What to Know
Taking in foster children can be a way for a couple to segue into adopting. In other cases, it’s a calling that couples might have to help children until their birth parents are able to be reunited. In fact, reunification is usually the end goal for foster parents, but a creator on TikTok named Shelby Whitaker is getting slammed for making content surrounding being a foster parent and making it seem like she and her husband intend to keep their foster child indefinitely.
After she posted a video with her foster child baby shower, other users were quick to point out how inappropriate her foster care-related content is. Some see Shelby as using foster care to become a permanent parent rather than a temporary foster parent for a child in need. Instead of making content to bring awareness to the foster care system and share her story that way, Shelby’s content appears to be more focused on the aesthetic of it all. And that’s just one part of the overall problem here.
@cortneycabrera A BABY SHOWER for a foster child is probably the most wild thing I’ve seen on the internet in a while #trauma #fostercare #fosterparent #adoption #adoptionjourney ♬ original sound – CORT | MOM OF 6 🍒❤️💋
Users say “using foster care as content” is just plain wrong.
Shelby has shared details of her infertility journey on her TikTok account, so for her, the idea of also sharing her journey as a foster seems to be a no-brainer. And no one is faulting her for sharing her thoughts and feelings about taking care of a baby who will hopefully be reunited with his mother someday. But the issue that many have is that Shelby had a baby shower before a baby was placed with her. Or, at the very least, before she actually told her followers that a baby had been placed with her and her husband.
Other people who have criticized Shelby see the foster mom angle as a Band-Aid for her fertility struggles. In one video about Shelby and her baby shower as a foster mom, a user says that Shelby is missing the idea of what it means for children to be in the foster care system and how it might feel for some of the families to be “ripped apart” while Shelby is celebrating welcoming a child into her home under those circumstances,
It’s one thing to be enthusiastic about helping a child with the thought of reunification in mind at all times for that child and their parents.
But when it comes to Shelby, her harshest critics have been vocal about what they see as problematic with her content centered around both infertility and fostering at the same time.
@rubywithnews This may be such a hot take but I find having a baby shower when you are not pregnant wild. I dine it to be in poor taste when it is done waiting to be a foster parent. Not wild about the making “foster parent content” either. #fostercare #babyshower #shelbywhitaker #infertility #fostering ♬ original sound – rubywithnews
Another user on TikTok has a similar issue with Shelby and says as much in her own video about the baby shower that Shelby threw for herself before a child was even in her care. She says that “using this foster baby as content is wrong.”
Under that video, someone commented, “Foster care is not the free baby distribution center.”
Another added, “Former foster parent here. When foster care is used to solve infertility, versus wanting to help children and families, these kind of terrible situations happen.”
Shelby has continued to share videos about her foster care journey on her TikTok.
In one, she does say that reunification for the foster child and his parents is key. However, that hasn’t stopped people from coming for her. It also doesn’t help that Shelby has kept the baby shower TikTok up, which still has plenty of people shook.
One person commented, “Hey so fostering isn’t about you, it’s about the children who have their lives turned upside down. Hope this helps.”
