The heartbreaking, hopeful story behind a viral ramen noodle photo
At first, it just looks like a photo of not-yet-cooked ramen noodles.
But the complex story behind it is what's making the seemingly simple photo go viral.
The Barren to Blessed Facebook page, run by Caroline Bailey, shared the photo and the moving story her cousin, Aubren Dudley an adoptive mother of five, had posted on her personal page. It spoke of how her son, adopted from foster care, made himself dinner -- an uncooked package of noodles.
The post read in part: "I wanted to eat something I used to eat a lot with my old family,” her son told Dudley. "So we sat down and I asked him to tell me about it. He said that they wouldn’t feed him due to being passed out (you can guess why) and he would have to make dinner for himself and his brothers (2 and 4 months when they came to us). He said that all the money they had would be spent on cigarettes and other fun things (😬) and so he would find change in their van and would buy Ramen packets at the store down the street (at 6!!!!). He said he didn’t know how to boil water, so he would eat it like this. And, he actually grew to like it. So, he would break it up for his sibling, and would try to make bottles for the baby (at 6!!!!!!)."
Bailey told "Good Morning America," "I reached out to my cousin about posting it because it really hits the nail on the head in terms of what daily life can look like for families who are raising kids from hard places."
Bailey and her husband also have three adopted children, two from foster care.
"It is less about the ramen noodles and more about the triggers of trauma. It is also about survival," she said. "So many children and youth in our country live life like the one described in the post, getting up each day, surviving and making sure younger siblings are surviving."
The post has been shared 150,000 times so far.
