If you want to know the difference between being ‘a cared for child’ and being truly cared for, then read Ashley John Baptiste's book.

Did you like it? What did you think?

Funny, but I was totally unprepared for this question from Ashley John-Baptiste, the author of Looked After - A Childhood in Care. This was more than six months ago now - and he was asking what I thought about his book. I think I gave an answer that satisfied - that it made me sad for him – and that I recognised parallels with my own life, despite not having been brought up in care, but I still cannot be sure.  

Because at his online talk that day, for the Sound Delivery Festival of Learning, he was disarming, charming, and mostly smoothly professional. But his direct question to me, a participant ’inside the computer’ was surprisingly real. This moment made him come alive, made him strangely vulnerable. 

Because I have to admit it, after finishing his book, which to his credit was very easy to read and digest, I’m afraid part of me kind of shrugged. I thought: ‘He had foster parents, so what? He still got taken on exotic and memorable holidays. He was championed by his social workers and by the teacher that nominated him for a degree. He had a constant in his friend Andre, and he found solace in music and religion. That doesn’t sound so bad.’

Because the trouble with true stories is that you’ve seen the ending already, or at least the ending that has been presented…

This is certainly the case with Ashley John-Baptiste’s tale. We know that he’s a handsome, charming presenter with two lovely children and a wife, and that he went to Cambridge University. He’s been appearing on our tv screens regularly for the last five years. So, to be honest, hearing that it was difficult for him to get to where he is now was in some ways a little underwhelming. There was no real hyperbole, the dramatic scenes were few and far between - there was no doubt that he would succeed - and how could there be? Real life is real life. 

Why did I read it then?

I only actually only bought and read the book because I am a goody two shoes swot. 

I it for ‘homework’, because I was starting a job with social work and legal charity Family Rights Group and I wanted to be prepared. I’d read a few novels about the care system - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, My name is Leon by Kit de Waal - but I wanted to read something ‘real’. Perhaps I was looking for a big reveal, or a plot twist - but Ashley’s story was ‘just’ true. And that’s because his book is not a soap opera or a work of fiction. My initial reaction says way more about me than it does about him.

Ashley lived in five different homes. He went to several different schools. Ashley never knew his dad. He lived in many combinations of household, he never felt that his future was secure. He worried when he was told that he was loved, and he worried when he wasn’t. He didn’t feel that anything he did could ever be good enough. He didn’t know where he would end up. He felt a constant pressure to keep his head down, be good and suck it up, but sometimes that crazy need to be seen and heard would burst out of him, overriding the control needed to hold it all together, often with disastrous consequences.   

Before the age of 18 I lived in six different homes. I went to three primary schools and three high schools. My dad left when I was seven and married again. My mum married again too, I gained a step brother and sister, but then she split from her second husband when I was 15. My dad split from his second wife when I was 18. By then I had two half siblings, as well as my brother and my sister. My mum met her third partner when I was 20 and split from him when I was in my thirties. My dad married his third wife when I was 24 and is still with her, though fairly infrequently in my life. A lot of change to adapt to, right?

But, and here’s the big but, the difference, of course, with my life was that: 

1) My mum, brother and sister were my constants and that never changed, and still hasn’t. 

2) My dad, although no longer in my household, is still in my life, and, as a child - was probably in it more consistently after the divorce than when my parents were married. 

3) Although I too kept my head down and tried hard to be good, to never cause any trouble, I wasn’t going to lose my home if I did.

Yet trouble frequently finds me. My childish outbursts, often in the form of tears, are an issue that has dogged me into adulthood - but as a child they were accepted ‘because I was a girl’. I was berated frequently for being oversensitive or dramatic, accused of babyishness and being the ‘girl that cried wolf’ but was never ostracised from school or a household because of perceived violence. I was never disciplined and discarded like him, because I couldn’t keep my hurt inside.  

Sit with the art, and let it settle

And this is the thing that’s funny about art. Sometimes the first glance or reading isn’t the one that sticks. If you pass by a book or photo or film too quickly, failing to let the thing percolate, you miss out. A day or so passes and you start to ponder why, if you weren’t all that bothered by the thing you read or saw, bits of them continue to stick with you; a burr on your sleeve, a bit of sandwich in your snaggle tooth, a lump in your throat.  

These kinds of works are often not all bells and whistles, all singing, all dancing productions. In fact, often they are understated. 

Ashley’s book is one of those. 

Obviously, he’s written it as an adult, but going back, picking those long-healed over scabs must have been dark, painful and curiously absorbing. Trying to make meaning of the decisions made on his behalf, the rationales of adults whose actions dictated his future. Reading notes and reports that detailed his behaviour, that weren’t kind or accepting or loving, just detached and clinical. 

And yet, in his writing, he was careful still not to go ‘too far’, not to rant or rave or throw his toys out of the pram. This control showed in his writing, it showed in the language. I still don’t believe he felt able to let himself go, and really show all his hurt and grief and loss, because what if he did and then the world fell down around his ears?

The parts of the book that affected me most - and this is on my second, more in depth assessment - are the part where he upset his mum, by asking for a Chinese to eat, because that was what his foster family did and she could not afford it. My world was one of two halves - I had holidays abroad with my dad and picnics and camping with my mum. That’s not to say that one was better than the other, just that sometimes it’s so hard as a child to reconcile your different lives, and that too can carry through to adulthood. 

The other section was as he prepped to leave his foster home, from the age of 16 onwards. The way he had to eat separate meals so that he would learn to cook on a budget just seemed unnecessarily cruel and divisive in a time that would have been stressful enough with exams and the competition of teenage life. Finally, the barriers that were put in his way by ‘the system’ in terms of getting somewhere to live while he studied, just made me livid. He shouldn’t have had to throw himself at the mercy of his local MP just to ‘follow his dream’ - how easy it would have been for him to just give up. Thank goodness he didn’t. 

Appreciate the light in life

Despite these difficult to read chapters, I also just want to congratulate Ashley on ensuring that the book did sing out with praise for those adults in his life who got it right. ‘Myles’, the social worker who checked he was going to school, Mr Tunbridge, the music teacher who allowed him to stay behind and play the keyboards, finding a way to release his pain, and the pastor of the church who encouraged him to join the band, to find solace in being with other people and sharing an activity. And of course, the foster parents and his mum, who, in each context, did try their best, even if they were found wanting at times. 

All of this makes me realise how important the work of charities like Family Rights Group is - and how glad I am to have worked with them over the past six months. Ashley’s book is a must read if you want to understand how to do care right. How not to lose people. How to maintain trust, how to build lifelong links. How to keep the child’s needs in mind, but not to overwhelm them with adult concerns. 

So… Ashley John-Baptiste , the last thing you asked me, a whole six months ago now, was whether I would write you a Google review, and I promised that I would. I actually still haven’t (!) but I hope this essay touches you and others, instead. 

Everyone out there, if you want to understand the care system, and the difference between being ‘a cared for child’ and truly cared for, then read this book.