Exploring Superficial Care’s Impact on Foster Children’s Well-being

Abstract

This study analyses Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s One for the Murphys and Alex Wheatle’s Home Girl, exploring the impact of superficial care on foster children’s development. Aided by the theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner, it examines the foster children’s development in five systemic levels – the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem and the chronosystem. The American novelist Hunt showcases the journey of a twelve-year-old Carley Connors and gives a touching but realistic depiction of the foster care system. The novel One for the Murphys further accounts for a terrible betrayal by her own mother that leads Carley to be placed with the Murphy family. The British novelist Wheatle portrays the story of Naomi, a teenage girl growing up fast in the foster care system. The novel Home Girl is fast-paced, funny, tender, tragic, and full of courage, just like Naomi. The protagonist, Naomi Brisset, a fourteen-year-old girl, has to face a lot of challenges in her journey through various foster care homes. She was unable to build trusting relationships as she was accustomed to shifting and changing environments. Ultimately, both novels bring to light the harsh realities of the foster care system, revealing the effects of family dynamics and the survival practices adapted by the foster children.