Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison

I say to teenagers, 'Tell me your story.' Then, if they do, I say, 'That's so interesting-this is like the best work of fiction, but it's real. Imagine being fifteen and walking into some stranger's house, especially if you don't happen to speak English. When I'm done with the story, Anna has a picture of her past so she can write it down in her journal herself. But Elizabeth couldn't take care of her well enough, so Anna went to live with her aunt Sally.' And so on. When she was born, she had a mother, whose name was Elizabeth. Then I will tell the child-say her name is Anna-'Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Anna. Who's the first person you remember living with?' If that person is not the birth mother, I will talk to the child's caseworker and see if I can learn the child's exact history. What I often do is buy them a little binder notebook and say, 'Tell me the first thing you remember. They think they were hatched at age nine or something. When kids come to me and they've been in twenty-seven different homes, they don't remember much of their past. How do you use journals with the children?

When I started doing foster care, I used journals with the children. I wrote stories, fables, children's stuff. I've always written, from the time I was little. I was going to be rich and famous and live in New York City. When you were little and people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, did you ever imagine it would be 'foster mom'? About herself, her book, her marriage, stereotypes, the system, cocktail parties, and what she'd do if she had a weekend to herself

Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison