Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

have the scar today.I did not know I had brothers and sisters …I did not know I had brothers and sisters until I was aged twelve. I thought, ‘How come Idid not know about it? Where were they? How come they did not come and play withme?’. You did not really want to know them and find out Mum and Dad kept them andthrew you away. You’d realise your fears were true.Lake Condah Mission is where my parents came from. I suspect they grew up with theirparents. My parents moved around heaps, although my mother doesn’t now. We have alove/hate relationship. She loves me, but I hate her. I have never had a Birthday Card orChristmas Card. She is just a Mum in that she gave birth to me.At age eight I was adopted out to these white people. They had three children who werea lot older – in their thirties and forties. I get on with them well. They send me ChristmasCards and Birthday Cards. It is good having people like that, but sometimes you knowyou are not really part of the family. You feel you should not really be there, eg,‘Come along Lance we’re having a family photo taken’. I have not told them how I feel.They have tried real hard to make me feel part of the family, but it just won’t work.I got up to Year 11 at School. I got a lot of flak, ‘How come your parents are white?’. OnFather and Son Day, ‘Is he the Postman or what?’. It was pretty awkward. It was alwaysawkward. I was always a shy kid, especially among my Father’s friends. ‘Here is myson’. They would look at you. That look. ‘You’re still together?’. I remember waiting formy Mother at her work, which was a bakery. A bloke asked me, ‘Where is your Mum’?He searched for an Aboriginal lady. I wished God would make me white and thesepeople’s son instead of an adopted son.I still call them Mum and Dad. But when I go to my real Mum, I find it real hard to call hermy ‘Mum’ because she has just been another lady – OK a special lady. Mum’s Mum [ieadoptive mother] because she was there when I took my first push bike ride and went onmy first date.After Year 11, I got a couple of jobs. I got into heaps of trouble with the Police – drugsand alcohol. I could get my hands on it and escape and release my frustration. I sawPolice … their fault as well as with me being taken away from my family. Slowly thatdecreased because a couple of cops came to my place, just to see how I was doing andjust to talk to me. You can see the effects of stuff, such as alcohol, so I don’t drinkanyway. Alcohol took me away from my parents, who are chronic alcoholics. Mum is andDad was. It took my brother [car accident at 18 years, high blood alcohol reading].Three years ago I started taking interest in Koori stuff. I decided at least to learn theculture. I did not find the stereotype. I found that we understood what we were and thatwe were on a wave-length. I made a lot of friends and I am yet to make more. Itbecomes very frustrating. I am asked about a Koori word and I don’t know. You feel youshould know and are ashamed for yourself. I feel Koori, but not a real Koori in the waysof my people.