The Residential Schools Apology

cbc.ca asked readers who went to a residential school, or had family members who did, to write in about their experiences. I’ve just been reading some of the 134 comments, and it's interesting how similar many of the comments are.

If you think about the fallout that comes when any one person is abused—the effect not only on their lives, but their parents, siblings, family, spouses, children—it’s staggering to think of the damage that has been done to entire communities. Even if you just think of children being raised, perhaps from the age of 6 until 16 (with maybe one month back at home per year), in a cold and non-family environment, imagine what kind of parenting skills they would have. It's really a case of the state/church raising society's children, like a sci fi story.

As one woman wrote, speaking of her mother: “She was never shown how to care or love others, not even her own children. This is what was robbed from us - a caring and nurturing family, and the knowledge of who we were and pride in that.”

Below I pasted some of the comments along these lines. Obviously it's a bit long to read, but I posts anyway... if only for myself to reread in future.

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“I never understood why my mother could never show affection, and never said she loved us, her children. Her problems with alcohol, depression and anger I now know were fueled by her lonely, regimented, and cold-hearted, childhood experiences. …I honor my Mother and all of her siblings, who also endured the residential schools- my uncles with the biggest 'hearts' and the kindest smiles but saddest of eyes,who ruined themselves with alcohol. It is a similar story with almost all aboriginal families. And I ask for strength for all; to rise above the vices that have been used to hide or mask the deep pain so that our people can again be proud and have dignity.”

From a social worker in a native community: “I had many clients who attended this residential achool, and I heard many accounts of sexual and physical abuse. The most frequent and most hearbreaking stories came from the long buried stories of acute loneliness, and feelings of abandonment….Much of the media coverage has focused on elderly survivors, and the early days of residential schools. But this young women and many others like her still struggle to raise their families with damaged self esteem issues and long burried anger and despair.”

“My mother has taken these words from the federal goverment very hard.... her wounds have been exposed again and her pain is real... she is far from understanding how to heal...the only way i know to heal, is to forgive and this I know can be trying, but its based on the individuals choice to do so. I am responsible to my children and thier children not to allow the legacy of the residential schools have any more power over our lives. If I was to feed into the pain i would only be giving this tragidy momentum to contiues to destroy more generations within my family, I must break the chain of disfunction and sorrow rise above to be proud of who and what I am... and for this I am responsible...”

“the legacy it has left our family, is that we, the seven children, don't even talk to each other anymore. We all have such deep hurts, we don't talk about it, we don't support each other in any way. We are all educated and do very well in our jobs, but we do not have a complete life. … I have been a victim of sexual abuse. I have three grown children now, all have excellent education, excellent careers, and yet, tho proud, I am not truly happy with my life. I was an alcoholic, and now I gamble my life away, quite literally. I have lost so much, yet I still keep on this path of destruction. I cannot stop myself. I have been suicidal many times. I wish I was dead still.”

“The day I felt in my heart that it finally happened was June 11, 2008. The chains have been broken because for the first time someone other me had taken responsibility for the years of abuse at the hands of my entrusted family members that attended these schools.”

“I am a "survivor" but not in the familiar sense. I didnt attend residential school: My family members did. I have to reconstruct who I am daily as a result. Key to his message should have been meaningful recognition of youth like me who have the burden of putting the pieces back together. Key to this picture is the intergenerational impacts of residential school.”

“The common characteristics most families like mine all share are that there has been a lack of love and affection, there were no 'I love you' words, no hugs and no kisses…. I am the last child in my big family, I am now 40 years old and I never had children of my own because I feared I could not love them properly.”

“I got wipped, beaten, hair pulled, and thrown around many times as a kid for no God damn reason, because this is the kind of Discipline they were taught.”

“I have seen my mother, destroy herself and have never known the parent she was meant to be... for she did not aquire the skills of parenting, because she had never been parented herself. I've watch her try to live up to expectations pushed on her from years before- she would wash the floors and would be sure to get into the cracks "WITH A TOOTHBRUSH" like she had been taught in her childhood. No matter what she did she would never be enough and this was instilled in her, just for the simple fact that she was NATIVE.”

“I myself suffered many horrible beatings (practically daily) and mental abuse as well as sexual abuse from relatives who attended residential school…. I myself had passed on abuse to my children when they were young, until I had sought therapy. …Between the depression and working, my kids knew that they had a mother that just existed and was not really living life. … My family didn't know how to apologize so they didn't apologize to each other. …Accepting someone’s apology doesn't mean that you condone the behaviour or actions that the person or people have done but that you forgive yourself for holding on and release yourself from the ties that bind you to the misery. It means freedom inside of you. This is just my opinion.”

“My aunt told me that the schools wouldn't let them even touch each other and yet they would stare at each other across the room, longing to hold each other and feel some element of family love that was so strongly absent in that place.”

“I'm a product of the 60's scoop, where Native kids were all taken from their families, and put into foster care or adopted by white families, because either their parents were inadequate or they were "deemed" inadequate …I wound up in care. I was raised in care, 21 homes by the time i was done...before 16.”

“One thing I am waiting for is an apology from the Roman Catholic Church. The priests and nuns took away my family. My younger brother committed suicide in 1968, followed by my sister who committed suicide in 1974. My mom died of alcoholism in 1979. She went to residential school. My older brother could not handle being abused by a priest. He drank and was run over while crossing a highway and many say that was suicide.
No Roman Catholic priest or nun has ever come to me to apologize. “

[My understanding, from a brief Google, is that other churches have apologized in the past, and the Catholic church has left it up to each diocese to apologize.]

“These priests and nuns represented God to these children (although a false one) and therefore it was spiritual abuse as well; how many children suffered and died believing that even God hated and disapproved of them.”