American magazine: March 2017

Product
of the System
By Mike Unger
Jelani Freeman entered foster care at eight years old.
While in one sense he never got out, it never got him.
During a trip to Haiti sponsored by
the Congressional Coalition on
Adoption Institute last summer,
Jelani Freeman, CAS/MA ’07, had an
epiphany. Among the politicians, staffers,
practitioners, and advocates in the delegation
was a scientist who specialized in early
childhood brain development. At one point
during the tour, which included stops at
several orphanages sanitized for the
dignitaries’ visit but still heartbreaking
in their squalor, he mentioned to Freeman
how imperative a child’s first
three years are to a lifetime of
cognitive advancement.
“I realized for the first time
that with all the shortcomings
that my mom had, she did a lot
for me, because if she didn’t read
to me or talk to me, I wouldn’t
be where I am now,” Freeman,
36, says. “It made me think, wow,
maybe there was something good
during my childhood.”
Twenty-eight years ago
Freeman came home from
elementary school to find the
small, single-family house his mother rented
in a rough section of Rochester, New York,
empty. No one was there to ask, “What did
you learn today?” or, “Do you want meatloaf
or mac and cheese for dinner?”
The only sound was silence.
This was not particularly strange—often
his mother disappeared for days at a time,
leaving young Jelani to fend for himself. He
learned to mop the floors and scrub toilets,
and even became a halfway decent cook.
Chicken and rice was a specialty. His older
brother and sister had moved out long
ago, and his father, whom he has never
met, was in prison, serving a sentence for
attempted murder.
Vanessa Freeman battled mental health
issues for much of her life, which sometimes
left her bedridden or barricaded in her
room. She struggled to hold down a job or
It was only when, later
that night, an adult walked
through the front door
that he knew his life would
never be the same. That
grown-up wasn’t his mom;
it was a social worker.
create a semblance of normalcy at home for
Jelani, who somehow never got angry or
disillusioned with her. She was his mother;
he loved her.
When he returned home from school the
next day, again to a deserted house, Freeman
still didn’t worry. It was only when, later that
night, an adult walked through the front door
that he knew his life would never be the
same. That grown-up wasn’t his mom;
it was a social worker.
At eight years old, Freeman entered the
foster care system, and while in one sense
he never got out, it never got him. Somehow,
while he trudged from one foster home to
another using “a trash bag as my suitcase,” as
he told the world in July during his speech
at the Democratic National Convention in
Philadelphia, he managed to forge his own
path forward.
Despite the hardships and
heartaches he faced, pain that
often proves too deeply rooted for
thousands of kids in the foster care
system to ever shed, something
good did indeed emerge from
Jelani Freeman’s childhood—
Jelani Freeman himself.
“I and I was protective
was really ashamed of
being in foster care,
of my mom,” says Freeman, who
recounts details of his childhood
with an outward detachment. “I remember in
college I didn’t speak to people much about
it. I [thought] I was going to become a history
teacher, get married, have kids and have a
house, and everything that happened with me
would be behind me and I’d never talk about
it. I quickly learned that’s just not how it’s
going to be. When I came to DC, I started to
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