Thinking about the kids

Page 5

I am writing this column from Prince George, B.C. My wife, Trisha, was invited to speak at the Children, Families, Communities '98 conference. Our two youngest children, Kate and Jack, are traveling with us. This family time together, away from most of the distractions of my wife's hectic life, is time to cherish. As Father's Day approaches, I am grateful for the next two weeks we will be all on the road together.

My wife was invited here to speak about child welfare. We arrived the day before her speech and had a day with the kids in the park. There's a kid-size steam engine that pulls a train around a short track in the park. It has a very loud whistle. Of course Kate and Jack heard this and we had to go check out the train.

We bought tickets, and waited for the next call, "all aboard." There were four Aboriginal children hanging around with no money to ride the train. They were pretty sad. This little boy came up to me as I was looking at the track. The track was so small. We got to talking and I eventually asked him if he was going on the train.

The boy said, "no, I've got no money." So I gave them the money to ride the train. As the boy yelled, "Mom I got some money," his mom smiled at me.

We got on the train and just after I sat down, a white woman (and I am only pointing out race because it's important to how we knew who she was) sat with one of the kids I had given money to. It was pretty obvious that she was a social worker and the mom who sat at the back of the train with the other three kids was not comfortable with what was happening. The white woman gave me my money back. I had seen her take it angrily from the boy.

She said "Here's your money. I have money for the boys." I guess that social worker did not know I had seen one of those kids crying because they couldn't go on the train. I had also seen that white woman refusing to take them. I did not think she was so nice. I felt like she could not be bothered to take those kids on the train and it broke my heart. Maybe it's because I survived foster care and remember being a kid told "no" all the time by social workers. Or maybe it's because those boys did not have a dad there. Or maybe I just felt sad that the mother could not do the things she wanted to do, mainly because she is poor. She does not have power.

I am not telling this story because I think I did such a great thing giving those kids that money. This isn't the point. This story is almost that sad, it's kind of funny. Here my wife is asked is to travel more than a few miles to go speak to a conference on the future of Aboriginal child welfare, and we are not in the city for even 24hours and we have a"close encounter" that shows exactly how far child welfare has not come over the 30 years since I was in care.

More importantly, I was angry because that social worker did not understand our Aboriginal values.

There's a button that was given to my wife when she registered for this conference. It's from the Nechi Training, Research and Health Promotions Institute. It says, "It takes a whole community to raise a child." I gave those kids money because it's my responsibility to look after kids, even when they are not my own. This is a basic value of all the Aboriginal cultures I know about. After we got off the train, I was left wondering, why didn't the social worker even understand this little bit about who we are as Aboriginal people.

This picture of Kate and the daisy is one of my favorite pictures of the kids. I wanted to share it with you all as Father's Day comes near. I am thinking about the kids and wondering how it will be for the children when my daughter has her own babies.

Happy Father's Day (and I apologize to all the mom's as I did not write about Mother's Day this year.)