Wide Open Spaces
56:43 Share

This episode is brought to you by The Hartford, a leading provider of employee benefits and income protection products that is dedicated to standing behind U.S. workers to help them pursue their goals and get through tough times. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com slash employee benefits. We've also got a link in our show notes. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot,

Shopify helps you do your thing, however you cha-ching. From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash special offer, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash special offer. Um, how are you? Most people answer that question with fine or...

But obviously it's not always fine, and it's usually not even that good. This is a podcast that asks people to be honest about their pain. To just be honest about how they really feel about the hard parts of life. And guess what? It's complicated. No matter your relationship to motherhood, there is one universal truth.

Motherhood is complicated no matter who or where you are. I was reminiscing about Mother's Day in prison, and I actually spent two Mother's Days there. How old were your kids when you went to prison? I think they were 6 and 13, I think. It might have been 6 and 12. Yeah, it was 6 and 12.

In the United States, 172,000 women are in prison, and more than half of them are moms. In jails, where the majority of people are there because they can't afford bail but haven't been convicted of anything, 80% of the women are mothers. The majority of people experiencing incarceration as women are leaving behind children. My name is Kristen Powers, and I'm the executive director of Benevolence Farm.

Benevolence Farm is a farm in North Carolina. It's also a place where women leaving prison in that state can come after their release and have a place to live and work. They grow flowers and herbs on the property. And the women are paid $15 an hour to make, sell, and ship products like candles, soaps, and salves made from the plants grown on the farm.

There's so many different stigmas that come with a record. And then there's so many reasons to women end up in prison and

in fact, sometimes tied to their motherhood, right? Like there's definitely been more than one person who's come to the farm who was incarcerated because of something their partner did to their child. But the mother did not intervene in the right way or in the way that we would think a mom should. And, you know, the criminal legal system doesn't take into account

Many factors of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, substance use, trauma. And yet we see moms incarcerated for so many reasons, often just tied to like the perception that they didn't do what was right for their kids.

I think we're harder on moms who make mistakes. And I think maybe there's this view that, well, I see men in TV or social media or in my neighborhood more likely to be incarcerated. So maybe that's more normal. And so if a mom or a woman is incarcerated...

there must be another layer of wrong here or something really must be messed up on this case for a mom to get incarcerated. And that's, you know, even despite this massive increase of incarceration of women nationwide, like I think up to 2021, since the war on drugs has risen 500%, it's not maybe in everyone's forefront of what they see as incarceration, but it's certainly there.

Kristen's work at Benevolence Farm focuses on a woman's life after serving a prison sentence, because getting out is truly just the beginning.

In North Carolina, when you're released from prison, they give you $40, maybe a bus ticket, and then they tell you, good luck. And you're really left on your own. And so when Benevolence Farm was forming, there was a lot of interviews happening of people who had just come home to say, what happened when you came home? What did you need? And housing and employment changed.

came up over and over. And in some circumstances you are legally required to have an address or you go back to prison. And there were so many women where, where they were like, I can't go back home. I shouldn't go back home for whatever reason. You know, my family may not be able to have me back home or will not welcome me home. We never skirt over the fact like people who

in our program have caused harm as we all have some you get in prison for and other harm you don't um so you know they're they're potentially um the communities from which they come are not healthy for them or or their families are not in a space where it's healthy for for those families to welcome them home so we have people who their home plan in prison with our case manager says homeless

they don't have anywhere to go. And in the state of North Carolina, you're supposed to have a home plan. Some of our folks can't go to the homeless shelter or a domestic violence shelter because of their records. So for those folks, they just might be trying to find a park bench to sleep on or a friend or in some cases, some really unsafe housing situations. And then employment obviously is a big one because like we were saying, you get $40 from the prison and

And in Alamance County, anyway, where we're located, you owe $40 of probation fees within 30 days. So you're already operating basically on $0. But the third thing that we find really important too is like we offer this space to just like exhale, to just breathe, right?

Like you don't have to enter this rat race of where's my next meal coming from? Where am I sleeping tonight? And so that allows them some space to process what's, what's happened to them and what is happening to them. And then to plan and to make, make a goal or step forward so that they can actually reset their,

and move forward and pursue a life that they actually are excited to live. So it is such a larger community impact than people realize. I think the United States is a very individual focus on things, but the ripple effects are so much broader than we realize unless you've been through it yourself. One person who has been through it is Katie, who you heard at the very top of this episode. I think we're here. Hi, Nora. Hi. Hello. I just pulled up, I think,

When I first see Katie, she's at the end of the gravel driveway waiting for me to arrive at the farm. Katie is tiny, with pale blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail, black glasses, and a sweatshirt that could swallow her up. Hi guys. Hello. I'm Nora. Kristen. I'm Katie. Katie, nice to meet you.

She and Kristen gave me the full tour. The barn, the raised garden beds filled with the remains of last year's herbs and veggies, the chickens. So Cleo's our mascot. She has her own crown. And so the women really resonate with that. Mr. Hawkins is the only man on the farm. He's a rooster. So he also does his own thing. But Cleo is our very independent chick.

Katie, tell me where we are right now, like what room we're in. So we're in the workshop at Benevolent's Farm. And we're in a basement. We're in a basement. There's like tons of... This is a basement. So you're going to hear some running water and maybe even some people walking above us. These are our dried herbs. And these are the herbs like lemon balm, lavender, lavender.

spearmint calendula these are the herbs that we have harvested and dried and put on the shelves because we will infuse grapeseed oil we infuse this out into the greenhouse and this is how we put our herbs into our body care products what's your favorite one your favorite herb um

So it's a big toss up between lavender and hibiscus. Oh, that's very calming. Like I can feel that in the back of my head. Yeah. And I like when I just can't deal with life anymore, I will go in my bathroom, cut off all the lights and put like three of these candles on my tub. Um,

And then we have healing salve and... Katie helps me find outlets for the equipment. She lets me sniff all the candles and soaps. She smiles sweetly and nervously when we sit down for the interview. Because we're not just going to talk about her job here at Benevolence Farm. We're going to talk about what brought her here. In 2018, Katie arrived at a state prison in North Carolina. A week into her sentence, it was Mother's Day.

My first Mother's Day was very traumatic. My grandmother died on Mother's Day that year and I was in prison and I had just gotten there. I was there for about a week and I did not have any contact with my family. So it took about two weeks for my family to answer the phone and to let me know that she had passed. My second Mother's Day was a little bit easier.

The women who were incarcerated, they celebrated us. And that was amazing to me. They didn't do that on my first. I don't know why. But the second one, they gave us, you know, a special meal. And the churches came in and brought, like, little gift bags for us. So it was really nice. We didn't have a lot, but what we did have, it made it special. So...

Those are the only two Mother's Day that I spent without my children. And it was really hard. I can't even describe it. Yeah. Even thinking about it kind of brings back, like, emotions. Because even though I don't have full custody of my children, I've always been a part of their life. And, um...

When the state told me that I wasn't going to be able to experience almost two years of each of their lives, it tore me down. And I have spent the last three years building myself back up so I can be the mother that they deserve. There are logistical things that we all need to parent. Stable housing, money, food being just some of them.

But there are also emotional needs. As a parent, we are the person who has to guide our children through this world, teach them, nurture them, keep track of when school starts and get our kids there on time, a real challenge in the best of circumstances. We need to know when our kids are struggling with things like reading or math skills and help them at home.

We need to guide them through their emotions, their interactions. And that's why parenting is the hardest job. It requires so much of us all the time. And for Katie, none of that was lining up when she had her kids. So I have some mental disabilities. And when I am unhealthy, I am no longer on meds. Yeah.

I'm not managing my mental health in any way, shape or form. And my disabilities have consumed me. I have paranoid schizophrenia. And so my reality may not be the reality of what others are. I was in a very abusive relationship. And somebody that controlled everything about me, anything and everything,

And he manipulated me and he monopolized me. And I didn't have any control over my day-to-day life or my children. I was lucky. My mom stood up and fought for my children when they entered the system. My mom was not about to allow her grandchildren to go into the system. So she got my two oldest ones.

Katie's oldest son spent some time in foster care when he was six, but Katie's mom got him back and also adopted Katie's daughter, who she has been raising since she was three weeks old. I have two other ones that I do not have a relationship with, and it breaks my heart every day. And it's not very often that I talk about them, and it's because it's just so much pain attached. But I had my younger two back-to-back.

Well, actually, the last three were back to back. There was like a grand total of maybe three and a half years between all three of them. And my mom, when she adopted my daughter, figured out how old she would be when my daughter graduated. And the answer is well into her 70s. And then to think of two more children behind her, she knew she couldn't financially support them. And also, she didn't think that it would be fair to them

to take them on and then not be able to give them a life that they deserve. She knew the adoptive parents and where they don't like me and they are very judgmental to me. They had a very good relationship with my mom and they stood in court and said that they were going to keep the siblings

like continue sibling visits and let them know that they were, you know, siblings and let them create relationships. As soon as it went to court, they quit contacting everybody. Unhealthy Katie was caught up in the substances, paranoid schizophrenia, and that toxic relationship with her child's father. He had been in and out of prison, and Katie had always been the one to support him from the outside.

I would write him. I would send money to him. I would put money on the phone. I was in and out of jail, so I couldn't actually, or on and off of probation, I couldn't actually go visit him. So there wasn't ever any physical visits, but I...

have probably spent well over $10,000 in phone calls and sending him money. And over the years, we were together for 12 years. So there was a lot of time that he was incarcerated. And there has been a lot of phone calls and a lot of Katie send me money and I need a new phone or I need more shoes or they're not feeding me enough. I need food.

He told her that she had it easy on the outside, and if she loved him, she'd go to prison and see how hard it had been for him. So I did what he wanted me to. I quit going to my appointments, quit calling my probation officer, and ultimately that was absconding. And that is the one thing that they will send you to prison for, the one violation. And, um...

I intentionally violated so I could show him that it wasn't as easy on the outside during a loved one being incarcerated as he thought it was. A few days before I was arrested, I went to go tell my children that, you know, this is the beginning to the end and I'm going to have to go spend time in prison. And my daughter, she was six at the time,

And I remember she just broke down crying. And she's been with my mom for the majority of her life. So she calls me KK instead of mommy. And she says, KK, you're not a bad person anymore. You don't have to go to prison. Prison is for bad people. I said, baby, I did this and I have to go pay my time. Just like when you get in trouble and you have to go to timeout.

I have to go to big people timeout now, okay? And it's fine. It's okay. We're going to get through this. Katie, what did it feel like? Little kids say the most amazing things, right? Like they say those amazing things and like they believe them with their whole heart. So to have your daughter tell you you're not a bad person, how did that feel? Did you believe her? At that time, no. Because I knew that I had committed crimes, um,

and that ultimately I needed to pay my debt to society. So at that time, no, I did not believe her. We'll be right back. ♪

We get support from FOREA and the only people who can listen to this advertisement. I want everyone to listen to it unless you know me in real life, because I'm going to talk about intimacy products and I am a recovering prude. But I can tell you that I reached out to FOREA after using their products and I was like, I need you to be a sponsor on my podcast because I want to talk about this, even though it's hard for me to talk about, but I don't think that's just me. I think that's

A lot of us. Phoria has a cult following for a reason because their products transform people's sex lives. It feels like magic. It feels like alchemy. I don't know how to describe it other than to say if you think that you have had decent orgasms before, even good ones, if you feel like you've had good sex, you're about to

take it to a different level. You are about to have your mind blown. You are going to be just sailing through space on another planet and you will be amazed. You will be amazed. I am a huge fan of the Awaken Arousal Oil. The sex oil is also chef's kiss. They also have this thing called the Pleasure Set, which is their three best-selling products, which includes the Awaken Arousal Oil, the sex oil, and Intimacy Meltz.

The three of them together is like the ultimate sexual experience. Like you will be so connected to your partner or to yourself. Like honestly, you have to try this. I urge you to have the urge to use these products, which will give you more of the urge. Treat yourself, treat your partner, but especially yourself. Go get your juiciest, deepest, sensual experience today.

Foria has a deal. There's always a deal. Get 20% off your first order by visiting foriawellness.com slash terrible or use code terrible at checkout. That's F-O-R-I-A wellness.com forward slash terrible. You'll get 20% off your first order. You can thank me later. Honestly, don't thank me. All I need from you is for you to have that experience. Okay? Don't thank me. Thank yourself afterwards.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot, Shopify helps you do your thing however you cha-ching. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash special offer all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash special offer.

This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

Katie starts her 17-month prison sentence on a mission. I would get up, I'd go to breakfast, and I would come back. I'd wash my clothes, fold my clothes, or whatever chore, quote-unquote, that I set up for myself that day. And as soon as I got done with my chores, I would get out whatever self-help book that I was working on.

I created a business plan in prison to create my own organization that God had placed on my heart two years before my incarceration, that I felt like my incarceration was time for me to sit down and put together the business plan for it. And so that's what I did. I read the Bible front to back twice. I went to Catholic school for 14 years. I've never read the Bible.

So actually, not even once. Interesting. Yeah. It was like more like a bedtime story for me. But there's a lot of reading in prison. There's not much to do. So I would switch up between self-help books. I didn't read for pleasure. It was all learning something new.

I had convinced myself that God wouldn't allow me to go to prison if it wasn't for me to learn something. And as soon as I learned my lesson, I'd be able to go home. Not the case. Not at all. I learned a lot of lessons. And yeah, I did not get to go home until it was my projected release date. Yeah.

Doesn't matter how many lessons God teaches you. But, I mean, I learned a lot. I did learn a lot. What do you think you learned? Well, first and foremost, patience and compassion. And I have a passion now to make someone else's life a little bit easier. Katie also learns another important lesson.

that her daughter's father is not going to be reciprocating the support that she gave to him for all those years. Of course he didn't. He didn't make it a month. So he didn't even send me one dime. He couldn't even support our children while I was incarcerated. I held on to it for about six months. I prayed every night, God, if he loves me, then why isn't he here? I think it's 80% of women in North Carolina who are incarcerated live.

are also mothers. And here's the thing, like, most people don't get visits. Most people do not get to see their children. And a lot of time, those children are in the system in one way or another. And there's people in there that they haven't seen their children since birth or birth

You know, the night that the cops came and arrested him and those poor babies were standing on the porch crying, begging for mommy. Like, that has to be the most god-awful feeling in the world. I ran. I went on the run because I would not allow my children to see that. Katie didn't see her kids for the 17 months she was incarcerated. Her boyfriend never stepped up or showed up. But Katie did.

She finished that business plan. She read self-help books. She dreamed about what life would look like outside of prison. But before she could pursue that dream, she needed a plan for after her release. She couldn't live with her mom and she didn't want to go back to her partner. She wanted to be a better mom, a more stable mom, but she had to figure out how to earn money and find a place to live. Those are things that can be tough when you have a record.

Whatever and whoever you believe in, God, the universe, the flying spaghetti monster, we can all agree that sometimes they work in mysterious ways. And one day, Katie rented a book from the prison library, and the answer to all those questions fell right into her lap. I was flipping through one of the self-help books and a brochure that they had sent out when they first opened their doors.

The brochure was from Benevolence Farm. Katie did some research, reached out, and was accepted into the program, which would give her a place to live, a place to earn money, and a place to get support for this new chapter of her life. But that new chapter comes in May 2020. Unfortunately, I got out in the middle of the pandemic period.

And so when I went to prison, like the world was normal. And when I came home from prison, like the world had completely changed. Even Walmart closes at 11 now. Like what in the world? But my mom is, well, at the time she was an activities director at a nursing home. And so she was not willing to risk her residents and their health to

You can't. Katie is released from prison, and all the roadblocks that Kristen mentioned before are intensified by COVID.

So it's Kristen who picks Katie up from prison, but before Katie can go to the farm, she needs a COVID test, which should be easy enough, but isn't. She drove around from test site to test site trying to find a place that would take me and test me for COVID just to keep everybody healthy at the house. And when...

The thing about it was is that at that point, they were asking for identification in order to take a COVID test. And the prison wouldn't let me bring home the prison ID that I had. And my mom had my state ID like four counties over. And she wasn't willing to actually meet up with anybody because she didn't want to contract anything that I could bring home from prison.

Eventually, Kristen and Katie found a testing site that wouldn't require an ID. But at this point, it was taking days to get test results. So Katie is alone in a hotel room for six days waiting to get to the farm. So the farm is the complete opposite from prison. So when I got here, the only thing I could hear in my mind was wide open spaces by Dixie Chicks. Yeah.

So I was like, man, you know, like quit living on everybody else's mistakes. Like, let me make mine. Katie spent a few months only talking to her kids on the phone and waiting to see them. Eventually, her mom felt comfortable enough with a socially distanced visit, and one of the staff members at the farm coordinated something special for their reunion.

We had like this big cookout and my family came and residents that had family in the area, like some of their family came. And we just had this big old cookout and I wasn't allowed to touch them. My mom gave me an air hug the first time seeing me in almost two years. And

I can imagine how bad that hurt her because I know how bad it hurt me. And I could not give them a kiss. I could not hold my baby girl. So we had to social distance, six feet apart at all times. Not being able to hold or spend time with her kids was excruciating for Katie. But that wasn't the only challenging thing about reentering society. What she was trying to do after prison was live her life in a completely new way.

She wanted to stay sober. She wanted to manage her paranoid schizophrenia in a healthy way. She wanted to form relationships with people who weren't committing crimes or abusing substances. It's a lot to take on at once. Here's Kristen again.

I think we just don't have a lot of patience in the criminal legal system. Like, people are trying to radically transform themselves, and that takes time, and that takes resources, and that takes energy, and it takes people around you to process everything. And Katie, like a lot of residents, is going to need that. I left back to be with my child's father, and, um...

I left for three months. A month into that three months, I relapsed. I tried to get him sober, and before I could get him sober, he helped me relapse. It turned extremely physical, and he was not in his right mind at all, and it became life or death situation. And I left walking, and I went back to my mom's house where my children were, and I

My mom told me that she would give me 30 days to get up on my feet. Well, realistically, nobody can get on their feet in 30 days. So I called Kristen in tears, and I asked her if she'd give me one more last chance.

She reached back out and she like knew she needed that support. And that's like what I want Benevolence Farm to be. I don't like once you leave Benevolence Farm, you're still part of us as much as you want it to be. So when I came back to the farm on my second attempt, the farm enterprise manager at the time had told me, are you ready to get back to work? And I was like, hell yeah. You know, like, where's the tractor keys? You know, like, I'm that person that...

I like to put myself into physical work in order to run away from my mental health and my emotions. And she looked at me and she's like, oh no, I'm not talking about physical work. I'm talking about that emotional work, the hard work. She was like, are you ready to get to work? And I was like, I mean, do we have to? She was like, yeah, because this is the only way to do it. And, um...

I'm really grateful for her and my time with her and my time at the farm because that's the moment when I realized that I couldn't just rush through everything and I can't just keep on throwing myself into physical labor to get rid of my emotions. I actually have to process them and I actually have to go through the emotions. And that's where my journey to self-love started.

And self-care began. And I'm very grateful for it. When we come back, Katie starts the work. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. ♪

We get support from Sun Basket. Cooking is not my specialty. I have historically been a person who is more of a snacker than a meal eater, a person who maybe has not taken the best care of myself, and getting a delivery from Sun Basket with the

gorgeous, healthy meal options that were actually easy and fun to cook has been such a delight. Sun Basket makes it easy and convenient to cook healthy, delicious meals at home. They take 30 minutes or less.

I'm gluten-free, which is not always the easiest when you also have picky eaters in the house. But we got our Sun Basket delivery. We unboxed it. We went over the meals and it was such a relief to know that we had meals that were pre-planned for us. And guess what?

Following directions, putting things together. That was fun for our kids too, our picky eater kids. And they even ate this stuff. I'm telling you, it was a lifesaver. We are at the end of summer here in our city. We are out of ideas for dinner. We are out of ideas for lunch. We are out of ideas, period. This was zero prep, zero mess. And voila, we had a beautiful, fast, gorgeous, healthy dinner.

Go to sunbasket.com forward slash terrible today to save $120 across your first four deliveries. That's sunbasket.com forward slash terrible, and you'll save $120 across your first four deliveries, plus free shipping on your first order. You're going to love it. Go give it a try. Katie didn't just get a second chance at Benevolent's farm. She got a third.

Because healing from years of untreated mental illness and substance use disorder and trauma isn't as easy as she thought it would be. It's not as easy as some of us think it should be. American culture wants us to just put our minds to it, stick with it, get over it. But Katie needed more than self-help books and personal accountability and that natural drive you can hear in her voice. She needed real help. She needed patience and grace and therapy and care.

And she needed to see herself through her kids' eyes. I went to prison and my son was, you know, the little boy that was making a honor roll. And, you know, he would make bracelets and sell them at school and definitely into arts and craft and maybe a little bit of like martial arts here or there.

definitely into gaming. And when I came home, he was a child that was running away from home and breaking and entering himself and committing crimes and getting in trouble and smoking weed. And my heart just broke. And I remember having a conversation with him when I first got to the farm, you know,

I was angry because I was like, why are you making the same stupid decisions that I made? You see where it landed me. And angry, I called him. He wouldn't answer the phone. He had ran away yet again. And he wouldn't answer the phone for my mom. And my mom was terrified. She didn't know where he was. And so I called him and he answered the phone for me.

So when he answered, I said, Bubba, that's my love name for him. I said, Bubba, what in the world are you doing? And he was like, what? I said, no, you know. I said, you need to pack your things up. You need to go home right now. He said, Mama, I'm not going home. I said, yes, you are. He said, when you come home, I'll go home.

And I knew at that moment that I had to get my shit together. Excuse my language. I'm sorry. I had to get my things together because I had a child that he needed me. He desperately needed me to be in his life. The Katie you hear today is so different from the Katie who went to prison, different from the Katie who first came to the farm, and from the Katie who came back from the farm, and from the Katie who came back to the farm again.

Katie was able to leave the program, get certified as a peer support specialist, and fulfill her dream of helping women like herself. This Katie is Healthy Katie. Healthy Katie is medicated, and I go to counseling, and I manage my mental health, and I stay on top of if I start hearing something that I'm not sure is quite there, I

I will let somebody know and I will go in for a med adjustment if that's what needs to be done. I make sure that I am taking my medication as prescribed when I'm supposed to be taking it. And I focus on self-love and self-esteem. What Katie is doing is mothering herself.

Treating herself with the kindness and grace and love she has always deserved and never thought she did. And the healthier that Katie gets, the healthier her relationships get too. So I, on my second attempt, I came back to the farm after my relapse and like this horrible incident with my child's father. And I was really struggling emotionally and mentally and emotionally.

A volunteer came by and she was out there weeding with me. She was actually a former resident as well. And she was telling me that at the time that she was in the program, one of the directors or whatever had told her, you know, every time you grab a handful of weeds, remember that's like throwing out one of your faults.

Like something that you want to get rid of. You name that weed and you throw it as far as you can. And like that sticks with me today in my own garden. Like when I am just like bogged down with like,

oh my God, it's my fault that he's acting this way. Or it's my fault that my daughter can't quit crying or like she's super sensitive or like my mom's health. Like I'm always concerned about like, how's your cholesterol? What's your blood pressure? Like, like I'm the cause of some of that, you know, like she went gray really early and a hundred percent, I believe it was mostly me. And, um,

I'm all bogged down with like all these negative thoughts. I go out to the garden and I grab the weeds that are growing and I name the weeds and I throw them away. I don't go back and pick them up. It's not for me to pick up again. It's for me to leave them there and get the hell on with my life. Yeah. What's been the process of rebuilding relationships with your children? So currently...

My 17-year-old son lives with me, and I have him full-time. My daughter, I have her part-time. She's been with my mom since she was three weeks old. And so it is like me taking her from her mother. And so I don't think that's fair for her or my mom. And I'm grateful for my mom and her relationship with my daughter. So...

basically like a really fun aunt and I get to do all the fun things with my daughter. And my mom gets to do all the discipline and it works out well and I love it. My son, on the other hand, I am the full disciplinary and yeah, that's a little difficult. He's a good kid. He is just 17 years old and he thinks he knows everything and

Mom, you're so stupid and look how much you messed up and I made it to 17 and I only have three charges. Can you say that? Actually, I can. I didn't start messing up until I was 18, dang it. But it is a struggle. However, like...

I'm just glad that we get to struggle together. Like even on the worst of days, even when I want to wring his neck because he doesn't listen or he doesn't comprehend or he can't, I'm not sure what it is. I mean, it's slow. We're reuniting still. It's been a while, but it's a learning process and we can't just jump into it.

And we have to learn how to love each other all over again. Where we didn't have very much separation, there's still abandonment issues there. And if I did it on purpose or not, like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I can justify why I was gone or not. He still felt hurt when I left. And now not only do I have to figure out how to heal myself,

But I have children that are depending on me to help them heal their hurts and pains and navigate through their emotions and their insecurities now that I've created. Katie is also working on the relationship with her mom. For years, Katie's addiction and mental illness and the drama with her daughter's father meant that Katie's mom had to step in and be the reliable parent to the kids.

But you also have to think, like, she's hurt too. Yeah. And, like, did she deserve all that? She had a family of her own. And somewhere down the road, like, evilness somewhere, somehow came into her life. And now she's, you know, in her 60s raising kids that are not hers. She gave me the best, the ultimate compliment the other night. She said...

Oh, it's so hard for me. For 15 years, I spent every night, sleepless nights, worrying, am I going to wake up to a phone call that tells me my daughter is dead? Am I going to wake up to a phone call that tells me that my daughter is in ICU yet again? And for the past two years, I've been able to sleep. And I was just like, wow.

Like that just made me feel amazing. Like just knowing that like my mom is finally at ease, like she can actually get rest now. Like it really sucks that I put her through things like that to begin with. But like the back end is that she's actually getting sleep now. And so like I'm just I'm grateful that I can give her that peace.

Like we said at the beginning of this episode, most women in prison or jail are mothers. And when you incarcerate a mother, this causes deep familial wounds. Katie and her family were wounded long before she was locked up. And Katie is working hard at repairing things with her mother, her daughter, and her son. But there are still two kids out there that she doesn't get to repair things with. Her youngest son's.

Katie's older kids don't have a relationship with the siblings who were adopted, and neither does Katie. The last time she saw them was accidentally at a Walmart. We were Christmas shopping, me, my mom, and my daughter. And my mom just looked at me and was like, there's the boys. And if you don't say anything, there won't be any drama. And so I didn't. I just stood in the background, and

And I just stared at my children and was like, wow, they've changed. Oh, look how great they look and like they're happy. And so currently I am petitioning the court for post-adoption communication and connection. I don't hold any expectations out of that. I just hope to have any type of relationship with them.

And if the judge decides that, you know, I'm not worthy of that, which is totally, he can do that. He's the judge. If he does decide that, my only hope is to at least get the letters that I've written over the years submitted into their files for when they are 18. And ultimately and inevitably, they'll come looking for me. And so I just want them to know that even when I went through the process

The ultimate loss, I still fought. And I'm still fighting for them. So it's part of my story and it's part of who I am today. I'm sorry that it happened to them. But if it didn't happen to me, I don't think I would be sitting in this chair right now. So as much pain as it causes me, I'm so grateful for all the pain that I've gone through. I just...

If I didn't go through these things, then I couldn't be the woman that I am today. And I'm proud of the woman I am today. So, I mean, I hate that it was like sacrificing my children. But as long as I continue to believe that they are well taken care of and they are loved and all the things, then I can sleep easy at night. And eventually...

I know that through my faith that they will come home. They will come home. There's a lot in our cultural conversation right now about the challenges of motherhood. If it is hard for a person like me, who has pretty much every advantage, then what we're asking of mothers like Katie to never miss an appointment or a follow-up call or risk going back to prison requires them to be superhuman. And people aren't superheroes. We're fallible. We're fragile. We're

Even the best mothers are still growing into themselves. Every mother I know is still in need of mothering. It's why once upon a time we had literal villages to help us raise our kids. Mothers weren't expected to take care of our own mental and physical needs while simultaneously doing the same for our kids. Our own mothers, our sisters, and our friends stepped in to help.

Every mother I know has lost herself or her grip at some point in time, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for years. Even the best of us won't know the impact of the mistakes and missteps we've made until it's too late. Not all mothers get second chances. Not all mothers deserve them, either. Many mothers who make mistakes are defined by those mistakes for their entire lives.

Five years ago on Mother's Day, Katie was sitting in prison far from her kids. She couldn't hug them. She couldn't kiss them. This year, it's the exact opposite. She's getting together with her mom, her two kids, and her brother's family, and they're going to dinner and a movie. Someone might cook hibachi, which is exciting, but if that doesn't work out, they might go to Red Lobster or Outback. It's going to be a good day no matter what.

Before Katie went to prison, she didn't agree when her daughter said that she was a good person. She has spent almost three years making amends, working on herself, working on her relationships, and working to help other women in her situation, trying to be the person that her daughter saw in her all those years ago. When I came out of prison, I...

knew that I did not want to put her back in the situation to believe that I was a bad person. And so I, with a few hiccups, of course, you know, I'm not perfect or anything, but I really have fought to become that good person that doesn't go to prison and that's not committing crimes. And even when, you know, there are people around me that

They have this idea to go do something that may or may not be within the law. I am the first person to exit stage left because I cannot put my child through that again. And definitely, I make a choice between good and bad on a daily basis. And I try my hardest to strive to be the best that I can be because she's 11 now and she

you know, I am that example for her and I want her to love herself. And I want her to have the self-esteem and the self-confidence that it's going to take for her to be successful. And so I cannot expect her to do that if I'm not doing it. And so, um,

I have to remind myself every day that I am a good person and I will continue to do the next right thing for the next right reason. The work Benevolence Farm is doing with formerly incarcerated women as they transform their entire lives takes time. There's not much money out there for what they're doing, where they're doing it, and how they are doing it.

If you want to help formerly incarcerated moms like Katie who are working to better their lives at Benevolence Farm, we have a link to their donation site in our show notes.

There, you can donate to their bail fund, which gets moms out of jail while waiting for a trial. A donation will also support the salaries of Katie and Mona, two formerly incarcerated women who now work for the farm, supporting other moms. You can also support the farm by buying their amazing products that are made by these women, also in our show description. We are going to be putting $1,000 into that fund in Katie's name.

Thank you so much to Katie and Kristen from Benevolence Farm for sharing your stories and letting us visit. Terrible Thanks for Asking is a production of Feelings & Co. Our team is myself, Marcel Malakibu, Jordan Turgeon, Claire McInerney, almost forgot your name, and Megan Palmer. You can find out more about our show and how to support our work at ttfa.org. Thank you, everyone.

Bye. Oh, this episode was recorded in my mom's apartment in Minneapolis. Thank you, mother, for letting me use your bedroom as a studio. I appreciate you. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm at my mom's house recording this. Why didn't I put that together? Oh, I love her. I love moms. It's so hard to do. You're doing a good job. All of you. I'm literally just saying this to myself alone in a room.

When's the last time you thought about your employee benefits? I know you probably don't want to think about that right now, but they're important because you are important. Because people matter and so does technology, which is why The Hartford is so committed to providing a benefits experience like no other. Putting care and compassion into the technology behind benefits to create a better benefits experience for everyone. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits.