of a family can react in different situations. Instead, it is men who are abusive. ‘Broken men. Hurt men. Dangerous, white men’ (p. 163).
Sissay is not alone in recounting the degrading violence and abuse that takes place behind closed doors in institutions. In this book alone, there are others who recount their experiences as Lemn Sissay starts on his journey of reclaiming himself and connecting with others who have a similar past.
At the same time, Lemn Sissay constantly seeks and finds out more about his mother, writes poetry and draws out his own identity as he is introduced to Bob Marley, the Black and in Care Group and many others who share his experience. At the time of writing and publishing this book, Lemn Sissay, Ethiopian and British, is a Bafta-nominated award-winning international writer and the Chancellor of the University of Manchester and much more.
For those of us working in the care of children, this book is a reminder of how different identities bring with them their own narratives, images and stereotypes that we must consciously cut through to get to the child.
The book reminds us strongly to see the child, listen to her or him and try to understand her world and take responsibility for her. It asks us to constantly relook at systems that are supposedly benevolent, non-discriminatory and caring and evaluate each action through the prism of human rights. Standards must be the same for all.
The book is being reviewed at a time when more and more children will find themselves without a family, as violence, international and national migration and a humanitarian crisis claim the family. It asks us to think of what kind of society we need to build where children without a family can also grow, learn and bloom.