“When you take a child, you're taking autonomy, their character, their belonging – you're taking whole communities within that tiny being,” writes Vanessa Turnbull Roberts. Turnbull-Roberts writes.
his memory, Long yarn shortIt is imprinted on my heart and mind. In a warm, inviting voice, this proud Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul woman offers an unflinchingly honest portrait of her life after the state stole it, aged just ten, within the mid-2000s. She describes being “bedridden” and “shut down” by her father. [her] eyes” when it happened.
“I want you to imagine your father panicking on the balcony,” she writes. “I want you to hear her scream, 'Bubb… big girl. I'm so sorry, but they're coming to get you.'”
Turnbull-Roberts spent eight years in foster care in Sydney. During this time, she fought to see her family every time she could, but it surely was totally on limited monthly supervised visits. With great resilience, he refused to permit the state to steal his identity and connections. At the age of 18, when she left the care system, she returned to Bundjalong country for the primary time. On his return, he accomplished a law degree on the University of New South Wales, supported by a scholarship that allowed him to live in student accommodation.
Now, in her role because the Australian Capital Territory's Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People, the human rights lawyer and Fulbright Scholar fights for other First Nations children to avoid the identical trauma. She wants to forestall them from becoming “crossover kids,” from the foster care system to juvenile detention.
Kidnappers, not caseworkers.
Turnbull-Roberts was “born to two parents who were battling their own demons”, but describes a way of affection and care that was all the time there.
Her mother had schizophrenia, which led to her being demonized within the health and foster care systems — where, Turnbull-Roberts writes, she also experienced abuse related to her mental health. Her father was a Bundjalong man with generations of trauma, who had some unhealthy coping mechanisms – for which he was punished, never helped.
Turnbull-Roberts and her brother moved between their parents' homes, which “co-parented in a more open, flexible style than is perceived in Western ways of parenting” on the time of the theft. Her older brother was along with her mother the night she was taken – and he stayed along with her.
“There was no reason why mom couldn't take me,” Turnbull-Roberts writes. Her mother's mental illness was “used against her to justify removing” the eldest of her three children, Turnbull-Roberts' brother. As Turnbull became pregnant with Roberts, his mother was feared to be taken with him. “In my world, she was my mother, my everything,” writes Turnbull Roberts.
She chooses her words fastidiously and politely, never buying into the flattery and lies of a system designed to chop her ties to her kin and culture. They aren't “case workers”, they're “kidnappers”. They aren't “removing” it, they're “abducting” it.
As I read, Turnbull-Roberts never let me forget that she was cut off from community, family, and heat, neglected and abused by a system that declared that she has saved him from neglect and abuse.
'A Familiar Lie'
In a note to her younger self at the top of the book, Turnbull-Roberts writes that she “launched into a journey of law and social work, finding myself supporting other young people and kids, fighting for my people. Dedicated to”.
The story, of Indigenous children being neglected and unwanted by their parents due to the family policing system, is a well-known lie. These were the identical narratives as the unique Stolen Generations when justifying historically oppressive policies.
FAL
This memory reminds us that these aren't the ways of the past, but very much present. Same words, same story, same results, different era: Black bodies and the state taking advantage of their suffering. Turnbull Roberts' warning rings true: “Being robbed changes your life forever. It's not just history. It's now.” The Long Yarn Short is a sobering reminder that the Stolen Races are still in full swing.
While Turnbull-Roberts informs the reader of the racist foundations on which these institutions are built, the book never becomes dry or scholarly. Instead, she personalizes these facts, showing how the attitudes of indigenous parents and culture end in unfair judgments of neglect and abuse. She explains: “If a child from a rich family has dirty clothes, he has had a good day. However, if a child from a poor family has dirty clothes, they should be ignored.”
Racist treatment can feel almost dystopian at points, but it surely is horrifyingly real for individuals who are victimized.
All the while, it's disconcerting to feel that the state had already decided Turnbull-Roberts' fate, no matter her parents' efforts. She makes clear that despite the state's claims of “protection,” the kid welfare system was never there to guard her.
In fact, the removal of Turnbull Roberts benefited the system financially. “The child protection industry continues to make money off the backs of local lives,” she writes, “our bodies are the salary, property and income data of all those who have a stake in the industry”. She also talks about a few of her foster carers taking children in for payments.
At the identical time, the system unfairly judges people like his parents. First Nations culture, mental health issues and struggles with poverty are all considered “failures” that families needs to be punished for.
Turnbull-Roberts highlights our society's thirst for punitive measures when anyone we deem “less than” struggles. His book is a chilling reality on our skewed view of “justice” and “support”.
Love, autonomy, connection, community
Turnbull-Roberts' memoir educates readers about Indigenous culture and appreciates its value structure: love, independence, connection and, above all, community. Where we support a mother struggling to purchase diapers, not steal her baby.
These scenes of First Nations love and community are amongst probably the most poignant of memory. They make the kidnapping of Turnbull Roberts much more painful to examine, to grasp what was stolen from him.
In this raw and powerful book, Turnbull-Roberts bares her soul. She lets us feel the pain of that loss, the memories she never got to share along with her parents. This is barely exacerbated by each his parents dying at a young age and being traumatized by the system.
Turnbull-Roberts unpacks this racist, punitive system with its opposite: love. It might sound clichéd, but within the hands of such a strong author, it's not. This isn't just a few vague, feel-good idea: She understands how love, support and healing can create a system where, as a substitute of punishing, local parents and kids once they fall on hard times, They are supported.
Community-led programs and culturally responsive solutions will replace the caseworkers who've long pathologized First Nations culture and family structure.
Imagine one other way.
Throughout the book, Turnbull Roberts addresses the reader directly. She asks us to assume.
Imagine a baby stolen from his father's house. Imagine our young people: frustrated, scared, indignant, traumatized by the patriarchal, penal system. Imagine the phobia of surprise: Will my child be stolen from me today? she whispers time and again.
But she doesn't just ask us to assume trauma. She also asks us to assume what may need happened if “protection” services had worked with area people values in mind. To imagine how much he should have helped his father and mother of their personal struggles. How his family structure and identity would never have been broken, leaving everyone in an almost indescribable shock. Where he didn't heal from these layers of trauma brought on by the system.
She leaves us with a final “idea”: “Imagine if we offered a little more of our love and morality instead of punishment. Imagine.”
As a girl with mental health issues, as someone who has needed to live with my relatives, this shouldn't be something I should just imagine: it needs to be something I do. I'm It needs to be something we do.