Identidade de família constituída por adoção tardia: dinâmicas entre parentalidades e filiações

Abstract

Late adoption involves placing children older than two years or adolescents in foster families. In 2019, there were 33,539 institutionalized children and adolescents in this age group, corresponding to more than 85% of the total. Prejudices regarding late adoption are present in society, associating it with failure resulting from the previous history of institutionalization and vulnerability of older children and adolescents available for adoption. However, many late adoptions occur in Brazil, providing protection and challenges to children, adolescents and families, involving bonding, affection and new responsibilities. One of the challenges is the construction of an identity shared by the family, guiding its developmental trajectory. In this study, we investigated the contribution of combining narrativist approaches in psychology and the bioecological theory of human development in the context of late-adoption families. The focus was to understand how the narrative act and its content influenced the construction of family identity and what were the consequences of this in the adoption process experienced by families. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the dynamics established between parenting and filiation that emerge through the process of late adoption, apprehending the narratives collectively constructed by families, in order to elucidate the process of construction of the adoptive family identity from the phenomenon studied. Methodologically, it started with a qualitative, exploratory and idiographic research, valuing the specificities of the analyzed cases. Three families were interviewed through individual narrative interviews and collective interviews with the members of each family mediated by the photovoice strategy. The contents of the narratives produced through the retelling process were analyzed, with the stories of each family being reorganized by the researcher chronologically and thematically. The interactions of the photovoices were also analyzed based on the statements model for focus groups. As a result, it was found that the construction of adoptive parenting precedes the objectivity achieved by the justice system. Families elaborate cohesive narratives even through negotiation processes that are not always in agreement between members, but that outline a representation profile that the group has of itself. These narratives are based on sets of elements within three categories: legal, affective and agentive. It was identified that the family works in a dual way, sometimes operating as a unit/entity, sometimes operating as a context. In both cases, the family's identity emerges as a process under construction and the basis for new experiences, not just being a product of the families' developmental trajectories.