Counting Down: A Memoir of Foster Parenting and Beyond

by Deborah Gold

When Deborah Gold and her husband signed up to foster parent in their rural mountain community, they did not foresee that it would lead to a roller-coaster fifteen years of involvement with a traumatized yet resilient birth family. They fell in love with Michael (a toddler when he came to them), yet they had to reckon with the knowledge that he could leave their lives at any time. In Counting Down , Gold tells the story of forging a family within a confounding system. We meet social workers, a birth mother with the courage to give her children the childhood she never had herself, and a father parenting from prison. We also encounter members of a remarkable fellowship of Appalachian foster parents—gay, straight, right, left, evangelical, and atheist—united by love, loss, and quality hand-me-downs. Gold’s memoir is one of the few books to deliver a foster parent’s perspective (and, through Michael’s own poetry and essays, that of a former foster child). In it, she shakes up common assumptions and offers a powerfully frank and hopeful look at an experience often portrayed as bleak.

256 pages, Paperback

Published February 26, 2018

Reviews

[Victoria Haugen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really touched me. I don't have kids of my own and, although I have limited experience as a stepmom, can only imagine the amazing joys and heartwrenching sorrows involved in parenting. Foster parenting... wow, that really takes some special people. I was blown away by the challenges involved, the constant fear, and the neverending joy. I loved also hearing MIchael's writings, it really lent a great perspective. I applaud all parents, and especially foster parents, for the hard work and love they put into everything they do. Lovely story, and the narration was beautiful. Definitely recommended :)
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.