Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir

I loved the first 80 or so pages of this memoir, and I hope I'm not doing it a disservice by only assigning 3 (really 3 and a half!) stars. It is well-written and rich in detail about a Fresno childhood in the 1970s and 80s. But the subtitle, Growing Up in Other People's Houses, leads you to believe that the foster-care journey will continue throughout the author's childhood -- or at least, throughout the book! In fact, it's over for her by age 8, when she and her sisters find a family that raises them to adulthood. And although McLain is superb at recalling her feelings and attitudes as a child, she never really tackles the larger questions about her final foster family, as well as about her birth mother.The first few chapters describe the three sisters' rocky and rapid progress through a series of unsatisfactory foster homes, following the separate disappearances of their mother and father when the oldest of the three children is just 4 or 5. The pain and loneliness and sheer embarrassment of walking into a new house with new rules and a new dynamic are beautifully described by McLain. The three sisters' closeness and their very limited understanding of what is happening (they must leave one idyllic home because, they are told, their foster parents have to move for work, but later the girls realize that they haven't moved at all, and never learn what happened) are evoked perfectly by McLain.But once the girls find their final placement, with an offbeat couple who buy the girls horses, take them on trips, and generally act like parents (or so it seems to the reader), McLain is less successful at describing why she and her sisters never really feel at home. The foster mother is a rather remote German woman, but the father is a very involved, fun parent who is always launching new projects and schemes. As the girls grow, we learn a lot about their typically tumultuous adolescent years, but we never get why things are so bad with the foster parents that McLain leaves at 19 and never sees them again, not even returning when they are dying. Yet this seems the very heart of the problem of foster care: the inability to bond, after being shunted around too much. And it would seem to be exactly what McLain is trying to communicate in this memoir.The other issue is her relationship with her birth mother, who returns after the children are out of high school and just beginning life on their own. Predictably, they all reunite to try to make a life together. But we don't really know, behind anecdotal incidents, what that relationship turned out to be. The final pages describe each of the sisters' relationship with her mother as McLain sees it, but we're never shown it, so it doesn't feel real to us.I enjoyed this book tremendously and think it needed to be written, but I wish the second half had been as illuminating and detailed as the first.

This true memoir is a poignant, honest recounting of the lives of three beautiful little girls (including the author and her older and younger sister) who were brought into the world then abandoned by their misfit parents. The raw honesty and beautiful imagery with which McClain writes has elevated her as one of my favorite authors, having been first introduced by a friend to her fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's first wife in The Paris Wife. After devouring that, I next read Circling the Sun, about the female aviator Beryl Markham whose mother left the harsh life in Kenya, taking her son with her to return to England, leaving 6 yr. old Beryl in the care of her father. Learning that McClain had been abandoned by her own mother, I then had to read this memoir about being foisted with her two sisters into various foster homes. It is at times so heartbreaking I could hardly continue reading, but McClain's mastery and creative language in her telling of various foster care experiences, some of which were sexually and emotionally abusive, brings both laughter and tears. That she survived to go on to be a gifted writer, poet and author is a testimony to her indomitable spirit.

What constitutes a family? Biological connections that are severed early on? Or the strangers who provide a kind of care for years, with no connection other than the physical proximity of living in the same house?The author describes her journey through the foster care system in Fresno County in the 1970s and 1980s, and as she mentioned streets and places within the city and its surrounding areas, it all resonated with me. I had spent almost those same years as a social worker for Fresno County, and while I had not crossed paths with her or her sisters, Teresa and Penny, I could relate to much of what she wrote. However, my perspective came from the “other side” of the story. The side that represented the system, which I can readily acknowledge to be broken. Or at least severely damaged.I had heard similar stories from the children in care, but in this author’s case, she kept most things secret. She did mention telling a neighbor some of her experiences, only to be dismissed.As the years passed, there were good times for the sisters, and there were seemingly ordinary coming-of-age moments, but the lack of an emotional connection to a parent was keenly absent.The sisters did share a strong bond with each other that lasted through their time in care…and afterwards, when they finally reconnected with their biological mother. But again, physical proximity seemed to be the main connection between the long absent mother and the sisters. Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir  was an all too familiar tale to those of us who have worked in the system. Reading this story from a real life “graduate” of that system was inspirational. It is a testament to the author’s strength and resilience that she made it through to the other side, and can now share what she has learned along the way. 5 stars.

This was a good book about a family of three foster children, who managed to stay together throughout their childhood.The story was told by the middle child - a sad story, but told in an upbeat way. They were hardy kids, probably because they were allowed to stay together. It would have been interesting to have read the same story from the perspective of the foster parents who raised them - several families. They were a lively bunch..the kids, that is.

Lovely

Really pleased with this book.

Every social worker who works with foster placement must read this book.