Today, aged 52, and with two children of her own, Julie re-reads her letters for the first time in years, and offers several reflections. “I feel the sadness of the little girl that was me. I also feel the desperation of the little girl wanting to be heard,” she says . Therefore, Julie’s overriding memories of Cholmondeley Home are complex: “It was a good place, and also a traumatic experience. ” To her, the two are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, several memories stand out to Julie, which were not addressed in her letters. Her most striking, vivid memory is the gendered dormitories. “I remember the large dormitories. Boy’s dormitories at one end and girl’s dormitories at the other, and rows of beds. I couldn’t understand why my brothers
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” Yet, she sees plethoric positives from her experiences. Julie resolved to learn from her childhood, and use it to productively inform her parenting, consciously vowing: “No child of mine will ever feel unsafe or scared. My children will have a voice and be heard. My children will have the space to be themselves. My children will have the ability to say no if something is not right for them .” Under no circumstances would Julie’s children share her experiences of feeling unsafe, voiceless, and powerless. Simply, Julie would not allow her children “to feel that level of sadness, or to be that scared .” Unlike her time in Cholmondeley Home, Julie’s parenting would not be blindly dictated by social norms . Overall, Julie views motherhood as a cathartic process, through which she reconciled her experiences, concluding, “Cholmondeley Home shaped motherhood and empowered me. I knew what was right for my children, and also feel that, through this, my childhood hurts were healed .” Thus, Julie’s story comes full circle, but it does not …show more content…
Julie’s lived experiences and subsequent reflections, coupled with analyses of Cholmondeley Home and Hugh Cholmondeley, add depth, realism, and truth to Cholmondeley Home’s history. Collectively, these multi-dimensional insights reverberate beyond Julie’s story, indicating Cholmondeley Home’s nuanced, institutionalised nature. Thus, rather than blaming Cholmondeley Home, or resenting her parents, Julie acknowledged her experiences were a consequence of systemic, coalescing, and engrained, social, cultural, and attitudinal factors; “an unavoidable function of time and place. ” Julie’s negative experiences demonstrate wider societal conceptions of children, rather than a malicious facility, or uncaring parents . To Julie, Cholmondeley Home was, and continues to be, a good, virtuous place, yet also a place where children stay under unfortunate circumstances . However, beyond familial implications, and beyond historical significance, this story’s most poignant aspect is the fact it finally gives voice to a little girl who never had
” Yet, she sees plethoric positives from her experiences. Julie resolved to learn from her childhood, and use it to productively inform her parenting, consciously vowing: “No child of mine will ever feel unsafe or scared. My children will have a voice and be heard. My children will have the space to be themselves. My children will have the ability to say no if something is not right for them .” Under no circumstances would Julie’s children share her experiences of feeling unsafe, voiceless, and powerless. Simply, Julie would not allow her children “to feel that level of sadness, or to be that scared .” Unlike her time in Cholmondeley Home, Julie’s parenting would not be blindly dictated by social norms . Overall, Julie views motherhood as a cathartic process, through which she reconciled her experiences, concluding, “Cholmondeley Home shaped motherhood and empowered me. I knew what was right for my children, and also feel that, through this, my childhood hurts were healed .” Thus, Julie’s story comes full circle, but it does not …show more content…
Julie’s lived experiences and subsequent reflections, coupled with analyses of Cholmondeley Home and Hugh Cholmondeley, add depth, realism, and truth to Cholmondeley Home’s history. Collectively, these multi-dimensional insights reverberate beyond Julie’s story, indicating Cholmondeley Home’s nuanced, institutionalised nature. Thus, rather than blaming Cholmondeley Home, or resenting her parents, Julie acknowledged her experiences were a consequence of systemic, coalescing, and engrained, social, cultural, and attitudinal factors; “an unavoidable function of time and place. ” Julie’s negative experiences demonstrate wider societal conceptions of children, rather than a malicious facility, or uncaring parents . To Julie, Cholmondeley Home was, and continues to be, a good, virtuous place, yet also a place where children stay under unfortunate circumstances . However, beyond familial implications, and beyond historical significance, this story’s most poignant aspect is the fact it finally gives voice to a little girl who never had