SHINE UNTIL TOMORROW

Preschool teacher Johnson offers an in-depth look at what happens when the foster care system fails to work the way it should.

In most people’s conceptions of foster care and adoption, the only relationship that matters is between child and caregiver. However, Johnson, who ultimately populated her home with eight foster and adopted children, felt compelled to extend her love to the kids’ biological parents, as well. It was part of her own ongoing efforts to provide the youngsters in her care with the lives she felt they deserved. Johnson’s challenging relationships with birth parents provide this book with emotional intensity, as when one child’s teenage mom and 50-something father repeatedly tested her “same team” strategy, as well as her strong Christian faith. Johnson recalls her own “countless tirades about how many resources—human and otherwise—were being wasted on these parents who didn’t have the decency to show up for a visit with their children.” Indeed, she writes that it affected her own attitude toward her “same team” concept: “At certain points in the process, I practically tried to burn down the clubhouse and the whole stadium.” Over the course of this memoir, Johnson consistently comes across as a relatable Everywoman who struggled mightily to put her faith into action. The response she gave to incredulous friends and family—who wondered how she managed to deal with Illinois’ byzantine foster care system—also shows her keen sense of perspective, comparing her own situation to a woman who lost their spouse in an accident, another who lost a child, and still others who live in war zones: “How the hell do those women do it? And who am I to even compare my life to theirs?” Johnson’s solution was to do everything possible to be open with her children about their adoptive origins and to include the “first parents” in their lives as much as she could—even when that meant giving her kids up to visits where they were fed “vending machine food and…red Mountain Dew.”

An exceedingly forthright and moving story of adoptive and foster childcare.