Lost childhood

It's not often that a news story reduces me to tears. We become hardened to scenes of death, violence and hardship on TV, unless we have a personal attachment of some sort. Then our emotional brain is triggered in to action.

Last night, just before I went to bed, there was a story about the children taken from England to Australia, between 1930 and 1970, as part of the Child Migrant's programme. The reason was for a supposedly better life than the one they were experiencing in the UK, but in the majority of cases it led to a life of abuse, neglect and abandonment.

One woman, aged between 50-60, was interviewed. She was extremely distressed and begged to be able to to afford come to the UK and meet family. With tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed that she just wanted to know she belonged and was loved. My tears flowed too.

I immediately though of the list of emotional needs we need to have met, in order to not only survive in life, but to thrive. These needs form the foundations of the Human Givens psychological approach, that I studied ten years ago eg; The need for love, attention, security, fun & friendship, sense of achievement, control, community and meaning and purpose.

As a child, the Australian woman and so many thousands of other children hadn't had their emotional needs met and in that adult woman's voice, I heard a child crying for help to get her missing needs met. To belong and to be loved.

I went to bed and reprimanded myself for watching the news before bedtime. Something I had stopped doing in order to get a better night's sleep. I lay in bed and tossed and turned for over two hours. Old memories had been triggered and I couldn't get the images out of my head.

From 1967 -1969, I trained as a nursery nurse in a children's home for the under 5s, in Windsor, Berkshire. It was a respectable place and very well run by the Church of England Children's Society. There was one babies section of the home and two toddler/children sections. About 30-40 children in total. The children were well cared for and I have plenty of photos of smiling, well dressed and clean, boys and girls. The trainee nursery nurses were loving and caring.

Over 40 years I've often wondered what happened to the children, but until the small hours of this morning, I had never really given any thought to the fact that those children spent the first five years of their life having some of their fundamental needs unmet. The staff changed every few months, as we moved around during the training and we were all dressed in nurse's uniforms. There were also very few men around.

The odds are that some of the children will be drawn to uniforms, in getting their adult intimate needs met and they won't know why. Many will be trying desperately to get their unmet childhood needs met, but failing - over and over again. Again, will they really know why?

As memories flooded my wide awake mind, I was taken back to the early 50s. My mother had to go away with my grandmother. My sister and I were left in a 'holiday home', run by the best nannie's college in the UK. Norlands in Chislehurst, Kent. A posh children's home in fact. I stayed when I was 2 and 4 years old, just for a few days each visit.

Even though I was so young, I still hold a few images of playing in the garden, seeing a nurse with my baby sister and walking in a crocodile line, but don't remember anything unpleasant happening at all. Nor do I think I've repressed anything, but would I know? What I do know, is that I didn't like watching through the window, as my mother walked away. But years later, at 17 years old, I steadfastly refused to even entertain going to Norlands for nursery nurse training and even now I still have a frisson of totally irrational dislike, if I hear the name, Chislehurst.

If that was my reaction, I can't help but wonder how many of the Windsor home's children have been able to grow up emotionally after their experiences? They may have succeeded in different fields, but how many may still be searching for what doesn't exist? Was I looking for something when I chose childcare as an occupation?

As for the Australians, even if they do manage to get over here and meet family, they will never ever get their childhood back. Maybe an obvious thing to say, but too many people will be trying to do exactly that and wondering why they feel so let down and disappointed afterwards.


©RitaLeman2009