The Emotional Toll of Kinship Care

Kinship care is often spoken about like a solution. A safety net. A keeping it in the family kind of story that people can wrap up neatly in their heads. What they do not talk about enough is the emotional cost of it. The quiet, constant weight that settles into your chest when you step into a role you did not plan for but could not walk away from.

I did not become a kinship carer because I was prepared. I became one because love left me no alternative. And that distinction matters more than people realise.

When a child comes into your care through kinship, it is rarely straightforward or uncomplicated. There is grief layered under responsibility. Anger tangled with loyalty. Fear sitting beside fierce protectiveness. You are not just parenting a child. You are navigating family trauma, broken systems, your own history, and a future that suddenly looks nothing like the one you imagined.

I have written before about the exhaustion of carrying emotional labour that no one sees. Kinship care magnifies that tenfold. Because there is no off switch. No reset. No moment where you are not aware that this child is with you, because something went wrong.

That knowledge never leaves you.

There is a specific kind of grief that comes with kinship care. It is not just grief for what the child has lost. It is grief for the family you thought you had. The relationships that fracture under pressure. The awkward silences. The conversations that never happen because everyone is afraid of saying the wrong thing or admitting the truth.

You grieve the parent you hoped your loved one would be. You grieve the version of family gatherings that will never exist again. And you grieve quietly because it feels disloyal to say any of it out loud.

One of the hardest parts for me has been the constant emotional balancing act. Loving a child fiercely while holding anger and sadness toward the person who could not keep them safe. Advocating for a child while still caring about the adult they came from. Being asked to show compassion to everyone while barely having space to process your own feelings.

There is an expectation that kinship carers should be grateful. That we should feel lucky to have the child. That we should not complain because at least the child is with family. I have felt that expectation press down on me in conversations with professionals and extended family.

But gratitude does not cancel out exhaustion. Love does not erase trauma. And stepping up does not make the emotional toll disappear.

Another thing people do not talk about enough is how isolating kinship care can be. Foster carers often have networks, training, peer support, and recognition. Kinship carers frequently fall through the cracks. We are expected to just cope because we are family.

I have sat in rooms where professionals spoke to me like I should already know how to do this. Like instinct would cover the gaps left by lack of support. I have been handed responsibility without preparation and then quietly judged when I struggled.

That kind of pressure seeps into your sense of self. You start questioning whether you are doing enough. Whether you are enough. Whether the cracks forming under the strain are a personal failure rather than a natural response to an impossible situation.

On my blog, I have written before about burnout, about running on empty, about the slow erosion that happens when you put yourself last for too long. Kinship care accelerates that erosion if you are not careful. Because the stakes feel so high. Because the child’s well-being feels like it rests entirely on your shoulders.

There is also the emotional toll of holding a child’s trauma alongside your own. Children in kinship care carry stories they should never have had to live. Their behaviours are communication. Their fear shows up in ways that test your patience and your heart. Loving them means absorbing some of that pain. Sitting with it. Making space for it even on days when you are barely holding yourself together.

Some days I feel strong and grounded and capable. Other days I feel like I am one small thing away from breaking. And both of those realities can exist at the same time.

What makes this harder is the lack of permission to talk about it honestly. There is a fear that if you admit how hard it is, people will think you regret it. That you are ungrateful. That you do not love the child enough. None of that is true. But the fear is real.

I love deeply. That is why this hurts.

Kinship care changes your identity. You become a carer, an advocate, a buffer between a child and a system that does not always see them clearly. You attend meetings, fill out forms, chase professionals, and much more. You hold everything together while trying not to unravel.

And in the middle of all that, you are still you. With your own needs. Your own limits. Your own unhealed parts.

I have learned that ignoring the emotional toll does not make it go away. It just pushes it underground, where it leaks out in other ways. In irritability. In numbness. In tears that come out of nowhere. In a body that stays tense long after the day is done.

Naming it matters.

Talking about it matters.

That is why I keep writing here. Because silence protects no one. And pretending kinship care is easy does not serve the children or the adults who love them.

If you are in this world too, if you are carrying more than you ever expected to, I want you to know this. Struggling does not mean you are failing. Feeling overwhelmed does not mean you are weak. Loving a child does not require you to disappear.

You are allowed to feel the weight of this. You are allowed to ask for support. You are allowed to acknowledge that stepping up came at a cost.

Kinship care is love in its most raw form. It is loyalty and sacrifice and resilience braided together. But it is also grief and anger and exhaustion and fear. Holding all of that at once is heavy work.

Be gentle with yourself. You are doing something extraordinary in circumstances you did not choose. And that deserves honesty, compassion, and space to breathe.

I will keep telling the truth about this here. Because our stories matter.

About me

I am a married mother of four children. One of those children is our granddaughter, for whom we are legal guardians and kinship carers. I run a small business, and I love to write, which is how this blog came to be. I write about family life, kinship care, and my experiences living with chronic illness and disability, including ME CFS, spinal stenosis, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia. I am also very aware that I am doing all of this in my mid-forties, which still surprises me some days.