I always have trouble rating memoirs. It is someone's truth so you can't necessarily disagree with it, but I will say Austin comes off as contradictory and disparaging of anyone who doesn't fit within her construct. She is classist and allows misogynistic men around her son simply because they are Black. As a background point, I think it is important to include who I am as a reviewer, so I am the Black mother of a Black son. I am married, my son is our biological child, and he is our one and only child. I was raised in an Afro-centric household in Detroit.

So back to the review.

I also find it interesting how her prejudices intersect. She claims to be a feminist, but is ok with misogynistic men around her son because they are Black, yet doesn't allow her son to be around his older (Black) siblings because she views their behavior negatively (she doesn't say they are poor, but implies low social class/standing). So Black men of a certain social class are given a pass even when their beliefs contradict her own and are harmful to her son (I also wonder about why she has all this Black men around her that she says are misogynistic and seemingly doesn't know any other Black men). She looks down on the biological parent of her own child, while drawing distinctions from her own parents who were both drug addicts who essentially gave their children up as she and her brother were raised by their grandparents. She basically says that they were raised right and strayed from the path her grandparents put them both on, which she doesn't explicitly say, but implies makes them different (and better than) the biological parents of her son. She talks about all the children in foster care that need homes (and implies she is saving them), yet only wants a baby that has not had time to "develop bad habits" and has a negative attitude towards the foster parents of her son's biological older siblings, who it appears took on 1) more foster children 2) older foster children and 3) siblings pairs, when she is not willing to do any of those things herself (including when her son's sisters are trying to be kept together). I think she should take on the children she feels she can care for, but you can't say out one side of your mouth that all these kids need homes and imply you are saving Black boys, while conveniently neglecting that your carefully curated profile of your ideal child might include a few characteristics of more difficult to place children (aka Black boys), but stills filters out many who may be arguably even more challenging to place.

I understand where she is coming from (misogyny in the Black community for example), but I wish she would have dug deeper into these contradictions or her thoughts, but instead she just glosses over them.