When backpacks hold a world of meaning
It’s that time of year, when you see kids returning to school with their colorful backpacks full of brand-new supplies. Every year, Piedmont CASA Advocates arrange for school-age youth on our caseloads to have their very own backpacks, brightly colored and chock full. It’s one small but important way to help our youth fit in. Or as I like to say, be just like those other kids who are not in foster care.
The small gesture of having a backpack soothes the pain of knowing that they are not just like other kids. They are no longer living with their families. Most are now part of a new family, often going to a new school, sometimes in a new town. Kids in foster care have no say in these global changes. They are just plucked from one world and set down in another. It can be incredibly isolating, so small tokens of their old life become even more valuable. Backpacks can carry not only a load of school supplies, but also important pieces of their lost world, their identity.
Some of our youth came from chaotic households where they were left alone for long periods of time, or might be dropped off at someone else’s house and not picked up until days later. Often they had little warning they were being removed from their birth family, or even from one foster care placement to another. Sometimes they only learned they would be sleeping in a new place when they were picked up from school by a Department of Social Services vehicle. For some kids, this paradigm shift only needs to happen once for them to ensure that their personal items are always with them. These backpack treasures can be a favorite stuffed toy, photographs, cards, or trinkets imbued with memories. In a world of instability, where you feel like you can be rejected at any time, a backpack containing these small pieces of your world can represent a thin thread of stability.
I learned this lesson from one of my foster sons. When he first moved in, he took his backpack with him every time we left the house. Every single time. He slung it over his shoulder when we went grocery shopping, when we went to McDonald’s, even when we went to sporting events. We could simply drive to the end of the driveway to check for mail, didn’t matter, backpack came with him. The backpack was the world he could control. Everything that mattered was in there: journal, artwork, stories he had written, cards, anything he felt made up his identity. When you never know if or when your mom is going to come back, you learn to be prepared.
As I watched my foster son board the bus one morning, I realized he didn’t have his backpack. Initially I thought he had forgotten it in the rush to make the bus. Then I realized it had been weeks since I’d seen him wearing it. I checked his room and lo and behold the backpack was there. More importantly, it was completely unpacked! His old life was finding a place in his new home.
I guess after living four months in my house, he finally realized I wasn’t going to reject him and it was safe to leave his backpack behind.
So the next time you see a youth with a brightly colored backpack, remember that backpack could represent the world to that youth.
