A Peanut Butter Moment

Estella Abraham

I was asked recently what was the most responsible job I have ever held, and I surprised the person asking me by saying that, without doubt, it was my first child care job. She had expected me to say my current one as I am CEO of an international foster care organisation. I felt the need to explain myself.

I told her that my current job is by far the most influential post I have held, as I am accountable for many people, resources and new developments. However, my first post as an assistant housemother in the 1970s had me responsible for the daily care and well-being of twelve children. This major responsibility “the welfare of vulnerable children “was 24/7, as I lived in the children's home alongside them as a full-time care-giver.

I know that those who live and care for children and youths have an enormous responsibility, often working with little information, and sometimes without a great deal of training and support. This was my experience in the 1970–s.

Having the daily responsibility for young lives is both rewarding and challenging at the same time “daunting, exhausting and sometimes thankless.

Recently, I met up with a young man who I had looked after in the mid-70s. He’s now in his 40s and living with his wife in Adelaide, Australia. The last time I saw him, I had taken him to a Royal Naval training school when he was just 15-years-old. As a child he had a real fad for peanut butter, to the extent that he used to spend pocket money and birthday money on jars “just for him”, even though we had peanut butter in the food cupboard for use at mealtimes.

When we made an arrangement to meet I had booked a restaurant for lunch but I had a voicemail from him changing the venue. He had changed it to a restaurant on board a boat on the Glenelg waterfront. Very symbolic, I thought. And when we met his first words to me were, “Do you remember when we last saw each other? It was Anglesey in 1979 when you took me to the HMS Indefatigable.” We hugged, and then over a meal we spent the next two hours catching up, sharing stories of times past and both of us talking about our adult lives and generally putting the world to rights.

Before we left the table I reached into my bag and pulled out two jars of peanut butter; one smooth, the other crunchy. He smiled and then we both burst into laughter (peanut butter had not come up in the stories shared earlier). He told me he had not told his wife about his childhood obsession with peanut butter and, as he took the jars, he said he would tell her when he got home.

What happened with that exchange between us was a “shared moment–; one of those magic times that make it all worthwhile. It let me and him know that the part of my consciousness that he had inhabited at that time had remained safe and intact with me till now, linking the past and the present and, in sharing it with his wife, the future. Words were not required to capture the memory.

Care Givers, Foster Carers, Group Care Staff “each and every one has the responsibility to protect and shape young lives by influencing them; leading them; facilitating development and education; creating memories; building confidence; improving social skills; listening; coaching; and, most importantly, accepting them unconditionally even when disapproving of some of their actions.

We don’t always see the fruits of our investments of loving care, time and commitment. But if we can create “shared moments” in the here and now, in the everyday, then these can create memories, and build a bank of recollections that people with friends and families already have. The children we look after for however long need us to be custodians of their development and memories, should they choose to access us as adults or the file records we keep for them.