Foster families offer an alternative to adoption but they aim for the children to eventually return to their natural parents. In 1998, advertisements appeared in the daily press that reproduced a handwritten sheet that had supposedly been written by a sad-looking, unkempt girl whose photo was also published. The text was as follows, “I want a man with a moustache and a lady with glasses, the sort of family that gives bread with chocolate for afternoon tea. Who will put plasters and antiseptic on my knee if I fall over. Who will help me do my homework and teach me to ride a bike. I want a family who will tell me stories and cover me when I go to bed. Only for a while. While my parents sort out their problems. Maria.”
[1]. At the foot of the advertisement were the names of the Red Cross as sponsor, and the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Generalitat of Catalonia as being responsible for funding.
Compare the adoption and fostering systems. Develop a hypothesis for analysis taking the economic theory of contracts as the basis and explain what steps you would take to compare it. Does this theory justify the fact that traditionally it was very difficult to gain access to information on the natural parents of children who had been adopted? Why has this policy been gradually changed?
[1] For example,
La Vanguardia (24 May, 1998, p. 88).