Photo: @realbrittanydawn / TikTok / Instagram
Mother or temporary caretaker?
By Megan Quinn — Written on Jan 03, 2023
In this day and age, there are various ways to become a parent, whether it be giving birth to biological children or adopting children, there is no correct route to becoming a family.
However, when do we draw the line between what qualifies as a parent and what qualifies as a caregiver?
One influencer is receiving backlash after posting several videos of herself and a newborn that she is fostering, referring to herself as a “mother.”
Social media users are arguing that she is only a temporary caregiver.
Brittany Dawn recently began fostering a baby and has opened up about what it is like being a "mom."
Brittany Dawn Nelson, a Christian YouTuber, and fitness influencer shared with fans on social media that she and her husband are fostering an unnamed newborn baby boy.
The baby was placed in the couple’s care in early December, and since then Nelson has posted several videos depicting her foster mothering journey to her 1.2 million followers on TikTok.
In one particular video, Nelson details the joys and sorrows of being a foster mother.
She shares that the best parts involve the love, the joy, and the purpose, while the most difficult part is “knowing that phone call could come anytime and then it’s time to say goodbye.”
While some TikTok users empathized with Dawn’s struggles, others were not so kind and believed that since she was a foster mom did not mean that she was a true mother.
Some people called Dawn out for referring to herself as a “mom.”
“She can’t be mom to a child that isn’t hers,” one user commented.
“Caretaker and mother are very different. You should be telling that child about their mother,” another user wrote.
“You can love the child but you’re not the biological mom,” another user argued. “You still need to honor the biological family.”
Others responded to Dawn with their own TikTok videos, and accused her of exploiting a child that wasn’t hers and failing to acknowledge the baby’s biological mother.
“Dear Brittany Dawn, you’re not a mother,” TikTok user @douladanielletilley addressed the influencer in a video. “You are a foster mother.”
“At the end of the day, that child has a mother. That child has a mother who is struggling right now.”
She adds that if she were in the baby’s biological mother’s shoes, she would be “sick to my [her] stomach” if she discovered that her children were being exploited online by their foster parents.
“As a mother, I would feel so extremely violated in 5-10 years from now I end up in a really bad place in my life and my children get taken away from me, and get put in a decent home where they’re not being abused and I find out they’re being exploited,” she says.
“Just because you’ve chosen to temporarily take care of somebody else’s child while they’re getting help, does not make you that child’s mother.”
TikTok user @crunchyteenmama also slammed Dawn, arguing that Dawn’s exploitation of the child was unfair to the biological mother, who is most likely dealing with the challenges of postpartum and attempting to better herself so that she could reunite with her baby.
“This lady is posting that mother’s child all over social media to thousands of followers, making money from posting her child, talking about how she is the mother to this child, and that it was God’s plan for her to be the mother of this child, posting about how she is dreading this child going back to his mom, when reunification should always be the goal of foster care,” she pointed out.
“My heart is broken for this baby and his mother.”
Dawn responded to the backlash with her own TikTok videos and defended her decision of calling herself a mother.
Dawn revealed to her followers that she performs all of the “mothering” duties, including rocking the baby to sleep, changing diapers, bottle feeding through the night, making and washing bottles, and swaddling the baby.
“Just because we didn’t give birth, we can’t breastfeed, and our title as a foster mom doesn’t mean we aren’t moms too,” Dawn argues.
Dawn, who has opened up about her infertility struggles and the hurdles of having biological children, is no stranger to controversy.
She found herself under fire after admitting that her husband shot their dog dead after being hit by a car instead of taking him to a veterinarian and failing to deliver money she raised via a public fundraiser to a homeless man who was struggling with addiction.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.