Growing up in the foster system can make you feel like you’re living life at a disadvantage. I know because I’ve done it.
I was in Florida’s foster system twice — for a year starting when I was six, and then for six years starting when I was 12.
My girlfriend asks me all the time how I dealt with spending so much time in foster care. And I always tell her that I just didn’t know there was any other way. To me, all of it — foster care, my parents being in jail, moving from house to house to house to house — was normal.
And you know what? I was lucky.
Some foster kids don’t know their parents. Some have parents who want nothing to do with them. And some have already lost their parents. Mine were in jail, but they were both still part of my life. They helped raise me — I talked with them regularly on the phone or through the mail.
This allowed us to have a unique relationship. It was like I could tell them anything. I also learned from them their example very early on. People make mistakes — and there are consequences for those mistakes.
I was also lucky because of two amazing foster families: the Baileys and the Browns.
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