Her memoir, Long Yarn Short, imprinted on my mind and heart. In a warm, inviting voice, this proud Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul woman paints an unflinchingly honest picture of her life as a child stolen by the state, at just ten years old, in the mid-2000s. She describes being “tucked up in bed” by her dad and “about to close [her] eyes” when it happened.
“There was no reason why Mum could not take me,” Turnbull-Roberts writes. Her mother’s mental illness had been “used against her to justify the removal” of the first of her three children, Turnbull-Roberts’ eldest brother. Since Turnbull-Roberts was conceived, her mother had feared her being taken as well. “In my world, she was my mum, my everything,” Turnbull-Roberts writes.
She chooses her words carefully and poignantly, never buying into the euphemisms and lies of a system built to destroy her connection to kin and culture. They aren’t “case workers”, they are “kidnappers”. They aren’t “removing” her, they are “kidnapping”.
As I read, Turnbull-Roberts never let me forget she was ripped away from community, family and warmth, to be neglected and abused by a system that proclaimed it saved her from neglect and abuse.
While Turnbull-Roberts educates readers about the racist foundations these institutions are built on, the book never becomes dry or academic. Instead, she personalises these facts, showing how pathologising Indigenous parenting and culture results in unfair judgements of neglect and abuse. She points out: “if a kid from a wealthy family has dirty clothes, they had a fun day; however if a child from a poor family has dirty clothes, they must be neglected.”
She also describes some of her foster carers taking children for the payments they bring.
At the same time, the system unfairly judges people like her parents. First Nations culture, mental health issues and poverty struggles are all deemed “failures” that families must be punished for.
Turnbull-Roberts highlights our society’s thirst for punitive measures when anyone we deem “less than” struggles. Her book is a chilling reality check on our skewed view of “justice” and “support”.