Smoke signals., May 01, 2022, Page 7, Image 7

sNok signflz
MAY 1, 2022
7
‘It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life’
PARENTING continued
from front page
In the best of times, teenagers
can be frustrating to parent, but
if you’ve been away in prison for
years, unable to keep up with the
daily details of your children’s
lives, some find it a very long road
to re-establish those connections.
Schneider’s situation is hardly
unique: The number of children
who have a mother in prison has
increased exponentially since 1980,
according to data from The Sen-
tencing Project.
Between then and 2019, when
the most recent national data was
compiled, the number of incarcer-
ated women increased by more
than 700 percent, from 26,378 in
1980 to 222,455 in 2019. Of those,
60 percent had a child under 18
for whom they were the primary or
sole caregiver. Some have few visits
while their mother is serving time.
Others, like Schneider’s children,
were more fortunate.
“When I was in prison, the kids
came to see me (regularly) because
my mom made the commitment to
get them here,” Schneider says.
“She’s amazing. I thought (because
of that) things were going to be
different when I got home.”
Her mother, Tribal member Deb-
by Childers, would drive out to
Sheridan from her home in the
Portland area, pick up the girls and
go to the prison in Wilsonville for
visitation, then drive the children
back to Sheridan. This meant com-
muting hundreds of extra miles a
month for her mother.
“While I was there, they talked
about how they couldn’t wait until
I got home and we could be togeth-
er,” Schneider, 36, says. “I knew it
was going to take a lot of work, but
I thought maybe I would live with
them or at least their father and I
would share custody.”
While in prison, Schneider met
and married her wife, also named
Andrea. The couple settled in Port-
land after both of them were re-
leased from prison. Schneider
considered moving back to Sheri-
dan, where her children live, but
ultimately decided that returning
to the same area and lifestyle she
left behind wouldn’t be good for her
recovery or future.
When she was first paroled,
Parenting
from
PRISON
Schneider lived with her mother
and saw her children frequently.
With the COVID-19 pandemic
raging, youths were doing remote
learning, and all sports and activ-
ities were cancelled. As pandemic
restrictions began to ease in 2021,
most teens were eager to get back
to something that resembled nor-
mal life.
“Sports and academics began to
be a bigger focus for my kids and
they just didn’t have the time (to
spend weekends in Portland) or
there were other school activities
happening,” Schneider says. “It’s
great that they do well at school,
but I don’t feel like our relationship
is where it needs to be. … I was out
of their lives for so long. We do live
far away from each other and even-
tually we stopped talking as much.”
Smoke Signals is not naming
Schneider’s children, who have a dif-
ferent last name, for privacy reasons.
Schneider recalls the first visit
with her children after being sent to
prison in November 2014 as being
very emotional.
“It was the saddest thing I’ve
ever seen in my life,” she says. “I
was holding (my youngest) and she
was just bawling. It was the hard-
est thing when they left after that
first day. They were screaming and
crying, not wanting to leave their
mom in prison. It was horrible.”
However, over the years things
improved, especially when Schnei-
der started participating in a pro-
gram designed to bring some sense
of normalcy to visits.
Clinic offering second
COVID-19 booster doses
Tribal Health Services Executive Director Kelly Rowe announced on
Thursday, March 31, that the Grand Ronde Health & Wellness Center is
now offering a second COVID-19 booster dose of the Moderna vaccine for
people 50 and older who are at least four months beyond their previous
booster dose.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that
people with compromised immune systems age 12 and older also receive
boosters. However, Rowe added, Tribal health care staff are recommend-
ing people consult with their providers to make that decision.
Rowe said that immunity tends to wane after three months and that
people who had received a booster dose of the vaccine were 21 times less
likely to die and seven times less likely to be hospitalized during the
recent omicron surge.
To schedule an appointment for a second booster shot, contact the Tribal
clinic at 503-879-2032. 
Although she wasn’t eligible for
the Family Preservation Project,
which is an effort to help lessen the
effects of incarceration on mothers
and their children by providing
visitation in a home-like environ-
ment within the prison campus, her
children were able to participate
in the Through A Child’s Eyes pro-
gram. Sponsored by the Wilsonville
Rotary Club, the program provides
bonding opportunities for incarcer-
ated mothers and their children
through different events at the
prison. Inmates must take par-
enting classes and have no prison
infractions to participate.
“While I was in prison, I was
more reliable (as a parent) than I
had been for a long time,” Schnei-
der says. “I made promises that
were kept. Whatever money I had,
I spent on my kids. That helped a
lot.”
When she was released, she found
her children weren’t as open with
their feelings as they had been
before.
“It’s been really hard,” she says.
“I think maybe those old feelings
are starting to come up and they’re
really starting to see things (from a
different perspective). I’m not 100
percent sure because we haven’t
talked much about it.”
Drinking, drug use
began as a young teen
Schneider grew up in Grand
Ronde with a close extended fam-
ily, spending lots of time with her
grandparents, whom she describes
as “very lenient.”
“There wasn’t a whole lot to do
here and I grew up in a safe en-
vironment, but was also around
a lot of people who were drinking
and smoking cigarettes or weed, so
it seemed almost normal to me,”
Schneider recalls.
She began smoking marijuana at
age 13 and drinking regularly with
a friend. However, she managed
to hide her behavior well enough
participate in the Grand Ronde
Royalty program and school sports.
“I was juggling a double life, but
did pretty well until I got pregnant
with my oldest daughter at 17,”
Schneider says. “I wasn’t a bad kid
or anything. I tried to finish school,
but it was just too tough. It got too
frustrating.”
She dropped out of school her se-
nior year and later earned a GED.
Eighteen months later, she be-
came pregnant with her second
daughter and soon after a third.
“I started taking (opioid) pills in
between those pregnancies,” she
says. “It was a secret. Nobody knew.
Then, I split up with the kids’ dad a
few months after my last daughter
was born in 2007. He wasn’t really
actively involved at all and I felt all
alone. I always envisioned certain
things, but they never happened.”
After the breakup, Schneider
began using pills more and then
switched to injecting heroin after
the prescription opioids became too
expensive to obtain and were made
more tamper resistant.
Throughout most of her drug use,
Schneider held a job and functioned
to a high enough degree that few
knew how far downward she had
spiraled.
“I went straight to shooting up
heroin because I wanted that high
right away,” she says. “I was an
instant gratification person and
kept doing that for seven years.
It got to the point where I had to
inject through veins in my ankle
and hands. … Nobody knew how
bad it was and I got to the point
where I didn’t want to live. I tried
to kill myself. I took all of this stuff
(drugs) just wanting to die. Then, I
woke up and was in the hospital.”
After her suicide attempt, Schnei-
der went to an inpatient drug
treatment facility. She relapsed a
month after completing treatment,
met another heroin addict at a state
Department of Human Services
office and he became her boyfriend.
Eventually, the two broke up and
she met another man who became
her husband.
After escaping an abusive mar-
riage, she was homeless and couch
surfing when she met another man,
and the two began robbing people
and stealing from cars to support
their addictions. There was a stint
in jail, then another attempt at
sobriety until eventually Schneider
was arrested in December 2013
and convicted of armed robbery, a
Measure 11 offense. This meant a
mandatory minimum sentence of
five years and 10 months behind
bars.
Schneider utilized some of her
time incarcerated in a positive way,
learning how to make eyeglasses
and receiving a certification, which
resulted in a job at an optometrist’s
office after she was released. She
stopped using drugs and stayed
clean. She also met her wife and
the couple married in 2020 while
they were still incarcerated.
They now live in a quiet, spacious
apartment along the Columbia
River with their two dogs and
Schneider is focused on her future.
Her wife is a tow truck driver and
she is hoping to launch a website to
promote the business.
“I’d like to go back to school and be
a graphic designer,” she says. “I’ve
always wanted to be my own boss.
I also know what I want in life and
from relationships. I never want to
feel the way I did when I was using
drugs or have those toxic relation-
ships again. I can’t do anything in
life if that is the path I choose.”
She’s also hoping, with time, that
her relationship with her children
will become closer. She has a room
in her new home ready for them if
they choose to visit.
“I want to make sure they know I
am here for them,” Schneider says.
“It’s been hard. For so long, we
couldn’t have a normal relationship
where I was just mom.”
Schneider cautions youth to lis-
ten to the positive influences in
their lives and warns that getting
into drugs is a slippery slope.
“It’s not just playing around and
experimenting,” she says. “First
it’s social, then it becomes normal
and then you need it. That’s all you
think about. They call it, ‘Playing
in the devil’s playground,’ and it’s
the worst feeling ever.” 