LINSEY
Linsey’s powerful looks made a strong impression on
me when I first met her. Both strong and fragile at
once, something about her demands attention. She’s
young and lives in one of South Rotterdam’s tougher
hoods, Pendrecht.
‘Everybody is fighting here and it’s hard for a young woman to stay out of trouble. Girls have to watch out, especially at night.’ If they don’t, she tells us, they’ll get into trouble, ‘gangbanging, lover boys, you name it.’ She speaks from experience and she looks strong as she talks.
Linsey feels her troubles started around the age of eleven, after her parents divorced. She couldn’t resist the charms of the boys from the hood and fell pregnant at 16. About the father of her baby, who is in jail for murder, she tells me: ‘He was holding my baby, the same hands that killed a man. So I decided not to wait for him.’
When I asked her how she made the decision to keep the child she smiled and told me that although it was heavy when she found out, it’s also ‘practically normal’ to be a young single mother in her hood. Most of her friends have a child or even two. In her case, she found out too late to make any other decision anyway; she was already four months gone when her mother took her to the doctor, as Linsey didn’t know what was going on with her body. Her mother was shocked; to her, being pregnant without the support of a man was unacceptable.
Linsey became seriously depressed after the birth of the baby: she found it hard to get a job and even harder to get a house, tensions with her mother at home escalated and she found out the truth about her baby’s father. One day, she simply walked away from her home. Her daughter was taken to foster parents. Linsey, used to being told what to do and being punished by ‘them’ – her mother, adults, the system –, accepted the new situation when she returned, but felt angry and helpless. She knows many other mothers who do much worse, “’Some girls use hard drugs, cocaine, pills and they still have their child… I am clean, I never did stuff like that, and they take the child away!’ She questions the system and the way she’s been treated.
Some time after she’d had her baby taken away, Linsey took her Grandmother’s advice and went to an audition for community theatre in Pendercht. She knew she could sing well and simply thought, ‘why not’. She was selected for a role in a choir of three girls who had to sing about their life in Pendercht. The play was a success and, looking back, she feels she found family amongst the different people she came into contact with. Theatre, she says, is not only about being talented, but about how a group works together: ‘though we are black and white, old and young, we are one family, that’s what I learned from this theatre.’ She also believes that community theatre does one crucial thing, ‘it keeps you off the streets’.
Now Linsey is 18, has the keys to her own apartment and a job, and knows it’s not too late for her. She wants to go back to school so she can build her life and be a good example for her kid.
When I asked her how will she stay out of trouble now she answered quickly: ‘ By thinking about my baby, getting the house right, keeping the job and fighting to get my daughter back.’
After our last conversation I dropped Linsey off at her boyfriend’s house in the hood. Kids were running around, guys whistled at us as we walked down the street. I felt scared for her. So pretty and so vulnerable –will she find her way?
‘Everybody is fighting here and it’s hard for a young woman to stay out of trouble. Girls have to watch out, especially at night.’ If they don’t, she tells us, they’ll get into trouble, ‘gangbanging, lover boys, you name it.’ She speaks from experience and she looks strong as she talks.
Linsey feels her troubles started around the age of eleven, after her parents divorced. She couldn’t resist the charms of the boys from the hood and fell pregnant at 16. About the father of her baby, who is in jail for murder, she tells me: ‘He was holding my baby, the same hands that killed a man. So I decided not to wait for him.’
When I asked her how she made the decision to keep the child she smiled and told me that although it was heavy when she found out, it’s also ‘practically normal’ to be a young single mother in her hood. Most of her friends have a child or even two. In her case, she found out too late to make any other decision anyway; she was already four months gone when her mother took her to the doctor, as Linsey didn’t know what was going on with her body. Her mother was shocked; to her, being pregnant without the support of a man was unacceptable.
Linsey became seriously depressed after the birth of the baby: she found it hard to get a job and even harder to get a house, tensions with her mother at home escalated and she found out the truth about her baby’s father. One day, she simply walked away from her home. Her daughter was taken to foster parents. Linsey, used to being told what to do and being punished by ‘them’ – her mother, adults, the system –, accepted the new situation when she returned, but felt angry and helpless. She knows many other mothers who do much worse, “’Some girls use hard drugs, cocaine, pills and they still have their child… I am clean, I never did stuff like that, and they take the child away!’ She questions the system and the way she’s been treated.
Some time after she’d had her baby taken away, Linsey took her Grandmother’s advice and went to an audition for community theatre in Pendercht. She knew she could sing well and simply thought, ‘why not’. She was selected for a role in a choir of three girls who had to sing about their life in Pendercht. The play was a success and, looking back, she feels she found family amongst the different people she came into contact with. Theatre, she says, is not only about being talented, but about how a group works together: ‘though we are black and white, old and young, we are one family, that’s what I learned from this theatre.’ She also believes that community theatre does one crucial thing, ‘it keeps you off the streets’.
Now Linsey is 18, has the keys to her own apartment and a job, and knows it’s not too late for her. She wants to go back to school so she can build her life and be a good example for her kid.
When I asked her how will she stay out of trouble now she answered quickly: ‘ By thinking about my baby, getting the house right, keeping the job and fighting to get my daughter back.’
After our last conversation I dropped Linsey off at her boyfriend’s house in the hood. Kids were running around, guys whistled at us as we walked down the street. I felt scared for her. So pretty and so vulnerable –will she find her way?