Three little words II
By Rita D. Russell
SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
03/30/2008
A decent home, enough food to eat and the support of caring parents: That's what Ashley Rhodes-Courter wished for most as a little girl. But like many of the more than half a million children in America's overburdened and deficient foster care system, her simple wishes were frequently denied.
In "Three Little Words," Rhodes-Courter's riveting and heartbreaking memoir, the 22-year-old author and advocate for foster care reform recounts the harrowing experiences of her early life. At age 3, she and her infant brother were taken from their impoverished mother and placed in the protective custody of the foster care system.
For the next nine years, that system, which was supposed to act in her best interests, irresponsibly and illogically bounced her from foster home to foster home (14 in all), school to school (she never completed a full year until fifth grade), and caseworker to caseworker (a total of 44).
"When they ripped me from my family, nobody told me anything … years would pass without anyone answering any of my questions," she recalls. "I went to live with complete strangers … shuffled like a hand-me-down toy."
Throughout the frenetic nightmare, Rhodes-Courter clung to the hope that one day her mother would rescue her. "We'll go home — soon," her mother always promised on the sporadic occasions of her visits. But soon never came, and the state terminated parental rights after seven years.
Using a matter-of-fact tone and simple, straightforward prose, Rhodes-Courter writes with piercing honesty about the lonely, hardscrabble life she endured. Precocious and intuitive, even as a toddler, she realized early on that unlike "regular kids" with normal families, she had no one to depend on.
The fact that some foster families treated her with negligence and indifference only added to her feelings of insecurity and worthlessness. Her toys and clothes were often stolen or destroyed. She was 9 years old before anyone bothered to celebrate her birthday. And only once was she allowed a play date at a regular kid's home.
Such dispirited memories, however, pale in comparison to the sadistic physical and emotional abuse that Rhodes-Courter suffered at the hands of Marjorie Moss. Called a "model" foster parent by bungling social workers, but "a fairy tale witch" by Rhodes-Courter, Moss routinely forced the then 7-year-old to eat rotten food, drink hot sauce and share the same filthy bath water as the other children in her care.
Given her heinous history of victimization, it's easy to understand Rhodes-Courter's persistent outrage at a foster care system that treated her far worse than her mother ever did. She pointedly wonders why the system preferred to pay incompetent strangers to take care of her, instead of teaching her mother to do a better job.
Rhodes-Courter's story may be extreme, but aspects of it are not uncommon. I say that because I am a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate for St. Louis County, investigating cases of abused, neglected and abandoned children in the child welfare system. I have no acquaintance or relationship with the author, but I understand her story.
That Rhodes-Courter eventually found a loving adoptive family might seem a bit like magical fiction, but the reality of her journey was no fairy tale. For a long time she refused to let down her guard with her new parents, expecting them to change their minds and send her back. "Three Little Words" refers not to the prosaic "I love you," but to her ambivalent and weary response to the judge's question if she wanted to be adopted. "I guess so," she mumbled, and it was done.
Rhodes-Courter has succeeded in writing a remarkable memoir that speaks forcefully and candidly for thousands of children entangled in the foster care system's interminable maze. Often gut-wrenching, always inspiring and enlightening, "Three Little Words" is never easy reading. It is, however, a powerful life story that is essential for anyone who cares about abused, abandoned and neglected children.