March 27, 2025 • 48 mins
Hey, Light Shiners! I am joined by Jasmine, a foster youth who shares her experience. She also speaks to us about what it is like being a kinship caregiver herself!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Content warning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The Wards of the State podcast may contain material that
may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Listener discretion is advised. Alrighty here, y'all. I always act
(00:49):
like I'm prepared, y'all, but I'm not always prepared. Sometimes
I'm just like, y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I was like, alrighty, well, welcome back to another episode
of Wards of the State, y'all.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We are pushing through, we are going upward.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So almost one hundred lived experiences here on the podcast,
and I'm really excited to continue to share this. Make
sure you guys are checking out the links if you
would like to share your story. We have some openings
up for the spring here in twenty twenty five. Also,
if you've already been on the show and you want
to do an update, send us an email again, because
we will love to do updates on the episodes. I
(01:20):
get a lot of folks who listen to the show
and they send me DMS or good emails and they
want more information or they want an update, And unfortunately
the show has gotten so large. Were like before when
there was only like ten or twenty people, I could
keep up to.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Keep up with everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But now that there's been like almost one hundred people
with one hundred episodes.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's really hard.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So if you're listening and you've already been on the
show and you've had an update to your life that
you would like to share, definitely fill out the form.
You remember the format you filled out, fill out the
form again. Let us know that you want to come
to an update. Speaking of updates, y'all, we are eleven
days away from our first book tour signing date, which
will be in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March twenty second.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I am so excited at y'all. It is completely free.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So if you're in the Vegas area and you want
to come do a meet and greet, We're going to
do a book reading, book signings. We're gonna have coffee,
maybe some snacks, just chillax a little bit. Make sure
you check out. It will be at Copper Cat Books.
I believe it's in Henderson, Nevada. So if you're in
the Las Vegas area and you want to come hang
out with us on March twenty second, twenty twenty five,
(02:26):
click the link and the show notes there is an
event bright for you to get tickets.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
They're free. Tickets.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
You can also donate if you would like to, but
we wanted to see These are small venues, so I
don't want about one hundred y'all showing up because then
I can.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Let everybody in.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So make sure you grab your ticket, your free tickets,
so we know how many people are showing up. We
do have a few tickets already purchased, so I know
a few people are coming.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So if you want to.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Come once again, that is at Copper Cat Books in Henderson, Nevada,
March twenty second, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And I think that those are all.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
We do have some other dates coming up, but I
will let y'all know about those as they come closer.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
But that's the closest one that we do have.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
As always make sure you're checking out all the links
of my bio uh and keep up the date.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh one last thing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
We have a new monthly newsletter, y'all, and it's really
something that I find special. It's simple, it's about four
to five pieces of information. It's usually a news article
that you should be looking at in the false care
and adoption world. We also do a light shiner light
leading the way, so that's just like an activist or
someone who is working in the system that is doing
(03:28):
real work. We're highlighting their stories and connecting their social media.
And then also my favorite is that we do media reviews,
so like we suggest different movies to watch. I think
this month we did that that series that just came
out on Hulu about I can't remember her name.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I always want to say, the heart lady.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
What is the name the lady that was that that
was on YouTube abusing all her kids and she was
real famous. Oh Ruby Free, Yes, yes, I remember that
lady's name in my life. I can never remember that.
Later today, yeah, we were discussing. Actually all we're gonna
watch that later today. Well you guys don't hear it
(04:08):
on social media, but if you're watching social media now,
we're gonna watch that later today for a movie night.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So anyways, those are all the updates. Thank y'all so much.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Make sure that you are leaving a five star rating
review and you are subscribing to our podcast and sharing
with family and friends. But without further ado, I do
want to introduce the next guest of the show, Jasman.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Welcome to the show. How are you hi, I'm good?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I am blessed and highly favorite, even though the devil
was trying to heap me down. Still I rise right, Well,
the devil is a lie. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Oh Adjasmin. So let's just jump right into it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So, looking at your form, it says that you were
part of the child warfare system, but it didn't really specify.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So just kind of start off with your experience.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Okay, So at the age of five, I am the
middle child. I have two older siblings and a younger sibling.
My mom was a drug addict, and so she gave
or maybe she was forced to give our house to
the drug lords on our in our neighborhood. I'm from
Baltimore City, by the way, and at the age of five,
the police came and kicked down our door and took
(05:11):
us from the home and put us a horse to caere.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So was there any how many siblings do you have?
I have three total, and you were in the middle
So was there yes? Was there any other violence or
other things that might make them do.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So the thing was, my mom was really really heavy
on drugs, so it was actually my older two siblings
who took care of us, and they weren't that far older.
They weren't that much older than us. And my oldest
brother he would actually go to other neighbors and run
into their home and raise their fridge and that's how
we ate most days. And then my oldest sister, she's
(05:58):
the one who kept out looks and stuff together as
songs when you show we were needing clean, but I
think it just was the house being a drug house
and they, yeah, I guess we're trying to clean.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The sounds like a lot similar to my story, except
my mom was she was the dealer.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
We didn't have a drug she was. It was just as.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Violent because people were trying to rob our house because
we had all this hert dash there. So it was
like opposite danger but still danger. And you know, just
like your older siblings, my sister was kind of.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Like our mom.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
We were okay and she fed us and.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Like you were saying, like, we used to collect pop bottles.
I'm from Michigan, so you could get two cents per bottle.
We used to go around the neighborhood like picking pop
bottles out of the lot, so like knocking the people's
doors seeing if they wanted if they would give us
any other pop bottles just so we can't do those
in the door and like.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Get cereal and pop tarts. So I okay, feel you
love that? So you were five when you were removed.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yes, did your mother get offered because you said she
she was actively in the she get offered in resources
for part.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Of her They took her to they took her to prison.
They charged her as one of Yes, they charged her
as one of the drug lords. I forget the correct
term that they used. And they actually locked her up.
She was in prison for years.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
She actually was she was she was she like feeling
or was she just a user?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
She was a user? Yeah, I don't think that. I
think she was so strung out she didn't have the
capacity to even function correct.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And actually, on my book, on the cover page, it's
an article by the Baltimore Son. My mom, that's a
that's a real article. When she was locked up, she
didn't know where we were, so she wrote the newspaper
to try to get them to find us.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Jashun has a book called Self Help Guide How to
Survive the Foster Care System, and it looks like a
pretty good e book at this point, so I'm excited
to grab it.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I want to hear more about it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Then you don't you know what we do need some
self help, but some of some guides. We need some, yes,
because nobody knows what they're doing. So you entered the
foster car system. How is that experience? And did you
see with your siblings through the system or did you guys.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Get Actually they they separated all of us the day
that they kicked in the door. They actually were. They
actually pulled us apart from each other and placed us
in separate police cars. To the point where years had
went by and I blacked out and forgot that I
had siblings. I didn't get reintroduced to my siblings until
(08:37):
about four years later when my oldest brother saw me
walking and approached me, and I didn't I had to.
It's like I completely blacked out. I didn't know why.
I couldn't remember that I had siblings until years later
when I was an adult and I was in therapy
and they told me the terminology and how the brain functions,
but I didn't. I forgot about them.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, So my siblings we were also removed together, but
it was we stayed first like first foster home and
then our first group home placement. At child HAPN and
then we were we were separated into twos, like my
brothers went together and me and my sister went together.
Then eventually we're all separated. But it's just so crazy
how they just separate children. And you know, also a
(09:22):
lot of people don't know that when you are a
foster child and you're a sibling group of two or
more and you're black, you are automatically classified as a
level three. So that means you're automatically into therapeutic foster homes,
which usually means that like more abuse is happening or
you see like crazy things because there are other kids
who are truly higher levels than you, who are experienced.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Because I was required to go to a therapeutic.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Home because you simply because you were part of a
sibling group of two or more. So how can I
talk about your foster homes? How was your experience?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
So the first, the first foster home that I went to,
it was like a shock factor. It was a two
parent household, and I used to I used to compare
it to the Cosbyes versus like the good Times, if
that any Since like I came from Baltimore City, everybody
whose mom was on the street, also was on drugs,
so that life was normal to me. I didn't know
(10:17):
that the way we lived was wrong. It wasn't until
I got into foster kid that I realized that people
lived differently from me, and that I was removed from
the home because we wasn't raised properly, so a two
parent home. I was introduced into church. I was an
usher until it was a totally different structure. I never
had to worry about where food was coming from. Closed.
(10:40):
It just was like a complete one eighty.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
For you until I was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
She the foster parent. She died in a car accident.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Okay, okay, I I thought you're gonna say it too,
like she abused us and locked us in a basement
like that.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I would still say that I'm good.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It's good to hear that there are and there were
some great foster parents, And I tell people that all
the time, like there are truly angels and possible there's
some demons too, but there truly are some angels.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, great work.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Went fantastic, and I'm sorry to hear y'all's lost. So
was this Did she get into this accident while you
were in her care?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I was in her care. She was actually going to
go say bye to her sick mother who was transitioning,
and she got into an accident and completely she was
she died. So then it was a panic for me
because I'm trying to figure out what's next for me.
But because I.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Am seven eight, that's a lot for a little kid. Yeah,
and you would considered what.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So she had an aunt who an older elderly aunt
who was also was already licensed, and I was considered
a good kid, and so she signed up to get
me so I can stay in the family. And then
that was okay, but they were older, so everything was
like really really born and I know, not the worst
problem to have, but I just felt really isolated. Then
(12:19):
remember when I told you that I saw my brother,
he approached me, and that's when I remember I had siblings.
So I advocated for myself via a social worker and
asked to meet my siblings. Once I met them, my
older sister's foster mom asked if I can come live
with them so we can grow up together. So I
(12:40):
chose to leave that home to be with my sister
until I got there and she was already removed. R.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, so she's like, come live with us, and you
can grow up with your sister.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And you get there, your sister's not even there. Yep.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And I did not know a four weeks. They lied
to me and told me that she was a CAP
and she'll come, and oh, CAP wanted to keep her longer,
and she'll come. And then eventually, about three weeks in
when I was settled in, you know, anticipating her because
they were strangers to me. She was the only one
that I was familiar with, because when I found out
about them, I got to have visitations and stuff. And
(13:17):
then they told me that an incident had happened and
she was removed from the home. I was already there then,
so I just stayed.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, oh my goodness. So how was that experience at
that new home?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Oh? So, I will say it is angel and devil.
It was a physically abusive home. I was sexually abused
in this home. But and I talk a lot about
this in the book. It's like polarizing. And I know,
if you aren't in the foster care system, you want
to understand this. Outside of the abuse, the physical and
(13:54):
sexual abuse, the home was a good home. And what
I mean by that is when you go to these
foster parenting events. You meet other foster children and respect,
and you see how they live. I have went to
other foster homes just visiting where they had locks on
the fridge, or.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
The kid is so.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
High off medicine they don't know their own name. They're
literally slobbing in the corner. But just last week we
was playing outside and they wasn't like that. So that's
what I mean about a good home. I was taught
very valuable life lessons. I was taught good structure. I
felt like I was prepared for the world when I
transitioned out of foster care because of this one home.
It just was a physically abusive home.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's hard to eat up.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
As a survivor, I can see where you're coming from. Personally,
I wouldn't consider anything that, Like I can see the
silver lining because I'm also very much a silver lining
person as well. Yes, and I say the similar things
about my experience, like with my adoption, horrible experience, But
like I learned, I got education, I got caught up.
(15:00):
Let me be who I am today, right, But it's
just like it's hard to swallow this seat, Like is
that where.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
The bar is? I think that's just like like the
bar is so far in hell. Like even I'm struggling to.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Be like, well, you know what, you're not lying the
lock fridges and the kids locked in basement and the
kids lobbying and like so I'm like, Okay, if the
fuse is the only thing that you have to deal with,
then you might have to deal with it. But like, yes,
my educated heart's like, God, damn, is that how low
expectations are for false youth? And unfortunately, yeah, that that is.
(15:40):
That's how low the expectations are.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Because when I say that to people, their mouth is
a jar.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
But you experience a violation, I understand, But you haven't
seen other violations you know that I've seen so unfortunately,
and I talk about this in my book too, I
felt like a trained dog.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I felt like I was trained to like. It was
one time that I got so tired of the physical
abuse that I called my social worker said please, I
want to move. I want to go to a different home. Verbatim.
He said to me, this is as good as it gets.
You might want to think about.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
That down Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
They used to They pulled that on me too, and
I wanted because during the year of our visitation with
my adopted parents. There are some things that were rocky,
and even my sister and my siblings were like, hey,
we have some red signs. And my social worker was like, Carlo,
you're nine years old. You're probably going to end up
here or in a group home with your brothers.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So like this is I was, You're lucky, You're lucky
that you even got picked.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I'm like, well, gone, damn well then it is. And
then I'm like, well, it can't get worse.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It got worse.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, So you say with them from ten to eighteen
in the same foster home.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes, and then I went to an independent program where
I kind of had my own place and they helped
me financially.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Was that?
Speaker 3 (17:01):
But from ten to eighteen I stayed.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
In that home.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
And were you said, so there was some abuse? Was
it directly from the parents or was it for other
kids in the homes?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
So my foster parents had two biological children, and they
were superior to me, and it was non like it
was the same growing up to treat the foster children
like your own. Yes. I was treated like them until
it came time like if I did something to them
(17:31):
or it was a disagreement. It was automatically her kids
before me, it was known. And then if I did
something that she found totally unacceptable, her or her oldest
daughter would tell family members like cousins and stuff my
age or older to fight me. Yeah, so physical fights
(17:53):
or and if I would fight back, I would get jumped.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I had that experience in foster care at the East.
I wrote about it. It's called easter bees. They would
have like their kids fight us and like it was
very much the same, and then they would pit us,
me and my sister against each other and it was
really it was really crazy, and I got jumped whenever
I fought back, and they would just because then they
(18:16):
had their son try to fight me.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Bitch.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I might be gay, and I might be scrawny, but
I grew up at the ender city. Who beat you
to the white meat shows? That's how I was raised. Okay,
you don't stop fighting into that white meat show. Yeah,
and I beat his as, then they're gonna get me
jumped by like the three teenage boys.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Now that's not a fair fight. This was a fight,
and I beat his ass. Not y'all upset you some days.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Some days I had to choose between if I felt
like getting jumped and fighting back if I just took it,
because I didn't want to get jumped. And it's a
hard appeal to swallow. You never at peace.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So during this time from ten to eighteen, you said
that you had advocated for yourself to see your siblings.
Were you able to visit, Hey, visit with your siblings
during that time?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Correct? I knew my oldest sister and my younger brother
growing up. My oldest brother did.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Not allow that you were supposed to meet. Did you
ever meet her?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I did? I did? We actually have a very close
relationship today.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I thought so. I love it.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
And then my my my oldest brother, I wasn't able
to have visitations with him because he actually kept running
away from the foster homes, in the group homes, So
the Baltimore Baltimore City just declared him a runaway, and
because he was considered a runaway, they didn't allow me
to speak with them, have visitations with him.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
AKA.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
When they do that, y'all, they just stopped looking for
the kids. They tired of running. Yeah, So I'm so
happy to hear that you had that you finally got
to meet your sister that you were supposed to be with. Now,
have you ever talked to her about her EXPARI into
that home and what happened?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Oh yeah, it's totally different. She was older, so she
hated us growing up, me and my younger brother, because
we were her responsibility and as a child herself, she
remembers more it was a lot that I couldn't remember
growing up. And then she also experienced group homes. I
never experienced group homes, so she had she had it
(20:07):
way worse. All of my siblings had it way worse
than I did.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I kind of feel like I feel like that for
you too, But then I also would like to I
also remind all people that it's not a trauma olympic right,
and our paths.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Affect us differently.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Because my siblings always said like, oh, Carlos, you got adopted,
You got it way better. I was like, no, I didn't.
It's just a different perspective. You know, if you look
at my perspective, it wasn't better.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I got better access to education, possibly yes, better structure,
like you said, yes, But then I had to deal
with severe racism. I had to do with being the
only black person in my town. I had to deal
with not knowing my family anymore, and they all got
to stay together, like they all ended up running away,
raging out, and going back to my mom. So they
they got their mom, they got their family, and I
lost that. And it took years for them, especially my brothers,
(20:56):
to understand that adoption didn't offer me a better life.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Which is just a different one.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
And even like foster care, like permanent foster care situations
like yours, doesn't always offer a better life than like
a group home. Because I've been in group home facilities.
Some of them are horrible and then some of them
are great. But then I've also been in foster homes.
I was in thirty seven. Most of them were horrible, right,
So I can see you definitely can hear that from her,
And how does that affect you when you heard that
(21:22):
from her, when you knew what you went through.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Well, I'm playing that you said, it's not a trauma
Olympics because my biological family, they consider my sister and
I to be bougie. They say that we always act
like my oldest brother, my youngest brother sort of kept
doing it, went through life and running away and kept
going back to my mom. And it got so bad
to the point where my mom asked me one time,
(21:47):
why didn't I run away from foster care and come
back to her? I was five. That's a strange question
to ask a child, and it wasn't my responsibility to
think about those things. If we were raised properly, we
wouldn't have been in a situation where I had to
make that choice. Yeah, so we're kind of looked at,
(22:07):
you know how people looked at as like the black sheep.
We're kind of looked at as the we think that
we're better. But it's not that I just think that
we were raised differently, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I absolutely my family says the same thing. Oh your bougeie,
Oh you talk WI and you.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Think you're It's not. I was just raised different than y'all.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
And the thing is I was at the heart I
was raised for the first seven years of my siblings.
So I know my siblings, I know my family, I
know who we are as a family. But things, for
things change. I changed. I had different opportunities. I also
had different challenges growing up, right, So yeah, and it's
kind of hard to kind of accept that I'm not
(22:46):
going to be the same person that you knew when
I was seven years old.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I'm now in my thirties.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yes, but you know it always happens, they are and
you know the family is always hard. See that's why
I don't really fuck with my family. I love my family,
but like, where the fuck were y'all? That's why I
like my aunties and uncles. I'm like, shut the fuck up, honestly, like,
shut the fuck up, because y'all sat here and watched
your sister go through this and then didn't have nothing
to say.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Y'all took in other cousins like my auntie. She took
in my cousin adopted him.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
But then when it came to me as kids, she goes, oh,
I'm not going to take him if it's no check
attached to it.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And the state offered to have her take us because
she was also a.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Licensed foster parent, they weren't offering to get her, and
she says, no, I'm not going to take them without
the without the check, which as an adult, okay, I
can see like it's you ain't getting no help.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
She's a single.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Mom, Like, got it, I understand, but basic at least
take one like and then but as she's older now
as I speak to her, she's kind.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Of I've been in the position that she was when
I had to take in my niece.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Okay, it was one of those things where my niece
called me in the middle of the night saying, Uncle,
I need you to come get me hop on a flight.
I'm in danger. I was on there the su the
next fight I could get on the flight. Her mom
was like, yeah, she's in danger, can you take her?
And I was like, it has to be really bad.
The mom was like, can you please take her?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
So you have such a similar we have such similar stories.
I had to take in my niece too, my oldest
brother's daughter.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I actually took her is my oldest brother's daughter, saying,
my older he ain't doing shit right. His baby mama
ain't doing shit right. And my niece is thirteen years
old and she's an innocent child. And then I took
her in and I can understood because I got no
help from the government, I got no help from CPS,
I got no help from family.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
This is she's a teenage.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Girl, like she wants things, she wants clothes, and I
wanted to give her everything that she didn't have. But
then I kind of saw that animosity that my aunt
had was like, this is not my fucking child. And
it really got to when her mom was calling me,
cussing me out because I was posting family pictures on
Facebook or like like she's part of our family.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I'm going to and I'm not.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I don't post like onto my social media because I
do have our social media platforms, so as far as
like on TikTok Instagram stuff, I don't post, but on Facebook,
we're only my family follows me. Yeah I am, And
then when I talk on social media, I will let
people know like I'm taking care of my niece. And
she was like, you and your f slur husband all
want kids. So we've never we've never wanted children. We've
always like I had to convince my husband to allow
(25:13):
her in my house. He's been team Note in our vows,
I married this man, he says, you vow to me
that we will never have That was in our marriage vows,
so well, never have children, and he says not have children.
Now bring children to our home. Not raised any children.
He's just always been like I don't want kids, and
that was part of my little marriage vows and a
lot of Folks also don't talk about like how effects marriages,
bringing in people, in relationships, bringing in family, because at
(25:36):
the end of the day, you my husband and my man,
but that's my aunt, that's my niece.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
The way my morals and ethics standage I.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Would have been, I would have been in a hotel
room with my niece and you could stay in the
house because I would have left you.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
He but my husband also knows that about.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, you lived it, so you feel that way here.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, I know what happens when family don't step up.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So but I also kind of understand when my aunt
was like, that's not my responsibility, and that's what she said.
She goes, I understand how you feel, but ultimately I
didn't lay down and have kids.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You weren't my responsibility. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Even with your family and like circling back now years later,
how to do they say anything to you about how
you were raised or get over it or you should
be grateful or whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
The interesting part is it's a generational cycle for my family.
My mom was also a Falser child. Her mom and
Falter children like the women abandoning their children, and my
family is generational Also, addiction is generational. So my mom
was a foster child. She was separated from her siblings,
and she actually was a twin, which is very strange
(26:40):
that they didn't keep them together. And then what's said
about that she had fifteen brothers and sisters and the
fact that none of them could step up and put
their brains together to get us was very very heartbreaking,
especially because she called her twin sister the day that
they kicked in the door and asked, and she said, no,
she couldn't handle it was four of us, but she
(27:01):
couldn't handle it. Now that it's generation know, and I
have my niece. My oldest brother was killed street life,
you know the story, five am gunned down and her
mom drugs. So my niece was raised by grandparents for
a little while. Then COVID hit and they're in the
(27:22):
medical field and older parents COVID being in the medical field,
they just they called me one day and asked if
I can get her, and I promise you she was
there the next morning. We live in two totally different states.
I didn't have the financial support from the grandparents, so
that was a little different from me. And I also
had my own business, so the financial aspect wasn't a
(27:45):
struggle for me. It was the psychological of being a
single woman, a single woman with a business, and you
get to maneuver the world as you see fit. And
then you're a mom to a six year old child.
Your world changes, and six year old behavioral problems because
(28:05):
she has a decease that and a mom that's on drugs.
Eventually her mom passes away, you understand. So it's like
you're going through this with her. She's she now has
two parents gone, and we're here.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
And she has an auntie that loves her, and that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
That's right, And that's what we talk about when we
see our community and when we talk about the alternatives.
We can't prevent our siblings from making bad decisions, right. Unfortunately,
I wish I could just wave a magic wand and
get have my brothers get it together. My sister has
passed two and she she was intoxicated and high and
(28:51):
she got in the car with her fiance and my
mom and wrapped the car around a light pole and
just unlive all of them, all of them. So like
our stories are really similar when it comes similar, Oh yeah,
just tragedy after a tragedy after Luckily, I still got
my brothers. But you know what, the five o'clock thing
don't sound much different than what my brothers be doing.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So I'm waiting for us any day now.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Anyway, I have faced I feel like so much tragedy,
so much depth, that at one point I prayed to
God and said, please, I do not want to go
to another funeral. And it's so interesting because we do
have similar stories. But as you know, a lot of
fossil children, they come from many different walks of life.
So it's a comfort to me to know, unfortunately that
you have to endure so much, but that we are
(29:34):
similar in our stories.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, you know, and it's the strong ones that survive.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I'll be honest, because there's no difference between me and
my siblings. We came from the same crack wound. We
came from the same crack environment.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
As we got older, like from seven and a bove, Yes,
our circumstances changed. I truly believe by the time that
you're seven eight, you kind of are who you gonna be.
There are some changes that can be like tweaked here
and there, but like you as a person, that foundation
of who yards that's already been set right, And I
believe that my mother. One good thing that my mother
did is she did set confidence in all of her children.
(30:12):
She was an entrepreneur, like not the right kite time,
but she was like but the thing was, she was
never supposed to do that. My dad was was the hustler,
and she came stay have a mom, and then he
got picked up on some low drug charges, ended up
doing like ten years and she was there, a single
mom with four kids.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
At that moment.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
She wasn't even on Section eight because she they were
making they were making a lot of money in the nineties.
Like I remember my mom, like had all the leopard
prints of the black and gold, the leather cowflate. We
had a good life when it came to like material things,
like we had all the new game systems, we had
all the new clothes, fool always. But when it came
to like parenting, now they were she was young, she
(30:52):
was in her twenties, her early twenties, were four kids.
Her boyfriend one of the largest drug dealers in Detroit.
So like she was having she.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Was having a blast.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Like if she didn't have any kids like that would
be alike girl, like do that, but you have showed, yes,
you have children that you need to take care of,
but your oldest daughter is not their mother. And I
think it really it takes people to really touch so
much trauma in your life. Like you said, where I've
I'm not I don't believe in God specifically, but I
(31:20):
believe in the universe. I believe in energy. And I'm
just like, damn, when's enough enough? Like when when what
can one person actually how much pain and trauma can
one person?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
And then it kind of like.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Scares me because, like you said, there's so many funerals,
my uncles, my aunts, and then to me, I just
go and I was like all right, and then I
just walked the fuck home. And to me, I'm like,
am I dad desensitized by this trauma and what has
happened in my life?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Because other family.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Members are bawling and they can't get Even with my
mom's funeral, I was able to sit there, talk about
how much caskets were, sit there, talk about all the
finances to get all I was that was my job
because my brother's happened inconsolable. And then they kind of
flipped it on me. They're like why aren't you upset?
And I told them, I said, my mom died the
day that CPS told me I would never see her again,
(32:10):
and then I got adopted. So the fact that I
had her again, that was kind of like a little
mini miracle I was.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I was like, thanks God, I appreciate this.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
But that feeling of her, that loss I had already
grieved her since I was an eight year old kid.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Oh that is a that is Oh you should flip that.
That is one hundred percent accurate. Yeah, I'm not accurate. Yeah,
I'm sure that ninety eight percent of foster children feel
that way. I felt like the day I actually talked
about this in my book, the day did they kicked
in the door and they literally ripped us out of
each other's arms and put us in different police cars.
I remember looking over the window sitting my mom on
(32:44):
the ground of handcuffs in the in the the drug
dealers that she was with too, And I remember saying
to myself, Okay, now you have to make sure you're
okay from here and at five and you're making that
promise to always make sure you're going to be a kate,
that's a big responsibility.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
M HM. I tell people that all the time.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
People always ask me, they say, and I hate this question,
They say, what do you what do you How did
you become successful?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And what do you give your success to?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Like?
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Why why did you become successful? And I always say,
because I promised that little boy that if you just
hang on, I will make sure everything that you went
through was worth Yep, if you just hang.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
On a little man, that's power for me.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
There was nothing else I could tell him. Yep, he
was gonna get sucked up, bro like like like we
laugh about it now, but it's true.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Hang on, just hang on. This won't be your life forever.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And when you get in control, you're gonna have this jasmin.
We're gonna take a quick break when we come back.
I do want to get more depth in your in
your being raised as a foster youth, but I also
want to talk about how being in foster care has
affected you as an adult as a guardian parent, okay,
and how this has changed you. So we're gonna take
(34:11):
a quick break, y'all, and we'll be right back. Heylight Shiners,
welcome back to this show. Make sure you guys are
checking us out on Spotify and subscribing to us on Spotify.
Also make sure you are listening to us on iHeartRadio.
You can also catch the video podcast now on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, y'all, that's right. We have all of the episodes.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I think, starting since like the last five episodes ago,
we started posting them on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That was new for us.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I've always been old school audio podcaster, and I was
really nervous about doing video.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Also that means that I have to get dressed and
look a little bit decent.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
But after I got my office set up and I
was like, a lot of people have been wanting the
video podcast, and we've got some great responses on YouTube
on the video podcast. So if you guys want to
see these podcasts and video, check out the YouTube and
also make sure you're leaving a one, two, three, four,
five star rating review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Make sure. I don't think we have any reviews, y'all.
I've looked. I've asked by four weeks in a row.
So who's gonna do it? Who's gonna do it?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
You're gonna do it, alrighty, So I think there's no
other updates. I just need y'all to make sure that
you're just liking, subscribing and commenting everywhere you see us,
and I appreciate it all the time already, Jasmine. So
before the break, we were talking about your experience, and
oh my god, our situations and our scenarios are so similar.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
It's just so crazy. I'm just so happy to.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Meet somebody else, you know, who's a survivor of just
a bunch of bullshit, Like, just a bunch of bullshit.
But how has survived the foster care system? How has
that affected you as an adult? How has that affected
your work life?
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Like?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Has that affected Because I know, for.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Me, a lot of people ask me what got me
into advocacy, And honestly, I kind of fell into it
after COVID because I was a professional actor, which I
loved doing commercial work. I did go to college, I
did go I worked in corporate America for a while.
I was just nobody can tell me what to do.
I just I think that that is a that is
a effect of the FOSCAR system. I have lived my
(36:09):
entire life of in foscare and adopted being told what
to do, how to do it, where to do it,
when to eat, how to eat, what to eat? So
even as an adult. When I became an adult, I
was really like, Hey, nobody gonna tell me shit.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
But actually, when you start in these.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Jobs, they actually your managers can tell you some shit, okay.
And for me, I had a really hard time, and
I kept losing job after job after job until I
figured out that I would have to figure out something
that would make me money that I loved but also
let me be in control. So that's kind of how
I got into content creating. And I started off on YouTube.
I worked with this production company Watchcut. We had some
(36:41):
viral videos that went like seventy million viro wow and
that kind of You probably have seen it. A couple
of my videos back in the day I did. I
smoked weed with a priest and a rabbi and I
was the atheist and we talked about like politics and religion.
We did like guess their agents. It was on YouTube,
and we would have like lineup series where we would
like guess people's gender, I guess people's ages, a guess
who was like Bigan or not.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It was really cool, but it made me able to
get an agent.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And then after my agent, I was able to become
a commercial actor and I did that for like four
or five years, and COVID happened, and then acting went
out the door, and then I finished my book randomly
during that time because we were in middle of COVID,
and I fell into this. I fell into advocacy because
I just started talking about my experience so like we're
doing today, and people wanted to listen. And then I
started doing more education. I started taking more courses, getting
(37:28):
myself educated not only on the lived experience part, but
also on you know, like the practical and policy part,
because I don't think that you can avocate if you
don't know the policies correct, and then you just need
to know what you're talking one things. I think lived
experience is fantastic, but if you don't have the policy
and procedures downpacted, you're just working off emotions. And if
you work off emotions, you're not going to make any change.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So I kind of want to know how growing up
in foster care that affected me that way? How did
growing up in fossil care affect you in your personal
life and your professional life?
Speaker 1 (37:59):
How did that? How that affect me?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
So I'll start with how it affects me in a
positive light, I feel like I always have to be prepared. Remember,
I'm always going to go back to the door being
kicked in because that's the first time that I remember
that life can change in the instant. And so for me,
it has prepared me because now and I feel like
I have to be prepared for anything, and I have
to be not only prepared, but I have to know
(38:24):
how to pivot in any scenario. So I feel like
I'm not going to say that I'm not at peace.
I feel like I'm always prepared to pivot off. Life
is a change, I'm always prepared not to go under
the way that it has affected me in my life.
So I actually went to college later on. I was
a competitive swimmer growing up in that abusive foster home
(38:46):
that I talk about, and so I really gravitated towards
because once I moved from Maryland to Atlanta, I wanted
to work for myself. So I launched a swim school,
which became really really, really lucrative and highly successful, and
I had no clue that it would turn out that way.
It wasn't until I kind of worked my body into
the ground because I was a one woman army, meaning
(39:09):
that like I did everything I told, I did all
the paperwork, we had the scenes. I ruptured my ear
drum and it made me sit down, and when I
sat down, I had an idea of now it's time.
With growing up in foster care, I used to really
be ashamed. I was teased a lot for it. And
my foster poem, the biological children in the home, they
(39:31):
always made fun of, like my mom and so me,
I always try to I didn't disclose that I was
a foster child. It was a need to know, and
I was adamant about that. I felt like once my
ear ruptured and I just had so much idle time,
I wanted to pour my experience on the pages and
hopes that it would help foster parents who are interested,
(39:51):
but also foster children going through it who do not
have a heir to hear and to listen. So that's
how my book came about.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
And how as your experience prepared you to be a
guardianship parent?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Good question. I think that it prepared me easily because
although it was my life changed within a phone call
and the next day I was a mom. I knew
all the things that I didn't want. I knew that
I wanted to structure home. But I knew I didn't
want a physically abusive home. I knew that I wanted
my child to have, oh my niece to say, to
(40:25):
have the experience and to be exposed to different things.
I also wanted them. You know how a falter child
al se care. They always make it seem like I'm
gonna love my child, I'm gonna love the foster child
like their own. Yeah, that's not really a good say,
because every child needs something different. And I'm trying to
(40:47):
make it known to my niece that I'm not trying
to replace her mom, so to speak. I am just
the parent that she has at this moment, if that
makes sense. And I'm still figuring it out. It's day
by day. It's a daily fight. It's a struggle, and
it is exhausting.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Or I did it for a little under a year
before my niece went back home with her mom, and
I was.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Exhausted is the word.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
And she was thirteen. The things I can I imagine
how you did with a six year old. Yes, And
that's a perfect way. I always tell parents to not
try to replace their whatever child that's in their home,
whether it be foster, adoptive, kinship. You can never replace
the birth parents, and the more you try to, the
more that child will push back because it's just natural, right,
regardless of how dangerous are no dangerous the birth parent is.
(41:36):
Kids love their parents and that's how we survive and
that's how we are humans.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
But you can say like, hey, I'm a support system
for you, I'm part of your village, like you said,
like I am one here for you now and your
parents do love you.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
And I always tell people who.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Are doing any type of external child care that positive
reinforcements on birth parents will only end in a good
result with you as a guardianship parent. The moment that
you start bashing, the moment that you start ignoring their wants,
needs or questions about their birth families, that's when things
go down the drain, right, That's when they can't trust you.
So I love that you brought that point up, as.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Man, did we have anything else? And I do want
to talk a little.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Bit more about your book Self help Guide How to
Survive the Foster care System. You kind of told us
how you created it. Yes, how do you use that
in the work that you do today? So how is
that guy?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Can you give us.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
An example of how that guide is used is that
for false youth, is that for foster parents.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It is for both.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Actually, I think that my book is so unique because
I'm writing from a point of a Falster parent and
a foster child. So it's actually certain it split chapters,
and half of the chapters dedicated to the child and
half of the chapter is dedicated to the parents. I
felt like after I raised my niece, I had the
advantage of understanding a little more from a parent's perspective,
and I also wanted them to know what absolutely not
(42:54):
to do, being that most people are for first time
Falster parents, so you don't know what you kind of
signed up for a lot of time. A child can
come in your home for a lot of psychological problems
because of the homes that they experienced prior to. Like,
imagine the home that you come from, and you've been
physically abused or jumped. When you come into this home,
(43:14):
you might jump if they trying to reach out and
give you a hug. So I think that people really
underestimate a lot of the psychological trauma that follows most
Falster children. That's how I use my book. I talk
in depth about the internal things. It's good to provide
a nice bid for them and clothes, that's half the battle.
But a lot of it is like you got to
(43:35):
go inward, you.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Know, yeah, absolutely absolutely, Love is not enough and the
house is not enough. Ye love is not enough. A
house is not enough. And I tell people that all
the time. And I love the point that you said
that you have to treat children. You can't treat children
as your own, correct, because if they remind men's I
would treat them a different way. If you have to
treat children of who they are and where they come from, right,
(43:58):
And when people try to force children to their own,
that's where problems coming because the bitch that ain't your baby, correct,
that's not your baby, right, But that could be the
child that you love that you want to help. But
by helping them, you need to understand that you might
have to change up, change up your your plate, your
game plan.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
You know, you might have to educate yourself a little
bit more.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You might have to educate yourself on culture, different identities,
different anything that the child might need, because every like
you said, every child is different. So y'all make sure
that you check out Jasmin's book. I will put it
in the link in the bio if you can make
sure you send me that email with the link for it, Jasmin,
I'll put it in the bio here for the show
so the listeners can grab it. But it is called
once again, it's called self help Guide, how to Survive
(44:38):
the postercare System. I'm so excited to read because ebook, y'all,
because I might I might need I might need it
because Chris, my husband, and I are considering during respite care.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
I just want to know.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
It's been a couple months since my niece left and
we have the thing is like we bought this big
ass house.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yes, like I have a forward bedroom for bath house
and it's just me and him.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yes, And I'm like, I have this whole extra room
with a whole extra bathroom and it just stays empty
unless my friends come visit us. So I'm just like,
maybe I can do like some but I don't want babies.
I want I will fifteen to twenty one. I want
I want old or older, like I want to help
you and even we were thinking about doing a start
extended foster care for so from eighteen to twenty one,
and they're adults, so like I don't like they ain't
(45:19):
a kid.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
I'm pretty much like a glorified roommate.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Okay, I'm going to help you learn how to pay bills.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
I'm gonna help you get your car insurance.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I'm gonna help you get a car, learn how to
do financial literacy, get some credit. That's the thing, Like,
I want to do that, and I feel like that
is the need that I can fulfill because I'm.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Not the one with a six year old my life.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
I commend you for doing that with your niece because
even with a thirteen year old, it wasn't as hard
because she was older. So on date nights, we could
leave her at home for like two hours by herself
and not like you can't leave a six year old
by yourself at all, right, and like we never, like
even my friends like you canna leave it for overnight.
I was like, nah, I never left her overnight. I
was just like, I just don't believe in leaving children
under like sixteen overnight. I feel like that's weird. But
(46:01):
there was a little bit more freedom. I feel like
there's definitely a lot more freedom with teenage. Or I
can just drop her off at her friend's house or
at the mall, like have fun, you know, keep yourself safe.
I was six year olds, like, that's a full time
commitment that goes that's zero to one hundred real.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Quick, Yes, yeah, real quick. Sure, definitely would like to
command you for that.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
And Jasmine, I ask every guest I always ask them
one question before the end of the show. What's one
piece of advice that you would give a foster youth
in your same scenario.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
What's one piece of advice you would give a foster youth.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
I'm gonna intertwine them. You have to advocate for yourself.
Nobody will advocate for you like you. You have to
utilize your voice. And then utilizing your voice always better
on yourself. You can't go wrong.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Better on you, always better on yourself. I love that.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Well, thank you Jasmin for coming on the War to
the Stay podcast, and thank you so much for sharing
your lived experience and your foster care homes as well
as reunification. I think it's really important for us to
have experiences where you said, like, it's like I love
this this episode because it wasn't net positive, but it
wasn't that negative either, correct, you know, Like right, it's
(47:13):
like there are various silver linings and even an abuse right,
there are some things that can help in the future.
So I think the way that you articulated that was
so beautiful and I appreciate you coming on and no
my pleasure. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience.
And y'all make sure I will put the link below
for the book, but make sure you go grab Jackson's
book once again. It's called the Self Help Guide how
(47:34):
to Survive the Foster Care System because we need to
survive the bitch because a lot of kids surviving a
lot of kids, a lot of kids they just aged
it out and they're not. And here's the thing. We
no longer just want to survive. We want to thrive. Yes, okay,
We're done with the surviving. We want to thrive.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
So God's by.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and I
hope that it inspires other people to help.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Foster you live as well.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
I'll see you guys next week's light Shiners and that's
always always shine your life.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
H M.
Content warning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The Wards of the State podcast may contain material that
may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Listener discretion is advised. Alrighty here, y'all. I always act
(00:49):
like I'm prepared, y'all, but I'm not always prepared. Sometimes
I'm just like, y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I was like, alrighty, well, welcome back to another episode
of Wards of the State, y'all.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We are pushing through, we are going upward.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So almost one hundred lived experiences here on the podcast,
and I'm really excited to continue to share this. Make
sure you guys are checking out the links if you
would like to share your story. We have some openings
up for the spring here in twenty twenty five. Also,
if you've already been on the show and you want
to do an update, send us an email again, because
we will love to do updates on the episodes. I
(01:20):
get a lot of folks who listen to the show
and they send me DMS or good emails and they
want more information or they want an update, And unfortunately
the show has gotten so large. Were like before when
there was only like ten or twenty people, I could
keep up to.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Keep up with everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But now that there's been like almost one hundred people
with one hundred episodes.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's really hard.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So if you're listening and you've already been on the
show and you've had an update to your life that
you would like to share, definitely fill out the form.
You remember the format you filled out, fill out the
form again. Let us know that you want to come
to an update. Speaking of updates, y'all, we are eleven
days away from our first book tour signing date, which
will be in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March twenty second.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I am so excited at y'all. It is completely free.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So if you're in the Vegas area and you want
to come do a meet and greet, We're going to
do a book reading, book signings. We're gonna have coffee,
maybe some snacks, just chillax a little bit. Make sure
you check out. It will be at Copper Cat Books.
I believe it's in Henderson, Nevada. So if you're in
the Las Vegas area and you want to come hang
out with us on March twenty second, twenty twenty five,
(02:26):
click the link and the show notes there is an
event bright for you to get tickets.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
They're free. Tickets.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
You can also donate if you would like to, but
we wanted to see These are small venues, so I
don't want about one hundred y'all showing up because then
I can.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Let everybody in.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So make sure you grab your ticket, your free tickets,
so we know how many people are showing up. We
do have a few tickets already purchased, so I know
a few people are coming.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So if you want to.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Come once again, that is at Copper Cat Books in Henderson, Nevada,
March twenty second, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And I think that those are all.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
We do have some other dates coming up, but I
will let y'all know about those as they come closer.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
But that's the closest one that we do have.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
As always make sure you're checking out all the links
of my bio uh and keep up the date.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh one last thing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
We have a new monthly newsletter, y'all, and it's really
something that I find special. It's simple, it's about four
to five pieces of information. It's usually a news article
that you should be looking at in the false care
and adoption world. We also do a light shiner light
leading the way, so that's just like an activist or
someone who is working in the system that is doing
(03:28):
real work. We're highlighting their stories and connecting their social media.
And then also my favorite is that we do media reviews,
so like we suggest different movies to watch. I think
this month we did that that series that just came
out on Hulu about I can't remember her name.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I always want to say, the heart lady.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
What is the name the lady that was that that
was on YouTube abusing all her kids and she was
real famous. Oh Ruby Free, Yes, yes, I remember that
lady's name in my life. I can never remember that.
Later today, yeah, we were discussing. Actually all we're gonna
watch that later today. Well you guys don't hear it
(04:08):
on social media, but if you're watching social media now,
we're gonna watch that later today for a movie night.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So anyways, those are all the updates. Thank y'all so much.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Make sure that you are leaving a five star rating
review and you are subscribing to our podcast and sharing
with family and friends. But without further ado, I do
want to introduce the next guest of the show, Jasman.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Welcome to the show. How are you hi, I'm good?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I am blessed and highly favorite, even though the devil
was trying to heap me down. Still I rise right, Well,
the devil is a lie. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Oh Adjasmin. So let's just jump right into it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So, looking at your form, it says that you were
part of the child warfare system, but it didn't really specify.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So just kind of start off with your experience.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Okay, So at the age of five, I am the
middle child. I have two older siblings and a younger sibling.
My mom was a drug addict, and so she gave
or maybe she was forced to give our house to
the drug lords on our in our neighborhood. I'm from
Baltimore City, by the way, and at the age of five,
the police came and kicked down our door and took
(05:11):
us from the home and put us a horse to caere.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So was there any how many siblings do you have?
I have three total, and you were in the middle
So was there yes? Was there any other violence or
other things that might make them do.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So the thing was, my mom was really really heavy
on drugs, so it was actually my older two siblings
who took care of us, and they weren't that far older.
They weren't that much older than us. And my oldest
brother he would actually go to other neighbors and run
into their home and raise their fridge and that's how
we ate most days. And then my oldest sister, she's
(05:58):
the one who kept out looks and stuff together as
songs when you show we were needing clean, but I
think it just was the house being a drug house
and they, yeah, I guess we're trying to clean.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The sounds like a lot similar to my story, except
my mom was she was the dealer.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
We didn't have a drug she was. It was just as.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Violent because people were trying to rob our house because
we had all this hert dash there. So it was
like opposite danger but still danger. And you know, just
like your older siblings, my sister was kind of.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Like our mom.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
We were okay and she fed us and.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Like you were saying, like, we used to collect pop bottles.
I'm from Michigan, so you could get two cents per bottle.
We used to go around the neighborhood like picking pop
bottles out of the lot, so like knocking the people's
doors seeing if they wanted if they would give us
any other pop bottles just so we can't do those
in the door and like.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Get cereal and pop tarts. So I okay, feel you
love that? So you were five when you were removed.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yes, did your mother get offered because you said she
she was actively in the she get offered in resources
for part.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Of her They took her to they took her to prison.
They charged her as one of Yes, they charged her
as one of the drug lords. I forget the correct
term that they used. And they actually locked her up.
She was in prison for years.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
She actually was she was she was she like feeling
or was she just a user?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
She was a user? Yeah, I don't think that. I
think she was so strung out she didn't have the
capacity to even function correct.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And actually, on my book, on the cover page, it's
an article by the Baltimore Son. My mom, that's a
that's a real article. When she was locked up, she
didn't know where we were, so she wrote the newspaper
to try to get them to find us.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Jashun has a book called Self Help Guide How to
Survive the Foster Care System, and it looks like a
pretty good e book at this point, so I'm excited
to grab it.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I want to hear more about it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Then you don't you know what we do need some
self help, but some of some guides. We need some, yes,
because nobody knows what they're doing. So you entered the
foster car system. How is that experience? And did you
see with your siblings through the system or did you guys.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Get Actually they they separated all of us the day
that they kicked in the door. They actually were. They
actually pulled us apart from each other and placed us
in separate police cars. To the point where years had
went by and I blacked out and forgot that I
had siblings. I didn't get reintroduced to my siblings until
(08:37):
about four years later when my oldest brother saw me
walking and approached me, and I didn't I had to.
It's like I completely blacked out. I didn't know why.
I couldn't remember that I had siblings until years later
when I was an adult and I was in therapy
and they told me the terminology and how the brain functions,
but I didn't. I forgot about them.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, So my siblings we were also removed together, but
it was we stayed first like first foster home and
then our first group home placement. At child HAPN and
then we were we were separated into twos, like my
brothers went together and me and my sister went together.
Then eventually we're all separated. But it's just so crazy
how they just separate children. And you know, also a
(09:22):
lot of people don't know that when you are a
foster child and you're a sibling group of two or
more and you're black, you are automatically classified as a
level three. So that means you're automatically into therapeutic foster homes,
which usually means that like more abuse is happening or
you see like crazy things because there are other kids
who are truly higher levels than you, who are experienced.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Because I was required to go to a therapeutic.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Home because you simply because you were part of a
sibling group of two or more. So how can I
talk about your foster homes? How was your experience?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
So the first, the first foster home that I went to,
it was like a shock factor. It was a two
parent household, and I used to I used to compare
it to the Cosbyes versus like the good Times, if
that any Since like I came from Baltimore City, everybody
whose mom was on the street, also was on drugs,
so that life was normal to me. I didn't know
(10:17):
that the way we lived was wrong. It wasn't until
I got into foster kid that I realized that people
lived differently from me, and that I was removed from
the home because we wasn't raised properly, so a two
parent home. I was introduced into church. I was an
usher until it was a totally different structure. I never
had to worry about where food was coming from. Closed.
(10:40):
It just was like a complete one eighty.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
For you until I was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
She the foster parent. She died in a car accident.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Okay, okay, I I thought you're gonna say it too,
like she abused us and locked us in a basement
like that.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I would still say that I'm good.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It's good to hear that there are and there were
some great foster parents, And I tell people that all
the time, like there are truly angels and possible there's
some demons too, but there truly are some angels.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, great work.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Went fantastic, and I'm sorry to hear y'all's lost. So
was this Did she get into this accident while you
were in her care?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I was in her care. She was actually going to
go say bye to her sick mother who was transitioning,
and she got into an accident and completely she was
she died. So then it was a panic for me
because I'm trying to figure out what's next for me.
But because I.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Am seven eight, that's a lot for a little kid. Yeah,
and you would considered what.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So she had an aunt who an older elderly aunt
who was also was already licensed, and I was considered
a good kid, and so she signed up to get
me so I can stay in the family. And then
that was okay, but they were older, so everything was
like really really born and I know, not the worst
problem to have, but I just felt really isolated. Then
(12:19):
remember when I told you that I saw my brother,
he approached me, and that's when I remember I had siblings.
So I advocated for myself via a social worker and
asked to meet my siblings. Once I met them, my
older sister's foster mom asked if I can come live
with them so we can grow up together. So I
(12:40):
chose to leave that home to be with my sister
until I got there and she was already removed. R.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, so she's like, come live with us, and you
can grow up with your sister.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And you get there, your sister's not even there. Yep.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And I did not know a four weeks. They lied
to me and told me that she was a CAP
and she'll come, and oh, CAP wanted to keep her longer,
and she'll come. And then eventually, about three weeks in
when I was settled in, you know, anticipating her because
they were strangers to me. She was the only one
that I was familiar with, because when I found out
about them, I got to have visitations and stuff. And
(13:17):
then they told me that an incident had happened and
she was removed from the home. I was already there then,
so I just stayed.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, oh my goodness. So how was that experience at
that new home?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Oh? So, I will say it is angel and devil.
It was a physically abusive home. I was sexually abused
in this home. But and I talk a lot about
this in the book. It's like polarizing. And I know,
if you aren't in the foster care system, you want
to understand this. Outside of the abuse, the physical and
(13:54):
sexual abuse, the home was a good home. And what
I mean by that is when you go to these
foster parenting events. You meet other foster children and respect,
and you see how they live. I have went to
other foster homes just visiting where they had locks on
the fridge, or.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
The kid is so.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
High off medicine they don't know their own name. They're
literally slobbing in the corner. But just last week we
was playing outside and they wasn't like that. So that's
what I mean about a good home. I was taught
very valuable life lessons. I was taught good structure. I
felt like I was prepared for the world when I
transitioned out of foster care because of this one home.
It just was a physically abusive home.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's hard to eat up.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
As a survivor, I can see where you're coming from. Personally,
I wouldn't consider anything that, Like I can see the
silver lining because I'm also very much a silver lining
person as well. Yes, and I say the similar things
about my experience, like with my adoption, horrible experience, But
like I learned, I got education, I got caught up.
(15:00):
Let me be who I am today, right, But it's
just like it's hard to swallow this seat, Like is
that where.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
The bar is? I think that's just like like the
bar is so far in hell. Like even I'm struggling to.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Be like, well, you know what, you're not lying the
lock fridges and the kids locked in basement and the
kids lobbying and like so I'm like, Okay, if the
fuse is the only thing that you have to deal with,
then you might have to deal with it. But like, yes,
my educated heart's like, God, damn, is that how low
expectations are for false youth? And unfortunately, yeah, that that is.
(15:40):
That's how low the expectations are.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Because when I say that to people, their mouth is
a jar.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
But you experience a violation, I understand, But you haven't
seen other violations you know that I've seen so unfortunately,
and I talk about this in my book too, I
felt like a trained dog.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I felt like I was trained to like. It was
one time that I got so tired of the physical
abuse that I called my social worker said please, I
want to move. I want to go to a different home. Verbatim.
He said to me, this is as good as it gets.
You might want to think about.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
That down Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
They used to They pulled that on me too, and
I wanted because during the year of our visitation with
my adopted parents. There are some things that were rocky,
and even my sister and my siblings were like, hey,
we have some red signs. And my social worker was like, Carlo,
you're nine years old. You're probably going to end up
here or in a group home with your brothers.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So like this is I was, You're lucky, You're lucky
that you even got picked.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I'm like, well, gone, damn well then it is. And
then I'm like, well, it can't get worse.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It got worse.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, So you say with them from ten to eighteen
in the same foster home.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes, and then I went to an independent program where
I kind of had my own place and they helped
me financially.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Was that?
Speaker 3 (17:01):
But from ten to eighteen I stayed.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
In that home.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
And were you said, so there was some abuse? Was
it directly from the parents or was it for other
kids in the homes?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
So my foster parents had two biological children, and they
were superior to me, and it was non like it
was the same growing up to treat the foster children
like your own. Yes. I was treated like them until
it came time like if I did something to them
(17:31):
or it was a disagreement. It was automatically her kids
before me, it was known. And then if I did
something that she found totally unacceptable, her or her oldest
daughter would tell family members like cousins and stuff my
age or older to fight me. Yeah, so physical fights
(17:53):
or and if I would fight back, I would get jumped.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I had that experience in foster care at the East.
I wrote about it. It's called easter bees. They would
have like their kids fight us and like it was
very much the same, and then they would pit us,
me and my sister against each other and it was
really it was really crazy, and I got jumped whenever
I fought back, and they would just because then they
(18:16):
had their son try to fight me.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Bitch.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I might be gay, and I might be scrawny, but
I grew up at the ender city. Who beat you
to the white meat shows? That's how I was raised. Okay,
you don't stop fighting into that white meat show. Yeah,
and I beat his as, then they're gonna get me
jumped by like the three teenage boys.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Now that's not a fair fight. This was a fight,
and I beat his ass. Not y'all upset you some days.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Some days I had to choose between if I felt
like getting jumped and fighting back if I just took it,
because I didn't want to get jumped. And it's a
hard appeal to swallow. You never at peace.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So during this time from ten to eighteen, you said
that you had advocated for yourself to see your siblings.
Were you able to visit, Hey, visit with your siblings
during that time?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Correct? I knew my oldest sister and my younger brother
growing up. My oldest brother did.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Not allow that you were supposed to meet. Did you
ever meet her?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I did? I did? We actually have a very close
relationship today.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I thought so. I love it.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
And then my my my oldest brother, I wasn't able
to have visitations with him because he actually kept running
away from the foster homes, in the group homes, So
the Baltimore Baltimore City just declared him a runaway, and
because he was considered a runaway, they didn't allow me
to speak with them, have visitations with him.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
AKA.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
When they do that, y'all, they just stopped looking for
the kids. They tired of running. Yeah, So I'm so
happy to hear that you had that you finally got
to meet your sister that you were supposed to be with. Now,
have you ever talked to her about her EXPARI into
that home and what happened?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Oh yeah, it's totally different. She was older, so she
hated us growing up, me and my younger brother, because
we were her responsibility and as a child herself, she
remembers more it was a lot that I couldn't remember
growing up. And then she also experienced group homes. I
never experienced group homes, so she had she had it
(20:07):
way worse. All of my siblings had it way worse
than I did.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I kind of feel like I feel like that for
you too, But then I also would like to I
also remind all people that it's not a trauma olympic right,
and our paths.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Affect us differently.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Because my siblings always said like, oh, Carlos, you got adopted,
You got it way better. I was like, no, I didn't.
It's just a different perspective. You know, if you look
at my perspective, it wasn't better.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I got better access to education, possibly yes, better structure,
like you said, yes, But then I had to deal
with severe racism. I had to do with being the
only black person in my town. I had to deal
with not knowing my family anymore, and they all got
to stay together, like they all ended up running away,
raging out, and going back to my mom. So they
they got their mom, they got their family, and I
lost that. And it took years for them, especially my brothers,
(20:56):
to understand that adoption didn't offer me a better life.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Which is just a different one.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
And even like foster care, like permanent foster care situations
like yours, doesn't always offer a better life than like
a group home. Because I've been in group home facilities.
Some of them are horrible and then some of them
are great. But then I've also been in foster homes.
I was in thirty seven. Most of them were horrible, right,
So I can see you definitely can hear that from her,
And how does that affect you when you heard that
(21:22):
from her, when you knew what you went through.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Well, I'm playing that you said, it's not a trauma
Olympics because my biological family, they consider my sister and
I to be bougie. They say that we always act
like my oldest brother, my youngest brother sort of kept
doing it, went through life and running away and kept
going back to my mom. And it got so bad
to the point where my mom asked me one time,
(21:47):
why didn't I run away from foster care and come
back to her? I was five. That's a strange question
to ask a child, and it wasn't my responsibility to
think about those things. If we were raised properly, we
wouldn't have been in a situation where I had to
make that choice. Yeah, so we're kind of looked at,
(22:07):
you know how people looked at as like the black sheep.
We're kind of looked at as the we think that
we're better. But it's not that I just think that
we were raised differently, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I absolutely my family says the same thing. Oh your bougeie,
Oh you talk WI and you.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Think you're It's not. I was just raised different than y'all.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
And the thing is I was at the heart I
was raised for the first seven years of my siblings.
So I know my siblings, I know my family, I
know who we are as a family. But things, for
things change. I changed. I had different opportunities. I also
had different challenges growing up, right, So yeah, and it's
kind of hard to kind of accept that I'm not
(22:46):
going to be the same person that you knew when
I was seven years old.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I'm now in my thirties.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yes, but you know it always happens, they are and
you know the family is always hard. See that's why
I don't really fuck with my family. I love my family,
but like, where the fuck were y'all? That's why I
like my aunties and uncles. I'm like, shut the fuck up, honestly, like,
shut the fuck up, because y'all sat here and watched
your sister go through this and then didn't have nothing
to say.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Y'all took in other cousins like my auntie. She took
in my cousin adopted him.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
But then when it came to me as kids, she goes, oh,
I'm not going to take him if it's no check
attached to it.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And the state offered to have her take us because
she was also a.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Licensed foster parent, they weren't offering to get her, and
she says, no, I'm not going to take them without
the without the check, which as an adult, okay, I
can see like it's you ain't getting no help.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
She's a single.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Mom, Like, got it, I understand, but basic at least
take one like and then but as she's older now
as I speak to her, she's kind.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Of I've been in the position that she was when
I had to take in my niece.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Okay, it was one of those things where my niece
called me in the middle of the night saying, Uncle,
I need you to come get me hop on a flight.
I'm in danger. I was on there the su the
next fight I could get on the flight. Her mom
was like, yeah, she's in danger, can you take her?
And I was like, it has to be really bad.
The mom was like, can you please take her?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
So you have such a similar we have such similar stories.
I had to take in my niece too, my oldest
brother's daughter.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I actually took her is my oldest brother's daughter, saying,
my older he ain't doing shit right. His baby mama
ain't doing shit right. And my niece is thirteen years
old and she's an innocent child. And then I took
her in and I can understood because I got no
help from the government, I got no help from CPS,
I got no help from family.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
This is she's a teenage.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Girl, like she wants things, she wants clothes, and I
wanted to give her everything that she didn't have. But
then I kind of saw that animosity that my aunt
had was like, this is not my fucking child. And
it really got to when her mom was calling me,
cussing me out because I was posting family pictures on
Facebook or like like she's part of our family.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I'm going to and I'm not.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I don't post like onto my social media because I
do have our social media platforms, so as far as
like on TikTok Instagram stuff, I don't post, but on Facebook,
we're only my family follows me. Yeah I am, And
then when I talk on social media, I will let
people know like I'm taking care of my niece. And
she was like, you and your f slur husband all
want kids. So we've never we've never wanted children. We've
always like I had to convince my husband to allow
(25:13):
her in my house. He's been team Note in our vows,
I married this man, he says, you vow to me
that we will never have That was in our marriage vows,
so well, never have children, and he says not have children.
Now bring children to our home. Not raised any children.
He's just always been like I don't want kids, and
that was part of my little marriage vows and a
lot of Folks also don't talk about like how effects marriages,
bringing in people, in relationships, bringing in family, because at
(25:36):
the end of the day, you my husband and my man,
but that's my aunt, that's my niece.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
The way my morals and ethics standage I.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Would have been, I would have been in a hotel
room with my niece and you could stay in the
house because I would have left you.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
He but my husband also knows that about.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, you lived it, so you feel that way here.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, I know what happens when family don't step up.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So but I also kind of understand when my aunt
was like, that's not my responsibility, and that's what she said.
She goes, I understand how you feel, but ultimately I
didn't lay down and have kids.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You weren't my responsibility. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Even with your family and like circling back now years later,
how to do they say anything to you about how
you were raised or get over it or you should
be grateful or whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
The interesting part is it's a generational cycle for my family.
My mom was also a Falser child. Her mom and
Falter children like the women abandoning their children, and my
family is generational Also, addiction is generational. So my mom
was a foster child. She was separated from her siblings,
and she actually was a twin, which is very strange
(26:40):
that they didn't keep them together. And then what's said
about that she had fifteen brothers and sisters and the
fact that none of them could step up and put
their brains together to get us was very very heartbreaking,
especially because she called her twin sister the day that
they kicked in the door and asked, and she said, no,
she couldn't handle it was four of us, but she
(27:01):
couldn't handle it. Now that it's generation know, and I
have my niece. My oldest brother was killed street life,
you know the story, five am gunned down and her
mom drugs. So my niece was raised by grandparents for
a little while. Then COVID hit and they're in the
(27:22):
medical field and older parents COVID being in the medical field,
they just they called me one day and asked if
I can get her, and I promise you she was
there the next morning. We live in two totally different states.
I didn't have the financial support from the grandparents, so
that was a little different from me. And I also
had my own business, so the financial aspect wasn't a
(27:45):
struggle for me. It was the psychological of being a
single woman, a single woman with a business, and you
get to maneuver the world as you see fit. And
then you're a mom to a six year old child.
Your world changes, and six year old behavioral problems because
(28:05):
she has a decease that and a mom that's on drugs.
Eventually her mom passes away, you understand. So it's like
you're going through this with her. She's she now has
two parents gone, and we're here.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
And she has an auntie that loves her, and that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
That's right, And that's what we talk about when we
see our community and when we talk about the alternatives.
We can't prevent our siblings from making bad decisions, right. Unfortunately,
I wish I could just wave a magic wand and
get have my brothers get it together. My sister has
passed two and she she was intoxicated and high and
(28:51):
she got in the car with her fiance and my
mom and wrapped the car around a light pole and
just unlive all of them, all of them. So like
our stories are really similar when it comes similar, Oh yeah,
just tragedy after a tragedy after Luckily, I still got
my brothers. But you know what, the five o'clock thing
don't sound much different than what my brothers be doing.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So I'm waiting for us any day now.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Anyway, I have faced I feel like so much tragedy,
so much depth, that at one point I prayed to
God and said, please, I do not want to go
to another funeral. And it's so interesting because we do
have similar stories. But as you know, a lot of
fossil children, they come from many different walks of life.
So it's a comfort to me to know, unfortunately that
you have to endure so much, but that we are
(29:34):
similar in our stories.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, you know, and it's the strong ones that survive.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I'll be honest, because there's no difference between me and
my siblings. We came from the same crack wound. We
came from the same crack environment.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
As we got older, like from seven and a bove, Yes,
our circumstances changed. I truly believe by the time that
you're seven eight, you kind of are who you gonna be.
There are some changes that can be like tweaked here
and there, but like you as a person, that foundation
of who yards that's already been set right, And I
believe that my mother. One good thing that my mother
did is she did set confidence in all of her children.
(30:12):
She was an entrepreneur, like not the right kite time,
but she was like but the thing was, she was
never supposed to do that. My dad was was the hustler,
and she came stay have a mom, and then he
got picked up on some low drug charges, ended up
doing like ten years and she was there, a single
mom with four kids.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
At that moment.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
She wasn't even on Section eight because she they were
making they were making a lot of money in the nineties.
Like I remember my mom, like had all the leopard
prints of the black and gold, the leather cowflate. We
had a good life when it came to like material things,
like we had all the new game systems, we had
all the new clothes, fool always. But when it came
to like parenting, now they were she was young, she
(30:52):
was in her twenties, her early twenties, were four kids.
Her boyfriend one of the largest drug dealers in Detroit.
So like she was having she.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Was having a blast.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Like if she didn't have any kids like that would
be alike girl, like do that, but you have showed, yes,
you have children that you need to take care of,
but your oldest daughter is not their mother. And I
think it really it takes people to really touch so
much trauma in your life. Like you said, where I've
I'm not I don't believe in God specifically, but I
(31:20):
believe in the universe. I believe in energy. And I'm
just like, damn, when's enough enough? Like when when what
can one person actually how much pain and trauma can
one person?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
And then it kind of like.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Scares me because, like you said, there's so many funerals,
my uncles, my aunts, and then to me, I just
go and I was like all right, and then I
just walked the fuck home. And to me, I'm like,
am I dad desensitized by this trauma and what has
happened in my life?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Because other family.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Members are bawling and they can't get Even with my
mom's funeral, I was able to sit there, talk about
how much caskets were, sit there, talk about all the
finances to get all I was that was my job
because my brother's happened inconsolable. And then they kind of
flipped it on me. They're like why aren't you upset?
And I told them, I said, my mom died the
day that CPS told me I would never see her again,
(32:10):
and then I got adopted. So the fact that I
had her again, that was kind of like a little
mini miracle I was.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I was like, thanks God, I appreciate this.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
But that feeling of her, that loss I had already
grieved her since I was an eight year old kid.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Oh that is a that is Oh you should flip that.
That is one hundred percent accurate. Yeah, I'm not accurate. Yeah,
I'm sure that ninety eight percent of foster children feel
that way. I felt like the day I actually talked
about this in my book, the day did they kicked
in the door and they literally ripped us out of
each other's arms and put us in different police cars.
I remember looking over the window sitting my mom on
(32:44):
the ground of handcuffs in the in the the drug
dealers that she was with too, And I remember saying
to myself, Okay, now you have to make sure you're
okay from here and at five and you're making that
promise to always make sure you're going to be a kate,
that's a big responsibility.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
M HM. I tell people that all the time.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
People always ask me, they say, and I hate this question,
They say, what do you what do you How did
you become successful?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And what do you give your success to?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Like?
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Why why did you become successful? And I always say,
because I promised that little boy that if you just
hang on, I will make sure everything that you went
through was worth Yep, if you just hang.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
On a little man, that's power for me.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
There was nothing else I could tell him. Yep, he
was gonna get sucked up, bro like like like we
laugh about it now, but it's true.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Hang on, just hang on. This won't be your life forever.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And when you get in control, you're gonna have this jasmin.
We're gonna take a quick break when we come back.
I do want to get more depth in your in
your being raised as a foster youth, but I also
want to talk about how being in foster care has
affected you as an adult as a guardian parent, okay,
and how this has changed you. So we're gonna take
(34:11):
a quick break, y'all, and we'll be right back. Heylight Shiners,
welcome back to this show. Make sure you guys are
checking us out on Spotify and subscribing to us on Spotify.
Also make sure you are listening to us on iHeartRadio.
You can also catch the video podcast now on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, y'all, that's right. We have all of the episodes.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I think, starting since like the last five episodes ago,
we started posting them on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That was new for us.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I've always been old school audio podcaster, and I was
really nervous about doing video.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Also that means that I have to get dressed and
look a little bit decent.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
But after I got my office set up and I
was like, a lot of people have been wanting the
video podcast, and we've got some great responses on YouTube
on the video podcast. So if you guys want to
see these podcasts and video, check out the YouTube and
also make sure you're leaving a one, two, three, four,
five star rating review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Make sure. I don't think we have any reviews, y'all.
I've looked. I've asked by four weeks in a row.
So who's gonna do it? Who's gonna do it?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
You're gonna do it, alrighty, So I think there's no
other updates. I just need y'all to make sure that
you're just liking, subscribing and commenting everywhere you see us,
and I appreciate it all the time already, Jasmine. So
before the break, we were talking about your experience, and
oh my god, our situations and our scenarios are so similar.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
It's just so crazy. I'm just so happy to.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Meet somebody else, you know, who's a survivor of just
a bunch of bullshit, Like, just a bunch of bullshit.
But how has survived the foster care system? How has
that affected you as an adult? How has that affected
your work life?
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Like?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Has that affected Because I know, for.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Me, a lot of people ask me what got me
into advocacy, And honestly, I kind of fell into it
after COVID because I was a professional actor, which I
loved doing commercial work. I did go to college, I
did go I worked in corporate America for a while.
I was just nobody can tell me what to do.
I just I think that that is a that is
a effect of the FOSCAR system. I have lived my
(36:09):
entire life of in foscare and adopted being told what
to do, how to do it, where to do it,
when to eat, how to eat, what to eat? So
even as an adult. When I became an adult, I
was really like, Hey, nobody gonna tell me shit.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
But actually, when you start in these.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Jobs, they actually your managers can tell you some shit, okay.
And for me, I had a really hard time, and
I kept losing job after job after job until I
figured out that I would have to figure out something
that would make me money that I loved but also
let me be in control. So that's kind of how
I got into content creating. And I started off on YouTube.
I worked with this production company Watchcut. We had some
(36:41):
viral videos that went like seventy million viro wow and
that kind of You probably have seen it. A couple
of my videos back in the day I did. I
smoked weed with a priest and a rabbi and I
was the atheist and we talked about like politics and religion.
We did like guess their agents. It was on YouTube,
and we would have like lineup series where we would
like guess people's gender, I guess people's ages, a guess
who was like Bigan or not.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It was really cool, but it made me able to
get an agent.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And then after my agent, I was able to become
a commercial actor and I did that for like four
or five years, and COVID happened, and then acting went
out the door, and then I finished my book randomly
during that time because we were in middle of COVID,
and I fell into this. I fell into advocacy because
I just started talking about my experience so like we're
doing today, and people wanted to listen. And then I
started doing more education. I started taking more courses, getting
(37:28):
myself educated not only on the lived experience part, but
also on you know, like the practical and policy part,
because I don't think that you can avocate if you
don't know the policies correct, and then you just need
to know what you're talking one things. I think lived
experience is fantastic, but if you don't have the policy
and procedures downpacted, you're just working off emotions. And if
you work off emotions, you're not going to make any change.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So I kind of want to know how growing up
in foster care that affected me that way? How did
growing up in fossil care affect you in your personal
life and your professional life?
Speaker 1 (37:59):
How did that? How that affect me?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
So I'll start with how it affects me in a
positive light, I feel like I always have to be prepared. Remember,
I'm always going to go back to the door being
kicked in because that's the first time that I remember
that life can change in the instant. And so for me,
it has prepared me because now and I feel like
I have to be prepared for anything, and I have
to be not only prepared, but I have to know
(38:24):
how to pivot in any scenario. So I feel like
I'm not going to say that I'm not at peace.
I feel like I'm always prepared to pivot off. Life
is a change, I'm always prepared not to go under
the way that it has affected me in my life.
So I actually went to college later on. I was
a competitive swimmer growing up in that abusive foster home
(38:46):
that I talk about, and so I really gravitated towards
because once I moved from Maryland to Atlanta, I wanted
to work for myself. So I launched a swim school,
which became really really, really lucrative and highly successful, and
I had no clue that it would turn out that way.
It wasn't until I kind of worked my body into
the ground because I was a one woman army, meaning
(39:09):
that like I did everything I told, I did all
the paperwork, we had the scenes. I ruptured my ear
drum and it made me sit down, and when I
sat down, I had an idea of now it's time.
With growing up in foster care, I used to really
be ashamed. I was teased a lot for it. And
my foster poem, the biological children in the home, they
(39:31):
always made fun of, like my mom and so me,
I always try to I didn't disclose that I was
a foster child. It was a need to know, and
I was adamant about that. I felt like once my
ear ruptured and I just had so much idle time,
I wanted to pour my experience on the pages and
hopes that it would help foster parents who are interested,
(39:51):
but also foster children going through it who do not
have a heir to hear and to listen. So that's
how my book came about.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
And how as your experience prepared you to be a
guardianship parent?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Good question. I think that it prepared me easily because
although it was my life changed within a phone call
and the next day I was a mom. I knew
all the things that I didn't want. I knew that
I wanted to structure home. But I knew I didn't
want a physically abusive home. I knew that I wanted
my child to have, oh my niece to say, to
(40:25):
have the experience and to be exposed to different things.
I also wanted them. You know how a falter child
al se care. They always make it seem like I'm
gonna love my child, I'm gonna love the foster child
like their own. Yeah, that's not really a good say,
because every child needs something different. And I'm trying to
(40:47):
make it known to my niece that I'm not trying
to replace her mom, so to speak. I am just
the parent that she has at this moment, if that
makes sense. And I'm still figuring it out. It's day
by day. It's a daily fight. It's a struggle, and
it is exhausting.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Or I did it for a little under a year
before my niece went back home with her mom, and
I was.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Exhausted is the word.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
And she was thirteen. The things I can I imagine
how you did with a six year old. Yes, And
that's a perfect way. I always tell parents to not
try to replace their whatever child that's in their home,
whether it be foster, adoptive, kinship. You can never replace
the birth parents, and the more you try to, the
more that child will push back because it's just natural, right,
regardless of how dangerous are no dangerous the birth parent is.
(41:36):
Kids love their parents and that's how we survive and
that's how we are humans.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
But you can say like, hey, I'm a support system
for you, I'm part of your village, like you said,
like I am one here for you now and your
parents do love you.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
And I always tell people who.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Are doing any type of external child care that positive
reinforcements on birth parents will only end in a good
result with you as a guardianship parent. The moment that
you start bashing, the moment that you start ignoring their wants,
needs or questions about their birth families, that's when things
go down the drain, right, That's when they can't trust you.
So I love that you brought that point up, as.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Man, did we have anything else? And I do want
to talk a little.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Bit more about your book Self help Guide How to
Survive the Foster care System. You kind of told us
how you created it. Yes, how do you use that
in the work that you do today? So how is
that guy?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Can you give us.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
An example of how that guide is used is that
for false youth, is that for foster parents.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It is for both.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Actually, I think that my book is so unique because
I'm writing from a point of a Falster parent and
a foster child. So it's actually certain it split chapters,
and half of the chapters dedicated to the child and
half of the chapter is dedicated to the parents. I
felt like after I raised my niece, I had the
advantage of understanding a little more from a parent's perspective,
and I also wanted them to know what absolutely not
(42:54):
to do, being that most people are for first time
Falster parents, so you don't know what you kind of
signed up for a lot of time. A child can
come in your home for a lot of psychological problems
because of the homes that they experienced prior to. Like,
imagine the home that you come from, and you've been
physically abused or jumped. When you come into this home,
(43:14):
you might jump if they trying to reach out and
give you a hug. So I think that people really
underestimate a lot of the psychological trauma that follows most
Falster children. That's how I use my book. I talk
in depth about the internal things. It's good to provide
a nice bid for them and clothes, that's half the battle.
But a lot of it is like you got to
(43:35):
go inward, you.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Know, yeah, absolutely absolutely, Love is not enough and the
house is not enough. Ye love is not enough. A
house is not enough. And I tell people that all
the time. And I love the point that you said
that you have to treat children. You can't treat children
as your own, correct, because if they remind men's I
would treat them a different way. If you have to
treat children of who they are and where they come from, right,
(43:58):
And when people try to force children to their own,
that's where problems coming because the bitch that ain't your baby, correct,
that's not your baby, right, But that could be the
child that you love that you want to help. But
by helping them, you need to understand that you might
have to change up, change up your your plate, your
game plan.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
You know, you might have to educate yourself a little
bit more.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You might have to educate yourself on culture, different identities,
different anything that the child might need, because every like
you said, every child is different. So y'all make sure
that you check out Jasmin's book. I will put it
in the link in the bio if you can make
sure you send me that email with the link for it, Jasmin,
I'll put it in the bio here for the show
so the listeners can grab it. But it is called
once again, it's called self help Guide, how to Survive
(44:38):
the postercare System. I'm so excited to read because ebook, y'all,
because I might I might need I might need it
because Chris, my husband, and I are considering during respite care.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
I just want to know.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
It's been a couple months since my niece left and
we have the thing is like we bought this big
ass house.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yes, like I have a forward bedroom for bath house
and it's just me and him.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yes, And I'm like, I have this whole extra room
with a whole extra bathroom and it just stays empty
unless my friends come visit us. So I'm just like,
maybe I can do like some but I don't want babies.
I want I will fifteen to twenty one. I want
I want old or older, like I want to help
you and even we were thinking about doing a start
extended foster care for so from eighteen to twenty one,
and they're adults, so like I don't like they ain't
(45:19):
a kid.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
I'm pretty much like a glorified roommate.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Okay, I'm going to help you learn how to pay bills.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
I'm gonna help you get your car insurance.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I'm gonna help you get a car, learn how to
do financial literacy, get some credit. That's the thing, Like,
I want to do that, and I feel like that
is the need that I can fulfill because I'm.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Not the one with a six year old my life.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
I commend you for doing that with your niece because
even with a thirteen year old, it wasn't as hard
because she was older. So on date nights, we could
leave her at home for like two hours by herself
and not like you can't leave a six year old
by yourself at all, right, and like we never, like
even my friends like you canna leave it for overnight.
I was like, nah, I never left her overnight. I
was just like, I just don't believe in leaving children
under like sixteen overnight. I feel like that's weird. But
(46:01):
there was a little bit more freedom. I feel like
there's definitely a lot more freedom with teenage. Or I
can just drop her off at her friend's house or
at the mall, like have fun, you know, keep yourself safe.
I was six year olds, like, that's a full time
commitment that goes that's zero to one hundred real.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Quick, Yes, yeah, real quick. Sure, definitely would like to
command you for that.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
And Jasmine, I ask every guest I always ask them
one question before the end of the show. What's one
piece of advice that you would give a foster youth
in your same scenario.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
What's one piece of advice you would give a foster youth.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
I'm gonna intertwine them. You have to advocate for yourself.
Nobody will advocate for you like you. You have to
utilize your voice. And then utilizing your voice always better
on yourself. You can't go wrong.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Better on you, always better on yourself. I love that.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Well, thank you Jasmin for coming on the War to
the Stay podcast, and thank you so much for sharing
your lived experience and your foster care homes as well
as reunification. I think it's really important for us to
have experiences where you said, like, it's like I love
this this episode because it wasn't net positive, but it
wasn't that negative either, correct, you know, Like right, it's
(47:13):
like there are various silver linings and even an abuse right,
there are some things that can help in the future.
So I think the way that you articulated that was
so beautiful and I appreciate you coming on and no
my pleasure. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience.
And y'all make sure I will put the link below
for the book, but make sure you go grab Jackson's
book once again. It's called the Self Help Guide how
(47:34):
to Survive the Foster Care System because we need to
survive the bitch because a lot of kids surviving a
lot of kids, a lot of kids they just aged
it out and they're not. And here's the thing. We
no longer just want to survive. We want to thrive. Yes, okay,
We're done with the surviving. We want to thrive.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
So God's by.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and I
hope that it inspires other people to help.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Foster you live as well.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
I'll see you guys next week's light Shiners and that's
always always shine your life.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
H M.
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