Student Seeks To Rent Family For Holidays

Jackie Turner
Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV

Jackie Turner is a 26-year-old 4.0 presidential scholar at William Jessup University in Rocklin, Calif., but throughout her childhood she suffered many years of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. She’s worked hard to overcome the many obstacles and mistakes she’s made over the years to get where she is today, but there is one thing Ms. Turner has not been able to provide for herself so far — a family that loves and supports her.

That’s why Jackie Turner took her vulnerability into her own hands and did something a little unusual — she posted an ad on Craigslist seeking to rent a family for the holidays. Her headline read:

I want to rent a mom and dad.

Turner told local news station, ABC News10:

There’s still something deep inside of me. There’s this void, my biological parents aren’t here, and it’s kept this hole inside of me… I am looking to rent a mom and dad who can give me attention and make me feel like the light of their life just for a couple of days because I really need it. Just to sit, just to listen. Just to cry with me, no strings beyond that. I’ve never felt the touch of my Mom hugging me and holding me. I don’t know what it’s like to look in my dad’s eyes and feel love instead of hatred.

Turner offered eight dollars an hour for the service.

Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV
Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV

To escape her life of abuse as a child, Turner turned to the relative safety of the streets.

On the outside, it looks like I’m the American dream kid. But I have a back story that most people wouldn’t believe if they looked at me today. I was in gang life, on the streets, fighting, doing drugs, just making a mess of my life.

Eventually, Ms. Turner spent a year in the Sacramento County Jail for grand theft. She attended Christian Encounter Ministries in Grass Valley — a camp for troubled young adults that soon changed her life for the better, leading her on to not only seek an education, but to rise up as a presidential scholar on scholarship!

Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV
Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV

It’s very heartening to know that dozens of families responded to the ad, and many of them offered to decline payment, as well. But this sad story has an even brighter ray of light streaking through it than even Jackie Turner could have expected.

In response to Ms. Turner’s ad, many other victims of abuse began contacting her and sharing their own stories to let her know she is not alone.

People who have been raped, people who have been abused, people who have been passed on from foster home to foster home saying the same things…

Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV
Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV

Of the unexpected responses, Turner said through tears:

People are afraid to open their mouths and say, ‘This hurts, this sucks…’ These tears that are here and the things that I feel right now, this is just a piece of a face that has experienced a lot. People are out there with the same heart inside of them.? Some of them with a greater drive than mine.

Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV
Jackie Turner / Nick Monacelli, ABC News10/KXTV

Turner concluded:

When you speak up, people start learning that they’re not by themselves.? Often we lock things inside of ourselves, like a lockbox of our secrets. But then you let one out and realize, ‘I’m not by myself after all, am I?’

As a result, Jackie Turner now wishes to create a family to love and support itself by bringing together as many of the people who shared their stories with her as she can.

Let us hope Ms. Turner finds the love and support she not only so desperately needs, but so assuredly deserves. Much love and luck to you, Ms. Turner. May the winter chill soon melt in the glow you find around you.

Woman Tries To Rent Family For the Holidays

Edited/Published by: SB