I was living in a shelter on the day I walked into our local bookstore. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular and soon found myself rummaging through the discounted books. The title of a small paperback caught my eye. Guide My Feet by Marian Wright Edelman.

I didn’t know who she was. I thumbed through the pages of prayers and meditations for children until the Parent’s Pledge stopped me. It read…

I promise to…listen to my children
Communicate with my children
Teach my children right from wrong and be a good
Role model for them
Spend time with and pay attention to my children
Educate my children in mind, body and soul
Work to provide a stable family life for my children
Pray for and see God in my children and in all children
Vote for my children to ensure them fair opportunity
Speak out for my and other people’s children’s needs.

I carry this Pledge with me everyday, eight years later. The book is now old and yellow and quite tattered but when I first found it, at the moment of my deepest despair, I knew I had found the model of who I wanted to be. I had always been so unsure of myself. I was never secure enough to know if I was making the right choice for my children or my family. But when I found Ms. Edelman Wright’s book, I knew this was how I wanted my children to remember me. I wanted to be a mother who taught and educated her children. I knew it would take me a while. I had stumbled from job to job and my children did not have a stable life. But now I knew the kind of mother I wanted to be, the kind of mother my children needed.

My job cleaning for others allowed me to be a caregiver for those families. I may have been struggling with my own family, but the people I cared for, their homes and their children, lived the life style of the rich and not so famous. My children and I had never lived in such elaborate environments. Their homes had five bedrooms. They each had two or three cars. They took vacations and went on cruises. I assumed I would never be where they were, but the environment in which they lived, being able to be in it, taught me there was a better way to live.

Their lives were not thriving in chaos. They were thriving in their life. I was comforted with this new learning and felt like living in it everyday as I did gave me permission to create my own life differently. I could create a safe environment for my children, one that was clean and organized. I realized I couldn’t learn this from a professional. I couldn’t read a book and “get it.” It presented itself as an opportunity through my work and I grasped it.

Years later, living as I had cleaning and caring for healthy children, it helped me understand that my child diagnosed with emotional disturbance was not broken. All the systems and services offered were not going to “fix” him. This was who my child was. And my child was far more than his mental illness. It was going to be my job now to help him develop skills necessary for success. I would help him know himself as I knew him. He would make it in society, be successful in school, successful in any setting. What he needed was beyond education, beyond therapy. I knew it deep within myself and I was going to help him.

One day, in my neighborhood, the local mental health authority called a meeting of the Children’s Advisory Committee. People in charge asked a number of therapists to recommend a parent of a child with SED who could sit on this committee. Sean’s therapist recommended me. I remember feeling so inadequate to the task because I felt like I had no expertise. But she believed in me, and so I went to several meetings. Each time I listened, watched, learned. Soon, I was asked to take a seat on the Community Management Team. This team took me out of the mental health arena and put me in the presence of all child-serving agencies within our community.

In the beginning, I wanted to please these people who had chosen me, these people who allowed me to sit around the table with them. But as time went on, I began to have ah hah moments. This was the way they did business. They had been trained to do this.

I sat like a small child and kept asking, “Why?”

When they said we could not do something a certain way, I said, “Why not?”

I continued to attend the meetings and occasionally I spoke out. A couple of years passed. I began to feel uneasy. I worried my children might be held hostage by these agencies. What if my children did something wrong? Violated something? They would be picked up and placed in the juvenile justice system. I began to feel like they would punish my children for my actions as an advocate. I began to think this is about what I know, whom I know and how I vote. I felt internal conflict and the conflict was with my own personal values. I held my tongue, knowing that the best interests of all children required that I ‘mend fences’ with these agency people and swallow my pride.

I see parents now who have followed me and sit in the same seats. They are in the developmental space I was in. I want to say to them, “This is not who you are!” However, when I sat there, I said nothing and by saying nothing, I gave my silent consent. I felt consumed. And once again, I turned to Marian Wright Edelman. She taught me about integrity, doing the right thing. She has been an incredible inspiration to me and with her words ringing in my heart and head, I finally took a stand for my own personhood and values.

That stand came to me in the form of a new person to me in our community. Luanne Southern was the new project director for our grant community. She gave me permission. She encouraged me as a leader in her own community to muster the courage to speak the truth. She said it was my voice, and the voice of the children and others like me in my community that would make a change. She told me nothing would be as powerful as it would be coming from me.

I did it. With permission to speak, I spoke. That permission had never been given to me in my life. I was never asked. I was put at the table. Drafts of procedures were given to me and I was asked, along with everyone else, to vote. I voted. We voted. Life went on as it always had.

Luanne gave me the opportunity to change this. I could say I did not agree with the way things were happening. She risked supporting me by giving me permission and that is how she validated my values. Before that moment, I believed that I didn’t know the ‘right thing to do, ’ wasn’t sure if what I wanted to say was the right thing to say.

Today, those doubts and feelings are gone. Today, as a woman, I am strong, a risk-taker, and nothing can take me down. Today, I am secure in myself. I am hopeful. I read once, “Never deprive anyone of hope. It may be all they have.” I am humbled by all of the families who work desperately to implement changes and create a better way for our children. Today, my children are healthy, strong, vibrant, spirited young people and right now, life is good.

When I see how far I have come, I realize I never had a dream for myself. I never thought I could be mentally healthy, joyful, as happy as I am today. I had no model for living life this way. My Native American friends tell me I am the point of the arrow for my family. I have stopped the cycle of abuse, fear, and acceptance of myself as “less than”. I know that when I look at my children.

My son Sean spent six weeks this summer at the Sylvan Learning Center. On his last day, my son-in-law, Clint, went to pick him up. He asked Clint if he would go to lunch with him, but Clint had a job interview and couldn’t go. When he got home, he asked his brother if he would go to lunch with him. He wanted to celebrate his graduation from the Sylvan Center. His brother said he didn’t want to go to lunch.

Sean took $20 he had saved and went to a Mexican restaurant down the street from where we live. He ordered three enchiladas, rice and beans. And when it was time to pay, he proudly pulled out his $20 and left a $1 tip on the table. He then went next door to the video store, knowing his mother doesn’t have an account there. He gave his best friend’s phone number to the clerk and took the video home to watch it. He had returned it to the video store before I got home.

Sean was just eleven years old. He is ‘one of our kids’ and has been labeled with severe emotional disturbance. Against all the odds and better judgment of those who labeled him, I accepted him as more than his mental illness and required that others do the same. He would not take medication and rather than struggle with him, I told him that not taking medication would make it very hard for him. He was going to have to teach himself how to not be disruptive in class at school. He was going to have to learn other ways of communicating, and others were going to have to learn other ways of communicating with him. That is when I started collaborating with the school system; helping them learn how to create a safe environment for Sean and learning about his learning disability.

I know now I will never give up on my child. I also will never give up on the agencies. I’ll do what it takes…for my children.

Marian Wright Edelman said it best.

Dear God,

I thank you for the gift of this child to raise, this life to share, this mind to help mold, this body to nurture, and this spirit to enrich.

Let me never betray this child’s trust, dampen this child’s hope, or discourage this child’s dreams.

Stephany