Shifting Memories Sidle Through the Present, Comfortable in the Future

A student from my class in Buena Park was taken from his parents' home because his mom was doing drugs. That was on Wednesday. I found out on Friday that his mom was in jail, and he was living with his aunt. He's back in class, so at least he doesn't have to move schools.
Hearing that the boy's mother was doing drugs jolted me back to a childhood I flaunt but try desperately to forget privately. It made me, for the first time, angry at my mother. It made me angry that she was so selfish to neglect me. I was the most neglected of my siblings; I don't think many people would think that a valid claim (I'm feeling too sorry for myself), but the squeaky wheel certainly does get the oil; I, however, was not the squeaky wheel.
My mother admitted to me once she'd been most concerned with getting back my baby sister. I remember sitting in a McDonald's, watching my mom play with my sister, kissing her and laughing. I sat there, waiting for my turn. It never came.
I wonder how my student feels; I wish I could sit down and talk with him, but that's always a shot in the dark. I'm angry with his mother, though he may not be. As a child, I wasn't angry with my mom. I still wanted her love and acceptance. Most children don't realize their parents deserve their anger until they're older, looking at little boys in their classes who mess around because something's wrong at home.
As an adult, I'm able to choose what I react to and what I don't. I pay my own bills, I find my own love, I make my own mistakes. But when you're a child, you depend completely on your parents. How is anyone to explain to a child, at the beginning of a very long and difficult life, that they just need to hang in there? That they will be better off learning to survive on their own? They don't necessarily need their parents? The umbilical chord is not really cut until it's been severed without your consent.
I know I haven't said much; I was so deeply affected by this past week's events I had to get it out. I don't even know if there's a moral to this story. I only know that it struck me how connected I still am to events, and how I will continue to react differently to them as I grow older, seeing myself in them, and seeing others in them.