Not very long ago, I was providing weekend respite care for two sisters, ages 11 and 16. Their foster parents, who happened also to be their aunt and uncle, had to leave the state suddenly for a funeral, so the girls were with us. We had guests over and after being introduced to the girls one guest asked me, “What is their story?” I’m not sure she believed me when I told her that I didn’t know and hadn’t asked, but it was true. My husband and I have given short or long term foster care to over twenty teens in the past 8 years, and sometimes it feels like the stories are all the same. Each story is of course unique, but there are common threads, themes, that occur in nearly all of them.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s memoir of her childhood in foster care, Three Little Words, is not necessarily the most inspiring, heart-breaking or heart-warming story I have ever read, but it is a true story. It is the story of her particular journey, and it contains the themes and patterns that I have heard so many times. Though her story has a happier ending than the stories of most kids who spend years in foster care, the reasons that she went into care, and what happened to her while she there, follow patterns that happen far too often.

She had too many foster families: most consisting of parents who wanted to do what was best for the kids; one that was bad; and another so horrific as to make you forget that any of the others were good. The moves happened for all the usual reasons. One home was over-crowded. One family decided after 30 years to stop doing care. One move was to reunite her with her brother. There were moves back and forth from kinship care. From what we know, each move was reasonable if not necessary, but it all added up to a childhood without stability. That begins to change when she gets an excellent Guardian ad Litem and an adoptive family who struggles to gain her trust.

Ashley, and therefore the reader, do not fully understand why she is in care. Even when as a young adult Ashley obtains all the information, questions are still left unanswered. She and her brother entered care because her mother spent six days in jail on charges that were dismissed. They stayed because during those six days their mother was evicted and, since Ashley’s step-father stayed in jail, had no income. The mother is caught in a mind-boggling catch-22: unable to be reunited with her kids because she had no means of supporting them, and unable to qualify for welfare benefits because she doesn’t have custody of her kids. We never know what would have happened if she had been given support she needed, or if she hadn’t moved away from the family who previously helped her raise the kids. It is a reality that I live with as a foster parent for teens every day. Few if any of the cases are clear. How many kids are in care because their parents were poor, and how many because their parents really could not parent? How many of the mothers could have parented if our society did not make it so difficult to be a single parent?

Ashley describes her time at different foster homes. She moves without knowing why, often believing she was bad. I had to read the book a second time to remind myself that there were indeed good homes, because the story of the Mosses threatens to dominate the book. It bothered me that such cruel people could be foster parents, that Ashley and the other children were not believed for so long, that even when the children were believed the response was so inadequate. I also found it difficult to read about it as many times as Ashley needed to tell it. But that too is part of Ashley’s reality. It is also part of the reality of parenting teens like Ashley. They need to tell their story, and they may need to tell it more times that you want to hear it.

My favorite part of the book are the chapters in which Ashley describes with good humor her efforts to keep her adoptive parents, Phil and Gay Courter, at a distance while she waits to be rejected once again. Ashley knows better than to trust someone who makes promises. She knows that adoptive parents sometimes send kids back. As long as she can keep them at a distance she is safe and in control. Ashley doesn’t always understand herself why she feels satisfaction in inciting arguments between Phil and Gay or when she prefers to be hungry rather than accept the lovingly-prepared dinner of all her favorite foods. Slowly Ashley lets down her guard, but even years later when she does something of which she is ashamed, she believes she will be sent away. They are a wonderful couple of chapters, and can potentially help many parents understand why trust is so difficult for traumatized kids, and why it continues to be difficult even years later.

Because I am writing this for people who are interested in open adoption, it seems particularly important talk about, or perhaps warn you about, the pages in which Ashley writes to and meets with her mother. The Coulters are supportive of Ashley’s journey, but none of it is easy. Ashley’s feelings towards her mother include deep devotion and anger. She moves from one to the other, unable to integrate her feelings. Ashley’s mother is presented as loving, defiant, and unwilling to accept responsibility. Still, meeting with her seems to be helpful to Ashley, and at the end of the book Ashley reports continued progress in getting to know each other. The connections she re-forms with aunts and grandparents quickly produce healthy relationships along with more unanswered questions about why they were unsuccessful when they tried to get her from care.

Though this is not a book for everyone, I would strongly recommend it to anyone considering becoming a foster parent or adopting older children from foster care. Ashley Rhodes-Courter tells her story simply and honestly. She offers a clear and, I believe, accurate picture of life in foster care and the challenges faced by those who try to parent kids who lived there.