fosterage

1 encouragement; aiding the development of something [syn: fostering]

2 raising someone to be an accepted member of the community; "they debated whether nature or nurture was more important" [syn: breeding, bringing up, fostering, nurture, raising, rearing, upbringing]

English

Noun

1. An act of fostering another's child as if it were your own.
2. A condition of being the foster child.
3. Promoting or encouragement given by act or word.

Fosterage, the practice of a family bringing up a child not their own, differs from adoption in that the child's genetic parents, not the foster-parents, remain his or acknowledged parents. In many modern western societies foster care can be organised by the state to care for children with troubled family backgrounds, usually on a temporary basis. In many pre-modern societies fosterage was a form of patronage, whereby influential families cemented political relationships by bringing up each other's children, similar to arranged marriages, also based on dynastic or alliance calculations.

Fosterage in the Hebrides

In his A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (1775), writer Samuel Johnson described the fosterage custom as he saw it practised.

References

abetment, advocacy, aegis, auspices, backing, care, championship, charity, countenance, encouragement, favor, goodwill, guidance, interest, patronage, seconding, sponsorship, sympathy, tutelage