Dancing with a Porcupine: Parenting Wounded Children without Losing Your Self by Jennie Owens.
Forever Homes Publishing, Kennewick, WA, 2019.
Adult memoir, 238 pages.
Not leveled.
The story of an adoptive mother’s journey parenting children with significant trauma.
Well. This book was recommended to me by a mental health professional a few years ago, and I dutifully added it to my TBR, but it wasn’t available in the library system and there wasn’t much information about this book online yet. So there it sat for years until I came across it again and decided to give it a try.
The book has a forward by Sherrie Eldridge, who wrote the classic 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew decades ago. There is also an introduction by Kristin Berry, who has some books relating to foster care as well (although I haven’t read or reviewed any of hers yet).
If the cover doesn’t give it away, it’s pretty clear from the interior that this book is self-published. However, there were no typos, and the formatting was still readable. I didn’t love how the title repeated on every page in a footer, but the font was readable and the margins were adequate. Most of the 24 chapters are broken up into smaller sections, which make this a fast read that can be more easily stopped and started – this makes sense since most readers are likely to be busy parents or professionals or both.
I was generally impressed with this book. Owens shares real stories of what it is like to be on the front lines of childhood trauma, and she mostly toes the line of keeping the story focused on her experiences as a parent rather than oversharing her children’s backstory. Owens mentions some diagnoses, but rightfully doesn’t get too far into specific conditions and instead more generally considers trauma.
She shares that one of the birth parents involved struggled with addiction, and gives a bit too much information on that person’s death, but thankfully doesn’t name the parent and eventually redirects to processing her own emotions around the events.
A few big caveats. Another review mentioned that the children gave permission for her to publish this book, which may or may not be true, but is not discussed in any way within the book. I think a mention of that, not even necessarily in the main body of the text, but even on the acknowledgements or epilogue, is important to this story. Personally, I’d also like to know a bit about those discussions – there is an inherent imbalance of power between parent and child, and this story of parenting does involve personal information about all three children. Although less is shared than many parenting memoirs, I would be curious if they were given the chance to review the book before publication, asked to share their perspectives on certain events, if she changed their names and identifying details, etc.
There are moments where Owens shares some of her parenting mistakes as well as some big, even shocking thoughts and feelings she had. This book might be hard to read for people who were adopted, in foster care, or those who had trauma or mental health behaviors like her children did because she shares some concerning moments in her own mind.
This is not in any way a how-to book or a self-help manual, although Jennie frequently mentions various techniques they tried or books that she was reading. It is good to see what references she found helpful or which things seemed to work best, given that the three children in this book are all now adults.
Owens, as the back of the book shows us, is white. Her husband also appears to be white based on videos from their website. The race/ethnicity of their various children isn’t specified, so it isn’t certain if transracial parenting is at all a factor. And the power of whiteness in the USA is such that she never feels the need to mention it.
Beyond race, Owens has several other aspects of privilege. They move close to her husband’s family to have local supports. Her family (from Wisconsin) are able to make visits or host her. An external support network exists. While she doesn’t delve into finances, they were able to support her being a stay-at-home parent, homeschooling, and even buying a house when those things made the most sense for their family.
While help and services are not always available, cost and language are not barriers to accessing what does exist for Owens and her family. She is educated and both her and her husband have significant background and training working with youth who have trauma before they adopt.
Owens is Christian and this book is written from a Christian viewpoint, particularly in that she and her husband felt called to adoption and their faith was a motivating factor driving them to keep trying. Also during the darkest hours she had a crisis of faith, wondering why God called them to an adoption which seemed unsuccessful. She feels angry when someone with no understanding of the situation glibly rattles off that God never gives us more than we can handle.
Although I do like to make readers aware of the viewpoint, Owens doesn’t include constant over the top references like some other books. I think this book would be okay for nonreligious readers or those from other religions who don’t mind occasional references. (Unfortunately the religious remarks are enough that I wouldn’t recommend this for official state trainings, etc. It might be useful as a whole employee read for religious based support institutions, but not secular ones.)
The audience for this book is probably rather limited – other foster and adoptive parents, and the social workers, therapists, and other supports around them. I would not recommend this as a first book on adoption or fostering for anyone not living through parenting a child with severe trauma, but I do think social workers and prospective adoptive parents could benefit from reading this (after reading some other material and getting some experience with the system first).
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