My Daughter the Youth Offender

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Australian True Crime

Episode: My Daughter the Youth Offender

Date: February 1, 2026
Host: Meshel Laurie (Bravecasting)
Guest: Anonymous foster mother

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Overview

This deeply personal episode explores the realities of fostering, trauma, and Australia's youth justice system through the story of a foster mother and her now-adult daughter—a young woman who has been both a victim and perpetrator of crime. The guest candidly navigates the complexity of raising a traumatized child, the flaws of child welfare policies, and the challenges presented by youth offending, ultimately questioning the effectiveness of current systemic responses.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Australian Foster Care Challenges

• Adoption vs. Fostering:
  • Adoption is near-impossible; foster system relies on long-term placements.
  • Policies and agency focus (restoration to biological family vs. foster-to-adopt) shift with management changes.
  • “Sometimes it is in the best interest of the child to restore them to their birth family. Sometimes it's not.” (Foster Mother, 01:16)
• Emotional Complexities:
  • Difficulty bonding due to potential for removal.
  • Foster parents expected to love deeply but also “not too much.”
• Definition of Roles:
  • Relationship maintained with birth family by the foster mother.
  • Foster mother describes bond as parental: “I was also her mum and also her mum.” (Foster Mother, 04:24)

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2. Early Trauma and Its Lasting Impact

• Background:
  • Daughter entered care at age 5, after multiple placements and years as carer for younger siblings.
  • Early trauma resulted in “feral” behavior and inability to play or trust.
• Bonding and Rejection:
  • Daughter attempted to reject foster mother first (“so she could reject me before I rejected her”). (Foster Mother, 06:37)
  • Expressed via notes and name-calling, reflecting pain and lack of control.
• Trust and Responsibility:
  • “How could this child sleep in this house with someone she doesn't know? …That trust that was put into me at that moment was huge...” (Foster Mother, 08:00)

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3. Adolescence and Onset of Criminal Behavior

• Deteriorating Stability:
  • Contact with birth father (after 10 years) led to disappointment and downward spiral.
  • Initial offenses (truancy, theft, vaping, alcohol at school) perceived as typical but marked start of high-risk behavior.
    • “Everything you've just listed sounds like very pretty normal behaviour...but it doesn't seem like crisis stuff yet.” (Host, 10:43)
• Victimization:
  • Daughter violently assaulted and humiliated by peer group; perpetrators received minimal consequences.
    • “They bashed her for an hour...made her kiss their shoes...stole her AirPods and her phone and her skateboard.” (Foster Mother, 11:55)

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4. Escalation: Repeated Runaways and Offending

• Frequent Disappearance:
  • Called missing multiple times; procedure required reports to police.
  • Hostility and inconsistent responses from police (“swearing...trying to be cool,” 15:15).
  • “How do I do that? I'm not allowed to physically restrain her...not even allowed to take her mobile phone off her because that is restrictive practice.” (Foster Mother, 15:22)
• Criminal Activity:
  • Involvement in credit card fraud with "street urchin" group, led by exploitative adult.
  • Reoffending facilitated by lack of consequences for minors: “They got a slap on the wrist because they were 15 years old. So again, absolutely zero consequences.” (Foster Mother, 16:12)
• Breakdown With Agency:
  • Foster agency revoked carer status due to lack of contact, offered no help, and obstructed communication.
  • Emotional burden: “I was still her mum. It's been a long, a long road.” (Foster Mother, 49:41)

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5. Systemic Failures & Parenting Stigma

• No “One Size Fits All”:
  • Flaws in blanket government policies highlighted; differing state approaches—either too lenient or punitive.
    • “It seems like one size fits no one actually when you try and create blanket policy, doesn't it?” (Host, 35:31)
• Punishing Parents:
  • Public sentiment: parents should pay for youth crimes.
  • Foster mother’s plea: “For me, that's just punishing me more and not punishing her at all.” (Foster Mother, 25:21)
• Lack of Real Support:
  • Foster agencies offered counseling for mother, but practically “did nothing” for the child.
    • “I was desperate. I would have done anything.” (Foster Mother, 26:58)

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6. The Nature of Trauma and Rehabilitation

• Deep-Seated Issues:
  • Repeated trauma, absent resilience—“the wonky slab” metaphor for damaged foundations.
    • “Her foundation is shaky, so the slightest thing, she'd crack.” (Foster Mother, 30:06)
  • No easy behavioral fix: “How do you punish someone who genuinely...is not making that connection?” (Host, 37:30)
• Small Steps Toward Progress:
  • Daughter cycles through crises, eventually returns home, longer periods of stability follow illness and care.
  • Limited memory of hurtful or criminal acts—detachment from consequences.
    • “She has no memory of that either...she can't remember. And that was five years ago.” (Foster Mother, 39:52)
• Community & Family Role:
  • Conversation about minimising temptation (removing cash, being honest with other parents).
  • Support network critical, as is honest dialogue—“I'd want to know...so I can try to help be part of the support network.” (Foster Mother, 40:53)

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7. Hope, Limits & Reflections

• Ongoing Risk:
  • Daughter maintains difficult relationship with crime (sticky fingers, risky peer groups).
  • No involvement in violent crime; mostly property offenses.
• Building Resilience:
  • Small signs of growth: learning to resolve roommate conflict, growing independence.
    • “I was really proud that she'd actually resolved rather than run from a conflict.” (Foster Mother, 47:49)
• Long-term Parenting:
  • Intractable love and commitment: “I made that promise that day...[that] I was going to love for the rest of my life.” (Foster Mother, 49:41)
  • Realistic ambition: “I just want her to be a good person, just be happy, just contributing in some worthwhile way to the community she's living in.” (Foster Mother, 51:20)
• Advice to Prospective Foster Carers:
  • Be prepared for trauma; choose agencies carefully.
  • “You don't get into foster care without trauma. Even the fact of removing the child from their birth family, that's traumatic in itself.” (Foster Mother, 50:21)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Systemic Fails:
  • “They've got jails and foster care under the same roof...it's just ready for an easy transition from one to the other.” (Foster Mother, 36:29)
• On Parental Accountability:
  • “If the parents aren't implicit in whatever the crime is...I don't agree that the parents should be held liable.” (Foster Mother, 25:58)
• On the Challenges of Trauma:
  • “Anyone can have trauma or anyone can have these self esteem issues and I just think we need to find...a better way.” (Foster Mother, 34:48)
• On Resilience and Foundations:
  • “Her foundation is shaky, so the slightest thing, she'd crack...No resilience.” (Foster Mother, 30:06)
• On Parental Love in Foster Care:
  • “I made that promise...I was going to love for the rest of my life. And I can't just turn that off.” (Foster Mother, 49:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:37–04:12: Guest’s journey into fostering and system challenges
• 06:37–09:13: Early trauma, rejection, and forming a bond
• 09:42–13:15: Onset of criminal behaviour and victimisation
• 14:09–19:12: Escalation to runaways and credit card fraud
• 23:46–28:21: Systemic responses, police and agency involvement, and the ineffectiveness of current interventions
• 30:06–32:35: The impact of trauma, lack of resilience, and the challenge of rehabilitation
• 35:31–37:21: Government policy problems and “one size fits no one”
• 39:52–41:19: Memory gaps and community support for families affected by youth crime
• 47:49–52:52: Daughter’s present, hope for the future, and the realities of fostering

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Conclusion

Through raw, firsthand experience, this episode exposes the harsh realities faced by children “in care,” the frustrations felt by those who try to help, and the frequent inadequacies of systemic solutions. Both guest and host call for nuanced, individualized approaches—acknowledging that “one size fits no one”—and urge compassion as families and policymakers grapple with the aftermath of trauma and youth offending in Australia.

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Transcript

[Host]

Recently we put out the call to you, our listeners, seeking conversations around youth crime. Today's guest answered that call. She's the foster mother of a young woman who's been both offender and victim. We won't be naming our guest or her daughter for various legal and personal reasons. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

[Foster Mother]

I did four years of IVF with no luck and was given the opportunity to go to Greece, South Africa or Spain to buy an embryo. And I thought if the baby's not going to be biologically connected to me at all, I didn't need to actually give birth to be a mother. So I got a ready made one.

[Host]

As in a foster child.

[Foster Mother]

A foster child.

[Host]

That's the sort of conundrum in Australia, isn't it, that there's no, it's very, very difficult to adopt a child. They say there are no children up for adoption in Australia. I'm sure that there are some, but it feels like there are none. And yet we're desperately crying out for foster parents.

[Foster Mother]

Desperate need for foster parents. But, but my plan was always foster to adopt. And the foster system doesn't always support that because it depends on who the head of the foster agency is at the time and whether their focus is on restitution or because they believe that's in the best interest of the child and tend to forget to look at the child as an individual. They look at a child as one of many. And sometimes it is in the best interest of the child to restore them to their birth family. Sometimes it's not.

[Host]

Oh, that's interesting. Cause I assumed it was a very, you know, that policy was driven by case by case scenarios. But it never occurred to me that as you're saying, I suppose most government agencies will have policy changes and will have policy focuses and sometimes it's the focus to make sure a child goes back to their biological family.

[Foster Mother]

And I think it's also dependent on the interest of the person who's heading up that agency at the time. Because dcj, Department of Communities and justice does. They outsource most of the care these days. So they're all run by non government agents organizations. And so it depends on who's the head of the NGO as to what their focus is. I've had 15 years in the foster system and I've had many different something like 18 PACE workers in that time. And there's been three different heads of the foster or foster agency. So depending on what their focus is, depends on how you're treated and whether your initial goal of fostering to adopt is actually ever realised.

[Host]

And during that period, even if your original goal wasn't foster to adopt, you're trying on one hand to bond with the child, to give them a family environment, give them someone to trust, all of those things. But then on the other hand, I suppose, constantly worried that there might be a new bloke coming to the job who takes her away from you.

[Foster Mother]

The birth family might decide they want her back. So in Australia, there's a few different types of fostering. You can either foster for emergency care, respite, long term or short term. Short term's sometimes two to three years and long term is when the court has decided that the parent, whoever's the engaged parent, has lost the rights to the child until the child's 18. So I went for long term fostering.

[Host]

Because you wanted to be a parent?

[Foster Mother]

I wanted to have that child as a child. I was raising a child for another family, but I was, you know, I don't see her as a possession of mine. She very much has a good relationship with her birth family that I've worked hard to maintain through all the years.

[Host]

So you became a foster mother when you're. We're gonna refer to her as your daughter from now on, which I think is reasonable under the circumstances, but we don't wanna name her. So Your daughter was 5 years old, is that what you said when she came to you?

[Foster Mother]

She was five years old. She's now 20, so 15 years. And the day that two pieces of paper were presented to me with her information on them, I took a big deep breath and I said, so you're asking me to promise to love this child for the rest of my life? And they said, yeah. And I took a big deep breath. I said, okay, I'm in. But then they kind of expect you to not love them like they're your own. And as I said before, she still has another mother that I totally respect and respect that relationship, but I was also her mum and also her mum.

[Host]

So for these reasons that you've just talked about then, and also the reasons, I mean, these are the kinds of things that put people off fostering. Basically the complexity of it, right? Just the complexity of the emotional situation you've just outlined. But also, to put it very crassly, people will say, you never know what you're gonna get in terms of the. The trauma the child may have faced, what damage may have already been done to them psychologically or emotionally that it's too late to undo. There's a feeling of a sense of sort of doom sometimes around it, the inevitability of it going wrong. Did you think about that beforehand? Were you scared about that?

[Foster Mother]

Yeah, I was. And that's why I wanted a child under the age of seven, because I have a strong belief in that zero to seven imprint age. Now I know that that's a bit silly because actually happens from in vitro, but yeah, I wanted. And also a lot of the time, these challenges and any mental health challenges, they seem to come up in those pre adolescent years. And so I wanted to have enough sort of runs on the board and years of loving her before things started to get really challenging, to give us the best opportunity for me to get through those challenges with our relationship intact.

[Host]

Yeah, it's all very logical. You wanted to have the bonding time before the dreaded, you know, teenage years.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. And those teenage years are hard for anybody. But when there's trauma involved as well, then it just puts a whole new layer onto things. There was a time one year into our relationship where, because she had seven different foster homes before she came to me, because her and her brothers didn't know how to play. They didn't. They were quite feral. So no one could really cope with the three of them. So she was separated from her siblings, who she'd been prime carer for at the age of four. And so a year after she'd been living with me, she decided that she would reject me before I rejected her. And she just became quite horrid. And at that day, she wasn't calling me mum, she was calling me by my first name. And I'd opened a drawer or the bathroom cabinet or something and there'd be a note saying, I hate you, my first name. And then I hate you, and you're not my Muller and things like that. So she was doing her best to try and push me away so that she could reject me before I rejected her.

[Host]

She must have missed her siblings horribly if she'd been. She'd been their carer.

[Foster Mother]

Oh, we saw them a lot.

[Host]

Okay.

[Foster Mother]

But still for. It's still hard.

[Host]

Yeah. I mean, the lack of control over your own life and your own destiny, even at that age must have been awful.

[Foster Mother]

And starting a new school and living in a new house and having a new family and new grandparents and auntie and uncle and all of Those things and a dog. But she had had one foster carer for about six months and she was pretty good. And so she had already started going to school. She was halfway through kindergarten, and so she had that kind of routine in. I was working three days a week in an office in the city, so she'd have to go into before and after school care, which was just like a big play date, which she loved. But, yeah, it was hard. It was a big adjustment. But for, you know, the thing that totally overwhelmed me was the first night when I put her to bed and gave her a kiss good night. And how could this child sleep in this house with someone she doesn't know in a house she doesn't know? And that trust that was put into me at that moment was huge, because you've got this little hurt little girl who just needs love and boundaries and parenting, and it's a big responsibility.

[Host]

You contacted us because we put a call out saying, look, that we really wanted to continue the conversation around youth crime, youth offending. And we said, you know, if you've got any involvement in this, if you were a perpetrator, offender or whatever, please contact us. You did contact us because your daughter has become involved in some pretty serious offending. When did that start? Tell us about that period of time.

[Foster Mother]

So, as I said before, we were going down the path of adoption by the time she was 14, the foster agency finally decided that I was worthy of adopting her, so we started going down that path. As part of that, they wanted her to have contact with her birth father, who she hadn't seen for 10 years. They had a lovely first visit and then he canceled the next four visits. And so she decided that if I'm not even worthy to be loved by my father, I mustn't be worthy to be loved by anybody. And she started playing up. So year nine, she was suspended from school for. They call it ditching. I called it jigging. I think my parents called it wagging, whatever that is. And then she was. At the end of the year, she got a longer suspension for stealing some money out of a kid's school bag and for having vapes and empty cruiser bottles in her locker.

[Host]

So. So everything you've just listed, my kids are 16. And everything you've just listed sounds like very pretty. Normal behaviour. Certainly, you know, normal to hear about going on at school. There's a couple of kids at school who are wagging. I call it got the vapes. Alcohol at school's probably next level, but again, it's naughty. But it doesn't seem like crisis stuff yet, but also, can I say at this point, couldn't you wring his bloody neck? Her father, Seriously, I mean, seriously.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah.

[Host]

At year nine, which we know is the worst year for teenagers, right? They're all gonna spin out a bit at that age. And this guy just can't even have a couple of visits.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. And he promised that she'd meet her brothers and all of that stuff, so there was so much weight put onto that.

[Host]

And kids do blame themselves, we know that. Instead of her saying to herself, go, couldn't you wring his bloody neck? What a useless specimen. She internalises it and goes, okay, he's met me once and obviously hates me. Obviously he doesn't want to see me again. I'm obviously a piece of shit. Da, da, da. Cause that's how kids think.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. So she was suspended at the end of year nine and then didn't want to go back, so I enrolled her in distance education for year 10 because just getting her to school was going to be a challenge. And then. And then she was bashed by her best friend. She organized to meet her at the local Westfield and then they, her and her friends said, come over, we're going to do something at this park. So she went to the park with them and they bashed her for an hour because apparently she'd flirted with some girl's boyfriend. They videoed it. They made her kiss their shoes, which is apparently a thing. They stole her AirPods and her phone and her skateboard and sent her home humiliated. And so again, her best friend did this. So her father's just disappointed that her best friend bashed her.

[Host]

What did you think of her best friend prior to that? Cause sometimes we look at our kids friends and go and say to our kids, that kid's a dead shit. I don't want you hanging out with them anymore. And it doesn't. Doesn't help. It just pushes them closer to that kit. But sometimes we are completely stunned by the way kids actually act when we're not around. So did you have any inkling at all?

[Foster Mother]

Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, I knew she was a little bit.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Foster Mother]

But, you know, I couldn't trust her.

[Host]

So again, that adds to the humiliation for your daughter to have to go home and tell you you were right.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah, yeah. But because these kids were underage. Oh. Two of them were 18, so the rest just all got caught because they were all on CCTV and everything. So it was all caught on camera. They all got a slap on the Wrist sent home, except for two who were over 18. And so they were charged with robbery and company, and the rest of these kids were just told, don't do that again. And so then she started running away from home a lot and just, you know, give me a kiss goodbye. Say, bye, Mum, Love you. Be back soon, or back in an hour or whatever. And then I wouldn't see her for a couple of, what, weeks or days or weeks.

[Host]

Oh, my God. Where are you thinking she is? And are you calling the police and saying she's a missing person? Like what?

[Foster Mother]

So part of the process as a foster carer, if. If you don't know where they are, you are obliged to. You have to ring the police. I couldn't tell you how many times I reported her missing in that sort of. Towards the end of year nine, and she started going missing Easter of year nine, so I would be reporting it to police. I became very well known in the police department. When she'd come home, I'd either have to take to the police station to have her sighted so they could see that she was unharmed and everything else. Sometimes they'd come to our house, sometimes they were really lovely and they'd say, you know, what's going on? Are you okay? Are you safe at home? Why do you run away? Sometimes they'd come in and be swearing and dropping the f bombs and saying, what the earth do you think you're doing? And carrying on like that. And she. We don't talk like that at home. And she would say, why are you swearing at me? Why are you? You know? And so I think they thought they might have been being cool or something and talking to them like that.

[Host]

That's what I was thinking too.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah.

[Host]

Watch this. I'll be really cool and she'll really listen to me. Yeah, yeah.

[Foster Mother]

I'll swear as much as I can and she'll think I'm cool. And one. One time, she had been missing for a week or two and she came home. I rang the police, they came out and sighted her and she had something to eat, had a shower, had a sleep, got changed and left. So I had to ring the police and say, she's gone again. And the policeman said to me, well, why didn't you stop her? I said, how do I do that? I'm not allowed to physically restrain her. I don't have enough gaffer tape to wrap around the house to lock her in. I'm not even allowed to take her mobile phone off her because that is restrictive practice.

[Host]

And where was she Going, by the way, where was she?

[Foster Mother]

Dunno.

[Host]

Still don't know.

[Foster Mother]

No, no, never asked. Because I probably wouldn't be told the truth.

[Host]

Okay.

[Foster Mother]

Or I wouldn't know. Anyway, by May of the year that she was in year 10. Oh, she was staying at this guy's place at Marouba. Sometimes who would take them into city and they'd go busking and he had like all these street urchins that would busk and then he'd feed them with the money they'd earned and stuff like that. And this guy was just a creep and they went to his house and picked them up. Picked her and some friends up once when they got into. She rang me and said, we need to get out of here, can you come and get us? So I went and got them and brought them home. But I got a phone call from the police one day saying that she'd been arrested at this guy's house near to the city and could I go to the police station because she'd been charged with 16 charges of credit card fraud. So they'd. The boys that were in this little group had gone out and broken into cars or done whatever, stolen credit cards. Then they'd all got dressed up like they were in Ocean's Eleven or something and walked into Westfield and went tap, tap, tapping with other people's credit cards. So I went to the police station and sat there while they processed everybody. Her friend, the one who had bashed her a year before, she was with her again. And this girl's doing handstands in the cell while they're waiting to get processed. And they got a slap on the wrist because they were 15 years old. So again, absolutely zero consequences. The police tried to get back. I think they got a speaker or something from JV hi Fi and a ring from Pandora. They got groceries, they got Boost juices and stuff like that. The police recovered whatever they could recover and then just gave them a bit of a lecture. They sent them home. So I brought her home, she got changed, had a shower. I went again and then I didn't see her again until August. So that was May. So she was gone till August. My God. And during this time, the foster agency said to me, you're no longer her carer because we're not paying you the foster care allowance. And so you're now nothing to her. And I said, well, I'm not nothing. I'm the only stability she's known for nine years. They wouldn't let me know where she was. They wouldn't. I Asked. I said to them, when you see her, can you please let me know if she's alive and she's okay? And they said, if she agrees to that, yes, we will.

[Host]

So she's still engaging with them on some level?

[Foster Mother]

Yeah, because they'd meet her and buy her groceries once a week. Okay, Right, so. And they were meeting her wherever she was living, but wouldn't tell me. They told me I had to stop communicating with her, even though there was.

[Host]

No accusations at all from her or from anyone else that any negativity had gone down between you?

[Foster Mother]

Absolutely nothing. Never been an accusation, never been a concern at all. But I chose to ignore that direction. And every day I sent her a message on Instagram just saying, it was cold last night, hope you're okay. Not saying, you know, you're a dickhead, come home or anything like that, but just contacting her. Oh. And when I saw that that message was read, that's how I knew she was alive. So it was pretty intense time. During that time, they were living with, I think there was a whole lot of kids that were couchsurfing who were living with this couple somewhere. And. And she was kind of running these kids to do break and enters and bottle runs and vape crons and things like that. According to what my daughter's told me, they've never been caught or charged with any of these things, but this woman would then pay them with a roof over their head, drugs, whatever drugs they wanted. Thankfully, my daughter's too much of a control freak to get into drugs because she doesn't like being out of control. So she barely drinks. She's tried a couple of different types of drugs, doesn't like them because she feels out of control. But also, this woman couldn't control her because no one can because she's very strong willed. And so then one day my daughter rang me and said, something bad's going down this weekend. Can I come home? And I said, yep, of course. Where are you? I'll come get you. That was when the COVID lockdowns were on and you weren't allowed to leave your lga. And I didn't care. I drove to the other side of the city, picked her up and brought her home. And, you know, she was exhausted, she stunk, she was filthy. So she just kind of ate and slept and washed and stuff like that. And then I, the detective who'd been involved in their case when she was bashed, she'd kept in contact with me during the court case with these other two older Girls, I rang her and I said, my daughter's home, just thought you'd like to know that she's finally back. And she said, oh great, can we come out to see her? And I said, yeah, sure. So they came out and just did a welfare check and said, are you okay? Have you been in any trouble? Do you need us for anything? And then that was all good. Anyway, they rang me the next day and said, has your daughter looked at her mobile phone? I said, no, she hasn't. They said, something is bad's gone down last night and the people that she was with have been involved in the bashing death of a young man.

[Host]

If you'd like to talk to someone about abuse that's taken place in your life, no matter how long ago it happened, your GP is always a good place to start. If that's not going to work for you, you can contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or via their website, 1-800-Respect.org au or you can call Lifeline's 24 hour phone counselling service on 13, 11, 14. So you know for sure she wasn't involved? Because she was. It was a very rare night that she was actually home.

[Foster Mother]

Yes. And the police, the detectives had sighted her. Yeah, she 100% wasn't involved. She said to me, because this woman couldn't control her, she thought she might have been the one getting bashed. So she came home. So she either would have been implicated in the bashing or as doing the bashing or, or being bashed. So she was 100% not involved because she was in her bed in our home and. But her friends who had previously been slapped on the wrist for bashing my daughter, had now bashed a boy to the point where he died.

[Host]

My God.

[Foster Mother]

And, and because his dead, it's all gone to court and everything else like that. So finally they have had some repercussions. But slaps on the wrist don't work.

[Host]

It's interesting because from the story you've told us, it seems like there's police resources, time and effort into going into coming out and visiting your daughter, making sure she's there, trying to, you know, talk some sense into her when she, every time she pops up and all that, which is great, but not the time and resources put into and not the. Like. We're soft. We're soft on kids. We're so soft on kids, so soft. And we wonder why we've got this generation of kids that we've got on our hands at the moment.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. And I don't think my daughter should have gone to jail for the charges of credit card fraud, but something should have happened. She should have been made to remove, like community service, something counselling.

[Host]

Well, it's interesting. Cause you're really on the fence here, aren't you? Because you. On one hand, a lot of us are saying, oh, they need a good kick up the bum like in the old days when the coppers had given a kick up the ass. And that'd be that. And rah, rah, rah. Right. But you are the very, very loving mum of an offender whose offending so far has been, I'm gonna say low level, although I'm sure the people who own the credit cards wouldn't say it was low level. But no violent offending so far that we know of. But she's with a cohort who are violent offenders. What do you think would have worked on her? Do you think community service would have worked on her? Would she have shown up to it?

[Foster Mother]

I don't know. I don't know. But what is happening, what's going on isn't working. And the reason that I wrote into you guys is because so many people were saying the parents should pay.

[Host]

Yep.

[Foster Mother]

Now, I already wasn't sleeping. I could barely work, I could barely function at all because I was so worried about, you know, I don't call her my foster child. I call her my child.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Foster Mother]

So if I then had to turn around and pay this person who she'd stolen the credit card from for the money or, you know, repaid the bank or whatever, for me, that's just punishing.

[Host]

Me more and not punishing her at all.

[Foster Mother]

Not punishing her at all.

[Host]

No. A lot of kids in her, I think, would. Would still see that as no repercussions for them.

[Foster Mother]

No repercussions, but. But massive repercussions for me. And also, you know, I'm not a deadbeat parent and I'm not teaching her, you know, she's not third generation criminal or anything like that. My family's. We're good citizens and we do the right thing and we don't commit crime. So it's nothing that. And I had no control over her. I had no control over whether she slept in her own bed or someone else's bed that night or didn't sleep at all. So I don't agree. If the parents aren't implicit in whatever the crime is that's happening, I don't agree that the parents should be held liable. I think if the parents aren't supportive. Maybe that could be a different story. So again, it's maybe not a one case fits all, but something more needs to happen. I tried to get her into like a boot camp program that was run by traumatized returned soldiers, but the foster agency forbid that because it didn't say that whatever was going to happen was trauma informed on the website. I was desperate. I would have done anything. I was, you know, I was wishing that we could just go off and moved to an island for three years until she got through these awful. This awful age. But that obviously wouldn't have worked.

[Host]

No, but I can relate to that. And you know, my kids are teenagers. All my friends kids are teenagers. So there's definitely different levels of stress depending on the kids. But I certainly, I can understand the desperation. And who do you reach out for? I feel as though you're more informed than I am because you're part of a government system already. Like, you know, I feel like if there was assistance somewhere, you would know about it.

[Foster Mother]

And there's not. Like the foster agency would do nothing. They offered nothing. They sent me to counseling and to training courses to do triple P parenting and emotion coaching and stuff like that, but they couldn't advise me on how, how to build her or do whatever needed to happen so that she didn't. So that she felt safe at home and so that she could come home.

[Host]

That's a great way of putting it. Rebuild her and deprogram whatever has gone on that has made her feel this way, that she is happier or she's more relaxed in these other crazy environments than at home with you. Yeah.

[Foster Mother]

And like she told me that she saw someone get a gang fight and someone get shot at the front door of the place she was staying at. She was raped.

[Host]

So why does she feel on some deep level more deserving of that environment, more at home in that environment? And it's not for you to answer. I mean, it's obviously a very, very complex part of her development.

[Foster Mother]

And I think it's the nature versus nurture battle. You know, she's. She's grown up seeing a different way of life than she's genetically predisposed to. And you know, her parents, her mum wasn't a drug addict. Her mum was just a young mum who chose violent partners. So there was no drugs in her family. There was a lot of violence, a lot of neglect, but no drugs or anything like that.

[Host]

Well, we know that being born into violence, you know, encountering violence, and it's like you were saying, before, there was this idea of between the ages of, you know, birth and 7 years of age and all that. But now we know that the imprint on a developing brain of a newborn. Someone described it to me once as like when you're building a house and you put down a slab, when a child is born into violence, that slab is wonky and so everything built on top of it is wonky.

[Foster Mother]

And that's exactly how I would describe to her. Like every, you know, when you go to meet your teachers and your kids at the beginning of every school year, I'd say to them, she presents really well, but her foundation is shaky, so the slightest thing, she'd crack. So if she's a really good netball player and if she got the first three goals, she'd go ahead and get 30 to 40 goals in a game. If she missed those first three goals, she was shit. She was crap. She wouldn't get one.

[Host]

So no resilience?

[Foster Mother]

No resilience. Just that whole foundation. If someone challenged her or if she had to do an exam, it just. Everything just took over and would stop her from being able to achieve or to do anything.

[Host]

So how did this crime affect her? The crime that she was not present for, but her cohort, who incidentally had bashed her earlier, they went on to bash a boy to death. How did that affect her in the short and the long term? Was that enough to.

[Foster Mother]

Oh, no. Cause she went again. So the police, the detectives came back and just made sure she was okay. And she went to help those gang symbols that were showed on the videos on social media. And she was saying, that means that and this means that and whatever else. And then a couple of days later she went again. Don't know where she went this time. The foster agency kind of put her up in a bit of a halfway house. But again, she could come and go as she pleased. Then she. Oh, she came home at one stage. She'd been found on a train going up to Newcastle and they'd wanted me to go up and pick her up. But you weren't allowed out of your lga, your local government area, you know, when the COVID restrictions were on, you weren't allowed out of sort of your little suburb. So I couldn't drive up to Newcastle to pick her up. So she got the train back. She'd already. She'd racked up thousands and thousand dollars worth of those public health brooches, you know, brooches, you know, when they were fining you for being out of the house.

[Host]

I hope she didn't pay them because nobody paid them and nothing happened.

[Foster Mother]

So no, I should have worked an elopement order to pay them off. Had to have counseling, which was good.

[Host]

Oh, that's good.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. So anyway, they, they had it written somewhere in a file that she wasn't to come home. Anyway, she came and she went and she came and went and came and went quite a few more times. Finally she rang me up one night, she was really sick. She was in a police station because she didn't know where else to go and could I go and pick her up. And it was midnight and I rang the foster agency, the on call worker and said she's here and can anyone, is there anyone available to go pick up or to be about an hour and a half drive for me. And they said, oh no, she's not allowed to come to your house because it's in the notes that she's. She's not allowed to be at your house. I said, well, no, that was me who said that because of COVID And I just needed to make sure she didn't have. Have it. But she's sick. We need to go on. Someone needs to go get on. Anyway, I drove, picked her up because they weren't getting back to me. They finally rang me at 3 o' clock in the morning and said, we've checked it all out and we think it's okay for you to go and pick her up. I said, well, too late. She's already in the car asleep next to me, as she had Covid and she was as sick as a dog. And I think that was when the police were coming to check that you were actually in the house. And so even though she wasn't locked in her bedroom or locked in the house or anything, she was in bed asleep and being fed for two weeks during that quarantine period. And while she was sick. And I think it reminded her body what it was like to rest rather than live in fight or flight. So that was the October that she was in year 10. So that had gone on for a year by then. And that's when she finally came home and settled. And you know, there's been a couple of little incidences again since then. You know, I think because she started with nothing, she does like to have things. So she's. I found a couple of stray credit cards on her at different times, which I've immediately taken to the police and got rid of. But yeah, so, you know, this is a different. This is different to most parents who raise kids that aren't traumatized from their early years or whatever else, but still, you know, anyone can have trauma or anyone can have these self esteem issues and I just think we need to find, you know, whatever your background is, whatever your family situation is, we need to find a better way.

[Host]

What you're reminding me of is there is no one size fits all. Every kid is different, every family is different, every set of triggers is different. That's a problem we have. Government always needs to try and, you know, implement a policy. Right. This is the policy. It'll cover most people, it'll make sense in most cases. Sometimes it doesn't even do that. But you know, because of your history with several bureaucracies here, you've got a few levels going on. You're just reminding us that, yeah, there is no one size fits. So it seems like one size fits no one actually when you try and create blanket policy, doesn't it?

[Foster Mother]

I reckon that's correct, yeah. Yeah. But the thing that annoys me a lot since I've been involved in the foster system, we've had it. It was called docs and then it was called Families and Community. Now it's called Departments of Community and justice and they've got jails and foster care under the same roof.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Foster Mother]

Which kind of seems like it's just ready for an easy transition from one to the other.

[Host]

Yeah, well. And increasingly the community is baying for that. Increasingly community saying, lock em up, put em in jail, we're sick of them, they're feral over it.

[Foster Mother]

And you know when you have a look at, you know, the jails in the Northern Territory and stuff like that that are full of kids who, you know, probably shouldn't be there, you've got one extreme versus the other in New South Wales where they just say, are you not allowed to do that? Yeah. And that's. Have you thought about, you know, they said to her one time, who's the victim in this? When she did the credit card for, they said who's the victim? And she said, oh, my mum. And they said, oh yeah, maybe because, yeah, she's had to deal with all.

[Host]

This, she's pretty unhappy. But what about the blokes who owned the cards?

[Foster Mother]

Yeah, but that didn't even cross her mind.

[Host]

See, that's that wonky slab. I reckon it is. And how do you punish someone who genuinely, their brain is genuinely not making that connection?

[Foster Mother]

Yeah, I don't know. But you know, she said something to me the other day. My brother got married a couple of years ago and his wife's family's from England and they'd all flown over and we were all staying in this resort and the day before the wedding my daughter stole money out of my brother's sister in law's wallet, that $300 or something. And the sister in law didn't want to tell me because she thought that I'd defend her and say oh no, it couldn't be her. Whereas that wouldn't have been what I said. But it finally came out that she'd stolen this money and then the next day she was bridesmaid in this wedding and everything just went pear shaped. Anyway, my sister in law's mother is coming out to Australia in a couple of weeks and I was talking to my daughter about it the other day and she said, why does she hate us so much? And I said, oh, because she stole $300 off her daughter the day before her other daughter's wedding. She said when did I do that? And I said at their wedding. And she has no memory of that either. And yet when she'd been caught for doing it, when I confronted her and she'd had to write a letter of apology to the sister in law and to the mother and to my sister in law and she had to repay the $300 through doing odd jobs.

[Host]

You made a very big deal out of it. And she can't remember.

[Foster Mother]

Can't remember. And that was five years ago.

[Host]

I mean it's interesting. Can I also pick your brain about this? Cause I happen to have a girlfriend who's in a situation where she doesn't know whether to tell another friend that her daughter is stealing from her. It's a very similar situation. Right. So this kid is a kid they've known since she was born. She does have some violence, had a violent dad who's long since gone, but this kid has stolen from them, stolen cash from them during a visit, stolen some things from the daughter. Does the mum want to know? That's where my girlfriend's at. She's at. Do I tell her, look, your daughter is stealing. Does she want to know or does she not?

[Foster Mother]

It depends. Again, there's not one size fits all. I'd wanna know. But I also, because I knew she had sticky fingers, I would tell people don't have cash. Wow. Because it will go. So yeah, I'd want to know. Because you find out. The parents all sort of talk to each other. I'd rather them tell me than tell.

[Host]

That's it, I know about it. Yeah, so you're right. We the rest of Us do know.

[Foster Mother]

But I would also expect that they would minimize the risk of her stealing the next time she went over there.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Foster Mother]

So put your wallets away.

[Host]

Yeah. Cause in a way that's actually supporting the family, isn't it? That's like saying, I'm not gonna put her in a situation where she can steal from us again so I can tell people again. Or. Yeah. It's like, I feel like if you're gonna get involved to the extent that I'm gonna tell you that your daughter's stolen from me, then it's also incumbent upon me to try and help be part of the support network around that.

[Foster Mother]

Absolutely. So, yeah, I would. If I knew she was going somewhere, I'd say, you know, she's been stealing money out of my wallet. Can even she's at yours. Can you just make sure there's no risk that she's not put into temptation because she will take it. And then that would be worse for you guys to have to deal with the aftermath rather than the preparation and putting stuff away.

[Host]

And then we owe it to. To you and to the broader conversation to, as I said, be a support. Be on the positive side of this instead of them walking away and going, I've got a girlfriend whose kid's a criminal and they never do anything and they give her slaps on the wrist and all that. But then when we are in close quarters to not make you pay the price for admitting, listen, my kid's light fingered. I'm working on it. I'm doing everything I can. But be aware, don't leave, you know, cash lying around, then it's up to us to be mature enough to say, okay, I'm with you. I'm with you.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. And I find that then they're supporting me, then that opens up the conversation that I've got someone who I can have a chat with. But if they're the type of parent that, you know those parents who think their kids are angels.

[Host]

Oh, this is it. Absolutely. Yeah.

[Foster Mother]

They're not gonna accept that conversation.

[Host]

We're all a bit guilty of that. I remember when my kids started primary school and hearing about, you know, they'd say weird things like, Louis ate a chicken sandwich. And I'd go, what? Like you just would never do that at home? You know, he's a picky eater. But so you realize, God, they're completely. They're different people when they're away from me. They got their whole own little lives going on here. I can't be sure ever. No.

[Foster Mother]

And you don't. You just don't know. And I'd want to. I'd want to be told in a way that was not in front of the whole family. And in a joking kind of way, which I was told that once or. And they called it so sticky fingers. Because she always had her hands in someone's bag or wallet or something. But the family was kind of laughing about it. And I was like, it's not really funny. No, it's not supporting her to stop and it's not supporting me to support her to stop. Yeah. So Anyway, she's now 20, getting a job. I was really frightened about her getting a job because if she got a job working on a till at Maccas and all that temptation or a job in a cafe that's probably less regimented, where there's lots of people whose hands are in the till, you know, I was really frightened about that because the temptation is just too much. But how do you instil in these kids that stealing's not okay?

[Host]

Well, particularly as you've shared with us, there is a fundamental block here. And I think with a lot of kids, and I think back to my own childhood and remember doing things and not realising until I got in trouble for them, oh, yeah, that actually was stealing. That was like, we kids can have a blockage about what they're really doing. Is it a case of maturing? Do you think that as she's gotten older she has been able to join the dots on some of those things, or do you think they're always gonna be a struggle for her?

[Foster Mother]

I think she's gotten better. And the last time she stole money from me, I said to her, I went to the bank yesterday and I withdrew $200. I've only got $150 in my wallet now and I need it because I've gotta pay the window cleaner tomorrow and I'd have to have $200 to pay him tomorrow morning at 8 o'. Clock. So I need that money back. I don't wanna discuss it. I don't want any excuses, but I haven't been anywhere or seen anyone or done anything. There's no other place that that money could be. I really need it back. And then I checked my wallet a couple of hours later and it still wasn't bulk. And then just before I went to bed, I said, I just need to remind you that that money has to be returned to me tonight. She said, well, have you checked your wallet? And I said, yep. She said, well, maybe you should check it better anyway. I went in and it was 50 bucks was tucked in a little side pocket and I said, I never want to have that conversation with you again. I never want to have to hide my money. Like I used to have to have my wallet, all my, like everything that was in a wallet, in a little coin purse in my back pocket, 24, 7 or under my pillow, in my pillow slip just so that it wasn't stolen yet. She had everything she wanted.

[Host]

Yeah, this is it. It's not. It doesn't make sense.

[Foster Mother]

I'm a single mum, I work for myself. She sees that I work hard to earn a living. We've taken overseas holidays, you know, she's never gone without anything. We have overseas holidays, but we also have camping holidays. So whilst she's got what she's needed, she hasn't got everything she's ever asked for. So I thought that I'd taught her value for money and the importance of working and things like that.

[Host]

So what about the. After the violent attack after her so called friends, this cohort murdered somebody. They had bashed her previously. I mean, that's pretty traumatic. How did the trauma of that layer on top of where she was already at? Was she able to build friendships after that?

[Foster Mother]

She has trouble building friendships because she still doesn't have self esteem strong enough to attract other kids with strong self esteem. So lots of the friends that she has are all treading the similar path that she is. So she has trouble building friendships, she has trouble maintaining friendships. She's actually just moved out of home in with a friend who, when they started living together, this girl was really trying to control her and her. She's had a major boyfriend who was also. He could have had coercive control tattooed on his forehead. So I've had conversations with her about, you know, you don't you need a friend or a partner who you're on equal footing with, not someone who you can control or who wants to control you. So she's got a lot of learning to do with that. But she wanted to break the lease with this girl within a month and thought that was all gonna be too hard. Then she rang me up and she said, we've sorted things out. I've told her that I won't have my locations on for her. She doesn't need to know where I am at every minute of every day and that we're equals in this lease with both our names are on it. So she's. I was really proud that she'd actually resolved rather than run from a conflict.

[Host]

How Is the criminality going, you know, apart from stealing from you?

[Foster Mother]

Well, she's not stealing from me anymore.

[Host]

Okay.

[Foster Mother]

I don't have any evidence that she's stealing. I might be naive here, but I don't think she's ever been involved in any violent crimes because she's also a girly girl and has long false fingernails and all of that stuff. And she probably wouldn't want to break one if she had to hit somebody. But, you know, she does. She does have panic attacks and she, you know, she's got some mental health stuff that she doesn't really want to address yet. But, you know, I've had a conversation with her that she will have to make a decision at some stage in the near future about whether she's going to thrive in spite of her past or lives a victim because of her past. And that's going to be a conscious decision that she will make at some stage, and. And that will determine the path of her, you know, the trajectory of her life. Trajectory of her life from that point forward. But it's. It's not. It's a decision that she will have to make of which path she's gonna take.

[Host]

It's hard to ever get kids to really understand and internalise how lucky they are. That's what I find. And your daughter is so lucky. I cannot imagine many mums being able to hang in there. Like, I don't know that I could hang in there. I think, you know, like, you have. I mean, you never. Well, I was gonna say you never kick your kid out, but lots of people do. Lots of people kick their kids out because they're too hard.

[Foster Mother]

My mum said to me, can you send her back? Yeah, I said, back to where?

[Host]

I bet a lot of people think that, think, oh, come on, she's not really your kid, and just, you know, give it up as a failed experiment. I'm sure a lot of people think.

[Foster Mother]

That around you, but, you know, I made that promise that day when I saw these two pieces of paper that I was going to love for the rest of my life. And I can't just turn that off. Like the foster agency, when they told me that they weren't going to pay me my foster care allowance, I didn't care about the money, but I was still her mum. It's been a long, a long road. And if I was talking to someone who was wanting to foster a child, I would tell them to do it, but I would also tell them to be really cautious of the foster agency they went to and you know, you don't get into foster care without trauma.

[Host]

Right.

[Foster Mother]

Even the fact of removing the child from their birth family, that's traumatic in itself. So whatever has caused that removal has been one lot of trauma and then the removal is another lot of trauma and then anything else that happens after that.

[Host]

And you know, when we have a biological child, we have to. It's really hard to come to terms with disappointments then that come along in the life of every parent. We have to be accepting, I think of the fact that things can go not wrong necessarily, but can be hard. Whether you're fostering or you're having, it's the same as when you have a child. There's no guarantee this kid's gonna come out perfect, smart, clever, handsome, confident, you.

[Foster Mother]

Know, wanting to be a doctor.

[Host]

Right. So I, you know, in that way, I guess if you're going to foster, you have to be prepared. But as you say, it's more likely that you're gonna have some serious self esteem issues just by virtue of the fact that the child's been removed.

[Foster Mother]

Yeah. And in my daughter's case, there was 132 reports to docs before she was removed. Wow. Yeah. And you know, my job as a mum is to raise a child who's a good citizen or a person who's a good citizen, who has as many good relationships as they possibly can and who will do some form of good in the world. I don't want her to be a doctor or a pilot or anything else. I just want her to be a good person, just be happy, just contributing in some worthwhile way to the community she's living in. And I still wanna have that relationship with her because, you know, she is my daughter, regardless of what a piece of paper says.

[Host]

Thank you to our guest today. If you have a story you think we'd be interested in, please email us or DM us on Facebook or Instagram. There are links in the show notes to help you do that. If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org au Indigenous Australians can contact 13 Yarn on 139276 or 13 yarn.org au.

[Foster Mother]

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders, past, present and those emerging.