Mummy Told Me Not to Tell: The true story of a troubled boy with a dark secret

When Lucy and Paula returned, I briefly took them aside and, having asked them how their day had gone, told them of Reece’s comment that morning after he’d kissed them goodbye. I didn’t need to say anything more: they knew the implications of having a sexually aware child in the house, and they also knew the guidelines we all had to follow. We followed the ‘safer caring’ guidelines anyway, with any fostered child, but if there were issues over possible sexual abuse or even inappropriate television watching which had made the child sexually aware, we were even more careful. So, for example, bedtime stories were read downstairs, not in the child’s bedroom, and kisses and cuddles were given downstairs, with the child at our side, not on our laps or face to face. It’s sad, really, because we naturally hug and kiss our own children without a second thought, but with a child who has been sexually abused, or has come from a highly sexualized and inappropriate home life, even the most innocent of hugs or kisses (like those the girls had allowed Reece that morning) can be misinterpreted. Reece would still be having his hugs and kisses — he was after all a little seven-year-old — but there would always be someone else present and we would be just that bit more careful so that nothing could be misconstrued by him.

Jill phoned just after 5.00 p.m. and I updated her, and before I went to bed I wrote up my log notes. That night I lay in bed contemplating and worrying over the day’s events, and I wondered how well I had handled everything that had happened — from Reece’s hyperactive behaviour, to the stealing, and of course his comments about giving the girls one. Foster carers are plagued by analysing and self-doubt, even more so than when raising one’s own children; for when all is said and done what greater responsibility is there than bringing up someone else’s child?

Chapter Six Kids in Care (#ulink_308b737f-30c6-5e5b-94b5-b5a6ff9b28d8)

On Sunday evening, as we were approaching the end of our first weekend together, I was feeling quite positive. Although it had been hard work, with Lucy and Paula home for the weekend the three of us had been working together and continually reinforcing the expected standards of behaviour. Perhaps it was my imagination, but Reece now seemed to be cooperating more readily than he had done during the first couple of days. I was still having to resettle him regularly in the morning, but it was taking only half an hour rather than the hour and a half when he’d first arrived. He slept well each night and because Lucy and Paula had helped, the task of caring for Reece’s many needs had been split three ways and hadn’t been so draining on me. We’d had only a couple of incidents over the weekend when he’d tried to head-butt and none of him biting.

It was seven o’clock. Reece had had his bath and hair wash and was downstairs in the living room in his pyjamas, dressing gown and shark-shaped slippers. Paula was reading him some bedtime stories. We had all been sitting together in the living room to begin with; then Lucy left to watch a television programme in her bedroom and I slipped into the kitchen to clear up. I had purposely left the living-room door open — this was one of our safer caring policies — and I was standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.

Suddenly I heard Paula squeal, and then shout: ‘No, Reece! That’s naughty! Don’t do that!’

Paula is the most quietly spoken and placid of my three children and it was so unlike her to raise her voice, let alone cry out in alarm, that I was instantly out of the kitchen and into the living room. Reece was still sitting on the sofa, now grinning from ear to ear. Paula was on her feet and looked flustered and alarmed.

‘What is it?’ I asked her.

‘Don’t know,’ Reece said.

I looked at Paula, who, while not crying, was quite clearly upset and embarrassed.

‘I’m talking to Paula,’ I said to Reece. I looked again at Paula.

She came up close to me and, with her back to Reece, said quietly: ‘Mum, he grabbed my breast and tried to put his hand up my skirt.’

‘Reece!’ I said, turning and glaring at him.

‘So?’ he said and shrugged, clearly seeing absolutely nothing wrong in his behaviour.

‘Stay there,’ I said to him. I drew Paula out of the living room and into the hall so we couldn’t be overheard. I wanted to speak to Paula first and find out exactly what had happened before I spoke to Reece. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. It was an unpleasant thing for a grown woman to have to deal with, let alone a self-conscious teenager.

‘Yes,’ she said, still acutely embarrassed. ‘I was just reading him a story and he suddenly grabbed my breast. Then he tried to put his hand up my skirt and kiss me on the lips.’

‘Dear me!’ I said, appalled. I’ll talk to him now.’ Paula knew it was no good me simply telling off Reece, because he had seen nothing wrong in his lewd behaviour and therefore wouldn’t know what he was being told off for. If he had come from a home environment where it had been the norm for people to grope each other, then he was probably copying what he had seen without any moral judgement or principle.

I desperately needed more information on Reece’s background to know what exactly I was dealing with in terms of the level of abuse at home. No one had phoned from the social services on Friday and when Jill had phoned she didn’t have any more information. I would phone her first thing on Monday and ask her to find out more. I wasn’t having my family abused because of simple lack of information. It is a sad fact that foster families are abused by the children they look after — physically, mentally and, even as had just happened to Paula, sexually. However, I could minimize the risk by knowing more, and it was a sign of how mature my family had become with fostering and having to deal with this type of behaviour that Paula wasn’t more distressed by the incident.