Natural Mothers

A documentary journey through the foster care system, Photographed by Lisa Hancock

Fresh out of college in 1989, I landed a job as a caseworker at the Catholic Home Bureau, a foster care agency in New York City.  With little to no training, I was responsible for a caseload of 20 foster children, helping them to adjust in their new homes and facilitating visits with their natural families.  Up to 500,000 children are placed in foster homes in the United States in any given year.  The system is designed to be a temporary solution that protects children while parents get back on their feet. But I was struck by the uphill battle these parents faced to win their children back, the enormity of their problems (drug addiction, mental illness, HIV/AIDS) and the inadequacy of the programs available to treat them. 

Years laters, as a photographer, I wanted to pull back the veil on this stigmatized population.  Often vilified as bad mothers, many of them were former foster children themselves — survivors of an ineffective system that frequently harms rather than nurtures the children it’s supposed to keep safe.  In 2007 I met three natural mothers who were eager to share their stories with me. They gave me permission to photograph them in their homes and during visits with their children, while they struggled to put their families back together.  They all seemed anxious to be heard and seen, in a world that mostly judged them or looked the other way.

When I first started this project, some of my peers thought I should focus the project on the children instead of their “bad” mothers.  There was also a prevailing belief that documentary photography is exploitive and preys on the misfortunes of others.  I felt discouraged, unsure of my beliefs, and pulled back from the project for a number of years. I lost touch with the mothers I had started to photograph.  Since then I’ve come to understand that there will always be two schools of thought:  those who think documentary photography takes advantage of vulnerable subjects and those, like me, who believe in its power to inspire empathy. Photography gives us a chance to bear witness to the struggles of others and creates space for the complexity of their stories.

I shot this project with my first camera, a 35 mm film camera, using high speed black and white film and color slides.  The combination of materials produced blurry, grainy images that seemed to mirror the unsettling and chaotic subject matter.  I hope they convey the overwhelming sense of isolation and despair that afflicts these women, and the fundamental need for human connection and support that we all share.

Scroll below to learn more about each woman’s case and to hear their stories in their own words.

Catherine

Catherine’s newborn son Adam was placed in foster care after a caseworker reported her to the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) for neglect.

Monica

A teacher reported Monica to ACS when her 9-year-old son Marko showed up at school with bruises on his face. Marko and her other son Nikolas, 3, were placed in foster care with their grandmother.

Jana

Jana’s 8-year-old daughter Kayla was placed in foster care when officials at the shelter where they were living reported that she was using drugs and leaving Kayla unattended.

Ramon

Ramon and his three sisters were foster children on my caseload when I was a caseworker from 1989-1991. Their father had committed suicide and their mother had fallen into a life of drugs and crime.