r/DumpingGroundFiles

This can be any character from the Dumping ground or Tracy beaker returns. Hey it can even be from the og series aswell.

I want to see if anyone else thought this. I thought Matt and Christie's actions towards Lily, Poppy and Rosie (but particularly Lily) were absolutely appalling and ruined all their childhoods.

In TBR Series 1, Matt and Christie foster the Kettle sisters. But Lily is quickly returned to the Dumping Ground, seemingly because she couldn't let go of being her sisters' protector and Poppy and Rosie needed some time to settle at the Perry's. At the time it was presumed that Lily would eventually go back to Matt and Christie, but she never did (mostly by her own choice - she chose to move in with Cam instead, and then later with her dad).

I have so many issues with this. Firstly, I don't accept that Lily's behaviour caused her sisters not to know who was in charge. Clearly, the adults were in charge. But that had always been the case. At the Dumping Ground, Mike and Gina were in charge, and that didn't seem to cause a conflict like that. But the difference was, Mike and Gina had an understanding of the girls' history and understood why Lily was like that. They were able to work with Lily, recognise that they couldn't overrule her need to look after her sisters and her sisters' reliance on her. They probably did things like telling Lily the rules first and letting her tell Poppy and Rosie, so it would feel like the rules came from her.

I think the underlying problem with Lily at Matt and Christie's was that Matt and Christie just wanted a sweet family with cute little girls. They weren't willing to recognise that these girls had experienced great trauma in the past and their behaviour was always going to reflect that. Rather than show any understanding or sympathy, Matt and Christie's attitude was basically, 'These are meant to be our sweet little children, why is their big sister ruining it all for us?' This is so incredibly selfish - what they were doing was meant to be for the girls, not for themselves. They could have handled Lily in a loving, consistent way, recognising her need to continue looking after her sisters and very gradually gaining her trust enough that she was slowly able to let go. But they didn't - they had an idea of what they wanted their family to be, and when one of the children was a bit more traumatised than they bargained for they just decided to cut her out. It's utterly terrible, and increased all the girls' trauma - their sisterly bond was all these girls had had to rely on over all the things they'd been through, and Matt and Christie didn't seem to think that was very important.

I always found it very sad that Lily never got to go back to her sisters and be a family again. At least it was mostly her own choice - Matt and Christie did offer her to come back to them and she decided to go to Cam's instead. But I think this was really more that she'd seen that she and her sisters were growing apart. And that was forced on them through no fault of their own, and wasn't fair on any of them. Matt and Christie permanently split up a family of very vulnerable children who'd learned to rely on each other, and I think that's absolutely unforgivable and deserves more criticism.

Having said that, I think it's really great that it was shown, because sadly I think these things happen all the time in the care system.

Trigger warning for SA

I haven’t watched Jody’s debut episode in a while but from what I can remember , towards the end they find her sleeping in the kitchen. When asked why she prefers sleeping alone , she says something along the lines of ‘ I don’t like people breathing near me , it makes me think of things I don’t want to think about’ . Is this implying she was a victim of SA and child molestation ? Especially when Gina’s faces seem to drop after she says this. If she was a victim of SA , chances are one of her mom’s boyfriends abused her that way.

Was this storyline initially planned for Jody but later dropped after the family got more involved as it was too dark for a kids show ?

- Season 3, Ryan reads all the kids' files and when caught he isn't transferred or really reprimanded at all

- Season 7, Freya takes pictures of all the files, (admittedly goes much further and threatens to leak them) but she doesn't go through with it and she's sent away

- Season 2, Rick and Carmen have a potential romance and the care workers openly know about it, clearly they don't have a problem with it

- Season 6-8, Tyler and Jody have to hide their romance and when it gets discovered, the care workers shake up their entire lives at the DG

EDIT: Another one came to mind. Last season of TBR, Mike physically holds onto Jody to take her back to the DG. In Season 7, he talks Katy into coming back instead. Granted the negotiating was for her mother who was there as well- but from what I know about the care/school system, there is a lot more safeguarding about making physical contact with children regardless of the situation.

Any other parallel situations that were treated differently over time?

(Please don't include obvious things like the Carmen's files storyline)

I used to find out some VERY juicy gossip on the cast on there!!

Kazima

#1: Mike