Invisible Children

Funding for the production of this program was provided by the Children's Trust Fund of New Mexico. The Trust Fund's primary mission is the prevention of child abuse and neglect of all children from birth to adolescence. And the New Mexico Commission on Community Volunteerism, engaging the citizens of New Mexico in community-based service to address the state's human, education, environmental, public safety, health, housing, and other needs. I call my mom. My dad, he's just like in jail for like three days an hour, but it only happens like once every couple years.

By the time I hit 12, I was used to it, so like my mom would get all drunk, so we, you know, I would feed her something and she would just pass out and have her close the door and you know the cops are coming. I just remember the police getting her, taking her, that was it. I sort of expected it, and that was going to happen, I don't know, ever since I was little I was expected to go into jail or leaving or whatever. When the cops came and basically arrested them, took them away and I really didn't get to say goodbye or anything, so. My mom first got out, I was really happy for her and I loved her and her things, but like she got back into the drugs and stuff, so it just makes her more meaner and she doesn't care anymore or anything.

You used to have a lot of fun and do a lot of things together and we had them, my mother and daughter bought. And then when she's in jail, she'll call me and tell me how she loves me and be nice to me again. I just found a way to deal with it. These are children who are our children. These are children who go to school with our children. These are children who are hurting very much and is a compassionate society, we have to care about that. But there are also kids who are so invisible that if we don't make an effort to know them to identify them, to want to know who they are, they will stay invisible and that's not okay. It's like we couldn't afford to go on a plane and swimming pool or a cliff so we just come down here, especially on a hot summer day.

We tied the string up there and pulled each other out and let go and we're falling in the water, they had to be careful though, there's little tiny poses down underneath there. See, it's nice and cool. This is where I used to come to think sometimes, you know. There's a lot of trails down this way that we used to walk and we used to do a lot of walking just to get out of the house. This was pretty much the last place where we're all together before we all started splitting up and stuff. The child welfare league estimates that one in 40 kids is a child of an incarcerated parent.

These are kids sitting next to your children in school, next to my grandchildren in school. These are children that are our children's friends, they are children that are everywhere, yet too afraid to come into the light and be recognized and supported by their community. I like stuff that's awkward and weird, I just want to create something that I would wear and something really cool.

I don't know, I just got tired for, don't let Dylan hurt me so much because she's done the same thing over and over. It's like a pattern and once she keeps doing it, I get used to the pattern and I don't care. They're not recognized by anybody and we don't have systems set up to identify them, to nurture them and to support them through a tremendous difficult time. Oftentimes those children are left alone, oftentimes those children have no idea where their parent is. They come home from school to an empty home, they don't know. If they've been at the arrest when their parent is arrested, they have a whole other catalog of problems. The cops coming in and out of the house, I just got used to it, I've got used to the fact

that, well, if they're going to keep coming in, in mind as well, just start hiding things. We started locking the doors, I remember hearing my mom passes out and then we all be laying there and we just be totally as quiet as we can, like, shh, quiet because they'll be walking around the house knocking on each window. The cops, I don't really just came for her and stuff when I used to like tell her, don't leave me and she said she'd come back. She was sober up for like maybe nine months to about a year and then she'll get back onto her drinking spray again and then she'll start finding a new drug or something. I wasn't sure what to say, being a guy used to get really sad and stuff, but all I wanted was for her to get out, you know?

She was just never there, she was there but she was never there, what do you mean? She would say she's coming back home or she would, like, just leave and nice to get really mad at her. We didn't even know about it until the next day when we saw it on the news, but we already kind of figured that something had happened, you know? We've kind of figured she was going to, you know, hurt herself real bad or just all got together and said a quick prayer and put the kids to bed and waited until mom got home but mom never came back. I don't know, I just don't let her bug me and like, I just act like she's not there, like, my mom, like, she's not there, so like without her I think I would be a normal kid. The craziness went away when my mom went to prison I guess. They live in a constant turmoil.

They don't know when their parent will ever be home, they don't know who's going to take care of them, they don't know where they will find their own security. I get to interact with my child, find out what's going on with her, where she's having trouble with her in school, who's her friends, and here lately we've been talking about dating. My disagreements and disagreements and it's a relationship. I get to find out more and interact with my child, see a girl, spend quality time with play games together, like, I get to find out what she knows how to do, baby colors,

I get to learn things about it. And they wouldn't have to, if I didn't have this, is it? I think, you know, it's not pink, it's like, kind of a pinkish color, yeah. How I wound up here, I have a drug problem. And, committed crimes to support my drug habit. And that's what led me here, in present for eight years. I want to, can I say something to Ebony, I want to go ahead and feel free to talk, okay? It's okay.

I don't really remember that much, but I remember whenever I stayed with her before she came here, and used to have a lot of fun and do a lot of things together, and we had that mother and daughter bond, and she got on drugs, and was like, everything changed because all she did was sleep mainly, literally, I feel like I lost my mom because she wasn't there anymore.

And so I went to go stay with my grandpa, and she was like, I didn't see her that much. And when she did come, it would be like, for my birthday or something, and then next thing, you know, my grandpa, I came home after school, my grandpa was telling me how my mom was in jail and everything, and all I could do was cry, because I didn't get to see her before she went in, and I felt like I wasn't going to be able to see her anymore. I felt like it was years before I really got to see her. I love to cook. We now know, based on some pretty extensive research, that children who visit their parents in any way, they'll be in prison or jail, do better.

How about that? Kids once they see their parents, and especially those children who can be held and touched and loved by their parents, do better. Their agitation just settles down. Their imagination is not running rampant. They are kids that see that their parents are okay, and inevitably, parents comfort their children. No, get a little bowl. What calms children is the touch. We need to be touched. Is the calm? Is mom's alright? Mom's looking out for you. Dad has made arrangements. All of those things, the messages we give our children are very important, and the message is that we, as a society and its system, allow for children to receive are very important to the child's safety. We had a first visit.

It felt like I was visiting with someone they didn't really know that well. It was kind of hard for me to talk to her, so it would be quiet, along the visits, and I wouldn't really speak that much, but as we had more and more visits, I geared to know her as a mother, and I feel like now we have the mother and daughter bond, and I can talk to her about a lot of things. That's our favorite I use. She started feeling comfortable, and I started feeling comfortable with her, because like again, we were getting to know one another again, and it was the greatest, I'm sure. I trust her, and I wanted to know that she could talk to me, and be open, and I'd rather tell her how to take care of herself, and then for her to be blind out there without

any mother guidance, to teach her values in life, integrity and dignity, that just because I've made many mistakes. They don't have to affect her in the way of her growing up, and her knowledge of life, and I want more for her than what the things that I allow to happen to me. I'm happy that we have these visits, because it lets me know that you care. And I'm glad that I get to see you, because I know you'll be here for me, and I can always trust you with everything. I can.

Great. And I love you, and I love you too. That whenever you get out, I hope you do by this time, because I don't want to see you this day, so it's your joke. Yeah, she would say, like, I'm going to get a job, we're going to be in good condition, I'm going to get my own apartment, and she would just tell me all kinds of stuff that I was going to live with her, and that life was going to be better. And I was happy, of course, and stuff. I mean, I loved her and everything, but I just couldn't deal with her anymore. I coped with it by crying a lot of the time. The park makes me feel at ease, and it makes me comfortable, and makes me happy.

I come here, basically, every day, if not every other day, just to think, and just to relax, and if I want to, I can go back and pass and think of how I can make things better. What could I have done to make things different? Every time I'd come back from seeing my mom, I'd come back very angry towards everybody around me. I've never had a childhood, I barely even have time right now to be a teenager. I'm more of an adult than I've been my entire life.

When there's times that I can be a teenager, I'll take those chances and stuff like that, because then it makes me feel good because it knows that at that moment when I'm having fun with my friends, I don't have any responsibility. I can just have fun and be a regular teenager. These are kids that we have to acknowledge as children. They need experiences where they can be children. They need to be playing baseball, they need to be swimming. There's a lot more up beat, they don't have stuff to bring them down, they're not worrying

about where their dinner is coming from. They just talk about how fun it is, like, oh you're going to love it, we're doing this and that. And as knowing they're not alone, it's super helpful. They've internalized a trauma that many, many people never have to. And when they internalize, they're pent up. They don't know who they can talk to about that. And so they also need to be given an opportunity to give that trauma voice because that's what sets it free. That's what breaks the secret. That's what gives them the freedom to then be children because without that, they tend to hold that secret very tight and internalize a trauma that will never end well. It's helped me get past the past.

You can do whatever you want but what do we say it has to be two pops in football, guys. I also think about the stronger your bridge, the stronger your support, the more the safer you'll be. They tell me how sometimes, what, third grade? And so what I would tell them is probably just to forget about it and not keep your mind

on it so much because I seem like my brother, he went through that and he never forgot about it. He's going through all this, all residential and all this crap that he shouldn't ever went through. And it's helped me focus on me and not my mom and I see what she went through and I always told myself that I never wanted to go to that and I knew that if you did, any of those that that's what it would lead to, it would even lead to worse.

So I just decided when I was little just to never do and that was final, I can't really go through the past so I might as well just forget about it and be angry about it. Children make decisions about their own future. Sometimes that decision may be to reconnect with their parent because that's always what they want. Sometimes that decision has to be that that's not going to be what they can trust to have in their life. Sometimes it's going to be that they're going to have to find peace somewhere else and sometimes they won't make that peace until they're very much older. To me being strong is just to keep going, not to let stuff affect you that much. So I moved over here to the LGBTQ Christian children's home and so on.

Oh, I get my own room and I don't have to worry about anything like drugs or anything here. I don't have people yelling at me, I don't have drama, it's basically peace. Music is a way to express emotions sometimes. When you get the peace right and you play really nice and stuff, like it sounds really good. It's like angels, voices in my ears, I like it. These are incredibly resourceful, incredibly strong, unbelievably courageous children. No matter where she's had done to us, she has probably way more regrets than I do.

Right now I'm definitely not worried about it. I have changed a path tremendously from my parents. I made my own path on my own separate way because I knew it's not what I wanted to do with my life because I have so much more going for me. I have forgave my mom for everything that she does. I always forgive her but I never forget it. She put me through a lot of pain, nothing's really changed. She tries telling me that she loves me and stuff on the phone but I don't listen to her. I see how my mom turned out so I don't be like that. I'm better than that. Thank you.

Thank you. You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You