MAY 2017 71
»I
’m your Marge.” That’s what she tells
the damaged little people she cares for.
And what a comfort that must be.
Margaret Chung is an extraordinary
woman. She has cared for more than 50
children in the past nine years. All of them
taken from their families for their own
protection by CYF, or The Ministry for
Vulnerable Children as it is now called.
The first thing you see as you stand on the
doorstep of Marge’s rambling west Auckland
home is a word painting. It proclaims, “In
this house we’re a family. Love each other, laugh
a lot, sing out loud, do hugs, smile, share good
things, forgive quickly, do I’m sorry, show
respect...” Hers is that sort of home.
Marge greets me with a baby cradled in her
arms. His big brown eyes solemnly take me in,
and then, after a bit of encouragement, he gives a
tentative smile. He is safe in those enveloping arms.
Marge doesn’t judge the families who need her
help. “People who have been poorly parented
themselves have no role models in how to parent
effectively. If you only have limited knowledge
and limited schooling you just do your best.”
“My desire is for these children to have some
happiness in their lives.”
Margaret Chung was born 51 years ago in
Taupo to a Maori dad of Ngapuhi descent and
a Pakeha mother.
She remembers her own childhood as being
idyllic. Like most country kids, she played outside
all day with other children in the neighbourhood.
She and her siblings were loved and cherished.
Theirs was, she explains, an open house.
Everyone was welcome. “Dad was from a big
family. There were always cousins staying and
aunts and uncles. Mum had a big heart. There
was a family of young children in our street
whose mother had passed away. They spent a lot
of time at our house.”
It’s that generosity of spirit that they have
passed on to their daughter.
“We didn’t have much money [Marge’s dad
was collecting rubbish at the time, while he
waited for a job to come up at the Portland
Cement Works near Whangarei], but we didn’t
realise we were poor.”
The family eventually moved north to Portland
when Margaret turned five. And then, at 12, her
parents separated and Margaret moved to
Auckland with her mother.
It was her mother who first suspected Marge
might be pregnant at 15. “She saw me in the bathone day. I had no idea I was pregnant. I never
thought I’d get pregnant at 15. It never
entered my head.”
Her mum was supportive. “She helped me a
lot but she also made sure I stood up to my
responsibilities. I knew, though, that she had
my back. I could rely on her being there for me.”
But Marge’s school was not so supportive.
She felt like a pariah. So at 15 she gave up on
the education system and devoted herself to
bringing up her baby, largely on her own, the
young father not yet ready to face that tie.
“He was my first love, part of me loves him still.”
Marge would go on to have another child at- And then began her own special tragedy.
She was finding it hard to cope with two young
children on her own and so she agreed to have
her second child adopted by an extended family
member. But, uneasy with the decision, Marge
went to collect her baby daughter 10 days later.
The adoptive father would have none of it and
threatened to call the police. He told her she
didn’t have any right to her child. A naive
17-year-old, she believed him. Five years later she
ended up essentially fostering her own daughter.
It turned out she had been terribly abused by
the adoptive parents. She returned to live with
Marge, her birth mother. “We went through some
very painful, hard times,” Marge tells me, “but
she is now happily married with a beautiful
daughter and son of her own.”
Her own early struggles have left this warm-
hearted woman with a real understanding of
what many of the families she’s dealing with have
suffered. “I was abused by a family member when
I was young. I know the heartwrenching feeling
of giving up a child to what I hoped would be a
better life, only to find her being abused by people
I thought I could trust.”
Marge tells me almost all the kids who come to
her are obsessed with food. “They’re used to not
having enough. I keep the pantry door open, so
they can see the food. I also put a menu up so
they know what’s coming.”
What is their mood like when they come?
“Often they’re vile, angry that they’ve been
taken from their family. You’re the bad guy, even
though you’ve taken them away from hunger,
from beatings.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she tells me of one
family who came. “The little boy was raw from
the neck down with eczema. He had rickets and
both he and his sister were covered in lice. I had
to bath and shower them three times just to clean
“
Often
they’re
angry that
they’ve
been taken
from their
family.
You’re the
bad guy,
even
though
you’ve
taken them
away from
hunger,
from
beatings.”
OPPOSITE:
Margaret Chung
wants the
children in her
care to get their
childhood back.[ The Judy Bailey interview]
“