The motives of foster parents, their family and work circumstances

In foster care research the focus is generally placed on the children, not on the parents who perform the foster care. In this article the focus is on foster parents of 10-11 year-old children. They were interviewed about their motives for becoming foster parents, which were linked to their family and work circumstances. Among the 21 foster families in the study, four different but equally frequent reasons or motives for taking care of foster children from the very beginning could be distinguished: relatives who feel responsibility for a certain child; couples who want children and do not think they can have children of their own; families where the mother wants to be at home taking care of biological as well as foster children instead of having unskilled employed work outside the home; and parents with grown-up children who want to fill the 'empty nest' by becoming foster parents - combined with a family business at home or close to home. Changing family and work patterns in Sweden do not seem to have influenced foster families as much as families in general. The worth of acquiring more knowledge about the families involved in foster care of children and young people in order to improve foster care and reduce breakdowns of care is discussed.