How Adults Formerly in Foster Care Contend with Master Narratives That Parents Are Supposed to Care for and Protect Their Children

You get caught up in these narratives of what family is supposed to be. Things are supposed to happen, and these momentous occasions and the Hollywood movies are—even your Lifetime movies. I think that there was a little bit of that in that. Like, “My mom and my dad should both be at my high school graduation because this is the way that things are done.” Versus actively wanting her to be there and having some kind of acknowledgment of how fucked up it is that this person did not raise me and now gets to see this milestone. (Study Participant, age 35)

Introduction. Master narratives are culturally created and shared stories about how society and people should behave. They are foundational to how individuals develop their own narrative identities. Challenges arise when one’s own experiences vary from master narratives. In these cases, individuals must contend with why their experience differs and what that means for who they are. The master narrative that parents are supposed to take care of their children is codified in American laws and implemented by child welfare systems, which exists to protect children and strengthen families. Thus, children removed placed into the child welfare system must reckon with why and how their families do not align with the “caring parents” master narrative, especially as their own identity development becomes most salient in emerging adulthood.

Methods. We used life story interviews with 12 emerging adults who have aged out of foster care in Illinois, as well as the network maps and genograms they created. We explored participants’ current and desired contact with biological parents and how they make sense of why their parents did or did not follow the master narrative of caring parents. We first plotted current and desired contact on two axes. Next, we employed modified grounded theory to explore the ways in which each participant engaged with master narratives about parental care.

Results. We found patterns in how individuals positioned themselves in relation to their birth parents and created counternarratives to explain why their parents did not care for them. At one end of the continuum, individuals were enmeshed with family of origin. At the other end, individuals do not have, nor wish to have, contact with birth parents. We found that individuals making sense of the “caring parent” master narrative range from those who seek to forgive parents’ shortcomings or see structural challenges that made their parents unable to care for them. Participants who severed ties with biological family created a counternarrative of “breaking the cycle”, sometimes as they tried to create families of their own.

Discussion and Implications. We offer suggestions for how identity work focused on developing counternarratives may effectively support positive identity development and positive adult outcomes for this population. We also discuss how identity work may be used within and outside child welfare systems.