History Main / FosterKid

* In the German novel ''Gottes Bodenpersonal: Eine Unwahrscheinliche Liebesgeschichte'', the two male protagonists foster a teen boy who has been living on the streets for most of his life. He originally lived on the streets because he didn't want a foster family, suspecting that he would be sexually abused there. [[spoiler: He decided that if he was to be sexually abused by adult men, he could as well take money for it, and lived as street prostitute. He met his future foster father by propositioning him, and the polite rejection of this offer and subsequent attempt to help him get out of prostitution was what made him trust the man.]] No adoption takes place in the course of the novel, which is explained as being due to the stricter regulations on adoption, and the problems a homosexual couple would face.

* Hunter on ''Series/QueerAsFolkUS'': played straight before Hunter ever appears on the show; apparently he ran away from a foster home because he was abused there. He's eventually taken in by Michael and Ben and seems to be happy there, but then this trope is inverted when his mother (who originally lost custody of him because she used drugs and forced him into prostitution) shows up and wants him back, and actually gets custody. Then she screws it up before they've even left the courtroom, by freaking out when she learns that Hunter is HIV-positive, and promptly loses custody again, to Michael and Ben who officially become Hunter's foster parents. From then on, this trope is averted and at the very end of the series, they offer to adopt him when they notice that he's been using their last names on his school books.

* Kevin on ''Series/ShamelessUS'' was one when he was younger, which causes him to be eager to subsequently foster a 13 year old girl named Ethel who had been removed from [[{{Squick}} a polygamous cult whose leader had married her at 11 and had sex with her enough times to give her a son]].

* [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] and ComicBook/LoisLane had a foster son, Chris, who was HappilyAdopted. Arguably doesn't count, however, since he was actually a Kryptonian stranded on Earth and the legal work was actually forged by Franchise/{{Batman}}.

* After the events of their miniseries, most of the ComicBook/{{Runaways}} ended up in foster care (except for Molly, who went to an ComicBook/XMen run [[OrphanageOfLove orphanage]] instead). While they were all treated well enough, they all decided that, after what they went through, they really couldn't go back to normal life. That, combined with the fact that [[FireForgedFriends they had all gotten]] [[TrueCompanions extremely close,]] inspired them to run away [[AndTheAdventureContinues all over again.]]

* The ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' series'' [[http://archiveofourown.org/series/82162 Stars from Home]]'' has Ororo in this situation, while Scott is HappilyAdopted, both with [[GoodParents Charles and Ruth]]. They're treated the same and refer to each other as [[LikeBrotherAndSister brother and sister]].

* In the ''Fanfic/MotionPractice'' series, which recasts various Marvel superheroes as lawyers, Bruce Banner's area of expertise is child protection law, so he deals with foster children several times. During the course of the series, he also takes on foster children himself. He's a good foster parent; some of the others we hear about, less so.
* ''Fanfic/TodayTomorrowAndForever'' revolves around Derpy Hooves' daughter Dinky being put in foster care after Foal Services finds Derpy unable to take care of her due to former's disability.
* In ''Fanfic/LostBoy'', Spitelout manages to convince Stoick to allow Hiccup into their home as a means of preventing scandal among the village. What follows is Spitelout, his wife Ava and Snotlout [[KickTheDog forcing him to work every waking hour, giving him half a meal for dinner and forcing him to sleep on the cold hard floor in Snotlout's room, all the while verbally abusing him every chance they get, becoming physically violent when he defends Stoick's honor by hitting Snotlout]].

* In ''Fanfic/AsylumDaemonOfDecay'', [[spoiler:Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy]] are so close because they were foster sisters growing up.

* In ''Fanfic/SonOfTheSannin'', Haku is placed in the custody of Hayate and Yugao following Zabuza's arrest. They're told that they'll be free to leave once Zabuza's incarceration and parole have finished, though Jiraya is banking on Haku becoming attached enough to the village in the intervening years to stay and start a family ([[SuperBreedingProgram thus bolstering the village's ranks with the Yuki clan's Ice Release]]). [[spoiler:Zabuza "[[JerkWithAHeartOfGold disowned]]" him at the end of the Kirigaguke Civil War arc so he wouldn't be forced to abandon his friends and it's implied that Hayate and Yugao officially adopted him during the TimeSkip.]]
* In ''Blog/AskTheFamous8'', Thomas and Percy are both foster children, but they ended up in the system under very different circumstances.
** Thomas was orphaned at the age of six, when his parents were killed in a car accident. From there, he was taken in the care of his closest living relatives, his distant aunts Annie and Clarabel Clementine. Though they loved him deeply, they were ultimately unprepared to raise a child, so they put him in the Shining Time care center on Sodor.
** Percy was abandoned on a doorstep by his mother, who did not feel ready to raise a child just yet. From there, he was taken to a hospital until he no longer needed constant care, and he was soon sent to the Shining Time care center.
* In the third chapter of ''Fanfic/WhatAStrangeLittleColt'', Rainbow Dash decides to start fostering Gabriel.%%a bit barebons, isn’t it?

* ''Film/TheRageCarrie2'''s Rachel was put into the foster system after her crazily religious mother was taken away. Her foster parents are white trash, who occasionally hit her, and are after the extra allowance.

* ''Film/{{Foster}}'' is a 2019 HBO documentary about foster children, foster parents, and parents whose kids are in foster care.
* ''[[Film/Shazam2019 SHAZAM!]]'': As in the comics, Billy Batson, as well as his five foster siblings. Initially, Billy resists this, since he's been searching for years for his birth mom and is standoffish to his foster families, making it clear that he doesn't really see them as his actual family. However, once he [[spoiler:finds his biological mother and learns that she abandoned him on purpose as a child and doesn't want to be part of his life]], he fully accepts and embraces the Vasquez household as his true home, becoming HappilyAdopted.

* ''Film/Annie2014'', as part of its SettingUpdate, changes the title character's circumstances from an orphanage to a foster home. People occasionally [[MythologyGag refer to her as "little orphan Annie"]], which she {{insistent|Terminology}}ly corrects to "foster kid" each time.
* ''Film/TheChristmasBunny'': Julia was taken away by Child Services from her biological mother, an abusive (implied) drug addicted sex worker. When the film starts, she’s at her third foster home. [[spoiler:She’s adopted by them after her mother surrenders her parental rights.]]
* ''Film/{{Meadowland}}'': Adam's foster parents assumed they would be getting a neurotypical child, and were not pleased to learn about his Asperger's. His mother yells insults at him when he forgets his lunch, which is often. His father doesn't seem to pay much attention to him.

* The titular character in Creator/KatherinePaterson's novel ''Literature/TheGreatGillyHopkins'' is currently in the system.

* In ''Literature/MaggieNow'' by Betty Smith, the titular character and her husband are unable to have kids, so she becomes a foster mom for orphans taken in by the church. She can only care for them for a set period of time before they are taken away. [[spoiler: Eventually, he husband catches a horrible illness and she is no longer allowed to take in any foster children]].

* Dee's love interest, James, in ''Literature/TheHeartsWeSold'', entered foster care at a young age, and aged out without being adopted. He's relatively well-adjusted, all things considered, but his lack of a real support system lays the groundwork for his role in the plot.
* There are some foster kids in Creator/JacquelineWilson’s books:
** Tracy in ''Literature/TheStoryOfTracyBeaker'' has been in two foster homes.
** April, the title character of ''Literature/DustbinBaby'', has been in several foster homes. The novel might briefly refer to Tracy, and also shows Tanya, a foster kid from ''Bad Girls''.
** In ''Literature/TheIllustratedMum'', [[spoiler:Dolphin and later Star end up in a foster home.]]
** "Lily Alone" ends with [[spoiler:Lily and her siblings split up in different foster homes, and their mother arrested for child neglect and credit card fraud.]]

* Book I of Rosa Guy’s novel ''Literature/EdithJackson'' (part of a trilogy) is titled ''The Foster Family''.
%%* Bailey in Patricia Hermes’ novel ''Literature/HeadsIWin''.
%%* Matt and Katie in Caroline B. Cooney's novel ''Literature/WhatChildIsThisAChristmasStory''.
* ''Literature/TheyCageTheAnimalsAtNight'' is an autobiographical novel about a boy's experiences at an OrphanageOfFear and later various foster homes in the 1940s and 1950s. His first foster home is so bad that he's brought back to the orphanage within a couple of days because his foster dad couldn't handle his wife abusing another one of their foster kids (which they only keep around for money).

* Marcus from ''Literature/IfIFallIfIDie'' was on his sixth foster home at the time of his disappearance. The second home was the worst - his parents kept him in chicken-wire shackles at night and abused him with various household tools, leaving him covered in scars. The sixth home made him stay out of the house from nine to five even when he was sick because they thought he was a bad influence on the other kids.
* ''Literature/RainReign'': When Wesley Howard was ten, he and his younger brother Weldon were removed from their abusive single father's home and placed in foster care. They lived in a total of seven foster homes before they turned eighteen. The longest they ever stayed with a family was 21 months. The shortest was 78 days.
* ''Literature/TheSomedayBirds'': After Ludmila and her brother Amar arrived in the United States, they were split up. Amar was sent to a military school for boys, while Ludmila went through a series of foster homes. Some were good, and some were terrible. Her favorite was the astrophysicist Dr. Joan, with whom she is still in contact.
* ''Literature/PilgrennonsChildren'' has autistic twins Dana and Cale, who lived in an institution before they were placed with foster parents Pauline and Graeme. The parents genuinely care about them, but Dana is still miserable with them because of severe bullying at her school.

* Nickel from ''Literature/NickelPlated'' was removed from his biological mother at a young age and lived between the ages of four and eight with a detective who was the only good parental figure he ever had. After the detective was murdered, he lived with a series of abusive foster families, the last of which turned out to be child pornographers. Nickel escaped and, it's implied, murdered them, and is now a MinorLivingAlone who considers going back into foster care to be a FateWorseThanDeath.
* ''Literature/BudNotBuddy'': Since his mother's death four years ago, Bud has mostly lived in an orphanage, but has had three very temporary foster placements, all of which were terrible. The third involves a SpoiledBrat BigBrotherBully who gets his parents to lock Bud in a shed overnight. Bud breaks out of the shed and runs away.
* Alvie from ''Literature/WhenMyHeartJoinsTheThousand'' became a foster kid at age eleven after her mother's death and a stay in a psychiatric hospital. She lived in several homes, but none of them worked out - she was a difficult kid, and the parents didn't understand her boundaries. Eventually she was placed in a group home for emotionally troubled teenagers, which turned out to be the worst place of all, due to the severe bullying that went on. Eventually she persuaded a judge to let her become a MinorLivingAlone as long as a social worker checks up on her twice a month.
* Sam from ''Literature/TheManyHalfLivedLivesOfSamSylvester'' spent their early life in foster care. Before they were adopted, they were a mute, self-injurious child who had been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder. They finally started talking after being adopted.
* ''Literature/LostVoices'': When Luce was eight, she was taken from her father, a petty criminal. She spent months in foster care before her father picked her up again when she was nine. After that, they had to stay out of Texas so her father wouldn't be arrested for kidnapping her.
* Maya from ''Literature/TheMermaidChronicles'' lives in foster care and doesn't know who her biological parents are. Her placement actually seems pretty good - she loves her foster siblings even though they annoy her. [[spoiler:It turns out that she comes from a long line of prophecy interpreters. Her parents were killed at sea while protecting the mermaids.]]

* ''Series/DiffrentStrokes'': One of the last episodes of the series, Season 8's "Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown," sees Sam get into a fight with another kid who is a foster child, the fight borne out of the boy's extreme envy and jealousy of Sam's posh life. Willis reminds Sam that he and Arnold could easily have ended up in foster care (either temporarily staying with families or living in group homes), but it was averted when Mr. Drummond took them in and adopted them. By episode's end, Mr. D � who is being featured on a TV series � uses his opportunity to encourage the adoption of older children.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': Stella Bonasera. Her foster sister was a suspect in the crossover episode with ''Series/ColdCase,'' "Cold Reveal."

%%* Locke in ''Series/{{Lost}}''%%Zero-Context Example
* Part of Sara Sidle's backstory in ''Series/{{CSI}}''. Her mother killed her father, who was abusive to both her and her mother. Sara ended up in foster care.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Daniel Jackson has this as a part of his backstory. Specifically, his parents were killed in a freak accident (which he witnessed) when he was about eight years old, and his only living relative was his maternal grandfather, who refused to take him in because he felt he was too busy to raise a child. Beyond this, the details are unclear � we don't know how his relationships with his foster families were � but based on his relationships later in life he never considered himself to have a family until his team stepped in and filled that role.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': When Claire Novak resurfaces in Season 10, this is her backstory. After her father abandons her to become Castiel's vessel and then her mother abandons her to look for Castiel/Jimmy, Claire winds up bouncing from foster home to foster home. Eventually, however, she's taken in by Jody Mills, who offers her a stable and loving home.
* ''Series/OrphanBlack'': Sarah and Felix were raised by Mrs. S., Sarah after being an [[TitleDrop orphan brought in from... "the black."]]
%%* ''Series/TheListener'': Toby Logan.%%%ZCE
* Ricky from ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' is a foster kid, but he has very loving and supportive foster parents and he even refers to them as his [[ParentalSubstitute mom and dad]].
* A recurring character type in ''Series/HomeAndAway'', mainly with members of Sally's family. The inverse also occurred fairly early on, when original character Lynn Davenport left to rejoin her biological parents.
* Rusty Beck in ''Series/{{Major Crimes}}'' is put in the custody of the protagonist herself after threatening to run away from his latest set of foster parents.

* Hunter on the US version of ''Series/QueerAsFolk'': played straight before Hunter ever appears on the show; apparently he ran away from a foster home because he was abused there. He's eventually taken in by Michael and Ben and seems to be happy there, but then this trope is inverted when his mother (who originally lost custody of him because she used drugs and forced him into prostitution) shows up and wants him back, and actually gets custody. Then she screws it up before they've even left the courtroom, by freaking out when she learns that Hunter is HIV-positive, and promptly loses custody again, to Michael and Ben who officially become Hunter's foster parents. From then on, this trope is averted and at the very end of the series, they offer to adopt him when they notice that he's been using their last names on his school books.

* ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'': In later episodes, Dr. Amanda Bentley adopted a child named Dion, who had been abused by his previous foster parents. Dr. Bentley herself was a foster child who was HappilyAdopted. A bit of SharedActorBackground, as actress Creator/VictoriaRowell was also a foster child.
* Four of the five kids from ''Series/TheFosters'', with Jesus and Mariana having been subsequently adopted [[spoiler: and Stef and Lena planning on adopting Jude and Callie]]
* Kevin on [[Series/ShamelessUS the US version]] of ''Shameless'' was one when he was younger, which causes him to be eager to subsequently foster a 13 year old girl named Ethel who had been removed from [[{{Squick}} a polygamous cult whose leader had married her at 11 and had sex with her enough times to give her a son]].

* ''Series/WynonnaEarp'' includes Wynonna bouncing around the foster care system as part of her backstory. Especially notable since her younger sister Waverly was decidedly ''not'' this trope--Waverly was raised by loving [[HonoraryUncle family friends]] after Ward Earp's death. Presumably they couldn't handle Wynonna's troublemaking ways.
* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'': This is part of Erin's backstory and she does have some angst over it. She does [[spoiler:get reunited with her birth parents in the series finale]].
* Growing up, Cassie from ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' spent time in orphanages and then in foster care. A season nine episode has her asking Joan and Sherlock to help with a case involving one of her foster mom's who was murdered.
* ''Series/AlmasNotNormal'': Alma was moved around the care system a bit after her mother became incapable of caring for her.

* Ivan from ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' is fostered by Lord Hammet and Lady Layana of Kalay, but [[HappilyAdopted he's very happy with them]] and [[BewareTheNiceOnes will destroy anyone who endangers them]]. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that Ivan's birth family were not harmful or dead; they're Jupiter Adepts from Contigo who predicted his need to be living in Kalay at a certain time, and [[ThePlan arranged things so he would be where he needed to be]].]] In ''Dark Dawn'', it's noted that he remained in Kalay and helped the refugees from Vale settle there.

%%* Kate, and presumably many of the other Chimera, in ''Yosh!''%%ZCE
* Red in ''Webcomic/RedsPlanet''. The foster home is not bad, she's just adamant that she doesn't need to be adopted, because she's not an orphan. She also thinks that she has unlimited license to run away. The sheriff breaks it to her that after the third time, they won't just dump her in another home.

* ''Literature/CanYouSpareAQuarter'': Graham gets legal guardianship of Jamie, so that he can get help for the boy's nightmares and so that he can be kept away from his AbusiveParents.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Bart, Lisa, and Maggie were once placed in a loving, if extremely weird (to them), family: The Flanderses. [[StatusQuoIsGod They were back with Homer and Marge by the end]], once the Simpson parents took a parenting class that was [[BumblingDad tough for Homer]] and humiliating for Marge.
* On ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark,'' Kenny and his sister are removed from their drunken, drug-dealing parents and sent to a foster home with about a dozen other children, headed by a pair of abusive, fundamentalist agnostics (no, that's not a typo). Cartman later frames his mom for dealing drugs, under the false impression that he'll be taken in by some rich family, and winds up in the same place. The DepartmentOfChildDisservices is actually semi-competent here, with their case worker [[WhatHaveIDone horrified when he realizes how bad the place is]].
* The 1980s cartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'' has Starlight House as a rare positive example of a foster home. The Benton parents decided to foster girls after having two biological children of their own because Jacqui had been a foster child herself. Aja and Shana, the first two foster kids, grew up alongside Jerrica and Kimber and as a result they're all very close. After both parents died, the Benton sisters decided to take over the foster home. The seldom seen Ms. Bailey apparently takes care of the girls while the band is out touring.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLastKidsOnEarth'': The main character, Jack Sullivan, grew up in the foster care system. The foster family he was living with when the monster apocalypse hit left town without him.

* Jessie from ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' was a foster child due to her mother Miyamoto[[note]]This is an extension of what "Musashi", Jessie's Japanese name, already refers to: the famous Japanese samurai "Musashi Miyamoto". "James" is known as "Kojiro" in the Japanese version, after Musashi's well known rival "Kojiro Sasaki".[[/note]][[GiveHimANormalLife wanting her to have a normal life]] while she made enough money in Team Rocket to support her. Jessie's life as a foster kid wasn't particularly remarkable but it wasn't bad either, [[HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood just pitiful like the rest of her life]].

* Pre-reboot, [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Billy Batson]] ran away from abusive foster parents and wound up living on the street. (In early stories it was an EvilUncle.) Since the reboot the dynamic has changed so he lives with a happy foster family and ''he's'' the [[KnightInSourArmor sour one]].

* Karli from ''Series/SesameStreet'' is a young muppet who is in foster care because her mother struggles with addiction.

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* In ''Fanfic/{{Asylum}}'', [[spoiler:Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy]] are so close because they were foster sisters growing up.

* ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'': In later episodes, Dr. Amanda Bentley adopted a child named Dion, who had been abused by his previous foster parents. Dr. Bentley herself was a foster child who was HappilyAdopted. A bit of TruthInTelevision, as actress Victoria Rowell was also a foster child.