Bonus Babies

Jayne Amelia Larson

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The BONUS BABIES podcast is the only one of its kind that features the compelling true-life hard-hitting stories of youth with a lived foster care experience and the people who care for them––all via the unique 360* lens of a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer. Through raw first-hand accounts, BONUS BABIES reveals the daunting complexity of the foster care world while documenting the challenges, failures and successes of the system as well as the people and the agencies involved. The creator and host, Jayne Amelia Larson, is a CASA - a Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer for youth in foster care. In the same way a CASA works, she explores all things in the foster care maze by talking to kids, parents, caregivers, attorneys, social workers, therapists, members of community and social programs...anybody and everybody who will speak to her to keep the conversation open and the information flowing about all things CASA––to give a forum to help people understand what it's like to have a lived foster care experience. Original music by Christina Apostolopoulos. Audio engineering and mixing by Adam "Yukon" Harr. Executive Producer is Jake Eberle

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1 day ago

Maria Harding: They Picked Up A Kid And Turned Her Into A Functional Adult

*Jayne Amelia talks with adoptee Maria Harding. *Maria was adopted at birth but always considered a problem child by her mother. Her parents split when she was little and when her mother remarried, she was adopted by her mom's new husband but things only got worse for Maria with her adoptive mother. Her mother put her in foster care when she was 11 , and she was in and out of foster homes, group homes, and her mother's home for the next seven years. When Maria aged out at 18, she searched for her first father and his wife who she says "took in a troubled and traumatized kid and put her back together." From Maria : “Four score and seven years ago…. STOP! WAIT… Nope, that’s not my story! I was born in ‘71 in Vermont. Adopted at 3 days old… and that’s when it starts - my beginnings. Adopted by my parents… I moved to NY City, Governors Island on day three of my life. Quickly many things happened or became real issues One, born with a click hip… I had to wear a saddle to let my hips continue to develop. Who new, but I’ve been told this made for a very unhappy baby… I cried a lot due to thisTwo, as the story goes, my mother prophesied that I was nothing but a problem, and would be from that day forward My parents divorced around kindergarten for me and that is when I started moving houses like many kids did due to divorce. That’s not what was the difference. The difference was I was throne out of my mothers house for the first time around 5 years old because ‘I was a bad kid’. Off to stay with my dad, that became the punishment for not meeting my mothers expectation. I grew up a little different that most from here forward. 11 came among and I then moved onto foster home because ‘I was a bad child’ per mothers opinion. I bounced around homes and more homes until I aged out. The state realized that I was not a bad child and that the issue was my mother but by then I was almost 16/17. Graduation came and … the state was done overseeing my care! No plans, tools, no nothing … Luckily I had additional family that helped and stepped in to help me become the adult that I am today. Today I work for a National Builder, on the senior management team in the division, leading a department. … not bad for a ‘Bad Kid’. BAD by my mother was; dyslexic, can’t spell, didn’t make expected grades and apparently don’t know how to load a dishwasher. All of these things I am ok with. SO, if you see a punctuation error in this or spelling issues that are not quite right. I’m 100% ok with it … cause it’s me.”