How evangelicals became foster momfluencers
My latest for The Baffler
In 2020, when I started researching the book proposal that would become American Orphan, I fell down a social media rabbit hole into evangelical foster mommy influencer Instagram. My Explore page kept serving me images of children in foster care with heart stickers covering their faces, nominally obscuring their identities, with captions that quoted scripture and cited God’s vision for the family.
I have been following these evangelical foster momfluencers for years now, and in time my horror-fascination with them grew into exasperation with how they exploit the children temporarily in their care to spread the gospel and make money. I felt that there was a story here, but it seemed tangential to the inquiries of my book.
Thankfully, The Baffler let me dig into how these influencers are objectifying foster youth’s privacy in ways that reproduce the racism and classism of the system as a whole for their newest issue, “The Ties That Bind.” You can read my story “Wards of God” online here, but it’s even better in print. Maybe you want to subscribe to The Baffler, buy the issue online, or find it in your local bookstore?
Thanks to my excellent editor Jess Bergman, fact checker Michael Blair, and everyone else who helped with this piece, especially my sources Jeanette Vega, Charell Star Chiger, Kathryn Joyce, and Rosalie Knecht. I highly recommend checking out the work Jeanette is doing for families impacted by the system over at Rise, following Charell over on Instagram, and reading Kathryn’s book The Child Catchers and her investigative work for Salon. In addition to her work as an LSCW, Rosalie is a novelist, and her Vera Kelly trilogy is not only gripping ‘60s and ‘70s lesbian noir, but also includes depictions of juvenile detention, foster care, and group homes.