Part 3 Consequences of Removal Chapter 10 Children’s Experiences

1Thatpeoplerespond to crises in specificpredictable ways,e.g., shock, anger, depression.

2Thatpeoplego through a series of stagesover time, attempting to come to terms with an aversive life-event.

3Thatpeopleeventuallyaccept or resolve their crises [although there is] extreme variability in peoples’ responses to life crises [and ] thedifficulty following a crisis may be experienced indefinitely.

[Factors affecting recovery are]:

1Perceived social supportfacilitates adjustment …

2Theopportunity for free expression of feelingsfacilitates adjustment …

3Thepresence ofother life-stressors impedesadjustment …

4The ability to find meaning in theoutcome facilitates adjustment … (pages 176-9).

These findings about bereaved and relinquishing parents can be extended approximately to the experience of Indigenous parents whose children were forcibly removed. They have the lowest likelihood of recovering from the trauma of that event. While social supports would usually have been available within the Indigenous community, beyond that there were none. Indigenous families continued to experience

profound disadvantages (‘other life-stressors ’) including exclusion and control, racism and poverty which would have acted as severe stresses compounding their grief and trauma. They could generally find no meaningin the forcible removal.

A Western Australian mother of two boys was working as a nurse and well able to fit her sons out for school. Yet they were made wards of the State in the late 1950s.

It has leftmesick,alsomy son sick too, never to be the same people again that wewere before, being separated from one another,it has made our livesto be nothing on this earth. My sons and myselfwent through a lotof painand heartbreak.It’s a thingthat I’ll never forget until I die, it will always be in my mind thattheWelfare has ruined my thinking and my life.

I felt so miserableand sad andvery unhappy, that I took to drinking after theytookmy sons.I thought there was nothing left for me.

Confidential submission 338,Victoria.

I’m not under the influenceof alcohol anymore, you know.Becausethen you used to sort of deal with it moreor less in drinkand I thought I could solve my problems ina bottle,youknow.That’s the only way I coulddeal with my feelings for my kids not living here … My kids arewith me today, but I’ve losta lot. I’ve lost that motherhood with my kids, you know.

Confidential evidence208, Victoria.

Because ‘mixed race’ children were particularly targeted for forcible removal, non-Indigenous parents and families also lost children.

In some circumstances thenon-Aboriginalparent actually believed that they could have done something to stop whathappened.In some experiences that I’m aware of, that has led to long-term ill health of thatnon-Aboriginalparent. In some circumstances it has led to breakdown in those relationships [between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal parent] … But howdo you tell your father that it’s okay; that it wasn’t their fault; and that hiswhitenessand maleness in a patriarchal society that shouldhave been enough toprotectany person’s family did no good because of the nature of the relationshipwithhispartner?(JoanneSelfe, NSW AboriginalWomen’s Legal Resource Centre, evidence 739).

Parenting roles, nurturing and socialising responsibilities are widely shared in Indigenous societies: ‘relatives beyond that of the immediate family have nurturing responsibilities and emotional ties with children as they grow up’ (Dr Ian Anderson evidence 263).When the children were taken, many people in addition to the biological parents were bereft of their role and purpose in connection with those children.

Aboriginal life wasbasedon the sharing of all resources for thegoodof the group. The family unit was not the restricted modernnuclear family but an extended family of sharing and caring. Everybodywasrelated and all relationswere important, individual interests were subordinate to the lore. Aboriginal societywas an all-inclusive networkofreciprocal obligationsof givingand receiving, which reinforcedthe bonds of kinship (Elvie Kelly, Victorian KooriKidsMental Health Network,submission 758).

When you look at a family tree, everyperson that is within that family tree is born into a spiritual inheritance.And when thatpersonisn’t there, there’s a void. There’s something missing on that tree. And thatpersonhas tobe slottedback intohisrightful position within the extended family.While thatperson is missing from theextended family, then thatfamily will continue to grieve and continue to havedysfunctions within it. Until therightfulperson comes and takes theirspiritual inheritancewithin that family(Kevin Booter, NSW Aboriginal Mental Health Worker,evidence 527).

The loss of so many of their children has affected the efficacy and morale of many Indigenous communities. Evidence to the Inquiry referred particularly to the way in which the child-rearing function of whole communities was undermined and denied, particularly where all children were required to live in mission dormitories. Psychiatrist Professor Ernest Hunter documented how removal on missions in the Kimberley region of Western Australia undermined the confidence of families and diluted their ability to rear their children.

Parental rolesand adult authority were compromised as the responsibility for educationand disciplinewasclaimed by Europeans (Hunter1995page 379).

… you can say parenting can beundermined absolutely in those instanceswhere a child is physically removed.It can be undermined toa degree in settingswhere there’s sequestration such as dormitorisation,but you could say that parenting is undermined universally in a societywhere parentalroles – particularlyAboriginal paternal roles,maleroles – are undervalued generally.

[The] missionagenda[was] intrusion intofamily structureand intrusion into thekindof dynamic relationshipbetween sacred andfamily rolesbecause you can’t undermine one without underminingthe other …

I think there’sa problem blaming theproblems with alcohol and socialdistresson the removal of kids … However,it certainly is tied in with thebroaderprocess ofundermining parenting roles andundermining family structure … (evidence 61).

Hunter documented how Kimberley Aboriginal parents responded when the government station managers and missionaries relinquished their control over the children with the growth of self-management progressively from the mid-1970s.

It was anticipated thatAboriginal adultswouldreassert theirrole in the discipline and control of children … Aborigines [inJigalong, for example] … hadrelinquisheda significant dimensionof that function toEuropean mission control,defining it as ‘whitefellowbusiness’. When it became redefined as ‘blackfellow business’ a conflict arose (1993 page229).

The anticipated reassertion of parental control did not occur.The adults had experienced discipline as children but not nurturing.It had been a model of discipline reliant on physical chastisement, something unacceptable in traditional child-rearing. With their own methods denigrated and largely lost to them and European methods unacceptable, there seems to have been a discipline vacuum.

That’s also impactedon my own life withmykids. I have three children.And it’s not as though I don’t love mykids. It’s justthatI expected them to be as strongand independent and to fight for their own self like I had to do. And people misinterpret thatasthough I don’t care about mykids.But that’s nottrue. I do love my kids. But it’s not as though theChurch providedgoodrole models, either,for a proper family relationship.

Confidential evidence548, Northern Territory: Western Australian woman removed at4 years in the 1950s andplaced at anorth-west Catholic orphanageand thenat BeagleBay Mission.

Hunter and other researchers noted how Europeans devalued the paternal role in particular, in common with most other aspects of the traditional male role. Indigenous men generally lost their purpose in relation to their families and communities.Often their individual responses to that loss took them away from their families: on drinking binges, in hospital following accidents or assaults, in the gaol or lock-up, or prematurely dead.

[This has] a significant impact on childdevelopment.ForAboriginal boys, the compromise of traditional and contemporary role modelsresultingfromthe father’s absenceor functional unavailability has a damaging impact on the development of male identity(Hunter1993 page 231).

Forcible removal affected community life in another way, too. To escape ‘the welfare’ and avoid their children being taken some families exiled themselves from their communities and sometimeshid their Aboriginal identity.

Becauseforcible and seemingly arbitrary separation was sowidespread andbecause the government used the threat of separation to coerce Aboriginal adults, most Aboriginalpeople livedwith the fear ofseparation structuring their lives. Some tried toprotect their families from separationby continuallymoving; otherscalledthemselvesMaori or Indian; others cut off all ties with otherAboriginal people, including familymembers(Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 part III on page 3).

This almost as effectively removed children from community ties and culture; ‘social removal and nil contact with Aboriginal people was also achieved by the very real fear of removal and the severance of family ties’ (quoted by Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 part III on page 67).

Ididn’t know anything aboutmy AboriginalityuntilI was46 years of age – 12 years aftermy fatherdied. I felt very offended and hurtthat this knowledge was denied me, for whatever reason. For without this knowledge I wasnot able to put the pathwayof myown life into its correctplace.When I didfind out, for the first timeinmylife I understood why I hadalwaysfeltdifferent when I was a young man.

Man whose Aboriginal fatherlived as a white, quotedbyLink-Up (NSW) submission186 partIII on page65.

My grandfather wantedus to deny our Aboriginality so that we wouldn’t be taken away.He used to say that none of his kids would live ona mission.We weren’t allowed to say that we were Aboriginal, and we weren’t allowed to mix with the Aboriginal people in the country town where we lived … I didn’t find out until Mum passed onthat

I was related to nearly everyoneon the south coast. I even foundout that the woman who lived acrossthestreetwhen were growing up was my Aunty. But all those years growing up I hadn’t known.

Quoted by Link-Up (NSW) submission 186part III onpage64.

When a child was forcibly removed that child’s entire community lost, often permanently, its chance to perpetuate itself in that child. The Inquiry has concluded that this was a primary objective of forcible removals and is the reason they amount to genocide.

[Children are] core elementsof thepresent and futureof the community.Theremoval of these childrencreates a senseof death and loss in the community, and thecommunity dies too … there’s a sense of hopelessness that becomes part of the experiencefor that family, that community… (Lynne Datnow,VictorianKoori KidsMental Health Network, evidence 135).

There have been similar conclusions in the comparable context of forcible removal to educational institutions of Native American children.

Because the family is the most fundamentaleconomic, education, health-careunit in society and the centreof an individual’s emotional life, assaultsonIndian families help cause the conditions that characterise those culturesofpovertywhere large numbers ofpeoplefeel hopeless, powerless and unworthy(Byler 1977 page8).

A Congressional Inquiry in 1978 found that the removal of Indian children had a severe effect on Indian tribes, threatening their existence as identifiable cultural entities (US Congress 1978).

‘Culture’ has been defined as ‘a set of values and ideas which contains the distinctive way of life of a group of people and which tends to persist through time and is transmitted from generation to generation’ (Telling OurStory 1995 page 52).

Culture is thewhole complex of relationships, knowledge, languages, social institutions, beliefs,valuesand ethical rules that bind a people togetherand give the collective and its individual members a sense of who they are andwhere they belong.It is usually rooted in a particular place – a past or presenthomeland.It is introduced to the newly born within the family and subsequently reinforced anddeveloped in the community. In a society that enjoys normal continuity of culture from one generationto another, its children absorb their culture with everybreath they take.They learn what is expected of them and they develop a confidence that theirwords and actionswill have meaning and predictableeffects in the world around them (Canadian Royal CommissiononAboriginal Peoples1995page 25 quoted by Telling OurStory 1995 on page52).

Every culture is continually changingand adapting to new conditions. Cultural stress such as the massive disruption caused by massacres, introduced diseases, dispossession and forcible removal of children robbed Indigenous societies of almost every opportunity to control the nature of their adaptations.

The impacts of forcible removal are renewed when societies must deal with the desire of removed children to return and reclaim their inheritance. The Jawoyn

Association in the Northern Territory explained to the Inquiry,

… the impact of the former policy of assimilation on traditional Aboriginal Law – in particular the Law applying to inheritance and inclusion within traditional clan and kinship systems … is creating continuing social tensions and division and has the potential to disrupt and damage – well into the future – traditional land ownership and management structures. … the establishment of a genealogical affiliation does not necessarily determine ‘who speaks for country’ under Jawoyn traditional law – and it is this aspect of trying to cope with the colonialist history of assimilationism that has created difficulties for the Jawoyn nation …

… To be able to ‘speak for country’ crucially involves knowledge: knowledge about the law; knowledge about country; knowledge about ‘the system’; and a social connectedness to all things Jawoyn. Without such knowledge and connectedness, appropriate to one’s age group and experience, one is not entitled to ‘speak for country’ (submission 841 pages 2, 4 and 6).

The Jawoyn Association has found a way to resolve two competing interests.

The ability of Jawoyn people living on or near Jawoyn traditional lands, and whose lives are completely integrated in Jawoyn society, to determine what happens on those Jawoyn traditional lands. There has been a strongly expressed fear – perhaps unfounded – of Jawoyn people in this situation being potentially ‘outvoted’ on decisions by people living well away from their traditional lands and having little if any strong connectedness to those lands or its people. Recognition and an acknowledgment of and respect for the Jawoyn heritage of those people stolen from their kin and country, and their descendants. Significantly, very few people in this situation have said they want to receive a share in rentals or royalties (except perhaps as a symbol of recognition), however a number of people from a Stolen Generation background have stated they wished to ‘come back’ to Jawoyn land; some have stated they wished to establish commercial ventures and/or living areas on Jawoyn land (submission 841 page 7).

The resolution chosen by the Jawoyn will not necessarily appeal to other communities and associations dealing with this issue. The Central Land Council advised the Inquiry,

In some cases, the reunification of some ‘Stolen Generations’ people with their families and culture has led to Land Councils including those people in land ownership and native title holder records, as determined and as directed by Traditional Owners. In other cases, while reunited family members are often involved in land and native title claims, their loss of language and culture often ‘disables’ them from taking part. There are also cases where ‘Stolen Generations’ people claim genealogical relationships which may not be acknowledged and cases where there is not recognition of a genealogical link between people in a land or native title claim, situations which are painful for all concerned (submission 495 page 3).

What is clear from the Jawoyn experience is the imperative that each community exercising its right of self-determination must be empowered to resolve the matter for itself.

It has not been through choice that the Jawoyn had their children kidnapped from their country; likewise those children suffered a cruel fate.

It was a policy that drove at the heart of Jawoyn society, and tore our families apart. The resolution of this colonialist legacy will only in part be achieved through the mechanisms of this Inquiry and the response of government to its recommendations. It will not be an easy process, it will not be quick. But it cannot succeed unless Aboriginal law – which has been damaged as part of the same process of assimilationism that led to kids being taken away – is respected as having a place in the restitution process (submission 841 page 11).

If you grow up with no love … I thought sex was love. That’s why I probably had all those kids, ‘cause I was trying to get all this love, y’know. ‘Cause I never got it when I was in the Home.

Confidential evidence 383, South Australia: woman removed at about 4 years in the 1940s and raised largely at Koonibba Lutheran Children’s Home.

We wasn’t told anything about the facts of life. When we left the Home they didn’t tell us anything about sex and that. All us girls, when we all come out the Home, we were all just, bang, pregnant straight away.

Confidential evidence 170, South Australia.

Inter-generational effects

There’s things in my life that I haven’t dealt with and I’ve passed them on to my children. Gone to pieces. Anxiety attacks. I’ve passed this on to my kids. I know for a fact if you go and knock at their door they run and hide.

I look at my son today who had to be taken away because he was going to commit suicide because he can’t handle it; he just can’t take any more of the anxiety attacks that he and Karen have. I have passed that on to my kids because I haven’t dealt with it. How do you deal with it? How do you sit down and go through all those years of abuse? Somehow I’m passing down negativity to my kids.

Confidential evidence 284, South Australia.

The impacts of the removal policies continue to resound through the generations of Indigenous families. The overwhelming evidence is that the impact does not stop with the children removed. It is inherited by their own children in complex and sometimes heightened ways.

Parenting Most forcibly removed children were denied the experience of being parented or at least cared for by a person to whom they were attached. This is the very experience people rely on to become effective and successful parents themselves. Experts told the Inquiry that this was the most significant of all the major consequences of the removal policies.

Denial of this experience results in an individual whose ability to parent his or her own children is severely compromised, and this is certainly my observation with people who were removed in early childhood. Not only has the legacy of impaired interpersonal relationships and poor self-worth rendered them more liable to unplanned parenthood, but they make poor parents and their children in turn have often been taken into care for having been abused or neglected. Such parents are often disorganised, impatient, capricious and ultimately demoralised, feeling unable to provide for their children what they missed out on and often being painfully aware that the experience of childhood they are providing for their children [is] not dissimilar to that which they experienced (Dr Brent Waters submission 532 page 2).

… when they grow up and begin to form family relationships as adults, they have not had a history of socialisation which includes processes of being nurtured, so that they have difficulty in sustaining and developing good constructive family relationships with their own children (Dr Ian Anderson evidence 263).

The way it translates to the way they become parents down the track is that from a personal point of view sometimes they are very struck by the incongruity of the desire and yearning to look after their kids consistently, the difficulties in dealing with all the real world limitations on that at different times, but also just the sense of emotional continuity that they have not personally experienced because of their disruption and loss. In some way it becomes built into them as a way of defending against the need that their children may have for them in a consistent and ongoing fashion.

So what it means is that they might become afraid of the dependency of the children, or they might become afraid of the needs of their children and they might not be as ready to ensure that all the things that maintain trust and continuity with the care of their children can be sustained (Dr Nick Kowalenko evidence 740).

The damage was recognised by a senior State welfare official in evidence to the Inquiry.

The fact that there has been no history there of family caring, nurturing, and because there has been

a fair degree of in some cases institutionalisation upbringing, people don’t have the social and emotional skills to cope. The child has been deprived of its role models (Mike Hepburn, WA Department of Family and Community Services, evidence).

Many parents from the stolen generations are very good parents. Dr Ian Anderson noted that ‘some individuals have been very lucky in the way in which they’ve been able to reconstruct their sense of self-worth and their sense of commitment to their children’ (evidence 263). Michael Constable noted that ‘despite all the odds and despite the pain, so many people function. They manage to keep families together’ (evidence 261).

I feel I have been totally denied of a childhood, but I could never repeat the cycle that happens to so many Aboriginal children that have been removed. It happened to my eldest brother: he had his five children removed. My other brother suffers from alcoholism …

Even though I drink, it’s probably once or twice a year. I believe I got it out of my system when I had my first child. Even though I continued to drink when I had my first child, the drinking binges started easing up [to the point] where I didn’t need to be drunk every weekend, cause my little boy needed me to be sober.

Confidential submission 788, New South Wales.

Shaun and his mother, Clare, are among the fortunate. Although her parents died when she was young, Clare was raised until the age of 13 by her mother’s sister and her husband. She was then removed to a children’s home with her younger sister. Clare was determined that her own two sons would not be taken from her and at one stage, when they were quite young, she decided to board them with different relatives to ensure that her own status as a sole parent would not lead to their removal. In this period Clare commuted on weekends alternately to the two homes from her place of work. Shaun told the Inquiry that,

I probably would’ve been still trying to find my way in life, but the foresight was there from our elders [mother and aunts], teaching some respect and some form or way of getting through life without having to worry.

Confidential evidence 207, Victoria.

Many Indigenous parents experience anxiety in rearing their children. In adulthood the forcibly removed children carry with them the fear that their own children will be taken from them in turn. This was said to be one reason Indigenous people ‘don’t tap into mainstream services, because there’s that fear that the children could be taken away’ (Joyce Smith evidence 135).