ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the more mechanical aspects of child-caretaker relations. It shows that although fosterage is not one way to gain benefits from children, a foster child nor, for that matter, a natural child yield guaranteed benefits to caretakers. The chapter describes how adults, seeking to alleviate risk and future uncertainty, try to stake claims in children, especially those with promise for success in later life. It explores the importance of sociopolitical processes of negotiating benefits from children. Mende adults and children can tinker with their relationships, creating new ties, strengthening old ones, and redefining burdensome ones. Apparently the Mende had a concept of "development" before they were incorporated into the colony of Sierra Leone. Under the British colonial regime, local polities in Sierra Leone were incorporated into a system of chieftaincies within the national Parliamentary and Presidential system. But the national structure, despite its formal nomenclature, has remained basically a patron-client system.
