Learning to Love Amy: The foster carer who saved a mother and a daughter

I assumed she and her husband had divorced because they couldn’t have kids, but one day Martine told me the shocking true story.

‘You might find this out from other people, so I might as well tell you myself,’ Martine said. ‘After the adoption failed, my husband started seeing another woman and then got her pregnant. That’s why we divorced.’

‘Martine, I am so, so sorry,’ I said, thinking how I could never imagine Martin doing anything like that, even if we had not been able to have children.

Martine was fostering a little girl called India, who was an accommodated child, which basically means that her mother had voluntarily put her into care. She was her first foster daughter and Martine confided in me that she had been overjoyed at the prospect of helping India recover from a terrible start in life.

‘I wanted to make it right for her. I thought we would have fun days out at the park, lots of love and cuddles on the sofa, sipping hot chocolate and watching Dumbo,’ she said. ‘But Mia, I don’t know if it’s me or if it’s India, but she seems scared of me.’

‘Why? You are the kindest person on the planet. I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t either and I don’t know what to do.’

I had noticed a distance between India and Martine but thought that was just because she was settling in.

Martine began to tell me India’s story and little by little I began to understand. India was almost three years old and her mother, Amy, had put her through hell. Amy was a chaotic alcoholic who lived in squalor and was incapable of looking after herself, let alone parenting her daughter. Mother and daughter were known to social services, who had done their best to help Amy sort out her life. They had started by sending a specialist company to cleanse Amy’s disgusting flat. I saw photos of it later and there were piles of dirty clothes covering every surface, half-eaten plates of food and rubbish bags spilling their contents across the carpet. The mess was appalling and almost obscured the empty vodka bottles that littered the place. It was a shock to see them everywhere, and an even bigger shock that they weren’t the first things you noticed.

One thing not in the photos was the drunks who spent their days there, drinking with Amy until they were unconscious. Amy’s place wasn’t so much a crack den, but an alcoholics’ den, and because she was a mum she had her own place, whereas most of the others were sleeping rough. It was no wonder they all loved hanging out at Amy’s, and she was grateful for the company.

If Amy went out to the park it was not to the swings; she joined other drinkers on park benches, and they sat nursing cans of strong lager or cider while India watched, strapped into her pushchair. ‘A dog couldn’t live in those conditions,’ I thought to myself, ‘never mind a child.’

Amy had chosen vodka and a can of Special Brew over her own child. What mother would do that? But alcohol had a strong hold over her and no one could compete.

Despite more than enough support and lessons in domestic management, Amy never mastered keeping the place clean. Social services couldn’t perpetually send in cleaners, and they were receiving a lot of concerned phone calls about India, from one family member in particular.

If Amy couldn’t clean up her act, sooner or later social services would have to act to protect India. In fact, even while Amy was attempting to be a domestic goddess, they suspected she would fail and were actively seeking an interim care order.

To pre-empt the humiliation of having India taken away, which would mean the police turning up at her door with a social worker and a court order and forcing Amy to hand her over, in a sober moment Amy decided India would be better off in care. It was the right thing to do and must have been hard, so to give Amy her due, she did put India first for once.

India showed no signs of physical abuse, but she must have been hurting inside. There was no Cinderella law to protect her from emotional neglect and free her from the daily routine of caring for her mother; she just had to get on with it or she would get shouted at.

India’s days with Amy would have gone something like this:

‘India, Mummy’s tired, get me a blanket.’

‘India, Mummy’s got a headache, don’t make any noise.’

‘India, Mummy’s hungry, get me something to eat.’

‘India, I don’t want to watch this film, find something that Mummy likes.’

It would have started as soon as India was able to toddle and understand simple commands. Amy was merely copying the way she had been raised and knew no different.

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