more research on the contexts in which this is possible and how mothers sustain this way of life as well as the parallel roles of fathers would enhance our understanding of ways to achieve positive parenting within the region female kin battle over orphaned children in a bid to gain access to a foster care grant adolescents seek control over how grant money is spent or decide to move in with other kin thereby removing a source of income to their current household vale thabeng these financial considerations put a new source of power into the hands of adolescents that may become even more problematic when adolescents are themselves parents many of these are oriented not only towards the wellbeing of individual children but to the sustenance of a social network that can support the wider family including those with parenting responsibilities striking in the ethnographic data is an increasing mismatch between norms in family life including care and parenting and the diminishing possibilities afforded to adults and children for achieving these