Read Online Life for Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair by Susan Sheehan - Free Book Online Page B

workers called regularly at the Hargrove home, and, because St. Christopher’s has a low turnover rate, Crystal and little Daquan had only a few social workers apiece over their years in foster care. The Hargroves’ house was depicted in favorable terms: it was quiet, efficient, well run; children were playing; dinner was cooking; homework was being done. The only negative observation made was that Margaret Hargrove, who was called “very directive,” had a better relationship with her younger foster children than with her older foster children, with whom there was “underlying tension.” Little Daquan’s care was exemplary. A plump, adorable child, he was the “little prince” of the family, sociable, bubbling, active—a “joyous child who makes people smile” and “receives constant love and attention from foster mother, her daughter, and three teenage foster children.” (He was subsequently doted on by Frances andDonna Smart.) Goals were set for him, too—not just drinking from a cup but also increasing his vocabulary. He met them and might have met the second one faster if everyone else in the household hadn’t anticipated his needs, leaving him with little motivation to express himself verbally. A worker who saw Crystal at the Hargroves’ observed that she was extremely warm and affectionate toward her son, and that he recognized Crystal as “mommy” and “understands he has two mommies.”
    After Crystal turned sixteen, and Daquan had been in foster care for more than a year, it was harder for St. Christopher’s to justify keeping him in foster care with Crystal as the “discharge resource,” because her own discharge was too far off. Consequently, the agency made an attempt to discharge him. He would go to live with his biological father, because Daquan Jefferson had a job and parents who expressed a willingness to help him care for his child; it would be stipulated that Daquan retain custody only until Crystal had completed high school, had an apartment, and had a job that would enable her to support her son.
    A great deal of effort was expended in 1986 and 1987 on discharging little Daquan to his father, but no discharge took place. The records do not make absolutely clear why, but they do reveal that the discharge was not what Daquan Jefferson or Crystal Taylor or Margaret Hargrove wanted. Daquan was willing to take his son, but he asked Margaret Hargrove if she would care for him during the day on weekdays once he had custody, and said he would care for the boy, with his parents,on weekends. Margaret Hargrove at first consented to this plan, but St. Christopher’s did not. Crystal opposed having her son go to live in the Bronx. She felt he was receiving better care at the Hargroves’ than he would at the Jeffersons’, and claimed that once Daquan had custody he would try to limit her access to her son: Daquan had remained “in love with” Crystal long after she went on to date other men. When Margaret Hargrove was threatened with the departure of little Daquan—who slept with the Hargroves in their bed, and who, alone among their foster children, was taken out of town for Alice’s college graduation, and to Disney World—she told Daquan Jefferson he could no longer visit his son in her home on Saturdays and Sundays. She, too, felt that little Daquan was getting better care with her than he would get in the Bronx. In 1986, she spoke of adopting Crystal, as if that would enable her to adopt little Daquan. When big Daquan’s father, Elmer Jefferson, died, in May, 1987, the discharge plan foundered. Children whose goal is to be discharged to a relative are usually kept in care for only two years. St. Christopher’s went to court numerous times to request extensions of placement for little Daquan; the extensions were granted.
    A s soon as Diamond Madison was released from jail, in July of