Big Steps for Little People - Book Review

Big Steps for Little People: Parenting Your Adopted Child by Celia Foster

This is the first book I've read specifically about adoption and while it focuses on the adoption of older children with traumatic backgrounds, a lot of the basic feelings, emotions and behaviours seem to resonate with raising kids and adoption in general.

I chose it because it was very current (published in 2008) and focused on the 'techniques' of raising adopted children, so it would speak to my mind as well as my heart. Honestly, I think I was also subconsciously drawn to the title as one of the many 'waiting child' stories I've read was a child born with achondroplasia (dwarfism) and that story has stuck with me. It bothered me that achondroplasia is most significantly a difference in appearance and the thought that it would cause someone to give up a child saddens me. It seems equal to abandoning a child because of their sex or skin colour.

As for the book, I nearly put it down after chapter 3, but I was resolute to see it through and form a complete opinion of the book and its author. My issues were that Foster was relating very normal parenting struggles and childhood development issues and pinning the cause of each and every challenge to the boys' traumatic beginnings and directly to their birth mother. I was also bothered by what appeared to be an obsession with making each and every moment with the boys a counseling session or psychological 'project'. My final objection is that these boys are today adolescents and their journey is certainly far from over. I fear for Foster and the boys that there will be some further issues in the very clinical way she has chosen to parent. That said, she does very obviously loves the boys immensely and is very honest in her approach with them. I have faith that love and honesty can bring a child through anything. For that she gets my humble respect.

The techniques throughout the book are solid and could be applied with children from various upbringings. Foster's application of adoption course material and child development knowledge is impressive. In her discussion about forgiving birth parents, I find her points to be correct, but I got the feeling that while she encourages her boys to forgive; I don't think she has forgiven the birth mother herself. As a protective mother, she doesn't have to. Perhaps her time to truly forgive is when the boys are more fully healed. She does lend some advice to her oldest son that I think may shed some light on her current state of forgiveness, "Fake it till you make it." My feeling is that she is 'faking' her own forgiveness until such time as she is truly able to forgive the birth mother for the harm she has caused her children.

Finally, at chapter 11, I was happy I'd continued reading. Foster talks here about considering this point as the opening of her book... I wish she had. I fear that other parents may have the same reaction I did to her text book approach and may not make it to chapter 11. Here she finally talks about the emotional struggle and the reality that there will be failures in the endeavour to raise children and the honest fact that you will likely question, doubt, and blame yourself when times are tough. She also reflects on her own 'normal' childhood and recognizes that as humans we all have issues to resolve and hurdles to overcome.

I'm glad that I finished Foster's book, but it was much like watching a show with a cliffhanger ending. I hope she writes another in ten years when the boys are grown and working on their own adulthoods. Better yet, perhaps the boys will decide to write. I think their honest reflections on adoption would be a great insight into the emotions of adopted children and the effects of love vs. technique in parenting your adopted child.

We should be well into our own experience by that time and I'd love to have an insight into what to expect.