In Search of the Romantic Family: Unconscious Contributions to Problems in Foster and Adoptive Placement

Orphans, foundlings, children in need of substitute parents are an ineluctable piece of human history. The causes and effects of their parentless status have captivated the imagination for untold generations. Even a brief consideration of mythology, fairy tales, and literature, especially for and about children, underscores the power of the parentless child to stir both conscious and unconscious fantasy; attempts to understand the meaning and importance of these fantasies have occupied a pivotal place in psychoanalytic theories. Mythical children are raised by substitute parents for various reasons. Sometimes, as in the case of Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie, it is as simple as the death of the biological parents. In stories such as The Secret Garden, a child may be emotionally abandoned because he or she is held responsible for the death or disappearance of a beloved parent. At the other end of the spectrum is abandonment in an attempt to protect the child's life, as in the case of Moses, who is put into an ark of bulrushes to save him from the Egyptians, or Superman, who is sent away from Krypton before the planet is destroyed (see Widzer). In other cases, the absence of the biological parents is not explained. For example, we don't know why Dorothy lives with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, or why Joyce's nameless child in the first three stories of Dubliners lives with his aunt and uncle, or how Huey, Dewey, and Louie come to live with their Uncle Donald.

In these stories the quality of substitute caretakers is as varied as the reasons for children's needing them. Some children are left with kindly, other-worldly creatures as are Romulus and Remus and Kipling's Mowgli, both cared for by wolves, or Sleeping Beauty, alias Briar Rose, who spends the first sixteen years of her life in the care of fairies disguised as simple peasants. Other children, such as Cinderella, may acquire an unsympathetic or wicked step-parent and fare less well. The fate of children raised