
Safe
A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family
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Narrated by:
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Mark Daley
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By:
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Mark Daley
About this listen
“If you want a lifechanging book, this is the one to read.” —The View
“A truly revealing” (Hillary Clinton) memoir of an unlikely journey to parenthood through America’s broken foster care system.
What does it take to keep a child safe?
As a long-time strategist and activist fighting for better outcomes for foster children, Mark Daley thought he knew the answer. But when Ethan and Logan, an adorable infant and a precocious toddler, entered their lives, Mark and his husband Jason quickly realized they were not remotely prepared for the uncertainty and complication of foster parenting.
Every day seven hundred children enter the foster care system in the United States, and thousands more live on the brink. Safe offers a deeply personal and “riveting” (Booklist) window into what happens when the universal longing for family crashes up against the unique madness and bureaucracy of a child protection system that often fails to consider the needs of the most vulnerable parties of all—the children themselves.
Daley takes us on a roller-coaster ride as he and Jason grapple with Ethan and Logan’s potential reunification with their biological family, learn brutal lessons about sacrifice, acceptance, and healing, and face the honest, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious challenges of becoming a parent at the intersection of intergenerational trauma, inadequate social support, and systemic issues of prejudice.
For fans of Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know, Stephanie Land’s Maid, and Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family, Safe is “a strong indictment of a failed child welfare system, but with an unexpectedly happy ending that speaks to the power of love” (Kirkus Reviews).
One of the best books I've read in years
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Heartfelt!
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Don’t let fear strangle love
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Such a vulnerable and honest story of love, grief, empathy, and joy. But it’s so much more. Pushing through and finding joy in life, when it feels like there is none left is so powerful. I feel that Mark and Jason’s compassion and patience has helped me grow into a better person, or at least it better.
This is a great read for anyone experiencing love and loss. But I would definitely recommend to anyone looking into adoption or foster care…or even parenthood. No, I would recommend this to anyone. We all would be better to learn from Mark and his family’s journey.
This personal story I will never ever forget.
Impossible to Put Down
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Depiction of fostering
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So much love and support to give.
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I buy no means think that people shouldn't foster but they should look at it from a place of real and challenging experiences.
thank you
safe
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A must
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Mark and Jason’s journey to grow their family had me turning every page in hopes their dreams come true. Safe offers a foster parent’s perspective that illuminates the injustices children experience within the welfare system. “This case demonstrates how strain on county workers harm the well-being of the very children they’re charged to protect” (p. 195). Mark Daley’s, Safe was introduced to me at the 2024 Tucson Festival of Books. Daley was a panelist for the topic, Heavy Lifting of Social Reform.
“The system was defective, and we were hostages to its incompetence.”
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the author's reading was so good! he drew me in from the get go.
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