När föräldrarna inte räcker till – anlitade och lämpliga fosterhem under 1900-talet

Abstract

In all times and in all societies, there have been children who for various reasons have not been able to grow up with their biological parents. The solutions to this problem have varied; in Sweden most of these children have been placed in foster care. Due to a law regulating state child-care passed in 1926, children’s welfare boards were established in the municipalities. These boards were responsible for placing children with foster parents and for supervising foster homes. Foster parents were required to be suitable. This article focuses on who were contracted as foster parents during the 20th century. The study is based on textual analysis of child welfare practices. The study shows that the children’s welfare board increasingly had ambitions to place children in family constellations that were considered to be ”normal” and ”natural”, in order to contribute to normalization. Foster parents should preferably be married couples. They were expected to be neither too old nor too young. In the middle of the century foster parents from the middle-class were over-represented. In the 1970s there was a shift in who were contracted. For example, placements with relatives became less frequent. There were new demands on the foster parents’ suitability. Previous experience of children was desirable. Some foster parents began to be described as some kind of experts and their homes in terms of treatment.