Unplanned breakdown of foster mothering: biographical perspectives on identity challenges of foster mothers

Abstract

The legal and social situation of foster care and the role expectations of foster parenthood embody a variety of tensions. In many foster families, mothers experience their role as ‘the mother of the foster child’, and foster mothers want to be ‘good mothers’ – often even ‘better mothers’ compared with the child’s birth mother. Accordingly, foster mothers tend to exhibit intensive mothering. However, if foster care placements break down, the affected foster mothers experience the breakdown not only as an end of their role as foster mothers, but as a shattering of their entire identity. The chapter is based on a study conducted in Switzerland, Germany and the UK on ‘Breakdown in Foster Care’ and focuses solely on the German sample. A brief introduction to the structural context of foster care in Germany is provided, and structural ambivalences and contradictions reagrding foster care from the German-language literature are presented and discussed. In the context of the aforementioned project, partial biographical interviews of the various actors involved were conducted, and multi-perspective case studies were reconstructed. The chapter draws on two contrasting case studies of foster mothers and their foster sons.