The Wellbeing of Children in Care

A New Approach for Improving Developmental Outcomes

Kwame Owusu-Bempah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415479394
• eBook ISBN: 9781136971426
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery
• Index: Social Sciences

Because of their previous damaging experiences, many children and young people enter the care system having already developed emotional problems or at a greater risk of developing them. However, in addition to this, research and experience consistently show that being in care is likely to aggravate or worsen developmental problems. Why does public care have these negative effects on children and what is needed to alleviate their problems?

This important book looks at how children in care can best be helped to attain desirable developmental outcomes. Owusu-Bempah introduces his notion of socio-genealogical connectedness to help explain why children in kinship care fare better than children in non-relative foster care. He argues, using recent empirical research as well as a wide range of literature from the adoption field and attachment theory, that knowledge about one's hereditary background is an essential factor in looked-after children's long-term adjustment to placement. As with all children, this knowledge forms the basis of their identity, self-worth, and general outlook.

An invaluable contribution to the area, this book offers promising routes to understanding better and working more effectively with virtually all families, irrespective of their cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. It will interest researchers and students of attachment theory, adoption and fostering, child development and children's mental health.

1
Fostering and adoption in historical perspective

Fostering and adoption are the two main alternative mechanisms of childcare utilized in all human societies when parents are unable or unwilling to care for their offspring. Thus, both forms of childcare have always been a common feature of every human society. In the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, for example, Joseph (son of Jacob), Moses and Jesus provide archetypical examples of adopted or fostered figures. In antiquity, legendary examples include Oedipus, Alexander the Great (King of Macedonia) and Aristotle. In and around the Victorian era in Western societies, Jean Jacques Rousseau (philosopher) and Charles Dickens may represent well-known adopted persons. In modern times, we have such grandees as Eleanor Roosevelt (First Lady), Winston Churchill, Malcolm X, Nancy Reagan (First Lady), Nelson Mandela, US Presidents Gerald Ford, William (Bill) Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama.

Fostering and adoption in ancient civilizations

This section sketches Goody’s (1969) detailed summary of the institution and purpose of adoption in major ancient civilizations, especially Greece and Rome. He contrasts the functions of adoption in these prehistoric societies with the role it played in Eurasian societies which he further contrasts broadly with the role of fostering in sub-Saharan Africa. His analysis of the anthropological literature indicates that fostering and adoption played a major part in the traditional laws of many ancient societies. For example, he argues that in ancient China, Greece, Rome and other civilizations both written laws and conventions afforded the practice a particular status. In these primeval civilizations, as in modern societies, as we will see in subsequent chapters, fostering and adoption served several purposes: political, economic, social, religious and psychological.

Greece

Adoption in ancient Greece, according to Goody, was undertaken principally for the purposes of inheritance. That is, it commonly occurred when a man had no offspring at all or had only a daughter or daughters, and wanted to forestall or prevent a close relative from claiming his daughter as an heiress, with the motive to benefit from his estate. In such a case, he would arrange a husband for her, and then adopt either him or one of his sons (i.e., the man would adopt one of his grandsons). By Goody’s account, adopting their grandsons or their agnatic (patrilineal) nephews or (rarely) their nieces to succeed them was a common practice among men of means. In these cases, adoption could be carried out even posthumously by will. Goody’s (1969) scrutiny of the literature indicates that adoption in primordial Greece was, thus, mainly of close kin, although sometimes of affine (relatives by marriage). No one who had a biological son would adopt. If having adopted, a man later begot a son, the biological and adopted sons would both inherit his estate, share the property between them.

In ancient Greece, as in modern Western societies, adoption severed the relationship between the adopted person and his kin. In other words, all the rights and status that might have been bestowed upon him by his birth family were revoked and replaced with the rights and status granted him by the adoptive family. However, he was unable to make a will and so could only bequeath his property by direct descendants. This made his position potentially precarious, since an adopted person could be easily disowned. Besides, as in some modern societies, such as Poland (Stelmaszuk, 2006) and the Netherlands (Strijker et al., 2003), a citizen could only adopt a citizen. As far as inheritance was concerned, only citizens could own Greek property. It must be pointed out also that only males could adopt.

In summary, in ancient Greek society, adoption essentially involved ancestor worship; it entailed a continuation of the worship of the family shrine. This, according to the Greeks, could not be properly observed by a foreigner or, presumably, by a woman. In addition, an adopted son had to provide for his adoptive father in his old age, bury and worship him after his death (Goody, 1969). All this means that, in olden Greece, the practice was closely linked with genealogical continuity, continuity not just of property, but, more importantly, of ancestor worship.

Rome

According to Goody, the context in which adoption took place in ancient Rome was somewhat different from that which prevailed in Greece. In Rome, it occurred in ‘crisis’ situations; its primary function was to avert the extinction of a family; it was undertaken to ensure the continuity of a family, especially a high-ranking family. Such a crisis also created an opportunity for rank or social mobility for a lower-status family or a family of equal or similar status to enhance its standing. Namely, a family with a son to spare could affiliate with a noble family at risk of annihilation by giving him in adoption.

Goody identifies two distinct forms of adoption that existed in Rome: adrogation and adoption. Adrogation of a person always required public approval since that person was, in principle, head of a family, which, along with its cult, would suffer annihilation as a result of its mergence in another family. Adoption, on the other hand, entailed just the transfer of a person from one family to another. A man adrogated automatically took his entire property and all his descendants across with him. In contrast, an adopted man or woman entered their new family by themselves; their children and property (if any) remained with their original paternal family. In either case, however, the separation was fundamental and uncompromising. The adopted person became an alien to his birth parents, siblings and other relatives; and a person adrogated repudiated the gods of his family by the act of sacrorum detestation (i.e., detestation of the sacred). By this act, he was obliged to renounce his ancestral gods, to have strong hatred for the gods of his birth family in order to embrace the gods of his new family. In adoption, not only was the separation irrevocable, but also an adopted son (who joined his new family alone) could not, of his own volition, rejoin his biological family under any circumstance, even when they were experiencing difficulties, for example, bereavement. Adoption in modern Western societies, based on the principle of giving the child ‘a fresh start’, bears some of the hallmarks of the practice in ancient Rome.

The completeness and irrevocability of the act of both forms of adoption, their possible consequences for donors as well as beneficiaries, meant that it was never undertaken without due consideration. The conditions under which the transfer could take place were significant. Regarding adrogation, Cicero is reported to have argued that only a man who had no children could undertake this. ‘What, gentlemen,’ he asked, ‘is the law relating to adoption? Clearly, that the adoption of children should be permitted to those who are no longer capable of begetting children, and who, when they were in their prime, put their capacity for parenthood to the test’ (in Goody, 1969, p. 60). Because adrogation destroyed a family, it was only permitted in order to save another family, to provide an heir. It provided an individual with a son and heir, and one who could inherit his property, continue his line and perpetuate his worship. Cicero is said to have justified the practice on patriotic grounds, by arguing that the inheritance of property and worship of the dead were ultimately associated in Roman society, that is, it was in the interest of Romans, and it was for this reason that a man wanted to provide himself with a specific descendant to carry out those tasks. Consequently, it was those with most to inherit who were most concerned to provide themselves with a specific heir to carry out these tasks.

Goody claims that the institution of adoption fulfilled other functions in Roman society, typically child welfare functions; for example, it enabled an uncle to adopt an orphaned nephew. In the main, though, it was a mechanism whereby the great and noble families provided themselves with heirs to their property and worship, successors to office or a political following. Goody’s (1969) studies show that from Julius Caesar and Augustus onwards, a considerable number of emperors, failing to sire sons or have sons of their own, adopted them instead. Adoption was, therefore, essentially a male-to-male transaction. Even though females could be adopted, they could not adopt or be adrogated. Also, as in Greece, only citizens could be adopted, often the sons of other high-ranking families. For the donor, there was a gain in the shape of alliance between two families, while the beneficiary perpetuated his own line. Hence, adoption in ancient Rome entailed an exchange relationship.

As in ancient Greece, Rome and other ancient societies, the perpetuation of the lineage, the continuation of a man’s personal line of descent, was the chief object of adoption in the traditional laws of other olden societies (Goody, 1969). By this act, the adopted son entered into a new inheritance and its concomitant obligations. Under Hindu law, for example, the adopted son maintained only a minimal link with his birth family, since he was debarred from marrying there. In brief, in prehistoric Greece, China, India and Rome, to an extent, as described by Goody, adoption had little to do with the assimilation of strangers (i.e., non-kin). Rather, the adoptive relationship often fell within descent groups; the adopted person was very often the paternal nephew who had no automatic right of inheritance unless he was adopted formally. A formally adopted person inherited from his father (biological uncle), carried on his direct line and worshipped at his ancestral shrine. He acquired his uncle’s chattels in return for continuing another man’s line of descent.

Adoption and fostering in medieval Western Europe

In today’s Western Europe, adoption serves three main purposes: 1) to provide homes for orphans, foundlings and children whose parents are incapable, for whatever reason, of providing them with adequate care; 2) to provide childless couples with social progeny; and 3) to provide an individual or a couple with an heir to their property (Goody, 1969). We may add to these a fourth function, the current fad among celebrities and others to undertake cross-country adoption for the purpose of enhancing their social status or to portray themselves as humanitarian or philanthropists (Owusu-Bempah, 2007). Although these functions are clearly not dissimilar to those fulfilled by adoption in ancient societies, the context in which contemporary Western European adoption and fostering take place has not always been the case. In the contemporary context, it is the welfare or the standard of ‘the best interest of the child’, giving ‘adequate’ care to children in need of care, which provides the rationale.

Anglo-Saxon England

Crawford (1999) points out that the Anglo-Saxon family is generally presented as a common ideal, a family characterized by a close, warm and loving relationship between parents and their children. Yet, as researchers (e.g., Crawford, 1999; Parkes, 2001, 2006) point out, fostering out, sending one’s child away to be raised by another family, was integral to Anglo-Saxon child-rearing practices. Crawford (1999) stresses, nonetheless, that the extent to which children were brought up by those outside their nuclear family, and the purpose of this, varied widely according to the age and status of the child. He points out also that the term ‘fostering’ carried a somehow different meaning among the Anglo-Saxons. That is, they used the word ‘foster’ generically to cover a range of nurturing patterns, from the equivalent of a mother’s help or live-in nanny to what we might recognize today as full-scale adoption outside the biological family.

Crawford distinguishes three broad categories of fostering in Anglo-Saxon England. In the first category, and by far the most common type of fostering, a nurse (nanny) was brought into an upper-class or elite household to assume some, if not all, of the childcare responsibilities, the duties of bringing up the child. This very often resulted in the development of attachment and a strong bond or warm and enduring ties of affection between the nanny and the child. The second type of fostering in Anglo-Saxon England is what today is often referred to as ‘fostering out’. In this type of childcare arrangement, children were often fostered outside their homes to be raised in another household, often that of a relative. This type of fostering took place either through necessity, such the death of a parent(s) or, as Crawford points out, it might be the equivalent of sending a child to a boarding school. While a foster-mother who was a nanny might be of low status, a child sent to be trained and to acquire good manners in another household would customarily expect to be fostered into a family of equal or higher status than his biological family. We will see in subsequent chapters that fostering children out in order to learn valued skills or to acquire culturally appropriate manners is one of the major motives for fostering children out in many contemporary societies.

In the third category of fostering in Anglo-Saxon England, as in ancient Greece and Rome, for example, there were instances where the child entered another household not simply on a temporary basis or as a visitor; rather he would acquire rights of inheritance from his new family, and might even abandon his biological family permanently. Thus, Crawford argues that secular ‘adoption’ as a feature of the Anglo-Saxon child-rearing system and oblation (the offering of the child as a gift to God) whereby children were donated to the Church might, today, be interpreted as an act of adoption as opposed to fostering.

Crawford provides examples indicating the commonplaceness of foster-mothers or nannies being recruited by Anglo-Saxon elite households. In fact, he claims that it is beyond dispute that noblemen and their wives delegated the task of looking after their children to others as a matter of course:

[T]he childfoster was expressly included in the list of servants indispensable to a man of status in the eighth-century law codes of Ine of Wessex. The nurse was considered an indispensable part of the thane’s entourage.

(Crawford, 1999, pp. 123–4)

Crawford uses this and other examples to stress that the children of noblemen needed to be kept within the household even when that household was peripatetic (on the move), but the day-to-day task of looking after and caring for the child was assumed not to be the business of either parent of the elite Anglo-Saxon child. In other words, it was seen as a menial task. Thus, nannies and foster families were usually of a lower status than the foster-child. Nonetheless, fostering a royal or noble child seems to have been an attractive prospect; it could be advantageous for the foster family, just as it could be for the child.

[T]he Prognostications advised that the 7th day of the moon was an auspicious one to ask a favour of a lord, and ‘if you propose to foster a royal child or a nobleman’s, fetch it to your home and household, and so foster it; it will be well for you’.

(Crawford, 1999, p. 126)

The account given by Crawford of fostering in Anglo-Saxon society suggests that children were raised by foster-carers either within the family home or away from it, in another household, at some time during their childhood. It suggests that at some stage, boys in particular were sent away from home to gain an education or training for their adult lives. Crawford is not the only one to equate this form of fostering with the act of sending a child away to boarding school today; others (e.g., Cleaver, 2000) do so too and, so, warn that it does not necessarily mean that noble families gave up all interest in their child.

Crawford claims that the evidence regarding girls being fostered out is vague. Thus, he relies on literary and legal sources to show that it was uncommon for parents to give up their infant daughters from birth to be reared away from the home. From these sources, he cites the examples of King Edwin’s daughter Eanflaed, King Edward’s daughter Eadberga and King Edgar’s daughter Edith, all of whom were given to monasteries from birth. Today, this might seem to represent the clearest form of abandonment of children by their parents, but Crawford warns against such an assumption. He points out that, in fact, the parents seem to have continued to take a warm interest in their growing children. For example, ‘Edgar was present when Edith was formally dedicated to the Church, and her mother, as abbess of the convent, was of course always present in the growing girl’s life’ (Crawford, 1999, p. 126).

Like contemporary societies, Anglo-Saxon society was concerned about the likelihood of child maltreatment or exploitation, especially orphans and those being raised outside their biological family. To safeguard such children’s welfare, according to Crawford, there were law...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Fostering and adoption in historical perspective
• 2 Fostering in cross-cultural perspective
• 3 Fostering in contemporary Western societies
• 4 Motives for child fostering
• 5 Public care and kinship care
• 6 Public care versus kinship care
• 7 In the interest of the child
• 8 Policy, practice and research implications
• Bibliography
• Index