Because I Grew Up In An Orphanage

On Identity & Being Raised in Care of the State

I wouldn’t need a large abacus to count the number of times my experience as someone raised in care of the state has been well represented in a film. One fleeting moment in Robert Altman’s 2001 murder mystery Gosford Park, an elegant pre-cursor to Dowton Abbey, nailed it.

During a large and free-flowing dinner table conversation about family, Mr Stockbridge (played by Clive Owen) stunned fellow diners when he answered a question with a simple “because I grew up in an orphanage“. The ensuing silence told more of our story than any scripted dialogue ever could.

Anyone from state care made to describe their background following a routine question about childhood in a polite conversation knows that silence. Until recently and in middle age I still grimaced when such discussions arose at the diplomatic functions I attend with my job. If I am honest about it, at different stages of my life I have felt intrinsic shame, stigma and especially guilt for the discomfort it may cause to others, and this has often fed into a deep, internal narrative that I am not really good enough to be here. On the other hand, I felt compelled never to hide who I am or where I come from. Being from state care is as important for my identity as being a Belgan or being a Hindu may be to someone else. It is where I spent my formative years, it shaped me, and I want to be a good role model for kids in care today. It is at my core. I just would rather not talk about it.

6% of UK 18 year olds from state care go to university compared to around 27% of the general population. When I was 18 (a very long time ago) it felt more like 0%. We were from a minority more likely than any other to end up in prison, a gang, trafficked, addicted or die early and less likely to go to university than any other group in society. Unlike other marginalised minorities, we had no underpinning culture, flags or narrative to foster pride in our identity. I am so proud of the 6% of 18-year-olds from care who attend university today. It is a testimony to resilience, the odds are stacked against them, they make it through anyway.