Customer Reviews

Another Mother: Co-Parenting with the Foster Care System

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This book is insightful and honest and I enjoyed it. I passed it on to my sister (an adoptive mom)and she loved it to. If you are considering fostering a child, this is a must-read.

However, it bothered me how she seemed more concerned about her birth children that about her adoptive child. And how she made disparaging remarks about the name the birthmother had given the child. In some parts I wondered how her adoptive daughter would feel reading this when she was grown.

Having been through a very similar experience to that of the author, I was intrigued to read her perspective. I agree that the foster care system can be a frustrating, dis-empowering place for foster parents, whose hard work and sacrifice often go unrewarded. I enjoyed her explorations of all aspects of adopting and raising a child of a different race than one's own. I found her support of the birthmother to be particularly moving. Not many of us can bring such an open heart and mind to interactions with birth parents, truly one of the great challenges of fostering. Gerstanzang remained deeply committed to her foster daughter's best good, whatever that might be, while at the same time attaching to her deeply and giving from the very deepest places in her heart. The author's family as portrayed in this true story comes across as incredibly devoted yet unselfish at the same time. She does not shy away from difficult topics: the politics of race, enduring the indignities of the foster care system in a large urban area, stress on other children in the family, and her own ambivalence about what might be best for her foster daughter and the rest of the family. In all it is a fair and balanced look at the emotionally bumpy road of fostering a child and deeply loving that child. The joyous conclusion is very affirming. I wish I had read it when we were going through our own fostering process, as it would have been very supportive and instructive.