The carpet child

I am only one of thousands of people known as a "Forgotten Australian". As a child I was placed in out-of-home care and experienced hardship and abuse on every level, and suffered the effects of displacement and dispossession. The term "Forgotten Australian" was coined by the 2004-2005 Senate Inquiry into the maltreatment of children in out-of-home care in mid 20th century Australia. It was used to define Australians who, as non-offending children of Anglo/European heritage, were placed in Children's Homes (commonly called orphanages,) or foster care in the years between 1920 and 1975. The Senate Inquiry Report, 2005, states: 'In undertaking this reference the committee is to direct its inquiries primarily to those affected children who were not covered by the 2001 report . . . inquiring into child migrants . . . and the 1997 report inquiring into Aboriginal children' and Torres Strait Islander children (2). This thesis was written because I believe that the public have a right to a slice of our Australian history which has, to date--or at least until recently, been brushed aside and denied by the churches and charities and the various governments, and kept hidden from public view. I also wrote the thesis in the hope that it might, in some way, help other people who have suffered a similar childhood to myself, and help others who have not had a damaging childhood, to understand what it like to experience that type of childhood. I wrote my thesis in the hope that will help raise public awareness of the social mistakes of the past, and that social problems can be self-perpetuating and hence potentially damaging to our society, present and future. In writing, my aim is to assist in bringing about social change for the better. In writing the creative work I wanted to give the readers a first-hand account of the subjective thoughts and feelings and experiences of a "Forgotten Australian". I aimed to write a creative work that is honest to the experience, and which will allow the readers to enter a literary landscape wherein they experience the damaging childhood vicariously. I wanted the reader to know what that type of damaging childhood actually feels like, so that they gain a sense of what it means to be a "Forgotten Australian", and hence gain a deep understanding of the damaging childhood experience.