Mieux comprendre le sentiment de filiation chez les parents qui accueillent un enfant en vue de l'adopter par le biais du programme québécois Banque-mixte

Becoming a foster-to-adopt parent through the mixed-bank program is a particular experience because the child joins the family with no guarantee that an adoption will take place. In addition, mixed-bank parents, as foster parents, are obligated to take the child to visitations with his or her biological parents and have to deal with the presence of social workers who intervene in their private lives. Using a grounded theory approach, this study aims to understand how foster-to-adopt parents develop a sense of parentage, i.e. the sense of being the child’s parent, in a situation when they are neither the legal guardian nor the biological parent. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 parents in order to explore subjects such as the underlying motivations for their parental project, their experience of the process of becoming a mixed-bank family and their relationship with the child. The results can be used to lay the groundwork for a new theory according to which the sense of parentage appears before legal parentage is declared in such circumstances. Thus, the foster-to-adopt parent does not become a parent when the adoption decree comes into effect; he or she becomes a parent well before that moment, starting at the point of no-return, or, the moment when an individual realizes that the child is theirs through reasoning or as the result of an emotional response. In the absence of a blood or legal relationship, the foster-to-adopt parent builds his or her sense of parentage on the basis of a profound desire to have a child as well as on three pillars that allow him or her to justify the feeling of being the child’s parent: occupying the parental role, building a significant relationship with the child and being recognized as the parent by others. When a foster-to-adopt parent does not have to face the uncertainty that the child might be returned to his biological environment, he or she must patiently wait for the adoption to be finalized but the absence of legal parentage does not challenge his or her sense of being the child’s parent. However, feeling like a child’s parent before legally being recognized as such can create tensions for foster-to-adopt parents since the foster family status clashes with their sense of parentage. In order to minimize the unwanted effects of uncertainty, adoption and child social workers develop different strategies to reassure and protect mixed-bank parents as well as minimize the anxiety caused by the possibility that the child might be returned to his or her biological family environment. Lastly, guided by their need to have an exclusive kinship, foster-to-adopt parents try to distance biological parents while maintaining a certain degree of openness for the sole purpose of allowing the child to accept his or her origins in a healthy manner. In conclusion, the implications of this study on the advancement of knowledge, the improvement of practices and the drafting of new legislation will be discussed.

Keyphrases: adoption, sense of parentage, kinship, adoption, child protection, mixed-bank program, foster-to-adopt parent