The Murillo Family: A Short Story

There wasn’t enough money for the Murillo family, and with three children, there needed to be a solution, and soon. The bills were piling up just before Linda Murillo began her first year in high school, so her parents had to think of a good way to make some money. Murillo would soon be breaking away from her small hometown of Riverside, California to attend college and her younger brother, Erick would soon follow after that. When her parents sat under the dusky yellow light in their dining room, they made their decision, which ended up making the biggest impact on their daughter’s life. Murillo’s parents decided to help less fortunate children by becoming foster parents. All they wanted to do was to earn decent money without having to stop …show more content…
Foster children, which she learned, each had different distinct personalities. “I will never forget this kid,” Murillo says as she remembers what a certain boy had put her family through. In 2015, the Murillo family took in three siblings, who were taken away from their mother. The siblings were aware of the foster care system and the eldest immediately took control of it. The eldest sibling was sitting in the living room watching television when Murillo came home. Murillo heard her mother explaining to the child that he had watched enough television for the day and that he should go play in his room. The child yelled back and refused to comply with the request. What Murillo didn’t know was that the child would use the cellphone that his biological mother had gotten him to call her. The child called his mother and told her an exaggerated and false explanation of what had happened. Next thing the Murillo family knew child protective services were knocking on their door. “I remember being so mad at the boy because he made my mom listen to the social service people even though she didn’t do anything wrong,” Murillo said. The mother of the child called child protective services and accused Murillo’s parents of being unfit and cruel to her children. Murillo took great concern for the processes and rules that the social workers spoke about and she was fascinated with their amount of patience and understanding for each side of the dilemma. “They helped, and I really appreciated them for it,” Murillo said. This wasn’t the point in time when Murillo decided that she wanted to become a social worker, instead, it was when the three siblings were moved to a different home and the Murillo family took in a young autistic child and his baby