They're All My Children: Foster Mothering in America

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1 2 Portrait of a Foster Mother (1): “They’re All My Children, They’re All My Family” 15 3 Mothers and Workers: Becoming a Foster Mother 35 4 “I’m Their Mother”: Fostering, Motherhood, and the Construction of Kinship 63 5 Managing Difference, Coping with Delegitimation: Foster Mothers as Nonmothers 84 6 Mothering Work and the Art of Fostering 105 7 Familial Changes: Integrating Foster Children into the Foster Family 128 8 “They Picked Up the Baby and the Baby Was Gone”: Mothering and Loss 149 9 Portrait of a Foster Mother (2): Motherhood, Loss, and Social Action 164 10 “I Wanna Make It through the Week” 186 11 Conclusion 210 Appendix: About This Study 217 Notes 225 References 233 Index 243 About the Author 245 vii ...